In 1565, graphite was discovered in England, and gave rise to the pencil. Surveying accuracy was improved with the new theodolite, which determined directions and measured angles and used a telescope that pivoted horizontally and vertically. Scientists had the use of an air thermometer, in which a column of air in a glass tube sitting in a dish of water contracted or expanded with changes in the temperature, causing the water to move up or down the tube.
William Shakespeare, a glovemaker's son, wrote plays about historical events and plays which portrayed various human personalities and their interactions with each other. They were enjoyed by all classes of people. His histories were especially popular. The Queen and various earls each employed players and actors, who went on tour as a troupe and performed on a round open-air stage, with people standing around to watch. In London, theaters such as the Globe were built specifically for the performance of plays, which before had been performed at inns. The audience applauded and hissed. There were costumes, but no sets. Ordinary admission was 2d. Before being performed, a play had to be licensed by the Master of the Revels to make sure that there was nothing detrimental to the peace and public order. Elizabeth issued a proclamation forbidding unlicensed interludes or plays, especially concerning religion or government policy on pain of imprisonment for at least fourteen days. The common people still went to morality plays, but also to plays in which historical personages were portrayed, such as Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V. Some plays were on contemporary issues. Musicians played together as orchestras. Music with singing was a popular pastime after supper; everyone was expected to participate. Dancing was popular with all classes. Gentlemen played cards, dice, chess, billiards, and tennis. They fenced and had games on horseback. Their deer-hunting diminished as forests were cut down for agriculture and the deer were viewed as an enemy eating crops. Falconry diminished as hedges and enclosures displaced the broad expanses of land.
Country people enjoyed music, dancing, pantomime shows with masks, hurling, running, swimming, leap frog, blind man's buff, shovelboard played with the hands, and football between villages with the goal to get the ball into one's own village. Football and shin-kicking matches often resulted in injuries. They bought ballads from traveling peddlers. Early morning dew gathered in May and early June was thought to have special curative powers. There were many tales involving fairies, witches, devils, ghosts, evil spirits, angels, and monsters which were enjoyed by adults as well as children. Many people still believed in charms, curses, divination, omens, fate, and advice from astrologers. The ghosts of the earth walked the earth, usually because of some foul play to be disclosed, wrong to be set right, to warn those dear to them of peril, or to watch over hidden treasure. Good witches cured and healed. Fairies blessed homes, rewarded minor virtues, and punished mild wrongdoing. When fairies were unhappy, the weather was bad. There were parties for children.
The merry guild feast was no longer a feature of village life. There were fewer holydays and festivals. The most prosperous period of the laborer was closing. An agricultural laborer's yearly wage was about 154s., but his cost of living, which now included house rent, was about 160s. a year. In 1533, daily wages in the summer for an agricultural laborer were about 4d. and for an artisan 6d. In 1563 in the county of Rutland, daily wages for laborers were 7d. in summer and 6d. in winter; and for artisans were 9d. in summer and 8d. in winter. Unemployment was widespread.
There were endowed hospitals in London for the sick and infirm. There were others for orphans, for derelict children, and for the destitute. They worked at jobs in the hospital according to their abilities. There was also a house of correction for discipline of the idle and vicious by productive work. Elizabeth continued the practice of touching people to cure scrofula, although she could not bring herself to fully believe in the reality of such cures, contrary to her chaplain and her physician.
In the towns, shop shutters were let down to form a counter at the front of the shop. Goods were made and/or stored inside the shop. Towns held a market once a week. Fairs occurred once or twice a year. At given times in the towns, everyone was to throw buckets of water onto the street to cleanse it. During epidemics in towns, there was quarantine of those affected to stay in their houses unless going out on business. Their houses were marked and they had to carry a white rod when outside. The quarantine of a person lasted for forty days. The straw in his house was burned and his clothes treated. People who died had to be buried under six feet of ground. There was an outbreak of plague in London roughly every ten years.
There was a pity for the distressed that resulted in towns voting money for a people of a village that had burned down or been decimated by the plague.
Communities were taxed for the upkeep and relief of the prisoners in the gaols in their communities.
Queen Elizabeth was puzzling over the proper relationship between the crown and the church when Richard Hooker, a humble scholar, theologian, and clergyman, attempted to find a justification in reason for the establishment of the Church of England as an official part of the governing apparatus of the nation. His thinking was a turning point from the medieval notion that God ordered society, including the designation of its monarch and its natural laws, and the belief in a divine structure with a great chain of being, beginning with God and working down through the hierarchy of angels and saints to men, beasts, and vegetables, which structure fostered order in society. Hooker restated the concept of Aristotle that the purpose of society is to enable men to live well. He wrote that although the monarch was head of state and head of religion, the highest authority in civil affairs was Parliament, and in religion, the Convocation. The monarch had to maintain divine law, but could not make it. From this later came the idea that the state derives its authority from the will of the people and the consent of the governed.
Protestant women had more freedom in marriage and were allowed to participate in more church activities compared to Catholic women, but they were not generally allowed to become pastors. Due to sensitivities on the part of both Catholics and Protestants about a female being the head of the church, Elizabeth was given the title of "Supreme Governor" of the church instead of "Supreme Head". Elizabeth was not doctrinaire in religious matters, but pragmatic. She always looked for ways to accommodate all views on what religious aspects to adopt or decline. Images, relics, pilgrimages, and rosaries were discouraged. But the Catholic practice of kneeling at prayer, and bowing and doffing caps at the name of Jesus were retained. Also retained was the place of the altar or communion table at the east end of churches, special communion wafers instead of common bread, and elaborate clergy vestments. The communion prayer contained words expressing both the Catholic view that the wafer and wine contained the real presence of the body and blood of Christ, and the Protestant view that they were commemorative only. Communion was celebrated only at Easter and other great festivals. Church services included a sermon and were in accordance with a reformed prayer book and in English, as was the Bible. Care was even taken not to use words that would offend the Scots, Lutherans, Calvinists, or Huguenots. People could hold what religious beliefs they would, even atheism, as long as they maintained an outward conformity. Attendance at state church services on Sunday mornings and evenings and Holydays was enforced by a fine of 12d. imposed by the church wardens. Babies were to be baptized before they were one month old or the parents would be punished.