Queen Anne Ascends: Unifying Crowns of Britain

Anne Stuart became Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland on March 8, 1702, succeeding her brother-in-law William III, who had died after his horse stumbled over a molehill at Hampton Court. She was the last Stuart monarch and the first sovereign of Great Britain after the Acts of Union merged England and Scotland into a single kingdom in 1707. Born on February 6, 1665, at St. James's Palace, Anne was the younger daughter of the future James II and his first wife, Anne Hyde. She was raised as a Protestant despite her father's Catholicism, a religious alignment that shaped her entire political career. When her father was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Anne supported her sister Mary and brother-in-law William's claim to the throne. Her reign was dominated by the War of the Spanish Succession, a continental conflict triggered by the question of who would inherit the Spanish throne after the death of Charles II of Spain. Britain entered the war to prevent France, under Louis XIV, from dominating Europe. The war produced one of Britain's greatest military heroes: John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, whose victories at Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet broke French power and established Britain as a major European military force. Anne's personal life was marked by extraordinary loss. She was pregnant at least seventeen times. Twelve pregnancies ended in miscarriage or stillbirth. Of the five children born alive, four died before age two. Her only surviving child, William, Duke of Gloucester, died at age eleven in 1700. The absence of a Protestant heir led directly to the Act of Settlement of 1701, which ensured the throne would pass to the Hanoverian line after Anne's death. Her close relationship with Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, was the most significant personal bond of her reign. When the friendship collapsed, replaced by Anne's favor toward Abigail Masham, it contributed to Marlborough's political fall. She died on August 1, 1714, at 49. The crown passed to George I of Hanover, a distant cousin who barely spoke English.