“Anne combined the perfect blend of a high regard
for the ancient ceremonies of the crown with a
firm commitment to a modernised monarchy”
PRINT COLLECTOR/GETTY IMAGESdemand that Anne dismiss them from her
household. When Anne refused, her
brother -in-law had been furious and their
relationship had never recovered.
As soon as she was queen, Anne wasted
no time in appointing Sarah to the vaulted
position of Groom of the Stole and head of
the royal bedchamber. John, meanwhile,
was given a plethora of military commands,
as well as being made ambassador
extraordinary to the Dutch Republic. He
excelled in the latter post, freeing the Dutch
from French domination, and winning
himself the dukedom of Marlborough. His
victory at Blenheim in 1704 inspired the
building of his magnificent Oxfordshire
palace of the same name.Committed queen
Despite her poor health, Anne was
assiduous in all of her duties as queen. She
wrote letters to her fellow heads of state by
hand, which must have been a challenge
given that as well as gout in her hands, she
had poor eyesight. One of the greatest
achievements of her reign was the Act of
Union, which came into effect on 1 May- This united England and Scotland
into a single state and parliament. It had
been hard won: relations between the two
kingdoms had been increasingly hostile, not
least because of Scotland’s support of the
Jacobite cause. In 1703, the Scottish
Parliament had passed the Act of Security,
which decreed that the next monarch of
Scotland need not be the same person as the
successor to the English throne. England’s
Parliament retaliated with the Alien Act,
which banned all of the major Scottish
export trades south of the border. It
followed this up with a proposal “that the
two kingdoms of England and Scotland be
for ever United into one kingdom by the
name of Great Britain”. Threatened by the
loss of their lucrative trade, the Scots
relented and the union was forged.
The following year was a turbulent one
for Anne. The overweening influence of the
Duke and Duchess of Marlborough had
caused widespread resentment across the
court and country – in particular among
the Tories, against whom the Whiggish
Sarah had ceaselessly conspired.
By 1708, the queen herself was tiring of
the Duchess’s domineering and high-
handed manner. On 19 August, the
simmering hostility suddenly erupted when
the two women shared a coach to St Paul’s
Cathedral for a service of thanksgiving for
Marlborough’s victory at Oudenarde.
Earlier, Anne had refused to wear the
cumbersome jewels that Sarah had laid out
for her and, as she stepped out of the coach,
This Victorian illustration shows Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, scolding Queen Anne.
Though they were close friends, the queen eventually tired of Sarah’s rude mannerSarah was heard to hiss ‘Be quiet’ to her
royal mistress. She had gone too far. Anne
never forgave this insult to her majesty and
ended the friendship immediately.
Two months later, Queen Anne’s adored
husband, Prince George of Denmark, died.
In every other respect than producing heirs,
theirs had been a successful marriage,
marked by mutual love and affection. In
her loneliness, Anne forged a close
friendship with another female courtier,
Abigail Masham. Modest and
undemanding, she formed a welcome
contrast to Sarah Churchill, who flew into
a jealous rage and accused the queen of
conducting a lesbian affair with her new
friend and confidante.
Tired of the crippling expense and loss
of life that the protracted war with France
had exacted, and no longer cajoled into
supporting her chief commander, Anne
dismissed Marlborough in December 1711and made peace with France. A treaty
was formally agreed in 1713 and England
emerged triumphant. Despite the heavy
losses that she had suffered, she was now
more powerful militarily than France
and more commercially effective than
the Netherlands.
Anne did not long savour her victory. She
died on 1 August 1714, aged just 49, after
suffering two violent strokes. Her
Tory ministers secretly offered the crown to
James II’s son on condition that he convert
to Protestantism. He refused and the crown
passed peacefully to George Louis, Elector
of Hanover, as decreed in the 1701 Act of
Settlement and confirmed by the Act of
Union six years later. The turbulent century
of Stuart rule was at an end.Trac y Bor ma n is an author and historian. Her
latest book, Thomas Cromwell, is published by
Hodder & Stoughton, 2014The end of the Stuarts / Queen Anne