231
government, the Gunpowder Plot.
The plot was foiled when a Catholic
lord was given a secret warning
and tipped off the authorities.
They were told to search under
the Houses of Parliament, and there
they found Guido (Guy) Fawkes
sitting on 36 barrels of gunpowder.
Had Fawkes set them off, it
would not only have blown up the
Parliament buildings but the nearby
Whitehall Palace and the royal
family too. Practicing Catholics
were already in a minority by
this time, and the clampdown on
Catholics that followed effectively
ended the Catholic challenge to
government in England.
The last plays
The King’s Men continued to
prosper, and in 1608 were able
to acquire a second theater,
the Blackfriars. This new theater
was very different from the Globe—
indoors and much smaller, so
performances were almost entirely
by candlelight. The company
continued to perform at the
Globe in summer, then they
could play right through winter
in the Blackfriars.
Shakespeare began to write
plays suited to the more intimate
space of the Blackfriars and its
facility for spectacular theatrical
effects, such as the storm and
the flying spirits in The Tempest
and the statue coming to life in
The Winter’s Tale. He was also
collaborating with other writers
again—Thomas Middleton
(1580–1627) on Timon of Athens in
1606, George Wilkins (1576–1618)
on Pericles in 1607, and John
Fletcher (1579–1625) on thelost play Cardenio, All Is True
(Henry VIII), and The Two Noble
Kinsmen in 1613.
The collaborations with
Fletcher were Shakespeare’s
last plays. On June 29, 1613, the
Globe Theatre caught fire during
a performance of Henry VIII when a
theatrical cannon misfired and set
the roof thatch alight. Everybody
escaped unhurt, but the theater
burned down. The Globe was
rebuilt ready for the following
summer, but it appears that it
reopened without Shakespeare.
All we know about his life from
that point on is that he wrote
nothing more and died just three
years later at home in Stratford
on April 23, 1616, within a month
of signing a document saying
he was in “perfect health.” He
was 52 years old. ■THE KING’S MAN
1608
1609
1609 1611 1613
1610 1612 1613
Coriolanus is
written. The new
Blackfriars Theatre
opens, but an
outbreak of plague
closes the theaters
soon after.The Winter’s Tale
is written. Shakespeare’s
younger contemporary,
Ben Jonson, is critical
of the play.Thomas Thorpe
publishes a collection
of 154 sonnets by
Shakespeare.The King James
Version, a new English
translation of the Bible,
is published in London.Henry VIII, or All is
True and The Two
Noble Kinsmen
are written.Cymbeline and The
Tempest are written.
The latter is the
probably the last play
Shakespeare writes
entirely by himself.Thomas Shelton
translates into English
some of Cervantes’ Don
Quixote, which may have
inspired Shakespeare’s
“lost” play, Cardenio.James I’s daughter
Elizabeth marries
Frederick V of
Bohemia.