Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
See also:ANNE (1665-1714) , See also:queen of See also:Great See also:Britain and See also:Ireland, second daughter of See also: During the events immediately preceding the Revolution Anne kept in seclusion. Her ultimate conduct was probably influenced by the Churchills; and though forbidden by Jameg to pay Mary a projected visit in the See also:spring of 1688, she corresponded with her; and was no doubt aware of See also: Subsequently the See also:Declaration of Rights settled the See also:succession of the crown upon her after William and Mary and their See also:children. Meanwhile Anne had suffered a See also:series of maternal disappointments. Between 1684 and 1688 she had miscarried four times and given birth to two children who died infants. On the 24th of July 1689, however, the birth of a son, William, created duke of See also:Gloucester, who survived his See also:infancy, gave hopes that heirs to the See also:throne under the See also:Bill of Rights might be forthcoming. But Anne's happiness was soon troubled by quarrels with the king and queen. According to the duchess of Marlborough the two sisters, who had lived hitherto while apart on extremely affectionate terms, found no enjoyment in each other's society. Mary talked too much for Anne's comfort, and Anne too little for Mary's See also:satisfaction. But See also:money appears to have been the first and real cause of See also:ill-feeling. The granting away by William of the private See also:estate of James, amounting to £22,000 a See also:year, to which Anne had some claim, was made a grievance, and a factious See also:motion brought forward in the House to increase her See also:civil See also:list See also:pension of £30,000, which she enjoyed in addition to £20,000 under her See also:marriage See also:settlement, greatly displeased William and Mary, who regarded it as a See also:plot to make Anne See also:independent and the See also:chief of a See also:separate See also:interest in the state, while their resentment was increased by the refusal of Anne to restrain the action of her See also:friends, and by its success. The Marlboroughs had been active in'the affair and had benefited by it, the countess (as she then was) receiving a pension of £1000, and their conduct was noticed at See also:court. The promised Garter was withheld from Marlborough, and the incensed "Mrs Morley" in her letters to " Mrs Freeman " styled the king " Caliban " or the " Dutch See also:Monster." At the See also:close of 1691 Anne had declared her approval of the See also:naval expedition in favour of her See also:father, and expressed grief at its failure.' According to the doubtful Life of James, she wrote to him on the 1st of December a " most See also:penitential and dutiful " See also:letter, and henceforward kept up with him a "See also:fair See also:correspondence." s The same year the See also:breach between the royal sisters was made final by the dismissal of Marlborough, justly suspected of Jacobite intrigues, from all his appointments. Anne took the See also:part of her favourites with great zeal against the court, though in all See also:probability unaware of Marlborough's See also:treason; and on the dismissal of the countess from her See also:household by the king and queen she refused to part with her, and retired with Lady Marlborough to the duke of See also:Somerset's See also:residence at See also:Sion House. Anne was now in disgrace. She was deprived of her guard of See also:honour, and Prince George, on entering See also:Kensington See also:Palace, received no salute, though the drums See also:beat loudly on his departure.6 Instructions were given that the court expected no one to pay his respects, and no See also:attention in the provinces was to be shown to their rank. In May, Marlborough was arrested on a See also:charge of high treason which subsequently See also:broke down, and Anne persisted in regarding his disgrace as a See also:personal injury to herself. In See also:August 1693. however, ' Dalrymple's Memoirs, ii. 249.
4 See also:Lord Ailesbury's Memoirs, 293.
See also:Macpherson i. 241; See also: II. 3
the two sisters were temporarily reconciled, and on the occasion of Mary's last illness and death Anne showed an affectionate See also:consideration.
The death of Mary weakened William's position and made it necessary to cultivate See also:good relations with the princess. She was now treated with every honour and civility, and finally established with her own court at St James's Palace. At the same See also:time William kept her in the background and refrained from appointing her See also:regent during his See also:absence. In See also: The Act of Union with Scotland constituted one of the strongest See also:foundations of the future See also:empire. See also:Art and literature found a fresh renascence.
In her first speech to See also:parliament, like George III. afterwards, Anne declared her " See also:heart to be entirely See also:English," words which were resented by some as a reflection on the See also:late king. A See also:ministry,mostly Tory, with See also:Godolphin at its See also:head,was established. She obtained a See also: See also See also:Shrewsbury's See also:anonymous correspondent in Mist. MSS. Comm. See also:Ser.; MSS. Duke of Buccleugh at See also:Montagu House, ii. 169.
2 See also:Macaulay iv. 799 notethe See also:war and its glorious successes, the queen slowly and unwillingly, but inevitably, gravitating towards the latter.
In December, the See also:archduke Charles visited Anne at See also:Windsor and was welcomed as the king of See also:Spain. In 1704 Anne acquiesced in the resignation of Lord Nottingham, the See also:leader of the high Tory party. In the same year the great victory of See also:Blenheim further consolidated the See also:power of the Whigs and increased the See also:influence of Marlborough, upon whom Anne now conferred the See also:manor of See also:Woodstock. Nevertheless, she declared in November to the duchess that whenever things leaned towards the Whigs, " I shall think the church is beginning to be in danger." Next year she supported the See also:election of the Whig See also:speaker, See also: In See also:October she was obliged to appoint See also:Cowper, a Whig, lord See also:chancellor, with all the ecclesiastical patronage belonging to the See also:office. Marlborough's successive victories, and especially the factious conduct of the Tories, who in November 1705 moved in parliament that the electress See also:Sophia should be invited to England, drove Anne farther to the See also:side of the Whigs. But she opposed for some time the inclusion in the government of Sunderland, whom she especially disliked, only consenting at Marlborough's intercession in December 1706, when various other offices and rewards were bestowed upon Whigs, and Nottingham with other Tories was removed from the council. She yielded, after a struggle, also to the See also:appointment of Whigs to bishoprics, the most mortifying submission of all. In 2708 she was forced to dismiss Harley, who, with the aid of Mrs See also:Masham, had been intriguing against the government and projecting the creation of a third party. See also:Abigail See also: She was present at his trial and was publicly acclaimed by the See also:mob as his supporter, while the Tory divine was consoled immediately on the expiration of his See also:sentence with the living of St See also:Andrew's, See also:Holborn. Subsequently the duchess, in a final interview which she had forced upon the queen, found her tears and reproaches
' See also:Swift's Mem. on the Change of the Ministry.
' Conduct of the Duchess of Marlborough, p. 225.
unavailing. In her anger she had told the queen she wished for no See also:answer, and she was now met by a stony and exasperating silence, broken only by the words constantly repeated, "You desired no answer and you shall have none."
The fall of the Whigs, now no longer necessary on See also:account of the successful issue of the war, to accomplish which Harley had long been preparing and intriguing, followed; and their attempt to prolong hostilities from party motives failed. A friend of Harley, the duke of Shrewsbury, was first appointed to office, and subsequently the great See also:body of the Whigs were displaced by Tories, Harley being made chancellor of the See also:exchequer and See also: Owing to the See also:alliance between the Tory Lord Nottingham and the Whigs, on the condition of the support by the latter of the bill against occasional conformity passed in December 1711, the defeated Whigs maintained a majority in the Lords, who declared against any peace which See also:left Spain to the Bourbons. To break down this opposition Marlborough was dismissed on the 31st from all his employments, while the House of Lords was " swamped " by Anne's creation of twelve peers,' including Mrs Masham's husband. The queen's conduct was generally approved, for the nation was now violently adverse to the Whigs and war party; and the peace of See also:Utrecht was finally signed on the 31st of March 1713, and proclaimed on the 5th of May in London.
As the queen's reign See also:drew to its close, rumours were rife on the great subject of the succession to the throne. Various Jacobite appointments excited suspicion. Both Oxford and See also:Bolingbroke were in communication with the Pretender's party, and on the 27th of July Oxford, who had gradually lost influence and quarrelled with Bolingbroke, resigned, leaving the supreme power in the hands of the latter. Anne herself had a natural feeling for her brother, and had shown great solicitude concerning his treatment when a See also:price had been set on his head at the time of the Scottish expedition in 1708. On the 3rd of March 1714 James wrote to Anne, Oxford and Bolingbroke, urging the necessity of taking steps to secure his succession, and promising, on the condition of his recognition, to make no further attempts against the queen's government; and in April a See also:report was circulated in Holland that Anne had secretly determined to See also:associate James with her in the government. The wish expressed by the Whigs, that a member of the electoral family should be invited to England, had already aroused the queen's indignation in 1708; and now, in 1714, a See also:writ of See also:summons for the electoral prince as duke of See also:Cambridge having been obtained, Anne forbade the Hanoverian See also:envoy, See also:Baron Schutz, her presence, and declared all who supported the project her enemies; while to a memorial on the same subject from the electress Sophia and her See also:grandson in May, Anne replied in an angry letter, which is said to have caused the death of the electress on the 8th of June, requesting them not to trouble the peace of her See also:realm or diminish her authority.
These demonstrations, however, were the outcome not of any returning partiality for her own family, but of her intense dislike, in which she resembled Queen See also: MSS. Comm. Ser. See also:Rep. vii. App. 246b.1705, and in 1706 had bestowed the Garter on the electoral prince and created him duke of Cambridge; while the Regency Act provided for the declaration of the legal See also:heir to the crown by the council immediately on the queen's death, and a further enactment naturalized the electress and her issue. In 1708, on the occasion of the Scottish expedition, notwithstanding her solicitude for his safety, she had styled James in her speech closing the session of parliament as "a popish pretender bred up in the principles of the most arbitrary government." The duchess of Marlborough stated in 1713 that all the time she had known " that thing " (as she now called the queen), she had never heard her speak a favourable word of him." 3 No answer appears to have been sent to James's letter in 1714; on the contrary, a See also:proclamation was issued (June 23) for his See also:apprehension in See also:case of his arrival in England. On the 27th of April Anne gave a See also:solemn assurance of her fidelity to the Hanoverian succession to See also:Sir William See also:Dawes, See also:archbishop of York; in June she sent Lord Clarendon to Hanover to satisfy the elector. The sudden illness and death of the queen now frustrated any schemes which Bolingbroke, or others might have been contemplating. On the 27th, the See also:day of Oxford's resignation, the discussions concerning his successor detained the council sitting in the queen's presence till two o'See also:clock in the See also:morning, and on retiring Anne was instantly seized with fatal illness. Her adherence to William in 1688 had been a See also:principal cause of the success of the Revolution, and now the final act of her life was to secure the Revolution settlement and the Protestant succession. During a last moment of returning consciousness, and by the advice of the whole council, who had been joined on their own initiative by the Whig See also:dukes See also:Argyll and Somerset, she placed the lord treasurer's See also:staff in the hands of the Whig duke of Shrewsbury, and See also:measures were immediately taken for assuring the succession of the elector. Her death took place on the 1st of August, and the See also:security felt by the public, and perhaps the sense of perils escaped by the termination of the queen's life, were shown by a considerable rise in the national See also:stocks. She was buried on the See also:south side of Henry VII.'s See also:chapel in See also:Westminster See also:Abbey, in the same See also:tomb as her husband and children. The elector of Hanover, George Louis, son of fhe electress Sophia (daughter of Elizabeth, daughter of James I.), peacefully succeeded to the throne as George I. (q.v.). According to her physician See also:Arbuthnot, Anne's life was shortened by the " See also:scene of contention among her servants. I believe See also:sleep was never more welcome to a weary traveller than death was to her." By See also:character and temperament unfitted to stand alone, her life had been unhappy and tragical from its See also:isolation. Separated in See also:early years from her parents and sister, her one great friendship had proved only baneful and ensnaring. Marriage had only brought a mournful series of See also:infant funerals. See also:Constant ill-See also:health and suffering had darkened her career. The claims of family attachment, of religion, of duty, of patriotism and of interest, had dragged her in opposite directions, and her whole life had been a See also:prey to jealousies and factions which closed around her at her See also:accession to the throne, and surged to their height when she See also:lay on her deathbed. The See also:modern theory of the relations between the See also:sovereign and the parties, by which the former identifies himself with the faction for the time in power while maintaining his detachment from all, had not then been invented; and Anne, like her Hanoverian successors, maintained the struggle, though without success, to See also:rule independently. finding support in Harley. During the first year of her reign she made known that she was " resolved not to follow the example of her predecessor in making use of a few of her subjects to oppress the See also:rest. She will be queen of all her subjects, and would have all the parties and distinctions of former reigns ended and buried in hers."' Her See also:motive for getting rid of the Whigs was not any real dislike of their administration, but the wish to See also:escape from the domination of the party,' and on the See also:advent 3 Ibid. See also:Portland MSS. v. 338. ' Sir J. Leveson-See also:Gower to Lord Rutland, Hist. MSS. Comm., Duke of Rutland's MSS. ii. 173. 5 See Bolingbroke's Letter to Sir W. See also:Wyndham. to power of the Tories she carefully left some Whigs in their employments, with the aim of breaking up the party See also:system and acting upon what was called " a moderate See also:scheme." She attended debates in the Lords and endeavoured to influence votes. Her struggles to See also:free herself from the influence of factions only involved her deeper; she was always under the domination of some See also:person or some party, and she could not rise above them and show herself the leader of the nation like Elizabeth. Anne was a See also:women of small ability, of dull mind, and of that See also:kind of obstinacy which accompanies weakness of character. According to the duchess she had " a certain knack of sticking to what had been dictated to her to a degree often very disagreeable, and without the least sign of understanding or See also:judgment."' " I desire you would not have so ill an See also:opinion of me," Anne writes to Oxford, " as to think when I have determined anything in my mind I will alter it."' See also:Burnet considered that " she laid down the splendour of a court too much," which was " as it were abandoned." She dined alone after her husband's death, but it was reported by no means abstemiously, the royal family being characterized in the lines: " King William thinks all, Queen Mary talks all, Prince George drinks all, And Princess Anne eats all." She took no interest in the art, the See also:drama or the literature of her day. But she possessed the homely virtues; she was deeply religious, attached to the Church of England and concerned for the efficiency of the ministry. One of the first acts of her reign was a proclamation against See also:vice, and Lord See also:Chesterfield regretted the strict morality of her court. Instances abound of her kindness and consideration for others. Her moderation towards the See also:Jacobites in Scotland, after the Pretender's expedition in 1708, was much praised by See also:Saint See also:Simon. She showed great forbearance and generosity towards the duchess of Marlborough in the See also:face of unexampled provocation, and her character was unduly disparaged by the latter, who with her violent and coarse nature could not understand the queen's self-See also:restraint in sorrow, and describes her as " very hard " and as " not See also:apt to cry." According to her small ability she served the state well, and was zealous and conscientious in the fulfilment of public" duties, in which may be included touching for the king's evil, which she revived. Marlborough testifies to her See also:energy in finding money for the war. She surrendered lo,000,a year for public purposes, and in 1706 she presented 30,000 to the See also:officers and soldiers who had lost their horses. Her contemporaries almost unanimously See also:record her excellence and womanly virtues; and by See also:Dean Swift, no mild critic, she is invariably spoken of with respect, and named in his will as of "ever glorious, immortal and truly pious memory, the real See also:nursing-See also:mother of her kingdoms." She deserves her appellation of " Good Queen Anne," and notwithstanding her failings must be included among the chief authors and upholders of the great Revolution settlement. Her person was described by Spanheim, the' Prussian See also:ambassador, as handsome though inclining to stoutness, with See also:black See also:hair, See also:blue eyes and good features, and of See also:grave aspect. Anne's husband, Prince George (1653-1708), was the second son of See also:Frederick III., king of Denmark. Before marrying Anne he had been a See also:candidate for the throne of See also:Poland, He was created earl of See also:Kendal and duke of See also:Cumberland in 1689. Some censure, which was directed against the prince in his capacity as lord high admiral, was terminated by his death. In religion George remained a Lutheran, and in See also:general his qualities tended to make him a good husband rather than a soldier or a statesman. ' Private Correspondence, ii. 12o. Hist. MSS. Comm., MSS. of Marq. of Bath at Longleat; i. 237. ' Notes and Queries, xi. 254. ' and See also:Diary of Lord Clarendon (1828) ; See also:Hatton Correspondence (See also:Camden See also:Soc., 1878); See also:Evelyn's Diary; Sir J. Dalrymple's Memoirs (1790) N. Luttrell's Brief Mist. Relation (11857) ; See also:Wentworth Papers (1883) ; W. See also:Coxe, Mem. of the Duke of Marlborough (1847) ; Conduct of the See also:Dowager Duchess of Marlborough (1742) ; See also:Ralph, The other Side of the Question (1742) ; Private Correspondence of Sarah Duchess of See also:Marl-See also:borough (1838) ; A. T, See also:Thomson, Mem. of the Duchess and the. Court of Queen Anne (1839) ; J. S. Clarke's Life of James II. (1816) ; J. ~vIacpherson's See also:Original Papers (1775) ; Swift's Some Considerations upon the Consequences from the Death of the Queen, An Inquiry into the. Behaviour of the Queen's last Ministry, Hist. of the Four Last Years of Queen Anne, and See also:Journals and Letters; The See also:Lockhart Papers (1817), i.; F. Salomon, Geschichte See also:des let<^ten Ministeriums Konigin Annas (1894); See also:Marchmont Papers, iii. (1831) W. Sichel. Life of Bolingbroke (1901-19o2) ; Mem. of See also: MSS. Comm. Series, MSS. of Duke of Portland, including the Harley Papers, Duke of Buccleugh at Montagu House, Lord See also:Kenyon, Marq. of Bath at Longleat; Various Collections, ii. 146, Duke of Rutland at Belvoir, 7th Rep. app., and H. M. the King (See also:Stuart Papers, i.); See also:Stowe MSS. in Brit. Museum; Sir J. See also:Mackintosh's Transcripts, Add. MSS. in Brit. Museum, 34, 487-526; See also:Edinburgh Rev.; October 1835, p. 1; Notes and Queries, vii. ser. iii. 178, viii. ser. i. 72, iii. 368, ix, ser. iv. 282, xi, 254;. C. See also:Hodgson, An Account of the See also:Augmentation of Small Livings by the Bounty of Queen Anne (1845) ; Observations of the See also:Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty (1867); Somers Tracts, xii. (1814–1815) ; H. See also:Paul, Queen Anne (London, 1907). (P C. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML. Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide. |
|
[back] ANNATES (Lat. annatae, from annus, " year ") |
[next] ANNE (1693-1740) |