The latter part of Queen Elizabeth’s reign has often been described as the beginning of a ‘Golden Age’—forty years in which England gave the world Marlowe, Webster and Bacon, the prose of Sir Walter Raleigh, the Authorized Version of the Bible, the scientific researches of Gilbert and Harvey, and the music of Byrd, Dowland, Gibbons, Morley, Weelkes, Wilbye and many more. This intellectual and artistic excellence seemed to flower with the national self-confidence that followed the defeat of the Spanish Armada, ushering in an age when music and the theatre became a regular part of life, not only at the Royal Court, but for a larger proportion of the population than ever before, and one that continued, albeit declining quite quickly, after the death of Elizabeth.