Shakespeare in Love that the claim was "unwarranted". The film is "not constrained by worries about literary or historical accuracy" and includes anachronisms such as a reference to Virginia tobacco plantations, at a time before the Colony of Virginia existed. A leading character is a member of the House of Wessex, which died out in 1066. Queen Elizabeth I never entered a public theatre, as she does in the film. Between "Romeo and Juliet" and "Twelfth Night", Shakespeare wrote ten other plays over a period of six years. The biggest historical liberty concerns the central theme of Shakespeare struggling to create the story
Ghost character that when Shakespeare dramatised the poem and expanded Mercutio's role, he introduced a brother for him in order to suggest a more fraternal character. Shakespeare appears to be the first dramatist to have used the name Valentine prior to "Romeo and Juliet", but he himself had actually used the name previously. In "Two Gentlemen of Verona", a play about two brothers and also set in Verona, Valentine is a true and constant lover and Proteus is a fickle one. While not primarily based on it, "Two Gentlemen of Verona" adapts several incidents from Brooke's poem, and in all these instances