An Analysis of As You Like It's Use of Gender Roles, Sexuality, Cross-dressing, and Marriage

The phrase “freewheeling sexuality” is so perfect to describe Rosalind and Orlando’s relationship (as well as Gannymede and Orlando’s relationship). When reading the play, I imagined Rosalind as Gannymede wearing a hat, perhaps, or something at least to hide her hair. In addition, I imagined her using a gruff voice. This would make it more believable that Orlando truly did not realize until the end that Gannymede was in fact a woman, and not only that, but “his” Rosalind. When watching the play, however, I was shocked to see that Rosalind as Gannymede hardly hid her hair. And while the actress who played her had a deep voice already, which made it a little more realistic that Orlando, among others, believed her to be a man, I still expected her to make it a little deeper. The fact that she did neither of these things supports my theory that Orlando would have loved Gannymede or Rosalind. I think that the director of this production is using sexuality as a way to mirror early English theatre, as Tosh said. I think that showing a woman as a man, but barely disguising her hearkens back to men dressing as women, but not fooling the audience. I think this is one way in which this production portrays the idea that gender doesn’t matter.

The fluidity of sexuality is clear in the fact that Orlando was willing to pretend that Gannymede was Rosalind. He even almost kissed Gannymede in one scene. Since that is not written in the text, I think it shows that the director wanted to portray the idea that Orlando was not confined to gender roles in that he had to be with a woman. I dare to argue that Orlando would have loved Rosalind as Rosalind or as Gannymede. It gets tricky here because in the scene where Orlando almost kisses Gannymede, it’s hard to speculate if he is doing it because he has figured out that Gannymede is Rosalind, because he is still imagining Gannymede to be Rosalind, or because he has fallen for whomever he thinks that Gannymede is. Regardless of the reason, in one of the final scenes in which Gannymede promises to bring Rosalind to Orlando and to marry Phebe unless she decides she does not want him, Orlando speaks to Gannymede as if he is in love with him and not as if he is in love with Gannymede pretending to be Rosalind. Again, the same three aforementioned options apply here, and while I personally think that in this particular production Orlando discovered Gannymede’s secret, it still stands to argue that he could have simply been falling for Gannymede. The conclusion that comes out of this is that Orlando does not care. He has fallen for this woman he spoke with once and has now fallen for a man who is pretending to be her. He has fallen for the idea of Rosalind, and he seems to have found it in Gannymede. This strong relationship between Gannymede and Orlando is one of the strongest aspects of this production because it really makes the audience think about the concept of gender and whether or not it really matters.

Concerning the marriages at the end, I think that they were better than some of the other ones that Shakespeare has written (e.g. Isabella and the duke’s) because I felt like only one person was unhappy with the outcome (Phebe). Audrey and Touchstone’s marriage seemed normalizing. After seeing their relationship acted out, the two at least seem attracted to each other as they cannot keep their hands off of each other, and they obviously get along very well, but Touchstone makes it clear that he thinks that he should be married as a normal societal custom. To say that they are getting married for any reason other than to have sex would be a bit of stretch. For Phebe and Silvius, I would also deem it to be normalizing. Phebe is a terrible person, but it seems that she thinks she must be married (as a normal societal custom, much like Touchstone) given the fact that she wanted to marry Gannymede just minutes after meeting him, but, given his lack of interest, chooses to keep Silvius around just in case. After she finds out that she cannot marry Gannymede, she settles for the only other guy giving her any attention. Assuming that she genuinely doesn’t want to marry Silvius, she is obviously settling for him, even though he loves her. This also touches on the fact that Phebe is an unlikable character. In Galatea, the sexes of the two girls did not matter to them. I argue that Rosalind/Gannymede’s sex did not matter to Orlando. If Phebe truly loved Gannymede, she would have fought for Rosalind when she reappeared.

For Orlando and Rosalind, this is a choice that both of them have made on their own. Is it a little weird that Rosalind dressed as Gannymede and then offered to pretend to be Rosalind for Orlando? Yes. Should Orlando be creeped out? Maybe. That being said, he still loved Rosalind, or the idea of her, and he seemed to have fallen in love with Gannymede, though whether he knew Gannymede was actually Rosalind is still up for debate. Rosalind is able to be free, though, because her father has taken his throne back, she is no longer exiled to the forest, and most of all she is free to be whom she wants to be. Whether it is fair to say that she took on her Gannymede personality so much so that she wishes to remain him is not for me to say. However, the fact that, on her wedding day, she reveals her pants under her hoop skirt symbolizes that she is a strong woman and she was able to provide for herself in the forest, so her gender does not matter. She can be who she wants to be and she can be with whom she wants to be. Also, the fact that she got Orlando to fall for her both as Rosalind and as Gannymede shows this fluidity of sexuality. For Rosalind specifically, her marriage to Orlando was a freeing experience, unlike other marriages, such as the (potential) marriage of Isabella to the duke, where we can assume it will not be an equal union. For Rosalind, we can assume that she will have equal say in the marriage.

Now the tricky analysis comes when looking at Celia’s marriage to Oliver. Yes, it’s love at first sight, but we can’t use that as any kind of judgment because it’s Shakespeare, and this is not unusual. However, Celia is about to lose her best friend whom she followed in the woods. Could she even return to her father’s kingdom after such an act of defiance? It is hard to say. Although I do not personally like Celia because I think that she is a weak female character and that she would be completely lost without Rosalind, I don’t think that her union to Oliver was normalizing or emancipatory. I think it was somewhere in between and this is the only union that I would say is “easy” in this play. It doesn’t leave Celia all alone in the woods or without her best friend. It makes her happy, so one could argue that it’s normalizing; a woman must eventually get married, after all, why not to this handsome man. One could argue that it’s emancipatory because she is freeing herself from Rosalind, but, let’s be honest, she will become just as dependent on Oliver as she was on Rosalind. This is the most complicated union of them all, which is why I deem it as such.

A Critical Look at Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral during the Renaissance

The two churches, Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral, have a long, intertwined history. The most notable similarity between the two that was found on Westminster’s website is that Westminster Abbey was once called St. Peter’s and was only renamed Westminster in order to differentiate it from St. Paul’s, or Eastminster. The styles of the churches are different, which reflects the different times in which each one was built. “Minster,” as David explained to us on our tour of Westminster Abbey, is another word for school. While it is not as clear as Westminster, St. Paul’s was, and still is, a school. During the Renaissance, Westminster Abbey served as a Benedictine monastery, only closing in 1539. Similarly, St. Paul’s has had a school associated with it and still does to this day. However, the Abbey was a school for monks and had a place for them to live while St. Paul’s existed to serve as a school for boys who were also choristers, according to the school's website. The functions of each one’s schools, therefore, differed a great deal during the Renaissance. While they are both Catholic, Westminster serves as more of a sanctuary, especially since the monks lived within the abbey walls, while St. Paul’s served as a grammar school, but was differentiated from the cathedral itself.

According to our guidebook, St. Paul’s can trace its roots back to 604, though it was burnt down multiple times; the St. Paul’s that we know today is the fifth St. Paul’s to be built (3). The current St. Paul's was designed by Christopher Wren (5-7). Westminster, on the other hand, traces its roots back to 1066. While the Westminster that we know today is not the original abbey, it was purposefully torn down by King Henry III in order for a new church to be rebuilt in his name. In addition, the style of the current Westminster Abbey is Gothic, and it was begun in 1245. St Paul’s, on the other hand, is Baroque, and the current church was built between 1675 and 1711 (3). Another connection the two churches have is St. Paul's architect, Christopher Wren, was sent to Westminster Abbey to be educated.

 

Every single monarch since 1066 has been crowned at Westminster, save for the two, Edward V and Edward VIII, who were not crowned at all, and 17 of those monarchs are also buried there. This is obviously the church of monarchs and more full of tradition, as the beginning and ends of most monarchs’ reigns, since 1066 at least, have been at Westminster. One similarity that would have been present during the Renaissance is the decoration of the two churches. To me, Westminster was beautiful, but it seemed cold and gray. It seemed much more like a crypt than the beautiful St. Paul’s. While St. Paul’s was open and beautiful, according to Britain Express, the mosaics were only painted after 1872, when Queen Victoria complained that the building was “dirty, dark, and undevotional.” This stark difference between today and when it was built is shown in St. Paul’s Guidebook on page 9, in a picture of the Duke of Wellington’s funeral, where the dome is much less magnificent than it is today. This shows us that the interior of the two churches were more similar during the Renaissance than they are today.

We have also heard through word of mouth that both places served as marketplaces and playhouses, but I have not been able to find any information online to support that, which is why I chose to focus on their looks and their functions as a school.

John Ballard and His Involvement in the Babington Plot

Background

There is not a lot of concrete evidence to determine that the name of the Jesuit priest involved in the Babington Plot to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I was actually John Ballard. This has made the search for information from his early life rather difficult. However, I did stumble upon a few bits of information giving some possibilities about his life prior to the Babington Plot. There are many different records and possibilities of his life, so I have listed most of them here in order to allow everyone to make his/her own judgments about what is correct.

According to a thread found on Roots Web, an ancestry website, John Ballard was the name of a Jesuit priest involved in the Babington Plot. His year of birth was not explicitly stated, but it says that he was born in Wratting, Suffolk to William Ballard. He attended school at Elmdon.  According to a record of alumni from Cambridge, he did study at Cambridge around 1574, before becoming a seminary priest, and finally an ordained priest in 1581, only 5 years before his execution. The record at Cambridge puts him around the age of 17 at his arrival, which led me to deduce his birth year as being circa 1552 – 1553. The Cambridge alumni post also has him as attending St. Catherine’s College at Michaelmas in 1569.

However, according to the full text of “Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington Plot,” Ballard was born in the diocese in Ely. Here, it also states that he was educated at Cambridge and then ordained a priest in Rheims at Chalons.

Occupation and lifestyle

As one might imagine, given that he was attempting to overthrown a Protestant queen in order to give the throne to a Catholic queen, Ballard was very devoted to his faith. As far as I can tell from the extensive research I’ve done in order to extrapolate as much information about his life as possible, he spent the majority of his time being a priest. He was a devout Jesuit priest.

According to William Tyrrell’s “most valuable pages” found in the full text of “Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington Plot” describe Ballard’s character as “peculiar.” He is not portrayed as a murderer, but simply a “man vainglorious and desirous of his own praise, and to be meddling in things about his reach.” The author of this text seems to think that Ballard had small minor flaws that “led him to ruin,” such as believing his power to be bigger than him. It wouldn't be out of the question to assume that he believed this plan as coming from God, thus believing himself invincible. Babington, contrary to Tyrrell, described Ballard to Mary Queen of Scots as “a man of virtue and learning and of singular zeal to the catholic cause and your Majesty’s service.” The text also explains that Ballard “gradually became obsessed with the idea that he was a statesman with a special mission to fulfill.” This expounds on the possibility that he was on a mission from God, believing that his plan could not fail. It is possible that they became less and less careful as the plan went on about being secretive in their mission, obviously not aware that there was a spy, Gifford, among them.

Circumstances of Incarceration

One thing that is not uncertain about John Ballard’s life is that he was involved in a plot to assassinate Elizabeth I. Though it is remembered as the Babington Plot, it was John Ballard who persuaded Anthony Babington to organize a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I, which would give the throne to Mary Queen of Scots. Before organizing the Babington Plot, John Ballard met another conspirator, John Savage, who was involved in a different plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I. Ballard, who had already been plotting a conspiracy, was inspired by Savage, and took it upon himself to speak with the Spanish Ambassador Bernardino de Mendozathe, who gave Ballard Spain's promise of support if the overthrow was successful, according to the UK's National Archive website.

As it turns out, one of the men working for John Savage, Gilbert Gifford, was captured by Sir Francis Walshingham, the head of Queen Elizabeth’s secret service, who convinced Gifford to act as a spy within the Babington Plot, according to the British Heritage website. As many spies did at the time, they used a cipher to decode their messages. Unfortunately for them, Babington wrote a letter to Mary Queen of Scots which outlined their plot to overthrow Elizabeth. Her response was then intercepted by Walshingham, which gave him enough information to arrest and torture the involved conspirators.

Importance of Narrative

There is almost no information on Ballard’s time in the tower that I can find. However, I would say the fact that he was arrested, tried, and executed on counts of high treason had an impact on the country of England at the time. He was attempting to overthrow a – supposedly – beloved queen in favor of her imprisoned cousin. Elizabeth had warned her subjects that people were trying to dethrone her, and uncovering the Babington Plot proved this. Also it shows the subjects at the time that if you are Catholic, you have the possibility of being executed; more importantly, it solidifies the Queen’s power at the time. Although it is remembered as the Babington Plot, there is no doubt that Ballard was the idea-man behind the plan, which is why, according to "Sir Walter Raleigh and the Babington Plot" by Matthew Lyons, Ballard was the first to die, and most gruesomely, having his genitals cut off after having been hanged until half-dead, after which he was dismembered and his head set upon the gallows. This sets a sort of a precedent that even the man who set out the do the plan, Babington, and whose name will forever rest on this plot, was not executed first. If you are the one to come up with the plot to murder the queen, you will be the first to die. Ballard and Babington were executed together, though as I said, Ballard first, on September 20, 1586. 

Elizabeth I: a Pure, Competent Ruler

As the saying goes, the winners write the history books. Unfortunately for us, history from many years ago is written by the winners, the monarchs, basically the people in charge. They, obviously, do not want to appear as anything other than perfect. This is the reason why I think Elizabeth, the virgin queen, is remembered so much more fondly than her half-sister, Mary, who only reigned for 5 years, and did not have time to secure a legacy for herself, as Elizabeth, who reigned for 45 years, did (despite the executions of Catholics that occurred during her reign). Elizabeth’s speech, “Response to aParliamentary Delegation on Her Marriage” (1559) and her portrait painted byWilliam Scrots circa 1546 both give the allusion that Elizabeth wishes to appear both pure and competent.

Although Parliament has encouraged Elizabeth to marry soon, she explains in her speech that she does not intend to, saying “since I first had consideration of myself to be born a servitor of almighty God, I happily chose this kind of life in which I yet live, which I assure you for my own part hath hitherto best contented myself and I trust hath been most acceptable to God.” This forces on her subjects an image of purity, which she solidifies at the end of her speech, saying: “and in the end this shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a Queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin.” It is quite clear that she intends to be remembered as pure. Not only that but she seems to be daring Parliament to argue with God’s decision. In her portrait, I also got the impression that she had intended to be remembered as pure. And as this was a gift to her half-brother Edward VI, she is in control of the context of the portrait. Not only is she depicted as holding a bible and wearing a cross, as she is in the majority of the portraits found on the website, but this was, in my opinion, the most flattering portrait of her. She is young, only 13 years old, in the picture, though she looks much older in my opinion; this is why I believe she chose it. She appears young, though not too young, and very beautiful. She wants to be remembered as a pure, sweet, beautiful woman. She even says in her letter to him that she wishes that her “body itself were oftener in [his] presence,” which has a very sweet tone about it, one that seems to echo the pure symbolism that is clear in the portrait.

In her speech to Parliament, it seems that Elizabeth wants to make it clear that she does not need to marry; in fact, she intends to rule perfectly fine on her own. This idea of competence is made clear as she assures her subjects that she will never “conclude anything that shall be prejudicial to the realm, for the weal,” and then tacks on that if it really is simply an heir that Parliament is worried about, then she assures them that “he shall be such as shall be as careful for the preservation of the realm and you as [herself].” She is basically telling Parliament that she has chosen a path in God’s eyes and it is in his hands. If he wants her to marry someone, then it will happen, but at the current moment she will remain true to herself and she will take care of the kingdom. In her portrait, she echoes her connection to religion with her bible, but also, in her letter to Edward, she says that she is often embarrassed of how she looks, but “the mind [she] shall never be ashamed to present.” Elizabeth is quite confident in herself, and given that she is remembered so well to this day shows that she not only wanted to appear a competent leader, but that she was a competent leader.  

The Ending of Measure for Measure: Terrible or Acceptable?

Measure for Measure at the Globe was highly dramatized, with the actors playing up any part of the play that they could for humor, which was fantastic. At the end of the play, when the Duke professes his love, in a way, and asks Isabella to marry him, she acts outlandishly surprised and has to sit down, presumably from shock. At the very end of the play, after all of the written lines are finished, the director did not choose to add more lines in order to solidify whether Isabella said yes or no, but rather chooses an arguably odd way to end a 16^th century play: with a dance routine. It truly seemed out of place because there had been no other dancing throughout the play, and characters who should not have been smiling at the end of this problem play broke character and were smiling. The fact that Isabella stands up and offers her hand to the Duke, after which they caress each other’s faces, leaves the audience with the impression that she accepted his offer (though whether it was an offer or a command is still up for debate). Subjectively, I dislike this ending, as I would have disliked it if Shakespeare had written it himself. I like Isabella and the Duke as characters, and the main reason that I like Isabella is because she is a strong female character, and I don’t think she deserved what happened to her in the play. She wanted to be a nun, which, while I can’t relate to it, is her choice. She did not have to offer anyone her body to save anyone for any reason, but she did, or at least implied it, though with a heavy conscience (Act II, Scene II). The fact that she is able to save her brother but keep her virginity is the one main reason why I was in favor of the bed trick. So for her to choose not to have sex with someone, even though it would have saved her brother, because she wants to be a nun and in order to be a nun, one must be a virgin, is perfectly acceptable in my opinion. However, for her to stand by her morals the entire play, at the expense of her brother’s life, only to give up her life at the convent in favor of marrying the Duke is absolutely not okay with me. It simply does not flow with the rest of the play or with Isabella’s intentions.

Looking at the Globe’s ending objectively, I was watching the dance trying to find symbolism hidden in the placement of the characters and what they were doing. I expected them to have been staged with “sinners” on one side and “saints” on the other. However, even the placement of which characters into the “saints” category, besides Isabella, is up for debate. Overlooking the fact that they are dancing together, Isabella and the Duke are on different sides of the stage, with Claudio and Juliet on Isabella’s side, which I saw fit as I would not classify them as sinners as much as I would, in the context of the play at least, Lucio, who was on the Duke’s side. And while I know that the staging of the dance was for balance, one side would do one thing with their arms while the other side would do it to the opposite direction; I thought that it could have also been done in an attempt to show how different, and perhaps even opposing, the Duke and Isabella’s union would be (especially with Juliet and Claudio being on the same side as each other and even Angelo and Mariana being on the same side). This is backed up even more by the idea that if what Lucio says is true, and the Duke does frequent the brothels, which Isabella would obviously not support, then it does not seem as if the two are a likely pair or if Isabella would even be happy with the Duke (Act III, Scene II).

In the written play, the Duke does say to Isabella that he has “a motion much imports [her] good/whereto if [she’ll] a willing ear incline/what’s [his] is [hers] and what is [hers] is [his]/so, bring [them] to [their] palace, where [they’ll] show/what’s yet behind, that’s meet you all should know,” which does imply that she doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter (Act V, Scene I). However, given her strong will throughout the play, it would make sense for her to argue. At the very least, I think the director could have given more of an explanation that a dance routine. 

The Argument of Textual Authority in McDonald's "What is Your Text?"

I used to do theatre, so I was in a few Shakespeare plays, and the one thing that really stuck with me after reading this essay was how, even though I had directors who wanted to “stay true” to Shakespeare, as in do a “classical” interpretation of his play, I had one director who did not care about sticking true to the written play at all, but would move scenes around, change lines, get rid of lines, etc.; so what I got from the reading was that there is no such thing as staying true to Shakespeare. In fact, what the latter director did seems to be closer to what Shakespeare wanted than what my director who wanted to “stay true to the play” was doing. The idea of textual authority in Shakespeare's plays seems impossible not only because we do not know if what we are reading and acting out is exactly what Shakespeare wrote, but we don’t even know if it’s what he intended the play to read like or watch like. McDonald explains this as he writes that, “to a Renaissance playwright, ‘publication’ meant presentation of the work to the public on a stage; it did not necessarily imply preservation in the form of a printed book,” which is already interesting enough and something that I did not know about Shakespeare’s plays that I have read, but he further explains this point when he says that in giving a written, finished script to a theatrical company, a playwright “thus relinquished his rights to the play” (196). So it’s not necessarily that these ideas of authenticity of authorship and textual authority are unique to Shakespeare, but rather it seems that these “problems” were common among all playwrights up until a certain period of time. This also tells us that what is written down and preserved could possibly be not at all what Shakespeare had originally written.

What is incredibly important to remember about Shakespeare’s plays is that when we are reading them, we are not reading a novel whose final form is what the author intended, but rather, we are reading theatre. Basically when it comes to reading and interpreting Shakespeare, textual authority does not exist. McDonald explains that “at some point an editor must choose which reading of a line to print, and an actor must decide which word to speak” (210). Shakespeare was not the end-all decider of what his plays meant; it seems that he wanted them to be fluid in order for directors and actors to change them as they wanted for them to survive throughout time. For a professor to force students to stick to a strict interpretation of what is on the page in front of them is not only not what Shakespeare appeared to have wanted, but it’s just not reasonable because we do not know if what is written down today is what Shakespeare originally wrote (his “foul papers”) or if it’s a combination of Shakespeare’s ideas and what directors and actors over time have formed it to be. In addition, they could be a result of “memorial reconstruction,” which was an incredibly interesting component to the textual authority argument alongside his plays being theatre, not novels (202). This means that we should attempt to explore all possible interpretations of Shakespeare’s plays because we don’t know which interpretation could make the most interesting play.

What I gathered from McDonald’s article is that the idea of textual authority does not exist, and, without his foul papers, we have only a small idea of what Shakespeare truly wanted his plays to look like. In addition, because we lack his foul papers and have only nearly 500-year-old interpretations of his plays, our realm of interpretation should be far wider than what is written on the page and what scholars have written about the plays over the years. If all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players, then we all, as players, have the right to interpret Shakespeare’s works as we please.

How London Evolved from 1500 to 1700

         When reading Open City: London 1500-1700, listening to Kathleen Lynch’s podcast, and reviewing the interactive London map myself,  it is not surprising that the years between 1500 and 1700 brought changes to the city of London. However, what is interesting is that the changes that occurred within the religious, trade, and theatre realms are all interconnected. For example, the author notes that the Dutch and the English were partners in trade and religion. Similarly, Henry VIII shut down monasteries using a religious order in quite the same way as theatres were shut down. Religion played a huge role in theatre and trade as well as in the changing of different religions.

         Looking at the interactive map, the majority of buildings were used for entertainment, religion, or trading purposes. Often times, the three were intermingled. For example, the map shows that plays were done at the palace, that trade happened at cathedrals, and that the proximity between many of the popular churches and trading centers were very close together. London is still a bustling city, full of theatre and trade, but it is clear that the centuries between 1500 and 1700 marked turning points for religion, trade, and theatre.

         As one might assume, Henry VIII played a massive role in transforming London’s churches between 1500 and 1700. According to Open City: London, religious institutions were prevalent in London’s early history; however, this all changed with Henry VIII’s 1533 Act of Supremacy, which named the king as the Supreme Head of the English Church. Following this act came the First Act of Suppression in 1536, which closed the smaller monasteries, and then came the Second Act of Suppression, in which the king explained that the monasteries had been surrendered voluntarily. Interestingly enough, Open City describes “detractors” of these early religious institutions as “centers of greed and hypocrisy,” which seems to reflect Henry VIII’s reasoning behind passing these acts and gaining control of England’s religion. The Acts that Henry passed were repealed by future monarchs, thus allowing Henry VIII to continue to affect history, as explained by Encyclopedia Britannica and Luminarium: Anthology of English Literature.

         St Paul’s Cathedral was considered the “symbolic heart of London,” according to Open City: London; the author also states that London, during this time period, could be distinguished as either pre- or post-1561 according to the spire of St. Paul’s, as it was struck by lightning in 1561 and not repaired until after 1666.Londoners felt that the cathedral had to be repaired as it symbolized so much of their city. After raising over 100,000 pounds in contributions for the repair, and after a civil war broke out, finally the cathedral was completed in 1710. Henry VIII shook up the country with his new religion, imposing divine right on his subjects, which set the path for future monarchs to rule with religion. This therefore connects Henry VIII’s impact on London’s religion and the restoration of an important part of London’s culture. While religion has always seemed to play a role in England’s culture, especially between 1500 and 1700, these two specific instances mark extraordinary changes in the culture surrounding religion in London during these two centuries.

         The author of Open City: London notes that in 1569, in an attempt to become a player in international trade, London created the Royal Exchange. This exchange was commissioned by Sir Thomas Gresham, a member of the Mercers’ guild. The author decides to note here that “the Dutch and the English were partners in both trade and religion,“ which is interesting as these are two important aspects of London’s culture that changed and evolved between 1500 and 1700. In addition, the thought of religion playing such a role in politics is hard to fathom today, which is why it is interesting to note that, in Open City: London, the author notes that Londoners viewed St. Paul’s as the heart of the city; however, a German merchant, when traveling through Europe, noted that he viewed “the Royal Exchange as ‘the ornament of the city,’“ which offers us the contradiction between how natives view their city as compared to visitors. It seems that, because monarchs placed such a large emphasis on divine right and the importance of religion, that Londoners might think that it is the most important part of their culture, something to preserve and cherish even as time moves forward. On the contrary for other countries, however, as shown by this German visitor’s thoughts on the Royal Exchange, other countries seem to view trade as a more important aspect of London. Kathleen Lynch explains that the Royal Exchange was the first building of its kind found in London. Before it was built, all trading was done in the streets, on Paul’s Walk, on loading docks, and similar locations. This new Exchange became the first place for trade in London, and it demonstrated London’s ability to compete internationally. This is why it was located so centrally; it was meant to replace these trades that would happen in the streets. The biggest change that occurred during 1500 and 1700 for trade was the creation of the Exchange. It not only shifted trade from streets and alleys to one central location, but it created a name for London internationally.

         Theatre was used to protest political, and therefore religious, aspects of life. According to Open City, people would dress up as religious leaders in the streets of London in order to mock the pope. However, it was also used as it is today, for entertainment. Open City: London explains that “people from all walks of life” enjoyed the theatre, as tickets were often cheap enough for everyone to afford. Unfortunately, those who were strict Protestants or Puritans felt that theatre was immoral. They not only complained about acting itself, which Open City explains that “the pretense of being someone else” was immoral, but also about the type of people that the theatre attracted, who enjoyed fighting and drinking, according to Elizabethan-Era’s History of the Globe. This website explains that these religious people complained to the church, which went to the government. Finally, in 1596, the government of London began to close down these theatres. This is why, according to Kathleen Lynch, the Rose Theatre, opened in 1587, was just outside of London’s jurisdiction. Actors had previously been criminalized as vagrants and were subject to arrest if found acting. Were it not for religion, it stands to reason, theatre might not have been criminalized during this time period.

         It is very interesting to learn that these three aspects so central to London’s history, religion, trade, and theatre, were all interconnected during these important two centuries.