The elizabethan era?

Question

what devlopments challenged the way individuals saw themselves and their place in the world?

what did the elizabethan people believe about fate?

Answer 1

The average person during's Elizabeth's age was still believing in fate.  

The humanists and scholars of the age were moving beyond that, but if you look at the popular plays and attitudes of the time, they spoke in terms of destinies.

The defeat of the Armada, for example, was said to be destined.  

That very defeat, however, did give Elizabethan English pride in their Navy and their accomplishments.  Remember, when Elizabeth came to the throne, England was in debt and on the verge of being a Spanish colony thanks to the marriage of Philip II and Mary Tudor.

Elizabeth changed all of that, but she was conscious to do it in a manner that did not offend the sensibilities of the men around here.  She roared like a lion when she had to, but she only rarely emasculated the men around her.  I believe that this is why she was such a flirt, frankly.  It was the best way for a women in her age to wield power.

Anyway, if you look at Shakespeare's works, his characters tend to be doomed by fate.  MacBeth, for example.  Or the "star-crossed" lovers of Juliet and her Romeo.  

Even Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is warned of the Ides of March in the play.

Carpe Diem becomes more in vogue in the 17th century, when we see the people depose a King.