Anne (1665–1714)

Queen of Great Britain and Ireland 1702–14. She was the second daughter of James, Duke of York, who became James II, and his first wife, Anne Hyde, daughter of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon. She succeeded William III in 1702. Events of her reign include the War of the Spanish Succession, Marlborough's victories at Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, and the union of the English and Scottish parliaments in the 1707 Act of Union.

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 (1660–1744), the wife of John Churchill (1650–1722), afterwards created 1st Duke of Marlborough in 1702. The Churchills' influence was partly responsible for her desertion of her father for William of Orange, her brother-in-law, later William III, during the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The Churchills' influence later also led her to engage in Jacobite intrigues. Although her sympathies were Tory, she accepted a predominantly Whig government 1704–10. The influence of the Churchills began to decline from 1707. After a violent quarrel in 1710, Sarah Churchill was dismissed from court, and Abigail Masham succeeded the duchess as Anne's favourite, using her influence to further the interests of the Tories.

On the question of succession, Anne's family loyalty convinced her that this should fall to her father's son by his second wife (Mary of Modena), James Edward Stuart, known as the Old Pretender. However, the Act of Settlement in 1701 ensured Protestant succession to the throne, and Anne was succeeded by George I, great-grandson of James I.