The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England (63 page)

A proud family: starched ruffs, fine table linen and pewterware. The view through the window of the vine relates to Psalm 128: ‘Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house; thy children like olive plants round thy table.’

Robert Peake’s portrait of Queen Elizabeth and her courtiers on a wedding procession at Blackfriars in June 1600. High status explains the strange combination of fine silk and satin suits, elaborate ruffs, tight hosen – and swords.

Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley: the queen’s principal secretary and for forty years her most trusted advisor. Also an architect, art patron, garden designer, antiquary, bibliophile, educationalist and loving husband.

Sir William Cecil presiding over the Court of Wards and Liveries – one of the many ways in which the Crown exercises power and influence.

Most Elizabethan painting is portraiture: miniatures and formal portraits. Therefore most English artists only achieve domestic fame. This allegory of conjugal love from the early 1590s is by Isaac Oliver, arguably the most accomplished painter in England.

Isaac Oliver also drew this lamentation over the dead Christ. Religious art is rare after the Reformation and generally created only for private collectors, so you will need to ask to see many of the finest works.

Sir Walter Raleigh: lawyer, courtier, writer, soldier, shipbuilder, explorer, historian, wit and all-round Elizabethan polymath. Executed in the next reign for failing to find El Dorado.

Christopher Marlowe: maverick, atheist and all-round controversialist but a literary genius. Killed in a fight over a supper bill.

Henry Percy, 9th earl of Northumberland: the man who managed to get himself £15,000 in debt within eighteen months of inheriting an annual income of £3,363.

This image of a young man by Isaac Oliver shows the new taste for full-length portraits at the end of the reign – and the dandyish fashions, with high, wide-brimmed hats, short doublets worn without breeches, and delicate garters.

For the wealthy, music, food and dancing regularly go together. The gentleman here is just about to jump high, leap, kick and cavort energetically. In that dress, the lady will be considerably more restrained.

For ordinary people, meals are a more sedate affair. Most eating, cooking, food preservation, childcare and household work all takes place in a single hall.