The Elizabethan era took place during the reign of Elizabeth I, the daughter of Henry VIII (who killed her mother over the fact that Elizabeth was not a boy and had no siblings). It was a time of contrasts. On the one hand, it was a great time, when optimism was high, Shakespeare was writing, and if they had understood the concept of GDP at the time, it was essentially 45 straight years of growth. Slavery was illegal, and contrary to modern opinion, people were pretty relaxed about sexual mores (especially as compared to their Puritan descendants).

Tudor times resulted in a great increase in the power of England: it saw the earliest expansion into what became an empire, set up the union with Scotland a hundred years later, and even planted the seeds of what became the English Civil War, which transformed the nation into a democracy a mere 60 years later.

However, the idea of democracy would have been seen as very radical in this late Tudor period. Elizabethan England was a police state, where Good Queen Bess' spymaster, Francis Walsingham, watched for sedition and Catholics were burned at the stake. Censorship was rife, and torture was not just legal but likely. Waves of plague and war swept over Europe, and average life expectancy was absolutely dire.

How would you have fit into this time? Would it have been a disaster, or would you have found royal favor and success? Tell us a little bit about yourself, and we'll find out! We may not compare thee to a summer's day (even if thou art, in fact, more lovely and more temperate), but we shall compare thee to a typical citizen of the Elizabeth era. Scroll with thy mouse, and thou shalt find out!