That's All Fawkes! Top 10 Films Set in the Stuart Era

There are two reasons why Cinema Paradiso is heading back to the 1600s. Firstly, it's Bonfire Night and everyone knows that Guy Fawkes tried to blow up Parliament on 5 November 1605. Secondly, the head of state is called King Charles for the first time since 1685. But there's much more to discover about the 17th century on screen than historical facts and figures...

As with most things during the Tudor and Stuart periods of British history, the Gunpowder Plot came about because of a clash of religious ideologies. Its roots lay further back, however, in an unhappy marriage between a teenaged English nobleman and the Queen of Scotland. As is made clear in both Charles Jarrott's Mary, Queen of Scots (1971) and Josie Rourke's Mary Queen of Scots (2018), the match between the monarch and Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley proved brief and unhappy.

It did, however, produce a son, as John Ford showed in Mary of Scotland (1936), which stars Katharine Hepburn. He became James VI of Scotland at the age of 13 months, when his mother was forced to abdicate. Although she would live until 1587, Mary saw little of her heir, who endured four regencies before taking full control of his country in 1583. He was still an experienced ruler by the time he became James I of England in 1603, following the death of Elizabeth I. As Claude Whatham explains in the classic BBC series, Elizabeth R (1971), she had died childless and the throne passed to her nearest relative, who was the great-great grandson of Henry VII.

Remember, Remember

The Union of the Crowns was far from popular, however, and a group of Roman Catholic conspirators led by Robert Catesby sought to assassinate the king and place his nine year-old daughter, Elizabeth, on the throne. As James was due to open Parliament on 5 November 1605, it was decided to blow up the House of Lords with 36 barrels of gunpowder. However, the government was informed of the plot and Guy Fawkes was caught red-handed in Westminster on 4 November.

Those wishing to learn more about the complex dynastic politics of the period should seek out Gunpowder, Treason & Plot (2004), a BBC mini-series written by Jimmy McGovern and directed by Gilles Mackinnon. The first part focuses on Clémence Poésy as Mary, Queen of Scots, while the second shifts to Robert Carlyle as James I. Michael Fassbender plays Fawkes, who hailed from York and had become familiar with munitions while fighting for the Spanish in the Dutch Revolt.

Ernest G. Batley's Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot (1913) appears to be the earliest British film about the conspiracy, with Caleb Porter in the title role. Matheson Lang took over for Maurice Elvey's Guy Fawkes (1923), which was based on an 1840 novel by Harrison Ainsworth and co-starred Hugh Buckler as Catesby and Jerrold Robertshaw as James I. Curiously, it seems that nobody returned to the subject before Martin Shaw played Fawkes in The Gunpowder Plot (1968), a BBC dramatisation that was scripted by Stuart Hood and narrated by John Gregson.

Similarly mixing historical fact and dramatic reconstruction The Gunpowder Plot 1605 (1993) was followed by Nick Knowles fronting Rupert Miles's Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot (2002). Medium Derek Acorah led the search in Quest For Guy Fawkes (2005), while Toby Jones narrated Guy Fawkes (2015), which formed part of a series called The Last Days of...

Writer-director Adam Kemp returned to the words of Fawkes and his co-conspirators in the provocatively titled BBC documentary, Gunpowder 5/11: The Greatest Terror Plot (2014). The Corporation was also behind J. Blakeson's Gunpowder (2017), a three-part serial that employed the strapline, 'Behind every plot is a mastermind.' Tom Cullen plays Guy Fawkes, but the casting coup saw Kit Harington play Robert Catesby. Best known for his performance as Jon Snow in Game of Thrones (2011-19), he is descended from the architect of the plot on his mother's side and his full name is Christopher Catesby Harington.

Macbeth (1948), which is one of several adaptations available to rent from Cinema Paradiso. Jon Finch took the title role for Roman Polanski in 1971 before it passed to Ian McKellen for Philip Casson in 1978. Brian Cox voiced the character for Shakespeare: The Animated Tales (1992), who has since been succeeded by Jason Connery for Jeremy Freeston (1997), Sam Worthington for Geoffrey Wright (2006), Patrick Stewart for Rupert Goold (2010), and Michael Fassbender for Justin Kurzel (2015). There are also three records of Giuseppe Verdi's tenth opera on offer for rental, directed by Gary Halvorson for the Metropolitan Opera (2014), Matthew Diamond for the LA Opera (2016), and Phyllida Lloyd for the Royal Opera House (2018).

As mentioned in Cinema Paradiso's Getting to Know Denzel Washington article, it's a frustration that Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021) is currently unavailable. But the monumental BBC Television Shakespeare collection is available in its entirety, which means it's possible to see Nicol Williamson in Jack Gold's Macbeth, as well as Kate Nelligan and Tim Pigott-Smith in Jack Gold's Measure For Measure (both 1979). Dating from 1603-04, this was the first play that Shakespeare completed under James I and it has since been filmed by Bob Komar in 2006, with Josephine Rogers and Daniel Roberts taking on the roles of Isabella and Angelo.

Written around the same time, Othello has become one of Shakespeare's more problematical plays, as the Moor of Venice has been essayed by so many actors in blackface. In addition to Orson Welles in his 1951 adaptation, Cinema Paradiso also offers Laurence Olivier in Stuart Burge's 1965 interpretation, with Maggie Smith as Desdemona and Frank Finlay as Iago; Anthony Hopkins, Penelope Wilton and Bob Hoskins in Jonathan Miller's 1981 BBC take; William Marshall, Jenny Agutter and Ron Moody in Franklin Melton's 1981 video variation; and Willard White, Ian McKellen and Imogen Stubbs in Trevor Nunn's 1990 feature.

Among the later plays, the BBC Shakespeare comes into its own with Kevin Billington's Henry VIII (1979), Elijah Moshinsky's All's Well That Ends Well, Jonathan Miller's Timon of Athens, Jane Howell's The Winter's Tale (all 1981), Moshinsky's Cymbeline (1983) and Coriolanus, and David Jones's Pericles, Prince of Tyre (both 1984) all forming part of Cinema Paradiso's 100,000-title catalogue. Ralph Fiennes, of course, headlined Julie Taymor's bruising big-screen reading of Coriolanus (2011). As mentioned in Getting to Know Helen Mirren, Taymor also reimagined the role of Prospero in her 2010 retelling of The Tempest, a play that has also inspired Derek Jarman in 1979 and John Gorrie in the 1980 BBC version, which features as standout performance by Michael Hordern.

The remaining Jacobean plays are perhaps better known. Charlton Heston directed himself and Hildegard Neil Antony and Cleopatra (1972), since when Colin Blakely and Jane Lapotaire have teamed for Jonathan Miller's 1981 BBC version, while Lawrence Carra brought together Timothy Dalton and Lynn Redgrave for a 1983 teleplay.

Shakespeare never managed to put Boudicea or King Arthur on his 'to do' list. But the tale of an ancient English monarch who comes to regret dividing his lands between his three daughters certainly caught his attention. Several versions of King Lear are available from Cinema Paradiso, including those starring Paul Scofield (Peter Brook, 1971), Jüri Järvet (Grigori Kozintsev, 1971), James Earl Jones (Edwin Sherin, 1974), Patrick Magee (Tony Davenall, 1974), Michael Hordern (Jonathan Miller, 1982), Laurence Olivier (Michael Elliot, 1983), Ian Holm (Richard Eyre, 1997), Ian McKellen (Trevor Nunn, 2008), and Don Warrington (Michael Buffong, 2016). Brian Blessed also directed himself in King Lear (1999) and intriguingly cast Hildegarde Neil as The Fool.

Shakespeare lived until 2016 and Kenneth Branagh explored his later years in All Is True (2018), which was covered in depth in 10 Films to Watch If You Liked All Is True. The screenplay was written by Ben Elton, who put a comic spin on the Bard's travails in Upstart Crow (2016-18), which starred David Mitchell. Richard Bracewell's Bill (2015) and John Madden's multi-Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love (1998) respectively depicted Stratford's favourite son at the start of his career and in the depths of a creative crisis. Rafe Spall plays the role in Roland Emmerich's Anonymous (2011), which advances the theory that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (Rhys Ifans) was the author of the plays usually attributed to Shakespeare. A couple of items have focussed on his later life, however, including John McKay's TV drama, A Waste of Shame (2005), which was written by William Boyd and stars Rupert Graves as Shakespeare around the time his Sonnets were published in 1609.

By the Sword Divided

Down the years, James I has had bit parts in various film and television dramas. He was nicknamed 'the wisest fool in Christendom', but he was a capable king who united the crowns of Scotland and England without open hostility. However, he did sew the seeds for future contention by establishing the Plantation in Ulster and the first colonies in North America. Disney fans will hear Jim Cummings voicing the king in Tom Ellery's Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World (1998), while he was also played by Jonathan Pryce in Terrence Malick's The New World (2005), which teams Colin Farrell and Q'orianka Kilcher as Captain John Smith and Pocahontas. Queen Anne is played by Alexandra Malick.

Dudley Sutton essayed James I in Sally Potter's Orlando (1992), which also featured Quentin Crisp as Elizabeth I, as the action opens in 1603. At this stage of this captivating adaptation of Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel, Orlando (Tilda Swinton) is a male courtier, who is promised a vast estate if he avoids ageing. After a couple of centuries of luxury, however, Orlando turns into a woman during a visit to the Ottoman Empire and has to fight to retain her lands at a time when women were not permitted to own property.

More recently, a couple of Scots have played James on screen. Ewen Bremner is lined up to replace Helen Mirren in Tom Hooper's acclaimed TV series, Elizabeth I (2005), while, in 2018, Alan Cumming made a grand entrance in 'The Witchfinders', which was the first episode in which Jodie Whitaker took the lead in Doctor Who (1963-). James was also enacted by Matthew Baynton and Jalaal Hartley in episodes of Horrible Histories (2009-21), which also cast the former and Adam Riches as his son, Charles I.

A very different character to his father, Charles had an autocratic streak that seemed destined to bring him into conflict with his intractable Parliament. This isn't the place to explore the complex causes of the English Civil War, but the essential facts are laid out well in Ken Hughes's Cromwell (1970), which pitted Alec Guinness's monarch against Richard Harris's brimstone-breathing Oliver Cromwell.

Charles had first been seen on screen in Edwin Greenwood's silent short, Henrietta Maria, or The Queen of Sorrow (1923), which had paired Russell Thorndike and Janet Alexander, as the French queen who bore seven children. She would have Maryland named after her, but her Catholicism made her unpopular with the Puritans, who were gaining a foothold in the Commons. With Charles seeking to arrest ringleaders and dissolve Parliament in the early 1640s, war between the Cavaliers and the Roundheads became inevitable.

Kenelm Foss's The Breed of the Treshams (1920) seems to be the earliest feature to centre on the English Civil War, while its effects dictated the action in Henry Edwards's The Vicar of Bray (1937). It wasn't until 1963, however, that Hammer brought some colour to John Gilling's The Scarlet Blade (1963), the story of a daring bid to rescue the captured Charles (Robert Rietty) from the ruthless Colonel Judd (Lionel Jeffries) and his sidekick, Captain Sylvester (Oliver Reed).

By contrast with this swashbuckling adventure, the BBC serial, By the Sword Divided (1983-85), chronicled the war in a more sombre manner over 20 episodes detailing the divisions within the Lacey and Fletcher families. Jeremy Clyde played Charles I in the first series, while Peter Jeffrey was Cromwell. Clyde also appeared in regal guise in a 1977 adaptation of Captain Frederick Marryat's The Children of the New Forest. Cinema Paradiso users, however, can see Andrew Morgan's 1988 BBC adaptation, which follows the fortunes of the four Beverly siblings after their father perishes at the Battle of Naseby and they are smuggled into the woodland protection of Jacob Armitage (Malcolm Storry).

Peter Capaldi wore the crown in Peter Flannery and Mark Munden's The Devil's Whore (2008), a BAFTA-winning Channel Four mini-series that was filmed in South Africa. Spanning the quarter century from 1636, the action centred on Royalist Angelica Fanshawe (Andrea Riseborough), whose support for Oliver Cromwell (Dominic West) begins to grow after she falls for Thomas Rainsborough (Michael Fassbender), a Leveller member of the New Model Army. Plotting against the Commonwealth, however, is the disillusioned Edward Sexby (John Simm). A sequel, New Worlds (2014), would continue the story in England and Massachusetts.

Sexby would share a fate with Charles I, which is outlined in tactful detail in Mike Barker's To Kill a King (2003), which takes a rather lax attitude towards historical fact in showing how the monarch (Rupert Everett) becomes a casualty of the rivalry between Thomas Fairfax (Dougray Scott), the Parliamentary commander-in-chief, and his deputy, Oliver Cromwell (Tim Roth).

Any Old Ironsides

Having served as MP for Huntingdon and Cambridge, Oliver Cromwell was named Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1653. Given his historical significance, it's perhaps surprising that he has not been depicted on screen more frequently. However, he remains a controversial figure, for his dictatorial stance and religious strictness, and for the brutality of his campaign in Ireland. The impact of the invaders on Kilkenny in 1650 is explored in Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart's Wolfwalkers (2020), a powerful animated fable that completes the 'Irish Folklore Trilogy' that had started with The Secret of Kells (2009) and Song of the Sea (2014).

Although Cromwell doesn't feature in either, the prevailing mood of the times is compellingly recreated in a pair of monochrome pictures, Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's Winstanley (1975) and Ben Wheatley's A Field in England (2013). Set in 1649, the former centres on the Digger community formed at St George's Hill in Surrey by Gerrard Winstanley (Miles Halliwell), whose advocacy of common ownership incurred the wrath of both Presbyterian pastor John Platt (David Bramley) and the leader of the Ranters (Sid Rawle). The West Country provides the backdrop for the latter, which takes places during the war and accompanies a necromancer named O'Neil (Michael Smiley), as he searches for a stash of gold and introduces subservient scholar Whitehead (Reece Shearsmith) to the dubious delights of hallucinogenic mushrooms.

The dark arts play a significant part in several films set during the Cromwellian era, as the Puritans sought to remove Popery from the Church of England and rid the country of the superstitions associated with witchcraft. By far the best known is Michael Reeves's Witchfinder General (1968), an adaptation of a Ronald Bassett novel that stars Vincent Price as lawyer Matthew Hopkins, who falsely claims to have been given power by Parliament to persecute suspects.

Remaining in the horror genre, Piers Haggard's The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971) takes us to a 17th-century village that has turned into a coven of devil worshippers after a farmer unearths a skull. Patrick Wymark (who had played Cromwell in Witchfinder General) seeks to save souls as a merciless judge.

James Purefoy essays the privateer who turns demon hunter in Michael J. Bassett's Solomon Kane (2009), which is set in the early 1600s and is based on a pulp magazine character created in 1928 by Robert E. Howard. Saved from execution, Persephone (Hannah Arterton) is sent to repent her sins in the remote priory presided over by a strict mother superior (Clare Higgins). However, she comes face to face with The Diabolical (Ryan Oliva) in Paul Hyett's Heretiks (aka The Convent, 2018).

Thomas Clay takes us to rural Shropshire in 1657 for Fanny Lye Deliver'd (2019), where the eponymous heroine (Maxine Peake) lives in fear of her war veteran husband, John (Charles Dance). However, she lands in further trouble when she offers sanctuary to Levellers Thomas (Freddie Fox) and Rebecca (Tanya Reynolds). There's more Salopian prejudice on show in Iain Ross-McNamee's Crucible of the Vampire (2019), which includes flashbacks to the 17th century, as historian Katie Goldfinch stays at the creaky mansion owned by Larry Rew and daughter Florence Cady while searching for the missing half of a valuable crucible.

Straying just outside the Protectorate (both temporally and geographically) are Jesús Franco's The Bloody Judge (1970), which features Christopher Lee as the notorious Judge Jeffreys; Roy Ward Baker's Twins of Evil (1971), which is set in the Hapsburg province of Styria; and Neil Marshall's The Reckoning (2020), which centres on the Plague and witchery in the 1660s. But rules exist to be bent in Cinema Paradiso articles and a similarly cavalier (ahem) attitude to historical fact underpins The Witchfinder (2022), a BBC sitcom set in 1640s East Anglia that follows the efforts of Gideon Bannister (Tim Key) to bring Thomasine Gooch (Daisy May Cooper) to trial.

Still on the light side, Bill Fraser plays Cromwell in a haunted house daydream, as he and Charles II (Jon Pertwee) compete for the affections of a courtesan in a segment of Ralph Thomas's hiccups comedy, Helter Skelter (1949). Warren Clarke also pops up as the Protector opposite Stephen Fry's Charles I in the 1988 Comic Relief sketch, Blackadder: The Cavalier Years. And don't forget Larry Lewin's turn as Old Noll in the ever-enjoyable Horrible Histories.

Heirs and Graces

Although Scotland proclaimed Charles II king shortly after his father's execution on 30 January 1649, England entered the Interregnum that lasted until the toppling of Richard Cromwell on 25 May 1659. Having lived in exile in the United Provinces and France, Charles was welcomed back into London on 29 May 1660, which just happened to be his 30th birthday.

Given that his life was fraught with danger and intrigue, it's surprising that Charles II has been more of a bit player than a leading man, when it comes to films and television. He was most in demand in the silent era, when Augustus Neville's appearance in Australian Raymond Longford's now lost Sweet Nell of Old Drury (1911) was followed by P.G. Ebbutt taking the role in two Wilfred Noy offerings, King Charles and Old St Paul's (both 1913). Owen Moore was paired with Mary Pickford in James Kirkwood's Mistress Nell (1915), while Henry Victor doubled as Charles I and Charles II in Maurice Elvey's The Royal Oak (1923), which also included Henry Ainley as Oliver Cromwell.

As none of these has ever been released on disc, the earliest Carolean saga that Cinema Paradiso can offer is Herbert Wilcox's Nell Gwyn (1934), a remake of the director's 1926 silent, with Anna Neagle and Cedric Hardwicke taking the roles previously played by Dorothy Gish and Randle Ayrton. Sadly, no one has thought to release W.P. Lipscomb's Captain Blood (1934), which recreates the 1671 bid to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.

Allan Jeayes featured as Charles II, who was briefly seen in the form of K. Hamilton Price in The Vicar of Bray, Vincent Price in Irving Pichel's Hudson's Bay (1941), and Dennis Arundell in Lance Comfort's Penn of Pennsylvania (1942). Historian Clare Jackson covers this period in two excellent BBC series, The Stuarts (2014) and The Stuarts in Exile (2015), which are available from Cinema Paradiso in a single set. Sadly, though, we're not able to bring you Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. being wary of the machinations of Countess Annbella de Courteuil (Maria Montez), while careering around the Dutch Republic in 1660 in Max Ophüls's The Exile (1947).

This was adapted from a novel by Cosmo Hamilton and Kathleen Winsor's page-turner provides the inspiration for Otto Preminger's Forever Amber (1947), which sees Amber St Clair (Linda Darnell) dazzle at the court of Charles II (George Sanders in a role he would reprise in Robert Z. Leonard's The King's Thief, 1955) while waiting for the fates to bring her together with Bruce Carlton (Cornel Wilde). Considered scurrilous in its day, this handsome costume romp would make a fine double bill with Walter Forde's Cardboard Cavalier (1949), if only it was on disc, as Sid Field and Margaret Lockwood forge a splendidly unlikely bond as Sidcup Buttermeadow and Nell Gwynne, as power switches from Oliver Cromwell (Edmund Willard) to Charles II (Anthony Hulme).

Lockwood was possibly Britain's biggest star during the 1940s, with her most notorious triumphs coming in Gainsborough bodice-rippers like Leslie Arliss's The Wicked Lady (1945). This was adapted from the Magdalen King-Hall novel, Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Shelton, which was reportedly based on the criminous exploits of Lady Katherine Ferrers. Faye Dunaway headlined Michael Winner's 1983 remake, but this is as unavailable as Hugh Grant's dashing turn as The Silver Blade in John Hough's The Lady and the Highwayman (1989), in which Michael York plays the king.

Thankfully, Cinema Paradiso users can click to order David MacDonald's The Moonraker (1958), a spirited swashbuckler that's set in 1651 and follows Anthony, Earl of Dawlish (George Baker), as he tries to spirit Charles Stuart (Gary Raymond) to Holland from under the nose of Oliver Cromwell (John Le Mesurier) after the Battle of Worcester. 'Tis pity that Tony Palmer's England, My England (1993) and Michael Hoffman's Restoration (1995) are missing, as they are fine films and Simon Callow and Sam Neill more than do justice to the role of the Merrie Monarch.

So does Rufus Sewell in Joe Wright's BAFTA-winning Charles II: The Power and the Passion (2003), which examines the psychological effects on Charles of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639-52), his battles with Parliament, and his relationships with Catherine of Braganza (Shirley Henderson), Nell Gwynn (Emma Pierson), and Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine (Helen McCrory). Another small-screen serial worth catching is Jon Jones's The Great Fire (2014), which centres around Sunday 2 September 1666 and features Jack Huston as Charles II and Daniel Mays as Samuel Pepys. A more factual account is provided in Stuart Elliott's The Great Fire (2017).

The East Lyn Valley in Exmoor provides the setting for much of R.D. Blackmore's classic novel, Lorna Doone, which sees the outlaw clan of the heroine oppose her romance with Devonian farmer, John Ridd. Following silent adaptations directed by Wilfred Noy (1912) and Maurice Tourneur (1922), Margaret Lockwood took the title role in Basil Dean's Lorna Doone (1934), which can be found on Volume 11 of the Ealing Rarities Collection. A further feature version was made with Barbara Hale and Richard Greene by Phil Karlson in 1951, since when there have been television versions of by John Craft (1976) , Andrew Grieve (1990), and Mike Barker (2000) - the first and third of which are available from Cinema Paradiso, with

Emily Richard and Amelia Warner respectively in the leads.

Frustratingly, Julia Foster's glorious performance in Donald McWhinnie's 1975 BBC adaptation of Daniel Defore's Moll Flanders is not available. But Alex Kington proves equally compelling in Pen Densham's feature version, Moll Flanders (1996), which opens in the late 17th-century. Speaking of literary classics, John Bunyan's 1678 allegory, The Pilgrim's Progress, was turned into an imposing animation by Robert Fernandez in 2019.

The intense spirituality espoused in this religious classic would have suited the Puritans far more than any public performance. Theatres had been viewed as places of potential disorder and had been closed on Cromwell's orders. Their re-opening after 18 years was the source of much rejoicing, as Richard Eyre reveals in Stage Beauty. The decision to let women act, however, leaves impersonators like Ned Kynaston (Billy Crudup) redundant and he is forced to become a dresser to rising star, Margaret Hughes (Claire Danes). Rupert Everett puts in an appearance as Charles II, who is played by John Malkovich in Laurence Dunmore's The Libertine (both 2004), another dramedy about the stage that draws on a Thomas Shadwell play about the 1675 task the monarch gives John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (Johnny Depp) to write a play about his reign, while also giving acting lessons to promising performer, Elizabeth Barry (Samantha Morton).

A war against the Dutch rumbled throughout Charles's reign and Charles Dance is shown devising strategy in Roel Reiné's The Admiral (2008), which stars Frank Lammers as Michiel de Ruyter and Egbert-Jan Weber as William of Orange, who would later ascend the throne alongside his wife, Mary II.

The events leading up to the Glorious Revolution of 1688 are admirably laid out in David Giles's BBC series, The First Churchills (1969). James Villiers plays Charles II, while his brother, James II, is essayed by John Westbrook. Lisa Daniely and Margaret Tyzack are cast as James's daughters, who would rule as Mary II and Queen Anne respectively. Scheming away in the background, however, is Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (Susan Hampshire), the role taken to Oscar-nominated effect by Rachel Weisz alongside fellow nominee Emma Stone (as Abigail Hill) and Best Actress winner Olivia Colman as Queen Anne in Yorgos Lanthimos's The Favourite (2018).

Having spent his brother's reign as the Duke of York, James II endured a short, crisis-riven reign that suggested he had learnt little from the experiences of his father. He was swept from power by his own daughter and has largely been a footnote in screen history. Sam de Grasse's James and Josephine Crowell's Queen Anne look on as Gwynplaine (Conrad Veidt) recovers from the hideous scarring of his youth to become a travelling player in Paul Leni's adaptation of Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughs (1928). Vernon Steele was seen just as fleetingly as James II in Michael Curtiz's Captain Blood (1935), while Henry Oscar was no more prominent in Anthony Kimmins's Bonnie Prince Charlie (1948), which follows the efforts of his grandson, Charles Edward Stuart (David Niven), to reclaim the throne in 1745. Check Peter Watkins's Culloden (1964) to see how it all panned out.

Mary II was portrayed by Sarah Crowden alongside Thom Hoffman's William III in Sally Potter's aforementioned Orlando and by Victoria Wood in Steve Bendelack's The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse (2005). Her reign, however, provides the setting for Peter Greenaway's The Draughtsman's Contract (1982), in which an artist named Neville (Anthony Higgins) is hired by Mrs Virginia Herbert (Janet Suzman) to make 12 drawings of her husband's country house. The devil is in the detail of this enduringly fascinating feature and it's disappointing that Greenaway's The Baby of Mâcon (1993) is not available on disc, especially as it is set in the 1650s. However, we can remain outdoors for Philippe Rousselot's The Serpent's Kiss (1997), which takes us towards the end of the 17th century, as wealthy merchant Thomas Smithers (Pete Postlethwaite) hires Dutch landscape gardener Meneer Chrome (Ewan McGregor) to create an ornamental masterpiece.

William outlived Mary by eight years and remained on the throne until 1702, when he was succeeded by his sister-in-law. In addition to a glimpse of Henry Daniell in Rowland V. Lee's Captain Kidd (1945), Cinema Paradiso members can also see George Webster as William of Orange in the rollicking mini-series, Versailles (2015-19), which also features Daniel Lapaine as Charles II.

Plans had already been drawn up by the end of the Stuart era for the Elector of Hanover to make a smooth succession. The unhappy marriage between Prince George (Peter Bull) and Sophia Dorothea of Celle (Joan Greenwood) is outlined in Basil Dearden's adaptation of Helen Simpson's novel, Saraband For Dead Lovers (1948). But, in a delicious twist of cinematic fate, Peter Bull also dragged up to play Queen Anne (in what was to be his final role) being browbeaten by Sarah Churchill (Susannah York) in Mel Damski's chaotic, but occasionally hilarious pirate caper, Yellowbeard (1983). Set on the Spanish Main in 1687, this boasts Graham Chapman and Peter Cook among its writers and they co-starred alongside John Cleese, Eric Idle, Beryl Reid, and James Mason, as well as Spike Milligan and Marty Feldman in what prove to be their farewell film appearances.