‘Golden Age’?

• Social:

  Living standards and fashions:

  > The building boom was known as the ‘Great Rebuilding’. Architects focused on symmetry and size. Many houses had chimney stacks and expensive glass in large windows.
• Social:

  Living standards and fashions:

  > The wealthy used their money to buy expensive clothes in the latest styles.
• Social:

  Living standards and fashions:

  > Sumptuary Laws were passed in 1574. These laws strictly controlled the clothes people were allowed to wear depending on their social rank. Men wore a ruff (collar) to show power, wealth and status.
• Social:

  Elizabethan theatre:

  > The theatre had support from the Queen. Elizabeth sponsored acting companies to perform plays and they performed at court for the Queen. People enjoyed plays written by William Shakespeare, such as Richard III, which also shows the Tudors (Elizabeth’s family) in a favourable way.
• Economic Resources:

  Growing prosperity and the rise of the gentry:

  > The Tudors had marginalised the nobles, who they saw as a threat, by granting very few new titles and excluding them from government. This left a power vacuum which the gentry filled up and they became very politically powerfully. For example many of the key councillors promoted by Elizabeth such as Cecil and Walsingham came from the gentry class.
• War and Violence:

  > England defeated the most powerful nation in Europe – Spain, and many viewed this as recognition of England’s special time. This sense of a ‘Golden Age’ was enhanced by ‘Gloriana’ or Elizabethan propaganda.