Shakespere+Questions.


 * Age:** 17 (Born in 1579)


 * Name:** Jane Cromwell


 * Sex:** Female


 * Marital status: ﻿ ** Single, but her parents are working something out.

**Occupation (if any)** - She does not work, since she is a noble.


 * Income:** ﻿Jane does not make any income because she does not work, her parents don't really work either, since they are nobility which means that you are born into wealth. Her dad does work a little bit too keep the fortune up, doing jobs for the queen, and such he gets paid about 750 pounds.


 * Where in London do you live?** Jane lives specificly somewhere inbetween near the parliment palace, and St. James Park. (Bottom left on the map)




 * How much education did you receive?** Jane receives a lot of education, she has her own private tutor, she studys as much as she can. In this time noble women were taught a lot of things, since the arts had come more into focus.


 * What were you taught?** Jane started her studies when she was five, she knows Greek, Italian, French, and Latin. She is also trained a little bit in other subjects like math, and science. Along with this she is taught other more fine art sort of things like dancing, painting, musical abilities, poetry. She has also got to learn her duties, like caring a little bit for the household, manners, etc. Women were not allowed to go to university.


 * What is your religion?** Jane is Catholic, the queen however supported Catholics, and Protestant people. Elizabeth learned a litle more over to the Protestant side, because her sister had done pretty horrible things to them, and she was more conservative. Elizabeth made Protestantism the official religion, although Elizabeth also thought people were free to be Catholic, unless they try to overthrow her as a monarch, or cause trouble.


 * How has your religion affected your life in terms of how you are treated by people in power?** ﻿Jane's religion was not one of Elizabeths favourites, but she still was supportive of it, she was the more conservative one in her family. She believed you could be Protestant, or Catholic freely, as long as you don't cause any troubles. Janes family is one with a good reputation, so even though they are Catholic the people in power know that Janes family is a pleasant humble one.


 * What play do you go to see?** Jane went to go see the play titled A Midsummer Night's Dream, it was written sometime around 1594, and 1596. Jane went to go see it as soon as it came into theatres, which is about late 1596.


 * How did you know it was playing?** Jane knew it was playing from the local newspaper, also everyone was talking about it so it would have been hard for her not to hear of it. Nobles were usually invited as well.


 * What other Shakespeare plays might you have been able to see?** Jane would have been able to see Romeo, and Juliet, A Midsummer Nights Dream, The Taming of the Shew, and the Merchant of Venice. She would be able to see all of the plays, because Jane will obviously live to be older than 17.


 * What play by Shakespeare was your favorite until now?** Janes favourite shakesphere play before that would be nothing, because before that she would have only been a little girl, and A Midsummer Nights Dream is one of Shakespheres older plays. If you really wanted an answer one that was made before it was The Two Gentlemen of Verona.


 * What actor in the company is your favorite actor?** Janes favourite actor is named Nathan Field, he is one of the newer actors he seems more trust worthy to her. Most of the older actors before her time were thought of as thiefs and cheats, so she decided that Nathan would be a better choice to favourite.

Gloves were an important, but an expensive accessory." (The link is at the bottom.) Hair styles, and makeup were important too but i don't think i will go into that in too much detail. The ideal of beauty was fair skin, red lips and cheeks, black eyelashes, and light hair. Jane already had light hair, and fair skin, but she still used a small amount of face whitener, which was this powdery substance. Jane used kohl on her eyelashes, and this expensive dye on her lips, and cheeks called Cochineal. Jane wore her hair down, because she is young and it was fashionable for girls of her age to do so. Jane liked the French hood style of hat. She also wore other things like earrings, bracelets, rings, and necklaces.
 * How are you dressed when you attend the play?** Jane was dressed in a various layers, she wore many undergarments like a corset. stockings, a smock, a hooped skirt, a roll, petticoat, kirtle, forepart, and a partlet. Over her under garments, she wore a gown, separate sleeves, a ruff, cloak, collar, shoes, and a hat. Since she was nobility she could afford more expensive fabrics, like velvets, satin, furs, silks, lace, cottons and taffeta. The rich wore brighter colors, due to more expensive dyes being used in the more expensive clothes. Jane liked to wear Reds, Blues, and Greens because those are her favourite colors. Her gowns were usually lavishly decorated in things like heavy embroidery, jewels, spangles, pearls, ruffles, and slits. Shoes were not that important, because they were hidden by the gown. Jane had a pair for inside, and outside. She had a leather pair for outside, and a velvet pair for inside. Along with her dress she wore fine jewelery. Accordint to one of my source websites Victorian women "wore necklaces, enameled jewelry, pearls, semiprecious stones, rings, chains, earrings, bracelets, broaches, beads (eight or nine strings that hung down to the waist). Their necklaces were short or hip length. Bracelets were made of rope or beads. Real flowers or jeweled insects were worn to decorate the ruff.


 * Describe some of the costumes the actors wear.** The actors were regular clothes, undergarments, breeches, doublets, seperate sleeves, breeches, belts, ruffs, cloaks, shirts, shoes, hats, it depended on the status of the people they were portraying, and how much money the theatre had.


 * You are planning to go to a ball (fancy dance party) after the play. How will you dress for that?** Jane would wear the same type of thing, except she would be wearing indoor shoes, and probably gloves. In the actualy theatre (I forgot to put this), she would be wearing some sort of housecoat, otherwise she would be unable to sit down.) The dress she would choose would also have more detail, and decorations maybe a better color too.

(Note; Usually at a theatre you would eat convienence foods, like biscuits pastries, pies, ready cooked roasted meat, etc.) More specificly Jane ate some soup, beef, chicken, fish, bread and butter, tarts, and she drank some wine.
 * What did you dine on before going to the theater?** Jane ate everything. Meat, which was very popular, all types including birds, and seafood, agriculturally produced products, and just about everything else, except a few peasant foods. Since she was rich she could also afford desserts, and imported spices. Another food which was of easy accessible to the nobility and Jane's family is dairy products, like cheese, milk etc. except this was seen as poor food so her family only cooked with butter, although they occasionally ate dairy products. Although Jane's family was nobility, and were not supposed to eat food from the ground or dairy products since it was peasant food, they were humble and decided to anyway.


 * When did you eat?** Jane would usually eat a late dinner at around 5:00 pm, since her family is usually busy all the time. It was a good time, after the show which were usually held from 2-5, Jane would eat before she would go in a rare but formal semi meal.


 * What did you drink?** Wine, Ale, and Mead.

Her entire meal costed 15 pences.
 * How much did it cost?** The foods that Jane and other noble families like hers were very expensive, the foods she ate could not be afforded to be purchased by middle class, or peasants. It would usually cost a few pences, for meat around 2-9 depending on the type, and amount. Thing like butter, and cheese were one and a half pences, and bread was only a penny. I can't exactly say the prices of every single thing, since most of those details have not been recorded by anyone.

It only costed four pences to get into the Globe Theater, and for a somewhat okay spot. For a better seat it would cost maybe five or so.
 * How much did you pay for your ticket?**


 * Where did you sit?** Jane sat on a balcony, where the other noblity, and rich people sat. It was a nice priviledge to have because her view was not obstructed.


 * A number of your friends chose to spend the afternoon seeing another kind of entertainment, What was it?** She was not sure if she wants to go dancing, or hawking.


 * Who was the most important person you recognized in the audience?** The globe theatre is not known for its famous guests, it was for everyone, large portions of the audience were poor or middle class. The most important people you would see there are other Elizabethan Nobles, like Jane.


 * Who ruled England at the time?** The ruler of ALL England at the time was Queen Elizabeth, since it was the Elizabethan age. Also James I was ruling England at the same time.


 * What was some gossip about the ruler?** Some gossip about the Queen was gossip about her various relationships with men, people were not sure if she was romanticly involved with any of them, she was always surrounded by men so she could have had a secret affair. Another scandalous thing was that the Queen never married, and everyone couldn't figure out why. Some people made theorys, which at that time were the same as gossip...


 * Who was the Lord Mayor of London at the time?** At the time the mayor of London was Sir Richard Martin/Thomas Skinner.


 * What is the last book you read?** The last book I have read was part of an assignment I had, it was a language book on Latin. Other than that it would probably be the bible.


 * Resources ~ these are recommended starting points. Please share your own site discoveries with the class.**
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 * This site has got everything!**
 * []**
 * This one is okay...**
 * []**
 * this one is helpful.**