Blackadder II size of the principal cast was reduced compared to the previous series, with a fixed number of characters appearing in every episode. Richard Curtis has been quoted as saying that due to the familiar cast, the series was the happiest for him to work on, comparing it to a "friendly bunch of school chums". The series also featured at least one significant cameo role per episode. Notable appearances include Rik Mayall as the debonair Lord Flashheart in "Bells"; Tom Baker and Simon Jones as Captain Redbeard Rum and Sir Walter Raleigh, respectively, in "Potato"; Miriam Margolyes, who had appeared in
Walter Raleigh Myrtle Grove is assumed to be the setting for the story that his servant doused him with a bucket of water after seeing clouds of smoke coming from Raleigh's pipe, in the belief that he had been set alight. But this story is also told of other places associated with Raleigh: the Virginia Ash Inn in Henstridge near Sherborne, Sherborne Castle, and South Wraxall Manor in Wiltshire, home of Raleigh's friend Sir Walter Long. Amongst Raleigh's acquaintances in Munster was another Englishman who had been granted land there, poet Edmund Spenser. In the 1590s, he and Raleigh travelled together from