Elizabeth: The Golden Age her sister and successor, Elizabeth I, to marry him, but she would not agree. Phillip decided to take revenge. With the Pope's blessing, he launched the Spanish Armada to attack England, Protestantism, and Elizabeth herself. Sir Walter Raleigh, whom the Queen loved, married Elizabeth Throckmorton, a ward of Elizabeth's court, after learning she was carrying his child. Elizabeth I had both of them arrested, imprisoned in the Tower of London, and some time later released them. 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
Elizabeth Raleigh Elizabeth's mother, was the daughter of Nicholas Carew and Elizabeth Carew née Bryan. Nicholas had been a close friend of Henry's, from childhood until his execution in 1539. In her aforementioned book, Weir alleges that Elizabeth Carew had earlier been Henry VIII's mistress, and that he had given her jewels that should technically have belonged to the queen when the queen gave birth to her son. However, there exist no contemporaneous references to a possibility that any of Elizabeth's children were fathered by Henry. Bessie Throckmorton is a major character in Edward German's operetta "Merrie England" (1902). In the film