The author sets out to chart the transformation of English life, literature, and politics from the defeat of the Spanish Armada to the dawning of the seventeenth century. The volume opens with a detailed examination of the Elizabethan literary renaissance, tracing how the initial intellectual stagnation under the New Monarchy gave way to an extraordinary flowering of historic literature, pastoral romance, and popular fiction. Green explores the passionate imitation of Italian manners and the stylistic excesses of Euphuism, showing how these continental currents fertilized the English soil and prepared the way for the mature genius of Sidney and Spenser.
A central problem of the period was the friction between the exuberant, secular energy of the Renascence and the rising moral sternness of Puritanism. The text traces this tension through the development of the English drama, illustrating how the popular theatre reflected both the nobleness and the vileness of the age. Figures such as Marlowe and Shakspere are examined not merely as isolated geniuses, but as the supreme voices of a dramatic national temper that found its inspiration directly in the life of the people.
Beyond literature, the volume surveys the widening horizon of human knowledge brought about by maritime discoveries and the rise of modern science, embodied in the sweeping philosophical speculations of Francis Bacon. Green contrasts Bacon's inductive method and his grandiose plans for the advancement of human learning with the political and religious currents of the time. The narrative follows the quiet, persistent growth of parliamentary power as the House of Commons gradually wrested control over taxation and state policy from the Crown.
Simultaneously, the book examines the deeper religious transformation within the English Church and the Scotch Kirk. It details how the policy of the Tudors created an ecclesiastical compromise that ultimately failed to satisfy the rising tide of Calvinistic zeal. The text follows the complex struggle between the Crown and the Presbyterian clergy, who claimed spiritual supremacy and laid the groundwork for popular government.
The volume concludes with the last days of Queen Elizabeth, depicting a sovereign grown old, lonely, and isolated from the new prosaic, serious England that had grown up around her. It portrays the final extinction of the Tudor system and sets the stage for the troubled succession of the house of Stuart. The ending hints gently at the gathering clouds of domestic and religious conflict that were destined to shape the seventeenth century.
