Shakespeare: The King's Man

When Queen Elizabeth died without an heir, the English throne passed to the Scottish King James I. He was elusive, intellectual, and a foreigner with Catholic sympathies Shakespeare responded with Measure for Measure, Timon of Athens, and King Lear.

After the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 attempted an assassination on King James's life, England entered a new age of conspiracy, anxiety, and equivocation. Shakespeare wrote Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra, and Macbeth.

Shakespeare's late plays are often viewed as mellow swansongs. But during the last years of his life, Shakespeare was still experimenting and writing about subjects close to home.