That match never happened, thanks to the scraggly - haired, shaggy - bearded man sitting in solitary in Delaware County
Prison in Thornton, Pa., who is not allowed to watch television, listen to the radio or read magazines and newspapers, and who takes
little more than tea and crackers in his 69 - square - foot
cell, a place that must seem a long way from his 800 - acre estate in Newtown Square, Pa..
Screenwriters William Nicholson and Michael Hirst care
little about re-creating political history as it was, but relish shooting for the Barbie doll moments in the royal court and the occasional cloak - and - dagger thriller moment (the soon to be beheaded scheming Catholic Mary Stuart, Queen of the Scots (Samantha Morton), passing notes from her
prison cell to approve the assassination attempt on cousin Elizabeth), and in keeping all the scenes with the athletic looking Raleigh intentionally playful and sexually inviting.