Rory Clements
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John Shakespeare's People

Further reading

If you want to know more about the late Elizabethan period and the characters involved, I would heartily recommend you to read these books, not all of which are in print:

The Life Of Robert Southwell by Christopher Devlin.

Elizabeth The Queen by Alison Weir

Elizabeth I by Alison Plowden

Elizabeth’s Spy Master by Robert Hutchinson

God’s Secret Agents by Alice Hogge

Invisible Power by Alan Haynes

The Awful End Of Prince William The Silent by Lisa Jardine

The Defeat Of The Spanish Armada by Garrett Mattingly

The Confident Hope of A Miracle by Neil Hanson

The Secret Voyage Of Sir Francis Drake by Samuel Bawlf

Sir Francis Drake, The Queen’s Pirate by Harry Kelsey

Sir Francis Drake by John Sugden

Family Life in Shakespeare’s England by Jeanne Jones

Tudor Warships (2) by Angus Konstam

Will In The World by Stephen Greenblatt

A Brief History of The Tudor Age by Jasper Ridley

Shakespeare by Bill Bryson

William Shakespeare by A.L.Rowse

The Reckoning by Charles Nicholl

The Elizabethan Underworld by Gamini Salgado

 The A to Z of Elizabethan London compiled by Adrian Prockter and Robert Taylor

Elizabeth’s London by Lisa Picard

The Englishman’s Food by J.C.Drummond and Anne Wilbraham

Palaces & Progresses of Elizabeth I by Ian Dunlop

Entertaining Elizabeth I by June Osborne.

Arbella Stuart by P.M.Handover

The Second Cecil by P.M.Handover

Robert, Earl of Essex by Robert Lacey

Arbella, England’s Lost Queen by Sarah Gristwood

Palaces & Progresses of Elizabeth I by Ian Dunlop

Dr Simon Forman, a most notorious physician by Judith Cook

Roanoke, the abandoned colony by Karen Ordahl Kupperman

Roanoke, solving the mystery of England’s lost colony by Lee Miller

Poor Penelope by Sylvia Freedman

The Lady Penelope by Sally Varlow

St Thomas’ Hospital by E.M.McInnes

Bess of Hardwick, First Lady of Chatsworth by Mary S.Lovell

Sir Walter Raleigh by Raleigh Trevelyan

Sir Walter Ralegh by Robert Lacey

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Queen Elizabeth 1st

No one knows how or when she first heard that her father, Henry VIII, had ordered the death of her mother, Anne Boleyn

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Queen Elizabeth 1st >

Sir Robert Cecil

The slight, hunchbacked second son of Lord Burghley, he inherited his father’s statesmanship and devious intelligence.

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Sir Robert Cecil >

The Earl of Essex

The most unlikely of Elizabeth’s favourites (she was thirty-four years his senior), Robert Devereux – pronounced Dever-ucks – was  a moody man who was given to great enthusiasms and deep depressions.

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The Earl of Essex >

Sir Walter Ralegh

Like his great rival Essex, Ralegh faced the headsman’s axe and underwent his execution in style. He shook hands with the noblemen watching the scene and spoke at length, insisting on his integrity.

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Sir Walter Ralegh >

Lettice Knollys

Beautiful and regal, she was originally a good friend of her cousin Elizabeth, but they fell out irrevocably after she secretly married the Queen’s favourite, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester.

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Lettice Knollys >

Penelope Rich

The most celebrated young woman of the late Elizabethan period, she was elder sister to the Earl Essex.

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Penelope Rich >

Sir Francis Drake

He is famous for his decisive action against the Spanish armada in 1588 and for circumnavigating the globe in the Golden Hind (1577-80).

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Sir Francis Drake >

Elizabeth Sydenham

Heiress to a rich west country family, she became Sir Francis Drake’s second wife in 1585 (he was 45, she was 23).

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Elizabeth Sydenham >

Earl of Leicester

He was a controversial figure. Accusations against him included: murdering his first wife Amy Robsart to leave him free to marry the Queen, which she refused to do;

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Earl of Leicester >

Philip II

When he heard news from France of the 1572 St Bartholomew’s massacre of protestant Huguenots (up to 70,000 men, women and children were slaughtered) he danced for joy in his bedroom.

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Philip II >

Sir Francis Walsingham

Walsingham spent years plotting the death of Mary Queen of Scots, whom he described as a “bosom serpent”.

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Sir Francis Walsingham >

Lord Burghley

Born plain William Cecil, he rose to greatness under Elizabeth, serving her for forty years as Secretary of State, then Lord Treasurer.

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Lord Burghley >

William Shakespeare

Among his best friends were his neighbours Hamnet and Judith Sadler, who lived in High Street, Stratford.

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William Shakespeare >

Father Robert Southwell, SJ

Martyred for his faith, this remarkable Jesuit priest was as well known for his poetry as for his religion.

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Father Robert Southwell, SJ >

Lord Howard of Effingham

Happily admitting his inexperience in naval warfare, he surrounded himself with the best fighters of the age – Drake, Hawkins and Frobisher.

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Lord Howard of Effingham >

Mary, Queen of Scots

The world has always been divided on whether she was a saint or a sinner. Did she conspire to have her cousin Queen Elizabeth murdered?

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Mary, Queen of Scots >

William the Silent

The first head of state to be assassinated by a pistol.

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William the Silent >

Sir John Hawkins

A merchant and sea captain, he was famous for modernising Elizabeth’s navy with the design of the so-called “race-built” galleon

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Sir John Hawkins >