From that time, naturally, records of everything written of any importance, exist.
In the reign of Queen Elizabeth the typical life of the England of old, is shown at its best, and in its most characteristic state of development.
Soon afterwards, foreign influence, aided by a foreign Court, added to the depressing element of Puritanism, was to shake to its foundations this character and to mould it into that type which for centuries it retained.
The Wars of the Roses had long been over, and economic conditions greatly modified and improved. The genius of the people seemed to burst out as if relieved from intolerable repression.
The absence of the unceasing scares and horrors of war gave them the opportunity that had so long been denied.
To think that such men as Shakespeare, Bacon, Burleigh, Drake, Raleigh, Tallis, Byrd, and Orlando Gibbons were living at the same time, and may have often passed each other in the streets of London!
There can be little doubt that the reign of Queen Elizabeth was the happiest the people had ever experienced, and it may be truly said that the Queen was the very incarnation of the spirit of the age.
Her love of pageantry and display was an unfailing source of joy to them, all the more, since they were frequently called upon to assist at many of the great functions that were organised in her honour by the great nobles. Her frequent progresses through the country were occasions, not only of gratification
to herself, but excitement to them, relieving as they did the monotony of toil and the sense of isolation incidental to country communities in those days of difficult communications. The Reformation had not been sufficiently long in progress to affect the spirit of the people. It had not really reached them. If England ever deserved the appellation of "merrie," those were the days.