Reacting to the Past: Marlowe and Shakespeare: The Players: Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Others

Lord Strange's Men, one of the competing companies, is rumored to have been the first to employ William Shakespeare. (Image by elizabethanera.org)

"The Privy Council was responsible for the general administration of the country. Who was on the Council depended on who Elizabeth wanted on it, but as some of the nobles of her realm had a lot of money and influence in the places that they lived, Elizabeth had to make sure that the most powerful men in her country had their interests represented. If she did not, they could rebel against her. In the reign of Queen Mary, the Council had been rather large, but Elizabeth did not want this, believing that too many people with different ideas would only cause more problems than solve them. Her first Council only had nineteen members, compared to about fifty members under her predecessor, and by her death in 1603, this had been reduced to thirteen."

-elizabethi.org

Phillip Henslowe, the manager of the Rose theater, was a major factor in deciding which plays were performed on his stage. (Image by Internet Movie Database)

The other faction, Lord Admiral's Men, had ties to Christopher Marlowe and performed a wide variety of his plays. (Image by luminarium.org)