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The Favourite, a British made movie was one of the most critically acclaimed movies of 2018. It is a historical drama set in one of the key periods of British history. It focuses on the relationship of Queen Anne of Great Britain with two of the ladies in her court, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough and Abigail Hill, between 1708 and 1712. The motion picture is a darkly comic one and is in many ways not a typical historical drama. It was directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara. Queen Anne was played by Olivia ColemanColman, who won an Academy Award for Best Actress, for he performance. Abigail Hill was played by Emma Stone. Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough was played by Rachel Weisz and her husband the Duke of Marlborough was played by Mark Gatis. This article will evaluate the historical accuracy of the acclaimed 2018 movie.

Set The movie is set in the early 1700s the movie concentrates on the period last years of the War of the Spanish Succession (1700-1715). This was a great struggle between France and Britain and their respective allies. In a series of victories, the Duke of Marlborough, a military genius, defeated the armies of the French. This war was to prove to be a key turning point in the history of Europe. As it marked the end of French expansion under Louis IV and the rise of the British Empire <ref>Coward, Barry. The Stuart Age: England, 1603-1714 (London, Routledge, 2014), p. 287</ref>. Despite the victories, the war was not popular in Britain, because it led to high taxes. There was a great deal of factionalism in the country and it was divided into political lines. The Tories were conservatives, who disliked the war and ideas of Empire, while the Whigs were imperialists and more liberal. Both sides sought to influence Queen Anne (1665 –1714), who had immense political power and who could appoint ministers and prorogue Parliament <ref>Coward, p 289</ref>. The movie captures very well the political passions of the time and how they led to a great deal of political in-fighting at court. However, the customs of clothes worn by the actors in the movies have been criticized as for not being historically accurate. In the 2018 movie, Sarah (Rachel Weisz) is shown dressed in masculine attire, including breachespants. This was not historically correct and if Sarah she had dressed like this, it would have caused a scandal and would have resulted in her being immediately dismissed from Court.

The characters in the movie are all based on historical figures. The central figure in the movie is Queen Anne. She became Queen after the death of her sister Mary I in 1702 and was the last of the Stuart Dynasty and had married Prince George of Denmark. In the movie, she is shown as being very ill and suffering from a number of ailments. That was true and she suffered from gout and this meant that she had to be carried around in a Sedan Chair, which meant that she was not able to take a very active part in the politics of the time. Anne was a rather tragic figure and was indeed pregnant 17 times as mentioned in the drama. She tragically had 12 miscarriages and delivered five children and only one of these made it past their second birthday. Her longest-lived child, the Prince of Gloucester, died before his 12th birthday. These tragedies profoundly affected her, and she was a deeply unhappy person. Olivia Coleman Colman portrays the Queen as an eccentric, insecure and unstable, but this was not the case. Anne could be volatile and emotional, but she was much more stable than Coleman’s portrayal. She was a deeply religious woman, and this was crucial to her character and her reign, and this is not really shown in Lanthimos work. She opposed her father, King James II pro-Catholic policies because of her devotion to the Church of England. Moreover, she was not as foolish figure as played by Olivia Coleman but was rather a capable ruler who brought much-needed stability to her realm <ref> Waller, Maureen. Sovereign Ladies: The Six Reigning Queens of England (London: John Murray, 2006), p 213</ref>. In many scenes, Anne is shown with rabbits whom she treats like children. In reality, the Queen did not keep rabbits as pets, and this is pure invention. Sarah, the Duchess of Marlborough is shown as an imposing and temperamental woman who is power-hungry. This representation was accurate, and she was a committed Whig. The movie does show her commitment to her husband the Duke of Marlborough, even when he was at war for years on end. Rachel Weisz does capture the character of Sarah and her indomitable spirit <ref>Field, Ophelia. Sarah Churchill Duchess of Marlborough: The Queen's Favourite (London, St. Martin's Press, 2016), p 113</ref>. As shown in the movie she used her position as the favorite of Queen Anne to become very influential. The loss of the monarch’s favor resulted in her removal from court, as portrayed in the drama. Abigail Hill, later Masham was as shown in the movie a poor relative of the powerful Sarah. She was taken into her service out of kindness as described in the 2018 movie. As in the motion picture, her family had been ruined by her father’s gambling habit, but he did not sell her, after losing at a game of cards <ref>Field, p 119</ref>. Abigail was a servant at the Court of the Queen but unlike the movie, she was not a humble maid, but a lady-in-waiting. This allowed her to come to the attention of Queen Anne. In real-life Abigail was not as bold or assertive as portrayed by Emma Stone and she was in reality, demure and even retiring. However, she did marry a court attendant called Masham as portrayed in the movie. The representation of some of the other characters is often not historically accurate. For example, the memorable Lord Harley was not a handsome young man as shown in the movie but a middle-aged man one at the time of the events.

The movie focuses on the relationships between Anne, Sarah, and Abigail. The movie does show how influential Sarah was at the Court. She had met the future Queen in the 1660s when they were both children and Sarah had been kind and friendly to the young Royal. They were very close and even when they were parted they would communicate by letters. Sarah was some five years older than Anne and this allowed her to have a great deal of influence over the future Queen and when Anne married George of Denmark, she became Lady of the Bedchamber. In 1702, when the last of the Stuart’s was crowned Queen she appointed Sarah Mistress of the Robe, who also assumed a series of other offices. These gave her a great deal of power and she could control who had access to the Queen. Sarah was a beautiful and vivacious woman and she often dominated her Queen. She could be very brutal with her and even condescending. Sarah’s influence over Anne was crucial and instrumental in the rise of her husband the Duke of Marlborough and his prosecution of the war against France and her allies <ref>Chalus, Elaine. "‘Ladies are often very good scaffoldings’: Women and Politics in the Age of Anne." Parliamentary History 28, no. 1 (2009): 150-165 </ref>. The relationship between Sarah and her monarch was largely accurate.