90% Fiction

Rating: 1/10 (2 January 2019)

I do not like movies that slaughter history, and this one is worse than most. the acting and production value was tops, but the costumes and the accents were not. i wish I had read up on it before seeing it. Here are just a few....
Queen Anne didn't let bunnies hop around her bedroom. That right there should tell you a lot about the movie.
The whole movie was about sexual relationships between Queen Anne and Lady Marlborough and Abigail Hill- never happened as far as anyone knows.There was a poem believed to have been written by Whig propagandist Arthur Mainwaring, (died in 1648) which suggested that there was a lesbian relationship between Anne and her chambermaid, Abigail Hill. Historians largely believe that Sarah circulated it out of jealousy rather than truth. Blenhim was built 1705-1722 and the movie takes place before construction was begun..
The clothing was all wrong for the time. Sarah Marlborough wore men's clothing a lot of the time.
Tory leader Robert Harley was not an attractive young 20-something during the reign of Queen Anne.
Sarah (aka the Duchess of Marlborough) realized she was no longer Queen Anne's favourite in 1707 after she learned that Abigail had married Samuel Masham, a groom in the bedchamber of Anne's husband. Anne's husband died in 1708.
The rivalry did not reach the life and death stakes seen in the movie. Much of the rivalry was born out of the fact that Sarah and Abigail opposed each others politics.