Queen Anne

Queen Anne Queen of Great Britain and Ireland 1702-14. She was the second daughter of James, Duke of York, who became James II and Anne Hyde. She succeeded William III in 1702. Events of her reign included the War of the Spanish Succession, Marlborough’s victories at Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde and Malplaquet, and the union of the English and Scottish parliaments 1707. She was succeeded by George I. Anne received a Protestant upbringing and in 1683 married Prince George of Denmark (1653-1708). Of their many children only one survived infancy, William, Duke of Gloucester (1689-1700). For the greater part of her life Anne was a close friend of Sarah Churchill (1650-1744) wife of John Churchill (1650-1722), afterward Duke of Marlborough, the Churchills’ influence helped lead her to desert her father for her brother-in-law, William of Orange during the Revolution of 1688 and later to engage in Jacobite intrigues. Her replacement of the Tories by a Whig government 1703-04 was her own act and not due to Churchillian influence. Anne finally broke with the Marlboroughs’ in 1710, when Mrs Masham succeeded the duchess as her favourite and supported the Tory government of the same year.