8 March: Queen Anne

On this date in 1702, Queen Anne succeeded to the English throne. Here are 10 things you might not know about Queen Anne.

1. Anne was born in London on February 6, 1665, to James, Duke of York (who became James II) and his first wife, Anne Hyde. Their only other surviving child was Mary, who became joint monarch with William of Orange. Since they had no surviving children, Anne succeeded them in 1702.
2. Queen Anne reigned from March 1702 to May 1707. It was during her reign that England and Scotland were united as a single kingdom and the War of the Spanish Succession ended.
3. Anne spent a significant part of her childhood in France. As a child, she suffered from a condition which made her eyes water, so she was sent to France to be treated for that.
4. In 1683, Anne married Prince George of Denmark. Despite it being an arranged marriage, it was a happy one, and they remained faithful to each other.
5. Anne became pregnant at least seventeen times, but was plagued by miscarriages and stillbirths. Of the five of her children that were born alive, four died in infancy. The fifth, a boy, William, who was made Duke of Gloucester. However, he died at the age of eleven, leaving Anne with no surviving issue. Anne, a religious woman, believed she was being punished by God.
6. The 2018 film, The Favourite, in which Olivia Coleman plays her, is about Anne's relationship with Sarah Churchill, a childhood friend (played by Rachel Weisz in the film). Sarah was appointed Lady of the Bedchamber and Mistress of the Robes. Because it was generally known that they were close, people would often talk to Sarah in the hope she might be able to influence the queen. In time, however, their friendship soured. It was partly down to political and religious differences (Anne was a Tory, and religious, Sarah was a Whig and not interested in religion). Eventually, Sarah rarely attended court, which annoyed Anne.
7. While Sarah was away, Anne made another close friend, Sarah's cousin, Abigail Hill (Emma Stone in the film). Anne found Abigail kinder and more compassionate than Sarah. When Abigail got married in secret to Samuel Masham, groom of the bedchamber to Prince George, in 1707, Anne was at the wedding. When Sarah found out about it later, the friendship soured even more. When Anne's husband died, Sarah insisted that Anne leave her home in Kensington, and had George's portrait removed from Anne's bedroom, because she felt it would be better for Anne "to avoid seeing of papers or anything that belonged to one that one loved when they were just dead".
8. In her later years, Anne suffered from gout, and often used a wheelchair or would be carried in a sedan chair. This meant she put on weight. Sarah Churchill wrote, "she grew exceeding gross and corpulent". A description of her by Sir John Clerk suggests she let herself go in other ways, too. He wrote that she had a red, spotted face, that her dress was "negligent" and the bandages tying up her gout ridden foot were "nasty".
9. Anne died on 1 August 1714, having suffered a stroke the previous day. The Act of Settlement of 1701 had named Electress Sophia of Hanover Anne's heir, but she had died two months earlier. Hence her son George succeeded Anne as George I.
10. For a long time, Anne's legacy was marred because one major source of information was Sarah's memoirs, and as we know, the two women weren't on the best of terms in the end. Modern historians, however, acknowledge that she was much stronger and more powerful than Sarah's writings suggest.

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