Historical mistakes in books and movies

[Penelope1980]

Hello! I thought this would be a good place to ask you what your top pet peeves are in historical books and movies as, as history lover, it is something which interests me. Do you mind when things aren't right? Or does it make you seethe? What specifically do you hate the most? Are you ever forgiving of mistakes, modern language, modern haircuts etc? Or, are you usually so busy enjoying the book or movie to notice?

I find I don't mind a good historical bodice-ripper as can usually get carried away in the story, or most movies set in the past, but am really intolerant of the following:

• when a true historical character is painted a villain when there is no proof that they were. Case that springs to mind is Murdoch in the movie Titanic, who is painted a bad guy with no real proof that he was.

• When in books set hundred of years ago all the 'good' characters have modern values (especially regarding gender, race and class) and the 'bad' characters have the values of the time. I find this presentism irritating, and a bit condescending.

Interested in your thoughts ...

I've just read a blurb for a novel set in Tudor England with a heroine called Charlotte. Dunno if it's possible the name was around, just very unusual, but I've certainly never come across it before the 17th c!

There is a publicity shot for the new Poldark with him on horseback with a burglar alarm on the building behind him.

Doesn't ring particularly true to me either, countess.

maimie - that's hilariously bad.

with a burglar alarm on the building behind him.

Re Charlotte, www.behindthename.com/name/charlotte
tells me it was introduced to Britain in the C17th. So no, right out for the Tudors, unless we're looking at the very tag end of Eliz I's reign.

Yes, that's what I thought, MehsMum! I suppose there might be some kind of justification in the book about her having a French mother or something, if the name was around in France earlier than England.

Flanders was around long before WW1 and I suspect had fields and mud. Britain had fought in a war against Napoleon only 50 years before.

CDTaylor, I was discussing this with dh (who moonlights as a military historian) and he said the same as you about Flanders fields being a trope even before WW1, but he also reckoned that the association of Flanders with mud was probably a WW1 thing (though interested to hear differently if it turns out to go back further).