Queen Anne

Queen of Great Britain and Ireland (r. 1702-1714)

• Born: February 6, 1665
• Birthplace: London, England
• Died: August 1, 1714
• Place of death: London, England

Through her devotion to the Church of England, Anne maintained the provisions of the Act of Settlement of 1701, thereby fostering the cause of constitutional government while preventing another civil war.

Early Life

Of the seven children born to James, duke of York, and his first wife, Anne Hyde, only two survived infancy: Anne and Mary, who was three years Anne’s senior and the future Queen Mary I. Concerned by his younger daughter’s poor eyesight, James sent Anne to Paris to be treated by a noted oculist. While in France, Anne lived first with her paternal grandmother, Dowager Queen Henrietta Maria, who died in 1669, and then with her father’s youngest sister, Henrietta Annie, duchess of Orleans. At the age of five, Anne returned to England, but she continued to be troubled by poor eyesight all of her life.

When Anne was six her mother died of cancer, and rather than leave his nieces under the sole supervision of their father, King Charles II sent them to live with Colonel Edward Villiers, a devout Protestant. Both the duke and the duchess of York had made the politically unwise decision to accept the Roman Catholic faith, but the king would not allow Mary and Anne, who stood next in line for the throne, to make the same choice. While under the care of Colonel Villiers, Anne met and fell under the spell of Sarah Jennings, who, as the duchess of Marlborough (later Sarah Churchill), would dominate the early years of Anne’s reign. In 1673, the duke of York married an Italian princess, Mary of Modena, and Sarah Jennings entered her service as a maid of honor.

Neither pretty like her sister Mary nor clever like her friend Sarah, Anne was soon forgotten amid the glitter of the Restoration court. Then Charles II discovered that his shy niece possessed one gift worth developing, her voice. Under the supervision of Elizabeth Barry, a leading actor of the day, Anne mastered elocution, a skill that would later earn for her the reputation of being perhaps the finest public speaker to occupy the British throne.

In November, 1677, Anne’s life was changed by the marriage of her sister to their first cousin, William of Orange. Ill with smallpox, Anne was unable to attend the wedding, and Mary, on the eve of her departure for her new home in the Netherlands, was forbidden to visit her sister lest she risk infection. A year later Sarah Jennings married John Churchill, leaving thirteen-year-old Anne alone. During the next five years she grew into an unassuming young woman who longed to imitate the private bliss of her sister and her best friend. In 1683, she married Prince George of Denmark, a man twelve years her senior. Dull-witted and troubled by chronic asthma, he was nevertheless a loving and understanding husband who sustained his wife through her various illnesses and the loss of their seventeen children. On her twentieth birthday, February 6, 1685, Charles II died, and Anne was thrust into the midst of national affairs by the accession of her father as James II.

Life’s Work

During his brief reign of almost four years, James II managed to forfeit the goodwill of his subjects by offending most of them, including his younger daughter; but these affronts still lay in the future. Anne was now permitted to choose the members of her own household, and predictably Sarah Jennings, now Sarah Churchill, was appointed first lady of the bedchamber. “Mrs. Freeman,” Sarah’s pet name, provided “Mrs. Morley,” Anne’s pet name, with the intellectual companionship not found in her marriage, as well as sage advice in times of trouble. Although James II treated his daughter with love and deference, he would not permit her to visit her sister in June, 1687, fueling speculation that pressure would soon be put upon her to change her religion. Mary was the wife of the champion of the Protestant cause, but Anne, always so eager to please, might prove a better choice as sovereign if she were to become a Roman Catholic. With Sarah’s support, Anne prepared to defend her devotion to the Church of England, but this crisis of conscience never materialized.

Rumors began to circulate during November, 1687, that the queen was pregnant. Princess Anne had her doubts, about both the pregnancy, because of her stepmother’s age, and the legitimacy of the healthy prince, born the following June, which was a month ahead of schedule. Anne was not alone in her doubts, and the prospect of an unending dynasty of Roman Catholic monarchs rallied opposition to James II and his policies. By November, 1688, when William of Orange landed at Torbay at the invitation of a group of prominent noblemen, England was on the verge of another civil war. Luckily, the crisis passed with the flight of James II, his queen, and their son to France the following month. Through the tense weeks, Anne supported her sister and brother-in-law, despite her deep love for her father.

The years of separation had changed the sisters, and Anne soon learned to her dismay that Queen Mary did not approve of Sarah Churchill. Anne refused to dismiss her dearest friend, and so a breach developed between the royal sisters that was widened when John Churchill was arrested for treason in 1691. Although he was acquitted, relations between Mary and Anne never really improved before the queen’s death from smallpox in December, 1694. William (now King William III) and his sister-in-law were never friends, and after the death of Mary they became almost open enemies. William III would reign alone until his death. He was followed by Anne, and then the duke of Gloucester, Anne’s only surviving child. The boy was delicate, but he was England’s hope of a continuing Protestant line.

In July, 1700, the eleven-year-old duke of Gloucester died of scarlet fever; Anne acquiesced with reluctance, the following year, to the Act of Settlement. After William’s death she would become queen, and if she died without issue the Crown would pass to her cousin, the Protestant electress Sophia of Hanover and her heirs. James II died in France on September 6, 1701, and King Louis XIV publicly recognized his son as James III. Anne’s father had forgiven her for her rebellion before his death, and with his blessing she calmly waited for the inevitable. Six months later William III was dead, and Anne was queen.

Anne’s coronation on April 23, 1702, was a triumph for her and the Churchills. Sarah was made Mistress of the Robes, and John was created duke of Marlborough. The power to reward was pleasant, but the reality of governing an imperial state was almost overwhelming. Queen Anne, who had received no training for the task she had to perform, wisely relied on her ministers for advice, and in the first eight years of her reign, that meant Marlborough and the Whigs. In May, 1702, England was drawn into the War of the Spanish Succession , and although the government was supposedly bipartisan, the Whig policy of total commitment to a land war prevailed over the Tory preference for a purely naval war with economic sanctions. Anne might have been inclined to the Tory position, but she was too dependent on Marlborough and his close friend, the first earl of Godolphin, to oppose their policies. Hoping to dislodge the queen, the Tories appealed to her special interest, the Church of England, with the Occasional Conformity Bill , which would restrict the activities of the Dissenters (non-Anglican Protestants), who were active supporters of the Whigs. The measure passed the Tory-dominated House of Commons only to be defeated in the Whig-controlled House of Lords.

The Tories then concentrated their attack on Marlborough, but he countered their criticism with the brilliant victory at Blenheim in August, 1704. Once again the Tories tried to punish the Dissenters, only to fail. The nation and the queen supported the ministry, a fact that was demonstrated by a resounding Whig victory in the election of 1705. As more Tories left the government, Queen Anne began to lose confidence in her advisers. The key to this change was the duchess of Marlborough. Always a woman of strong opinions, Sarah now became tyrannical and overbearing. While her husband was winning the war, Sarah was losing the affection and support of the queen with her constant badgering.

The duchess of Marlborough introduced a poor relation, Abigail Masham, into the queen’s service in 1707, an event that went unnoticed by most. One person who saw Masham’s potential was Robert Harley, a moderate Tory who had held various positions in the ministry. Quietly he began to work through her to undermine Sarah’s influence. Even his removal from office at Marlborough’s insistence in 1708 did not retard the erosion of the power once enjoyed by “Mrs. Freeman.” The election of 1708 proved another Whig victory, and the war-weary queen was forced to replace more Tories with politicians who now arrogantly refused to make peace with King Louis XIV on any terms but their own.

Dr. Henry Sacheverell delivered his famous sermon at St. Paul’s Cathedral on November 5, 1709, the anniversary of William III’s landing at Torbay in 1688. Queen Anne, who was in mourning for her husband, seemed cheered by the Tory divine’s attack on the government and the Glorious Revolution, but she, like many others, was shocked when the Whig leaders dragged him into court. The move to impeach Sacheverell proved a fatal mistake. The trial was a sensation, and every day the courtroom was packed. Even the queen attended incognito. Sacheverell was found guilty, but his punishment was minor, and when his three years’ suspension from preaching was done, Queen Anne rewarded him with a handsome living. It was really the Whigs who were convicted in March, 1710, and at the polls they were sentenced by the voters to defeat.

As her Whig ministers began to depart, Queen Anne turned on the duchess of Marlborough, whom she dismissed in April, 1710. By September only Marlborough remained; his public dismissal and humiliation were postponed until December 31, 1711. Queen Anne was served for the last four years of her reign by politicians who fully shared her views on church and state. At the head of the Tory ministry was Robert Harley, who was raised to the peerage as earl of Oxford in 1711. His most able colleague, indeed his chief rival, was Henry St. John, to whom fell the task of making a secret peace with the French. For his masterful negotiating of the Treaty of Utrecht, St. John was made First Viscount Bolingbroke, a reward he resented because it placed him below Oxford in the peerage.

The signing of the treaty in 1713 did little to enhance Great Britain’s prestige abroad; its allies felt betrayed and not inclined to trust the British again. Among those former friends was the elector of Hanover, who, after his mother Sophia, was heir to the throne of Great Britain. Firmly in league with the Whigs, he was determined to punish Oxford, Bolingbroke, and their political friends for their perfidy. For their part, the Tories now feverishly began to work for a restoration of the son of James II and Mary of Modena, and at first they had the halfhearted support of the queen.

As the war came to a close, Anne’s health seemed to deteriorate. Everyone she had loved was gone, and her only consolation was alcohol, which relieved both pain and loneliness. Few were completely aware of the queen’s condition until July 24, 1714, when she collapsed during a cabinet meeting. All during her reign she had faithfully attended those weekly sessions, but the bitter altercation between Oxford and Bolingbroke on that occasion was too much for her nerves. Two days later she dismissed the earl of Oxford from her government, but it was the moderate Whigs, not Bolingbroke, to whom she turned in her last hours. The queen who had refused to discuss the succession during her lifetime, now, on her deathbed, chose her cousin, the elector of Hanover, to follow her. Sophia was dead, but the elector, now King George I, would preserve the church that Anne had loved and served. On Sunday, August 1, 1714, Anne died, with only her personal physician in attendance.

Significance

Queen Anne was a woman of average intelligence who governed an exceptional generation. Her education was at best superficial, but she recognized her inadequacies and relied on her ministers for their advice. Her personal life was tragic, but she was sustained by the Church of England in every adversity. At the end of her reign she accepted a distant cousin as her heir because he would preserve that church.

Bibliography

Bucholz, R. O. The Augustan Court: Queen Anne and the Decline of Court Culture. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1993. Bucholz examines how and why court culture declined in importance by the early eighteenth century despite Anne’s efforts to restore it to its former glory. Maintains that Anne was not dependent upon her female favorites but was able to exert independence over Sarah Churchill and Abigail Mesham.

Butler, Iris. Rule of Three. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1967. This work provides valuable psychological insight into the characters of Anne, Sarah Churchill, and Abigail Masham. It is rich with many previously unpublished items.

Feiling, Sir Keith. A History of the Tory Party, 1640-1714. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1924. Although dated in its analysis of events, this is nevertheless a work of remarkable scholarship, providing a very valuable overview of the period.

Green, David. Queen Anne. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970. A well-written and easily read biography, but lacking the sympathy and understanding that must be part of any study of Anne.

Gregg, Edward. Queen Anne. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980. More scholarly than earlier biographies, this work presents a sympathetic portrait of Anne in a forthright and lively way. Until a complete revisionist study appears, this is the best work available.

Hamilton, Elizabeth. The Backstairs Dragon: A Life of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1969. Harley’s character is restored by this study, one that will also enhance the reader’s understanding of the politics of the early eighteenth century.

Holmes, Geoffrey. British Politics in the Age of Anne. London: Macmillan, 1967. This work contains a wealth of information, and it carefully unravels the tangled knot of politics in the early eighteenth century. It is perhaps the best book on the subject.

Trevelyan, George Macaulay. England Under Queen Anne. 3 vols. London: Longmans, Green, 1930-1934. Long the standard work on the period. Trevelyan’s conclusions may find detractors, but none can fault his style or scholarship.

Waller, Maureen. Ungrateful Daughters: The Stuart Princesses Who Stole Their Father’s Crown. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003. Describes the Glorious Revolution of 1688 as a family feud, in which Anne and her sister Mary betrayed their father, King James II, by supporting William of Orange’s bid for the throne.