Good God, where to begin? Although, it should be noted that the director of Elizabeth and Elizabeth: The Golden Age stated that his original intent was to make films about Elizabeth I's reign, rather than accurate biopics.
Culture
- Throughout the films, bishops are shown wearing black mitres that they never would have worn in real life.
- Elizabeth reprimands one of her council members for divorcing twice. In reality, it was more or less impossible to obtain a divorce at this time — something that Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII, knew very well. Contrary to popular belief, Henry VIII did not divorce his wives even after splitting the Church of England from Rome, instead he annulled the marriages, meaning that the marriage had never existed in the first place.
- Frequently men at court are shown wearing long cloaks and carrying swords in the Queen's presence. Swords weren't allowed in court and Elizabeth actually banned long cloaks in case an assassin was hiding a weapon under it.
- Francis Throckmorton is hanged using the "long drop" method with a trapdoor. This method of execution was not invented until the 19th century. He was actually drawn and quartered.
- Walsingham went into exile in Switzerland and Padua, not France. France was a Catholic country, in midst of some savage wars of religion, in fact, and therefore the kind of place Protestants went into exile from.
- Tudor palaces were covered in wooden panelling and would have been less cavernous and uncomfortable than the Norman cathedrals used in the films. The only Norman building the Tudors made use of at any point was the Tower of London.
- In the second film, Elizabeth claims she will not persecute English citizens, either Protestant or Catholic, solely for their beliefs. In real life, she certainly did, with Catholics being actively coerced to join the Church of England during his reign. This also ignored that "beliefs" by themselves were only part of the problem at he time — what really mattered was their practical indissociation from political allegiance to either the Catholic Church (which could and would intervene in other countries to secure its rule) and the various reformed denominations like the Church of England (which placed secular and religious power on their monarch), without discounting competence between various Protestants currents themselves. The "freedom of conscience and thought" Elizabeth claims to want to preserve against the Spanish Inquisition never really existed, either towards Catholics or non-Anglican Protestants, which would be the cause of future conflicts.
- Philip II's royal carriage, as well as his ships' sails, sport the Imperial Banner of the Holy Roman Empire (a black double-headed eagle in a yellow field), which makes absolutely no sense for him. Philip was related by blood to the Holy Roman Emperor, his nephew Rudolf II, but their respective empires were politically separated and used their own heraldry each. In real life, Philip's banner should have been the Royal Pennon (his personal coat of arms in a crimson or white field).
- Presumably to underline his Catholic beliefs, Philip is shown followed everywhere by a procession of bishops and cardinals in full regalia, when not by an entire chorus of monks performing plainchant, all even in the most casual moments. Aside from it not making sense either, it contrasts with the real Philip favoring small entourages and having sober customs.
Characters
- Elizabeth may not have actually had a sexual encounter with Robert Dudley, and she did not cut her hair to show that she was a virgin. The wig is thought to have been to hide her greying hair and the white make-up to hide scars she got from smallpox.
- William Cecil was not even 40 by the time Elizabeth came to the throne, and she did not retire him by making him Lord Burghley: she ennobled him as a reward for his services and he remained her most loyal advisor until his death a few years before the queen's. Similarly, Francis Walsingham was only a few years older than Elizabeth. In the second film, Elizabeth visits him when he is dying. In real life she simply let him die in poverty and didn't go to see him.
- As far as characters' ages go, Kat Ashley goes the other direction from William Cecil. In the movie, she's de-aged to be about the same age as Elizabeth, when in reality, Ashley was Elizabeth's governess and a mother substitute for her from childhood.
- Henri of Anjou was probably not a crossdresser and he wasn't homosexual — the number of his female mistresses is almost uncountable; in addition, he and Elizabeth never met. He is also a Composite Character: in Real Life, Elizabeth's French suitor was his younger brother, Hercule Francis, who became Duke of Anjou — but not until 1576. Henri became King Henri III of France after their brother, Charles IX died in 1574, and the duchy of Anjou went to Francis as a result. He courted Elizabeth in 1579, when he was 24 and she 46 (and still capable of bearing children). Although this didn't pan out due to the complex politics of the time (and fear that Elizabeth would be at risk if she tried to bear children at her age), she was by all accounts genuinely fond of him despite the age gap, and the match was given far more serious consideration than the film depicts (even reaching an actual betrothal at one point).
- Marie of Guise was not Henri's aunt, or related to him by blood — her daughter Mary I of Scotland was married to Henri's eldest brother, Francis II of France (married from 1558 until his death in 1560 — childless, in fact); in fact, Henri's family, the House of Valois, were long-time rivals with Mary's House of Guise, and Henri never even met Marie of Guise in his lifetime.
- Mary I of England was actually very thin rather than overweight as in the film, and the Duke of Norfolk was a weak and easily-manipulated man rather than the film's powerful and scheming counterpart. Mary also died three years after the phantom pregnancy, and it's debatable whether she died of a tumour. The most common belief is that Mary died of cancer, but others believe she died of flu during an influenza epidemic. As well as that, Mary is believed to have had more than one phantom pregnancy; she had one when she was 37-38 and is thought to have had another at the age of 41, this phantom pregnancy thought to have been caused by cancer.
- Philip II of Spain appears here as a sickly, shadowy man with a dark beard and a creepy odd gait who is an incompetent and mentally unbalanced king, as well a religious fanatic of such level that he goes followed by sinister churchmen everywhere and looks like he uses his praying beads to contain anxiety attacks. The real Philip was decidedly a religious fanatic by modern standards and had a Control Freak nature that made him prone to blunders, but he was a highly intellectual, rational ruler with several successes in his foreign policies (it's just that his failures tend to overshadow them, especially depending on who is writing the story), not to mention he was quite handsome and athletic, and usually dressed and lived with sobriety. In fact, accounts of people who met him often explicitly state he was a very charming man, if an introverted one. His portrayal by Jordi Mollà also has him in a bad case of Evil Is Hammy, while the real Philip was instead famous for his Dissonant Serenity. Lastly, Philip at the time was 61, yet Mollà was almost half of that number at the time and looks even younger.
- Isabella Clara Eugenia, Infanta of Spain, is played here by a young girl, despite the real life person was in fact 21 at the time of the Armada. Like her father, emphasis is done in portraying her as a Creepy Child, when the real Isabella was known to be a very charismatic, cultured young woman. It strikes as odd in particular that the film shows her turning her back coldly to the crying Philip after the disaster in the Armada, as they were extremely close in real life, to the point of her being a classical Daddy's Girl.
- The second movie presents Eric XIV of Sweden and Ivan the Terrible as possible matchups for Elizabeth, when both of them were long dead by the year the film is set. By this point, Elizabeth was around 50 and the whole idea of marrying had been left behind.
- In the second film, Elizabeth frequently consults Dr. John Dee over various matters. However, Dee was abroad at this time and didn't return to England until more than a year after the Spanish Armada.
- Nearly everything that Sir Walter Raleigh does was actually done by Sir Francis Drake. Raleigh was kept in England when the Armada attacked because the Queen did not want him to be killed. Defeating the Armada was Drake's moment of triumph but he is hardly in the film. Also, Raleigh was not a pirate like Drake was.
- Mary, Queen of Scots's gaoler, Amyas Paulet, actually treated her rather well.
- Raleigh quite famously had a strong West Country accent that meant some courtiers had difficulty understanding him. Francis Drake also had the same accent.
- An Aversion, though possibly an accidental one — in the second film, Mary, Queen of Scots is portrayed with a Scottish accent. Many believe that she would have had a French one as a result of living in France for years since she was a child, but in reality it is the Scottish accent that is accurate as she went out of her way to maintain it while living in exile and most of the courtiers living with and looking after her were Scottish anyway.
- A minor case, and probably done to avoid the One-Steve Limit, but Mary Walsingham died as a child. The daughter of Walsingham who lived to adulthood was called Frances Walsingham.
- Francis Walsingham didn't have a younger brother called William, he was the youngest of six. He came from a very Protestant family, and none of them converted to Catholicism or conspired against Elizabeth.
Events
- Marie of Guise died of dropsy (in June 1560, after realizing she had it the previous April) rather than foul play by Francis Walsingham; this was confirmed by autopsy the day after her death. It is highly unlikely that the two of them were in a sexual relationship.
- Elizabeth knew full well that Robert Dudley was already married because she had attended his wedding, and her close relationship with him regardless guaranteed that practically the whole of Europe was aware of Dudley's wife being the primary reason Elizabeth couldn't marry him. Moreover, he wasn't banished for being involved in a Catholic plot (because he was a Puritan) but instead because of a scandal over the mysterious death of his first wife.
- Bishop Stephen Gardiner died in 1555, before Elizabeth came to the throne and thus could not possibly have been involved in any plots. The Earl of Arundel was not executed for his role but was instead imprisoned in the Tower of London where he died as a prisoner and the Earl of Sussex was actually a loyal supporter of Elizabeth who would not have tried to overthrow her.
- At the start of the film, the execution of Nicholas Ridley is shown with two other people, of which one must be Hugh Latimer. However, their companion, an unnamed woman, is made up because Ridley and Latimer weren't burnt with anyone else.
- Sir Thomas Elyot is beaten to death with a rock and drowned by Ballard for being The Mole. However, the real Elyot died at his estates in Cambridgeshire in 1546. He was also in his 50s.
- The assassination plots against Elizabeth are really muddled. The first movie has the Ridolfi plot of 1571, a conspiracy to assassinate Elizabeth, install Mary Queen of Scots on the throne, and have her marry the Duke of Norfolk. However, John Ballard is depicted being a participant in this plot, instead of the Babington plot he was actually a part of in 1586. Because he's shown being executed for the Ridolfi plot, the sequel had to replace him with the fictional Robert Reston to fill Ballard's part in the Babington plot. Several participants who are shown in the Ridolfi plot of the movie either didn't participate in real life (like Stephen Gardiner, who died before Elizabeth became Queen) or were pardoned and at most, only did some time in the Tower of London and were eventually released.
- The first film ends with the captions "Elizabeth reigned for another 40 years" (her full reign was almost 45, so the movie crams almost 20 years of anachronistic history into just under five); "Walsingham remained her most trusted and loyal advisor to the end" (subjective, as the likes of Dudley and Cecil probably have better claims) and "she never married and never saw Dudley in private again" (she and Dudley remained close friends until his death, so this is an outright lie).
- Unlike what the second film claims, Philip II didn't "plunge Europe into holy war". While he was certainly a hardliner that entangled Spain in all the religious conflicts between Catholic and Protestants he could reach, he actually kickstarted none of them. The French Wars of Religion were a ongoing civil war that had started when Philip was 7-year-old, while The Eighty Years' War in the Netherlands was similarly an internal conflict that had exploded out of local religious tensions behind Philip's back, whose causes soon become less about religion and more due to Philip's neglectful and iron-fisted management of the crisis (in fact, the rebel faction that rose against him for this was predominantly Catholic, with only the upper class being Protestant).
- Equally inaccurate is the claim that "only England stands against him", even although this seems to contradict the previous line that Philip was warring against at least a significant part of Europe. In reality, not only England was not his only opposition, it was not even his main opposition. Philip was mostly concerned with putting down the rebellion in the Spanish Netherlands and to help the French Catholic League place a Catholic monarch in their throne (especially if said monarch could be Isabella, whose mother belonged to the French house of Valois). At the point the movie starts, English were seen just as a maritime nuisance due to their attacks on Spanish shipping and ports, and conquering them was considered a mere detour of the war in the Netherlands meant to deprive the rebels from a foreign ally. The film generally makes a big deal out of the enmity Elizabeth and Philip, as if they were the two biggest players of the period, when in reality Philip's beefs with William of Orange and Henry of Navarre were way more relevant.
- The Spanish Armada was not built by ruinously deforesting Spain, as most of the ships that composed it were already existent and in service for Spain and Portugal (it also ignores that the necessary wood for a fleet of that size would be absolutely negligible for Spain's forests at the time, or even today). The film also simplifies greatly its assembling, with Philip managing to get it seaworthy in one month, while in real life the process was so troublesome and grueling (Sir Francis Drake destroyed many of the ships at one point in a daring attack) that its original commander, Álvaro de Bazán, had time to die of sickness.
- The Armada was very far from the greatest fleet ever assembled as Philip claims. With its crews of 29,000 men in 137 ships, it was utterly dwarfed by any of the contending forces in the then-recent Battle of Lepanto, not to talk about the major naval engagements of the Greco-Persian Wars and the Punic Wars of Antiquity. In fact, it was still technically smaller than Elizabeth's own fleet in port, only surpassing it in manpower due to many of the Iberian ships being bigger and heavier than their English counterparts. England later put together an English Armada with a pretty similar number, 27,000 men, which also failed disastrously in the attempt to capitalize on the chance to invade Spain.
- Raleigh returns from claiming the American territories of Virginia for the crown of England, with a couple of natives for extra flavor. In real life, Raleigh sent multiple expeditions, but never set foot on North America himself. He was generally not the hands-on kind of explorer seen in the film, being quite rich and having many people to do it for him, and only at the end of his life he did explore a bit of South America personally in the search of El Dorado (which eventually got him executed upon his return, as one of his liuetenants decided to attack Spanish settlements even although England and Spain had signed peace years earlier).
- Anthony Babington is depicted attempting to shoot at Elizabeth in St. Paul's Cathedral, which couldn't have possibly happened because he and the rest of the conspirators were all caught and arrested by the efforts of Francis Walsingham well before there was ever a threat to Elizabeth (as was the case with every other plot).
- As seen in the horses and soldiers, the film makes it look like the Spanish Armada sailed off carrying aboard the land army meant to invade England, which in reality was stationed in the Spanish Netherlands at the time and never got to join the fleet. While the armada did carry enough marines to believably perform an invasion by itself (the earliest draft of the plan had been to conquer Ireland with it, without any input from the Netherlands), its true role was to rendezvous with the Spanish elite army in Flanders and protect their carriers from the English navy while disembarking near London.
- The Earl of Nottingham states that the Spanish Armada has destroyed several English ships. In reality, the English didn't lose a single ship, as the armada never actually attacked before it was forced to withdraw.
- Elizabeth's dramatic speech to her troops is based on a real-life episode, the Speech to the Troops at Tilbury, but that's where the accuracies end. The real speech took place after the Battle of Gravelines, not before, and was a much longer and slightly different text (which is a pity because the original is awesome). In the film, Elizabeth also follows it up by gazing off at the raging battle... which actually happened off the coast of Europe. Meaning she's able to see all the way across the English Channel, not to mention all of Kent.
- The film also implies the Armada was completely destroyed by the storms, or at least critically damaged, but in real life most of it managed to return safely from the miscarriage that was the whole operation, losing around 35-40 ships out of the given number. Philip breaking down crying and hosting a giant Mass to pray to God for forgiveness is fictional; in real life, Philip took the failure in stride (legend has that he only snarked "I did not send my ships to fight against the elements") and didn't even blame the fleet's incompetent commander for it.note
- The film's epilogue claims the loss of the Armada was "the most humiliating defeat in Spain's naval history", which, aside from being rampantly inaccurate,note jives rather badly with the fact that this defeat was mainly inflicted by weather conditions and not by an enemy attack. The same epilogue also makes it look like the Spanish Armada was the final battle in the war, after which "England entered a time of peace and prosperity", when in real life the war continued for other sixteen years, with both Elizabeth and Philip dying before its ending (whether there were peace and prosperity in the subsequent gap before the English Civil War is debatable). The line about leaving Spain bankrupt is true, although a national bankrupt back then was not the kind of disaster it is today — Spain bankrupted and bounced back multiple times during its Habsburg era.
- Sir Walter Raleigh was not knighted to keep him in England but to reward his services. He was also knighted on his ship and not against his will. Although Raleigh was imprisoned by Elizabeth, it didn't happen until several years after the Armada.
- While Sir Walter Raleigh did have an affair and marry Bess Throckmorton, it was not right after her cousin's execution, but three years after the defeat of the Spanish Armada.
- When Elizabeth has Raleigh and Bess released from the Tower of London, the film suggests that Elizabeth did this as a magnanimous gesture of forgiveness, when she actually only reluctantly released Raleigh because his men were threatening to withhold the queen's share of the spoils from the Second Battle of Flores, and released Bess out of guilt over the fact that the baby she conceived with Raleigh died of plague while she was incarcerated in the Tower.
