Changes

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.