Historical tradition and anecdotal evidence suggest that Shakespeare acted in his own plays. It is widely believed that he played the role of the Ghost of King Hamlet in 'Hamlet' and the role of the faithful old servant Adam in 'As You Like It'. These roles were smaller but significant, allowing him to oversee the production while performing.

Milton's prose output was extensive, covering topics such as church governance, divorce reform, and freedom of the press. While he wrote many controversial tracts, 'Of Practical Exorcisme' is not among his documented works. His genuine prose works, such as 'Areopagitica' or his divorce pamphlets, demonstrate his commitment to radical reform and his intellectual engagement with the turbulent political climate of the 17th century.

When the Long Parliament convened in 1640, its primary goals were to reform the government, limit the king's arbitrary power, and remove his unpopular advisors. The execution of the king was not an initial objective; that outcome emerged much later as a result of the escalating tensions and the eventual outbreak of the English Civil War. The Parliament sought constitutional reform, not the immediate overthrow of the monarchy or the regicide that occurred in 1649.

Queen Elizabeth I often bestowed playful or affectionate nicknames upon her favorites at court. She famously called Sir Walter Raleigh 'Water', a pun on his surname 'Raleigh', which was pronounced similarly to 'rawly' or 'wrawly' in the Elizabethan dialect, sounding like 'water'. This nickname reflected their close, albeit often volatile, personal and political relationship during her reign.

'Samson Agonistes' is a closet drama written in the style of Greek tragedy, utilizing blank verse. It adheres to the classical unities of time, place, and action, and features a chorus, which was characteristic of the tragic form. Milton intended it to be a serious, elevated work that explores themes of suffering, faith, and redemption, fitting firmly within the tradition of blank verse tragedy.

John Milton's Paradise Lost is renowned for its 'Miltonic' style, which heavily incorporates Latinate syntax, vocabulary, and sentence structures. This stylistic choice reflects Milton's deep classical education and his desire to elevate the English epic to the stature of Virgil's Aeneid. The poem's complex, inverted word order and grandiloquent tone are distinctively influenced by the structure of the Latin language.

Blank verse is defined as unrhymed iambic pentameter. Milton's choice of this form for 'Paradise Lost' was revolutionary for an epic poem, as it allowed for a flexible, elevated, and grand narrative style that avoided the constraints of rhyme while maintaining a consistent rhythmic structure.

Queen Elizabeth I was frequently described by her contemporaries and historians as being notably frugal or 'stingy' with the royal treasury. This was often a strategic necessity to manage the crown's debts and maintain financial independence from Parliament. While she was highly intelligent and politically astute, her reputation for parsimony was a well-documented aspect of her governance and personal management style.

William Shakespeare was the third child born to John and Mary, but he was the first to survive infancy. When counting all children born to the couple, he is often cited as the fourth child in the family register, following Joan (who died in infancy), Margaret, and William.

Paradise Regained, published in 1671, is a four-book epic poem by John Milton. It specifically recounts the temptation of Jesus Christ by Satan in the wilderness, as described in the Gospel of Luke. It is often viewed as a companion piece to his earlier, more expansive epic, Paradise Lost, focusing on the restoration of humanity's relationship with God through Christ's resistance to evil.