Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young "star-cross'd lovers" whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet and Macbeth, is one of his most frequently performed plays. Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypal young lovers.

House of Capulet

• Capulet is the patriarch of the house of Capulet.
• Lady Capulet is the matriarch of the house of Capulet.
• Juliet is the daughter of the Capulets, and is the play's female protagonist.
• Tybalt is a cousin of Juliet, and the nephew of Lady Capulet.
• The Nurse is Juliet's personal attendant and confidante.
• Peter, Sampson and Gregory are servants of the Capulet household.
• Rosaline, a niece to Lord Capulet, is an unseen character with whom Romeo is in love before meeting Juliet.

Ruling house of Verona

• Prince Escalus is the ruling Prince of Verona
• Count Paris is a kinsman of Escalus who wishes to marry Juliet.
• Mercutio is another kinsman of Escalus, and a friend of Romeo.

House of Montague

• Montague is the patriarch of the house of Montague.
• Lady Montague is the matriarch of the house of Montague.
• Romeo is the son of the Montagues, and is the play's male protagonist.
• Benvolio is a cousin, and friend, of Romeo.
• Abram and Balthasar are servants of the Montague household.

Others

• Friar Lawrence is a Franciscan friar, and is Romeo's confidant.
• A Chorus reads a prologue to each of the first two acts.
• Friar John is sent to deliver Friar Laurence's letter to Romeo.
• An Apothecary reluctantly sells Romeo poison.

Lord Capulet, in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, is a loving, but controlling father. Lord Capulet is the head of his family and father to Juliet Capulet. He is sometimes interfering, commanding, and controlling, but at the same time, he can be courteous and generous, as he appears at his party. He sometimes lets jealousy get in the way. When Tybalt tries to incite a duel with Romeo, while at the party, Capulet tries to calm him and then threatens to throw him out of the family if he does not control his temper; he does the same to his daughter later in the play.

Lady Capulet is the Matriarch of the house of Capulet, and Juliet's mother. She plays a larger role than Lady Montague, appearing in several scenes. In Act One, Scene two, she refuses to talk to her daughter about marriage, as she feels uncomfortable about it, but in Scene three, she is pleased about Count Paris's "interest" in her daughter. When Tybalt is killed in Act Three, she expresses extreme grief and a strong desire for revenge on Romeo. In Act Three, Scene 5, she becomes very angry with Juliet for refusing to marry Paris, and she coldly rejects her, saying "Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word; do as thou wilt, for I am done with thee". By the final act, she is nearly overcome by the tragic events of the play.^[3] She is about 28 years old, and her husband is many years older than she.

Juliet Capulet is one of the title characters in William Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet, the other being Romeo Montague. The story has a long history that precedes Shakespeare himself. The heroine's name was Giulietta in some earlier versions. It had become Juliet by the time Arthur Brooke wrote his narrative poem. Juliet is the daughter of a generous and very wealthy family in Verona, headed by Lord and Lady Capulet. She was their oldest child. She apparently had younger siblings at some point, but by the time of the play, she was their only surviving child. Juliet is the sole heir to the Capulets. As a child, she was cared for by her nurse, who is now her confidante, or Juliet's caretaker. As the story occurs, Juliet is approaching her fourteenth birthday (her sixteenth in Arthur Brooke's poem). She was born on "Lammas Eve at night" (August 1), so Juliet's birthday is July 31 (1.3.19). Her birthday is "a fortnight hence", putting the action of the play in mid-July (1.3.17).

Tybalt is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. He is Juliet's hot-tempered cousin and Romeo's rival. Tybalt shares the same name as the character Tibert/Tybalt the "Prince of Cats" in Reynard the Fox, a point of mockery in the play. Mercutio repeatedly calls Tybalt "Prince of Cats", referring not only to Reynard but to the Italian word cazzo (pr. CAT-so) meaning "penis".

Luigi da Porto adapted the story as Giulietta e Romeo and included it in his Historia novellamente ritrovata di due Nobili Amanti published in 1530.^[1] Da Porto drew on Pyramus and Thisbe and Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron. He gave it much of its modern form, including the names of the lovers, the rival families of Montecchi and Capuleti, and the location in Verona.^[2] He also introduces characters corresponding to Shakespeare's Mercutio, Tybalt, and Paris. Da Porto presents his tale as historically true and claims it took place in the days of Bartolomeo II della Scala (a century earlier than Salernitano). Montecchi and Capuleti were actual 13th-century political factions, but the only connection between them is a mention in Dante's Purgatorio as an example of civil dissention.^[3]

The Nurse is a major character in William Shakespeare's classic drama Romeo and Juliet. It is revealed later in the play by Lord Capulet that the Nurse's real name is Angelica. She is the personal servant (and former nurse) of Juliet Capulet, and has been since Juliet was born. She had a daughter named Susan who was killed in an earthquake, and weaned Juliet to get over her grief of losing her daughter. As the primary person to raise Juliet, she is therefore Juliet's foremost confidante. She is one of the few people, along with Friar Laurence, to be made aware of the blossoming romance between Romeo and Juliet. Her personal history outside of the Capulet house is unknown, other than that she once had a husband and a daughter, Susan, both of which are deceased. Juliet is considered by many, historians and fans alike, to be her surrogate daughter in many respects due to the fact that she took care of Juliet as a baby in Lady Capulet's absence.

Rosaline is an unseen character and niece of Lord Capulet in William Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet (1597). Although silent, her role is important: her lover, Romeo, first spots Juliet while trying to catch a glimpse of Rosaline at a Capulet gathering.

Scholars generally compare Romeo's short-lived love of Rosaline with his later love of Juliet. The poetry he writes for Rosaline is much weaker than that for Juliet. Scholars believe his early experience with Rosaline prepares him for his relationship with Juliet. Later performances of Romeo and Juliet have painted different pictures of Romeo and Rosaline's relationship, as filmmakers have experimented with making Rosaline a more visible character.

Prince Escalus, fictional Prince of Verona, is the mediator of the feuding families in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Escalus is the voice of authority in Verona. He appears only three times within the text and only to administer justice following major events in the feud between the Capulet and Montague families. He first punishes Lord Capulet and Lord Montague in I.i for the quarrel between Tybalt, Benvolio, and a handful of servants. He returns in III.i, too late to stop the fatal brawls between Tybalt and Mercutio and, subsequently, Tybalt and Romeo. Escalus is prepared to execute Romeo for his offence – Romeo killing Tybalt – but lightens the sentence to lifetime banishment from Verona when Benvolio insists that Tybalt started the quarrel by murdering Mercutio, a kinsman to the Prince. He returns in the final scene — V.III — following the double suicide of Romeo and Juliet and at last orders the lords of the feuding families to make peace.

Count Paris is a suitor of Juliet Capulet's. He is handsome, somewhat self-absorbed, very wealthy, and is a kinsman of Prince Escalus. However, despite his occasional arrogance, he loves Juliet dearly.

Mercutio is a character in William Shakespeare's famous tragedy, Romeo and Juliet. He is a relative of the Prince and Paris, and is a close friend of Romeo, and Romeo's cousin Benvolio. He is not a Montague nor a Capulet, but his friends are Montagues, most likely due to the fact that he cannot stand, Tybalt of the Capulets. Mercutio is one of the few in Verona with the ability to freely float around both houses. The invitation to the Capulet's party states that he has a brother named Valentine. Mercutio is apt to make long, drawn out speeches (the most famous of which is the Queen Mab speech), and is generally thought to be reckless, a jokester, and a free spirit. Due to his quick wit and flamboyant, affable personality, Mercutio is one of Shakespeare's most popular characters. He is a character foil to Benvolio who is much more serious.

In the beginning of the play, Romeo pines for an unrequited love, Rosaline. To cheer him up, his friends Benvolio and Mercutio take him to the Capulets' celebration in disguise, where he meets and falls in love with the Capulets' only daughter, Juliet. Later that night, he and Juliet meet secretly and pledge to marry, despite their families' long-standing feud. They marry the following day, but their union is soon thrown into chaos by their families; Juliet's cousin Tybalt duels and kills Romeo's friend Mercutio, throwing Romeo into such a rage that he kills Tybalt, and the Prince of Verona subsequently banishes him. Meanwhile, Juliet's father plans to marry her off to Paris, a local aristocrat, within the next few days, threatening to turn her out on the streets if she doesn't follow through. Desperate, Juliet begs Romeo's confidant, Friar Lawrence, to help her to escape the forced marriage. Lawrence does so by giving her a potion that puts her in a death-like coma. The plan works, but too soon for Romeo to learn of it; He genuinely believes Juliet to be dead, and so resolves to commit suicide. Romeo's final words were "Thus with a kiss I die".^[11] He kills himself at Juliet's grave, moments before she awakes; she kills herself in turn shortly thereafter.

Romeo Montague is one of the fictional protagonists in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. He is the heir of the Montague family of Verona, and falls in love and dies with Juliet Capulet, the daughter of the Capulet house.

Benvolio Montague is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's drama Romeo and Juliet.

Friar Lawrence (or Friar Laurence) is a character in William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet.

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Tudor London can be described as a prosperous, bustling city during the Tudor dynasty. In fact, the population increased from 75,000 inhabitants with Henry VII to 200,000 at the end of the 16th century.

The Tudor monarchs had a royal residence in London called Whitehall Palace and another in the countryside,called Hampton court , after Cardinal Wolsey gave it to Henry VIII.These Tudor kings and queens used what are now famous parks , such as Hyde Park or St. James's Park , as Royal Hunting forests.

Not many Tudor buildings survive today, mostly because of The Great Fire , which happened in 1666. Besides, , the 13 religious houses in London were __ converted for private use or pulled down for building materials____ after the Dissolution of the monasteries, which was Henry VIII's most decisive step against the power of the church in 1538. First the small, less powerful houses had their property confiscated and their buildings blighted (made unsuitable for use). They were followed the next year by the large houses.

Philosophical concepts of the power of the king over church may have played a part in Henry's decision to suppress the monasteries, but so did greed. The monasteries were rich, and a lot of that wealth found its way directly or indirectly to the royal treasury. Some of the monastery buildings were sold to wealthy gentry for use as country estates. Many others became sources of cheap building materials for local inhabitants. One of the results of the Dissolution of the Monasteries is that those who bought the old monastic lands were inclined to support Henry in his break with Rome, purely from self interest.

Apart from that, the theatres were banned from the city by the city authorities or guilds because plays wasted workmen's time ( so it wasn't for religious objection to the play's contents ). Then, they were built in the Southwark, where now a reconstruction of the Globe can be visited to learn about Tudor theatre.

At that time, London's financial rival was the city of Amsterdam, and to be able to compete with it , an international exchange was created in 1566.

(It was founded by the mercer Thomas Gresham in 1566 to enable London to compete for financial power with Amsterdam. This became the Royal Exchange in 1560, and is now housed in a massive Victorian building beside the Bank of England Museum in Mansion House Square.)

So, all in all, and because of many other events and facts, we can say that both London and England were powerful.

Henry Tudor, named after his father, Henry VII, was born by Elizabeth of York June 28, 1491 in Greenwich Palace. Since he was the second son, and not expected to become king, we know little of his childhood until the death of his older brother Arthur, Prince of Wales. We know that Henry attended the wedding celebrations of Arthur and his bride, Catherine of Aragon, in November 1501 when he was 10 years old.

Henry was just shy of 18 years old when he became king, and had been preparing for it from the time of his older brother Arthur's death. At this age, he was not the image that we usually call to mind when we hear the name Henry VIII. He was not the overweight and ill man of his later years. In his youth, he was handsome and athletic. He was tall and had a bright red-gold cap of hair and beard, a far cry from the fat, balding and unhealthy man that is often remembered.

Shortly after becoming king, Henry VIII took Catherine of Aragon as his bride on 11 June 1509. He inherited £1.5 million pounds from his father and succeeded in the first peaceful transition of power after the Wars of the Roses. Henry brought a youth and vigor to the Court that had long been lacking and Henry dreamed of glory beyond the hunt and joust.

Catherine of Aragon gave birth to their first child, a son named Henry after his father, in January 1511. The child died two months later, and was destined to be the first of many unhappy births the couple would suffer. Henry consoled himself by going to war against France, hoping to emulate his ancestors Edward III and Henry V.