SPOILERS AHEAD
The movie’s title was “The Golden Age”, a thing we never saw throughout the entire movie, there was no golden age in that movie. the whole freedom and prosperity were enjoyed after we left the theater, coz it ended when england prevailed. all we saw was the terror. the terror of a catholic king, trying to force the nations around him to submit to Christianity as He knew it, claiming its God’s will. see here is where the new (more efficient) form of terrorism first came to the scene IMO. not individual terrorist, not a group of people, But a whole nation of terrorists! killing and invading countries with the excuse of following God orders (more like following the nations’ interest imo). in the old age it was about whatever threatens Catholicism, and now its about what threatens certain nations’ national security… History repeats itself.. I guess..
Anyway! King philip of spain, a real catholic, wants to invade England and restore christianity in its most pure form. he’s doing so by plotting a very evil plan of letting Queen elizabeth execute Queen Mary of Scots (Mary Stewart) and by doing so, he’d find an excuse to invade and kill Q.Elizabeth. Mary was, according to the movie, writing secret letters to help plot the assassination of Queen Elizabeth. the letters were intercepted by Queen Elizabeth’s people and were eventually used against Mary, which ultimately led to a swift trial that ended with the beheading of Mary. And the war began.
overall I liked the movie and recommend it. I generally like movies that have historic events (I like them less if there were lots of killings), Cate blanchett did an oscar worthy job. She was nominated for an oscar in 1998 for the same part (this movie is a sequel, in case you don’t know).