William Shakespeare was twenty-one years old when the English founded their first North American colony at Roanoke in 1585. He moved to London, most likely in 1587, to pursue a career in the theater. There he rose from actor to mender of others' plays to playwright, director, and company coowner over the course of some twenty-eight years. Meanwhile, England under Queen Elizabeth I (who reigned from 1558 to 1603) and then under King James 1 (1603-1625) struggled to build an empire. By 1610, when Shakespeare is thought to have begun The Tempest, England had founded a colony at Jamestown, Virginia, but the colony's survival still hung in the balance. The Tempest, called a tragicomedy, is tied to this early time in English colonial history as well as to a tumultuous period in Italy's past.
Italian history. Single-ruler governments, multiruler republics, and the Papal State (the region controlled by the pope) were all present in Italy in the 1400s. In order of importance, Milan, Rome, and Naples became the most powerful single- ruler governments. After 1500, however, Milan and Naples lost power as foreign invasions brought them under the control of first the French and then the Spanish.
