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
Curio maximus senior "interrex". The earliest "curio maximus" identified as such is Servius Sulpicius (consul 500 BC), who held the office in 463. The first plebeian to hold the office was elected in 209 BC. The election of a plebeian to succeed an impeccably pedigreed Aemilius Papus was predictably controversial, even though the office of "curio maximus" had become "anachronistic and somewhat bizarre," and the election of both a plebeian "pontifex maximus" as early as 254 BC and "rex sacrorum" just the previous year would have seemed to clear the way. When the patricians objected to the candidacy of C. Mamilius Atellus,