war
war.England was at war for more than half of Shakespeare's adult life: Queen Elizabeth I's foreign policy could not avert conflict with Spain, and there were also early colonial wars in Ireland. Both of these contributed to England's economic difficulties in the period, but they had relatively little direct effect on the life of the country: though threatened with invasion by four Spanish Armadas between 1588 and 1601, the country was never actually occupied by a hostile foreign power, and battles fought on English soil were part of the medieval past dramatized in the history plays and King Lear. In late 16th-century England, to go to war was to travel overseas.
There was no standing army at this time: every able-bodied Englishman between the ages of 16 and 60 was liable for conscription. Attitudes to this opportunity were divided. Many did not wish to go (for the chances of returning alive and uninjured were not good), and in practice some...
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