title: 1603: The Death of Queen Elizabeth I, the Return of the Black Plague, the Rise of Shakespeare, Piracy, Witchcraft, and the Birth of the Stuart Era
author:  Christopher Lee 
description: Lee, author of This Sceptred Isle, a history of Britain that accompanied a BBC radio series, focuses in on one turning point in that saga. In 1603 the Elizabethan era ended with the last Tudor monarch's death, and the Stuart dynasty began with the coronation of James I (formerly James VI of Scotland). Lee gives the political background by skillfully summarizing the past intrigues of the Tudor era. Drawing on chronicles, diaries and letters, Lee paints a lively picture of the society that the new king inherited. A condensed biography of James (the only son of Mary, Queen of Scots) details his birth, his mother's political intrigues and execution, and his schooling and marriage. A meandering middle section describes James's uncertain procession south from Scotland to his coronation in London. Vivid snapshots of the plague and of witch-hunting, a dense account of the demise of Walter Raleigh, an outline of London's theater world, a glimpse of Irish revolt and tales of early empire-building voyages make absorbing reading. Yet Lee struggles to define the year's significance beyond mere regime change. He is analytic when discussing endemic government corruption, the nation's uneasy religious mood, the creation of the King James Bible and James's clampdown on the lucrative piracy industry, but these analyses never gel into an overall thesis. Yet in its rich texture and detail, 1603 will surely whet the appetite of readers interested in 17th-century English history. 8 pages of b&amp;w photos. <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  # The People For Whom Shakespeare Wrote
  
  
  ### Charles Dudley Warner
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Queen Elizabeth being dead about ten o'clock in the morning, March 24,
  
  
  1603, Sir Robert Cary posted away, unsent, to King James of Scotland to
  
  
  inform him of the "accident," and got made a baron of the realm for his
  
  
  ride. On his way down to take possession of his new kingdom the king
  
  
  distributed the honor of knighthood right and left liberally; at
  
  
  Theobald's he created eight-and-twenty knights, of whom Sir Richard
  
  
  Baker, afterwards the author of "A Chronicle of the Kings of England,"
  
  
  was one. "God knows how many hundreds he made the first year," says the
  
  
  chronicler, "but it was indeed fit to give vent to the passage of Honour,
  
  
  which during Queen Elizabeth's reign had been so stopped that scarce any
  