ward of Elizabeth's court, after learning she was carrying his child. Elizabeth I had both of them arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London, but later released them. Dramatic licence This representation of a historical period is heavily fictionalised for the purposes of entertainment. The film's lead Cate Blanchett was reported as saying: "It's terrifying that we are growing up with this very illiterate bunch of children, who are somehow being taught that film is fact, when in fact it's invention". Some of the simpler fictions are: Sir Walter Raleigh is falsely portrayed as a major figure in the defeat of the Spanish Armada and does not so credit Sir Francis Drake and other key leaders. Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, was lieutenant general at the Armada crisis, but in the film, he is not present at the Tilbury camp, his role having been given to Raleigh. The movie also does not make mention of Dudley's military campaign in the Netherlands. Charles Howard (Lord Howard of Effingham, the actual commander of the English fleet), says at one point, "We're losing too many ships." In reality, not a single English ship was lost during the battle. The film depicts Elizabeth being advised by Dr John Dee. Historically, Dee was travelling the continent throughout the period depicted and did not return until more than a year after the defeat of the Armada. Elizabeth's actual main advisor and chief minister, William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, is omitted from the film altogether. The portrayed Jesuit leader of the Babington Plot, Robert Reston, is completely fictional, though based on the real-life Jesuit John Ballard, who encouraged Babington to initiate the assassination attempt on Elizabeth, which would subsequently begin the chain of events leading to the Spanish invasion. However, because Ballard was depicted being executed in the previous film for participating in the Ridolfi plot, the persona of Reston was created to replace him. In the film, Elizabeth is confronted at the altar of Old St Paul's Cathedral by Anthony Babington, who has a pistol charged with powder but no shot. The real Babington Plot was, like preceding plots against Elizabeth, discovered and thwarted by Francis Walsingham's investigative efforts while still in the planning stages, long before there was any threat of harm to Elizabeth. The film also depicts Babington (and, implicitly, the other conspirators) as having been hanged by long drop, rather than