Elizabethan Age

   Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) was the daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn, who was beheaded for alleged adultery. Elizabeth served as queen of England from 1558 to 1603, a period in which England came to assert itself as a major European power. Her reign is often called the Elizabethan Age. Elizabeth never married, and she came to be known as the Virgin Queen or Good Queen Bess.

   Elizabeth had a difficult time as a child and was imprisoned in the Tower of London by her older sister, Queen Mary. In 1558 Mary, a Catholic, died and Elizabeth ascended to the throne. One of her first acts was to confront the religious problem. This she did. She restored Protestantism and reinstated the English Book of Common Prayer. Although she was not harsh to Catholics, her peaceable approach was shattered in 1570 by the interdict of Pope Pius V against Elizabeth. The treatment of English Catholics became increasingly severe.

   The history of furniture is closely related to the history of human culture. Many pieces of furniture, with distinctive English forms, appeared during Elizabeth's reign. One was the drawtable, a large oval dining table made in halves that could be drawn apart. Another, the court cupboard, had open shelves for displaying valuable plates and silverware. But the most impressive pieces of furniture were beds, which featured handsome hardware carvings and expensive fabrics.

   The last fifteen years of Elizabeth's reign became known as the Golden Age of Literature because of the remarkable accomplishments that occurred in the arts, especially in literature, poetry, and music. This was the age of the incomparable Bard of Avon, William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, and Francis Bacon. Her reign was also one of commercial prosperity and progress. Elizabeth herself was a cultured person, outstanding and invincible. She remarked, "There will never be a queen sitting in my seat with more zeal to my country and care to my subjects. And though you have had and may have princes more mighty and wise sitting in this seat, you never had or shall have any that will be more careful and loving."