Britain's Bourse, also known as the New Exchange, was a shopping arcade located on the Strand, London opened by James I in 1609. [1] [2] [3] It was demolished in 1737. [4]
Inigo Jones submitted a design, but these were not used. It was built by Sir Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury. Building commenced on 10 June 1608. The site had previously been occupied by the stables of Durham House, now 52 to 64 Strand. [5]
The building was briefly known as the Salisbury Exchange, but was renamed when James I opened the building on 11 April 1609. [2] He was accompanied by his queen, Anne of Denmark, his son, later Charles I of England and daughter Elizabeth, later Queen of Bohemia. [6] The opening included a theatrical production by Ben Jonson, The Entertainment at Britain's Burse . [7]
It primarily catered for women providing not only fashionable clothes and millinery, but also ornaments and items of furniture. However it also included several bookshops. [4] Along with the Royal Exchange it provided one of the major shopping centres in London, particularly after the Fire of London. [4]
Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany visited the premises during his visit to England in 1669 and described the building:
English Renaissance theatre, also known as Renaissance English theatre and Elizabethan theatre, refers to the theatre of England between 1558 and 1642.
Benjamin Jonson was an English playwright and poet. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence on English poetry and stage comedy. He popularised the comedy of humours; he is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone, or The Fox, The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614) and for his lyric and epigrammatic poetry. He is regarded as "the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I."
Hatfield House is a Grade I listed country house set in a large park, the Great Park, on the eastern side of the town of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England. The present Jacobean house, a leading example of the prodigy house, was built in 1611 by Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury and Chief Minister to King James I. It is a prime example of Jacobean architecture. The estate includes extensive grounds and surviving parts of an earlier palace. The house is currently the home of Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury. It is open to the public.
Inigo Jones was the first significant architect in England in the early modern period, and the first to employ Vitruvian rules of proportion and symmetry in his buildings. As the most notable architect in England, Jones was the first person to introduce the classical architecture of Rome and the Italian Renaissance to Britain. He left his mark on London by his design of single buildings, such as the Queen's House which is the first building in England designed in a pure classical style, and the Banqueting House, Whitehall, as well as the layout for Covent Garden square which became a model for future developments in the West End. He made major contributions to stage design by his work as a theatrical designer for several dozen masques, most by royal command and many in collaboration with Ben Jonson.
Fleet Street is a street in Central London, England. It runs west to east from Temple Bar at the boundary of the Cities of London and Westminster to Ludgate Circus at the site of the London Wall and the River Fleet from which the street was named.
Thomas Randolph was an English poet and dramatist, recognised by his mentor Ben Jonson as being a promising writer of comedy, and amongst his contemporaries had a reputation as a wit.
The Royal Exchange in London was founded in the 16th century by the merchant Sir Thomas Gresham on the suggestion of his factor Richard Clough to act as a centre of commerce for the City of London. The site was provided by the City of London Corporation and the Worshipful Company of Mercers, who still jointly own the freehold. The original foundation was ceremonially opened by Queen Elizabeth I who granted it its "royal" title. The current neoclassical building has a trapezoidal floor plan and is flanked by Cornhill and Threadneedle Street, which converge at Bank junction in the heart of the city. It lies in the Ward of Cornhill.
The Jacobean era was the period in English and Scottish history that coincides with the reign of James VI of Scotland who also inherited the crown of England in 1603 as James I. The Jacobean era succeeds the Elizabethan era and precedes the Caroline era. The term "Jacobean" is often used for the distinctive styles of Jacobean architecture, visual arts, decorative arts, and literature which characterized that period.
The Leeds Corn Exchange is a shopping mall in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. The structure, which was commissioned as a corn exchange, is a grade I listed building.
Theobalds House in the parish of Cheshunt in the English county of Hertfordshire, north of London, was a significant stately home and (later) royal palace of the 16th and early 17th centuries.
Cecil House refers to two historical mansions on The Strand, London, in the vicinity of the Savoy. The first was a 16th-century house on the north side, where the Strand Palace Hotel now stands. The second was built in the early 17th century on the south side nearly opposite, where Shell Mex House stands today.
The Masque of Queens, Celebrated From the House of Fame is one of the earlier works in the series of masques that Ben Jonson composed for the House of Stuart in the early 17th century. Performed at Whitehall Palace on 2 February 1609, it marks a notable development in the masque form, in that Jonson defines and elaborates the anti-masque for the first time in its pages.
The Entertainment at Althorp, or The Althorp Entertainment, performed on 25 June 1603 is an early Jacobean era literary work, written by Ben Jonson. It is also known as A Particular Entertainment of the Queen and Prince, or The Satyr. The work marked a major development in Jonson's career, as the first of many entertainments and masques that he would write for the Stuart Court.
The Speeches at Prince Henry's Barriers, sometimes called The Lady of the Lake, is a masque or entertainment written by Ben Jonson in honour of Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, the son and heir of King James I of England. The speeches were performed on 6 January 1610 in conjunction with the ceremony known as Prince Henry's Barriers.
Paul's walk in Elizabethan and early Stuart London was the name given to the central nave of Old St Paul's Cathedral, where people walked up and down in search of the latest news. At the time, St. Paul's was the centre of the London grapevine. "News-mongers", as they were called, gathered there to pass on the latest news and gossip, at a time before the first newspapers. Those who visited the cathedral to keep up with the news were known as "Paul's-walkers".
Cecily Bulstrode was a courtier and subject of poetry. She was the daughter of Edward Bulstrode (1550–1595) and Cecily Croke; she was a cousin of Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford, in whose household she was a member in 1605. Two years later, she served as a Gentlewoman of the Bedchamber to Anne of Denmark.
The Entertainment at Britain's Burse is a masque written by Ben Jonson in 1609 and rediscovered in 1997. It was commissioned by Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, in celebration of the opening of the "New Exchange", on 11 April 1609.
The bourse at Antwerp is a building in Antwerp, Belgium, which was first opened in 1531 as the world's first purpose-built commodity exchange. The Royal Exchange in London was modelled on the Antwerp bourse. The bourse has been described as "the mother of all stock exchanges".
The Harefield Entertainment included hospitality and performances for Elizabeth I of England in August 1602. Several copies of the performance script survive, probably written by John Davies, along with the original manuscript accounts of the Queen's host which seems to have been manipulated by literary forgery in the 19th-century to enhance their interest.
The Entertainment of the Two Kings of Great Britain and Denmark or The Hours was written by Ben Jonson and performed at Theobalds House on 24 July 1606. John Harington of Kelston described another masque of Solomon and Sheba, performed one day at Theobalds after dinner. There is some doubt over Harington's account. In May 1607 another masque An Entertainment of the King James and Queen Anne at Theobalds was performed when the keys of the house were given to Anne of Denmark.
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