Encyclopaedia Britannica Volume 2, Slice 2 Part 3

As the queen's reign drew to its close, rumours were rife on the great subject of the succession to the throne. Various Jacobite appointments excited suspicion. Both Oxford and Bolingbroke were in communication with the Pretender's party, and on the 27th of July Oxford, who had gradually lost influence and quarrelled with Bolingbroke, resigned, leaving the supreme power in the hands of the latter. Anne herself had a natural feeling for her brother, and had shown great solicitude concerning his treatment when a price had been set on his head at the time of the Scottish expedition in 1708. On the 3rd of March 1714 James wrote to Anne, Oxford and Bolingbroke, urging the necessity of taking steps to secure his succession, and promising, on the condition of his recognition, to make no further attempts against the queen's government; and in April a report was circulated in Holland that Anne had secretly determined to a.s.sociate James with her in the government. The wish expressed by the Whigs, that a member of the electoral family should be invited to England, had already aroused the queen's indignation in 1708; and now, in 1714, a writ of summons for the electoral prince as duke of Cambridge having been obtained, Anne forbade the Hanoverian envoy, Baron Schutz, her presence, and declared all who supported the project her enemies; while to a memorial on the same subject from the electress Sophia and her grandson in May, Anne replied in an angry letter, which is said to have caused the death of the electress on the 5th of June, requesting them not to trouble the peace of her realm or diminish her authority.

These demonstrations, however, were the outcome not of any returning partiality for her own family, but of her intense dislike, in which she resembled Queen Elizabeth, of any "successor," "it being a thing I cannot bear to have any successor here though but for a week"; and in spite of some appearances to the contrary, it is certain that religion and political wisdom kept Anne firm to the Protestant succession.[12]

She had maintained a friendly correspondence with the court of Hanover since 1705, and in 1706 had bestowed the Garter on the electoral prince and created him duke of Cambridge; while the Regency Act provided for the declaration of the legal heir to the crown by the council immediately on the queen's death, and a further enactment naturalized the electress and her issue. In 1708, on the occasion of the Scottish expedition, notwithstanding her solicitude for his safety, she had styled James in her speech closing the session of parliament as "a popish pretender bred up in the principles of the most arbitrary government." The d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough stated in 1713 that all the time she had known "that thing" (as she now called the queen), "she had never heard her speak a favourable word of him."[13] No answer appears to have been sent to James's letter in 1714; on the contrary, a proclamation was issued (June 23) for his apprehension in case of his arrival in England.

On the 27th of April Anne gave a solemn a.s.surance of her fidelity to the Hanoverian succession to Sir William Dawes, archbishop of York; in June she sent Lord Clarendon to Hanover to satisfy the elector.

The sudden illness and death of the queen now frustrated any schemes which Bolingbroke, or others might have been contemplating. On the 27th, the day of Oxford's resignation, the discussions concerning his successor detained the council sitting in the queen's presence till two o'clock in the morning, and on retiring Anne was instantly seized with fatal illness. Her adherence to William in 1688 had been a princ.i.p.al cause of the success of the Revolution, and now the final act of her life was to secure the Revolution settlement and the Protestant succession. During a last moment of returning consciousness, and by the advice of the whole council, who had been joined on their own initiative by the Whig dukes Argyll and Somerset, she placed the lord treasurer's staff in the hands of the Whig duke of Shrewsbury, and measures were immediately taken for a.s.suring the succession of the elector. Her death took place on the 1st of August, and the security felt by the public, and perhaps the sense of perils escaped by the termination of the queen's life, were shown by a considerable rise in the national stocks.

She was buried on the south side of Henry VII.'s chapel in Westminster Abbey, in the same tomb as her husband and children. The elector of Hanover, George Louis, son of the electress Sophia (daughter of Elizabeth, daughter of James I.), peacefully succeeded to the throne as George I. (q.v.).

According to her physician Arbuthnot, Anne's life was shortened by the "scene of contention among her servants. I believe sleep was never more welcome to a weary traveller than death was to her." By character and temperament unfitted to stand alone, her life had been unhappy and tragical from its isolation. Separated in early years from her parents and sister, her one great friendship had proved only baneful and ensnaring. Marriage had only brought a mournful series of infant funerals. Constant ill-health and suffering had darkened her career. The claims of family attachment, of religion, of duty, of patriotism and of interest, had dragged her in opposite directions, and her whole life had been a prey to jealousies and factions which closed around her at her accession to the throne, and surged to their height when she lay on her deathbed. The modern theory of the relations between the sovereign and the parties, by which the former identifies himself with the faction for the time in power while maintaining his detachment from all, had not then been invented; and Anne, like her Hanoverian successors, maintained the struggle, though without success, to rule independently finding support in Harley. During the first year of her reign she made known that she was "resolved not to follow the example of her predecessor in making use of a few of her subjects to oppress the rest. She will be queen of all her subjects, and would have all the parties and distinctions of former reigns ended and buried in hers."[14] Her motive for getting rid of the Whigs was not any real dislike of their administration, but the wish to escape from the domination of the party,[15] and on the advent to power of the Tories she carefully left some Whigs in their employments, with the aim of breaking up the party system and acting upon what was called "a moderate scheme." She attended debates in the Lords and endeavoured to influence votes. Her struggles to free herself from the influence of factions only involved her deeper; she was always under the domination of some person or some party, and she could not rise above them and show herself the leader of the nation like Elizabeth.

Anne was a women of small ability, of dull mind, and of that kind of obstinacy which accompanies weakness of character. According to the d.u.c.h.ess she had "a certain knack of sticking to what had been dictated to her to a degree often very disagreeable, and without the least sign of understanding or judgment."[16] "I desire you would not have so ill an opinion of me," Anne writes to Oxford, "as to think when I have determined anything in my mind I will alter it."[17] Burnet considered that "she laid down the splendour of a court too much," which was "as it were abandoned." She dined alone after her husband's death, but it was reported by no means abstemiously, the royal family being characterized in the lines:--

"King William thinks all.

Queen Mary talks all, Prince George drinks all, And Princess Anne eats all."[18]

She took no interest in the art, the drama or the literature of her day.

But she possessed the homely virtues; she was deeply religious, attached to the Church of England and concerned for the efficiency of the ministry. One of the first acts of her reign was a proclamation against vice, and Lord Chesterfield regretted the strict morality of her court.

Instances abound of her kindness and consideration for others. Her moderation towards the Jacobites in Scotland, after the Pretender's expedition in 1708, was much praised by Saint Simon. She showed great forbearance and generosity towards the d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough in the face of unexampled provocation, and her character was unduly disparaged by the latter, who with her violent and coa.r.s.e nature could not understand the queen's self-restraint in sorrow, and describes her as "very hard" and as "not apt to cry." According to her small ability she served the state well, and was zealous and conscientious in the fulfilment of public duties, in which may be included touching for the king's evil, which she revived. Marlborough testifies to her energy in finding money for the war. She surrendered 10,000 pounds a year for public purposes, and in 1706 she presented 30,000 pounds to the officers and soldiers who had lost their horses. Her contemporaries almost unanimously record her excellence and womanly virtues; and by Dean Swift, no mild critic, she is invariably spoken of with respect, and named in his will as of "ever glorious, immortal and truly pious memory, the real nursing-mother of her kingdoms." She deserves her appellation of "Good Queen Anne," and notwithstanding her failings must be included among the chief authors and upholders of the great Revolution settlement. Her person was described by Spanheim, the Prussian amba.s.sador, as handsome though inclining to stoutness, with black hair, blue eyes and good features, and of grave aspect.

Anne's husband, Prince George (1653-1708), was the second son of Frederick III., king of Denmark. Before marrying Anne he had been a candidate for the throne of Poland. He was created earl of Kendal and duke of c.u.mberland in 1689. Some censure, which was directed against the prince in his capacity as lord high admiral, was terminated by his death. In religion George remained a Lutheran, and in general his qualities tended to make him a good husband rather than a soldier or a statesman.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--_Dict. of Nat. Biography_ (Dr A.W. Ward); A.

Strickland, _Lives of the Queens of England_ (1852), somewhat uncritical; an excellent account written by Spanheim for the king of Prussia, printed in the _Eng. Hist. Rev._ ii. 757; histories of Stanhope, Lecky, Ranke, Macaulay, Boyes, Burnet, Wyon, and Somerville; F.E. Morris, _The Age of Anne_ (London, 1877); _Correspondence and Diary of Lord Clarendon_ (1828); _Hatton Correspondence_ (Camden Soc., 1878); Evelyn's _Diary_; Sir J. Dalrymple's _Memoirs_ (1790); N.

Luttrell's _Brief Hist. Relation_ (1857); _Wentworth Papers_ (1883); W. c.o.xe, _Mem. of the Duke of Marlborough_ (1847); Conduct of the Dowager d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough (1742); Ralph, _The other Side of the Question_ (1742); _Private Correspondence of Sarah d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough_ (1838); A. T, Thomson, _Mem. of the d.u.c.h.ess and the Court of Queen Anne_ (1839); J.S. Clarke's _Life of James II._ (1816); J.

Macpherson's _Original Papers_ (1775); Swift's _Some Considerations upon the Consequences from the Death of the Queen, An Inquiry into the Behaviour of the Queen's last Ministry, Hist. of the Four Last Years of Queen Anne_, and _Journals and Letters; The Lockhart Papers_ (1817), i.; F. Salomon, _Geschichte des letzten Ministeriums Konigin Annas_ (1894); _Marchmont Papers_, iii. (1831); W. Sichel _Life of Bolingbroke_ (1901-1902); _Mem. of Thomas Earl of Ailesbury_ (Roxburghe Club, 1890); _Eng. Hist. Rev._ i. 470, 756, viii. 740; _Royal Hut. Soc. Trans._ N.S. xiv. 69; _Col. of State Papers; Treasury; Hist. MSS. Comm. Series, MSS. of Duke of Portland_, including _the Harley Papers, Duke of Buccleugh at Montagu House, Lord Kenyan, Marq. of Bath at Longleat; Various Collections_, ii. 146, _Duke Of Rutland at Belvoir, 7th Rep. app._, and _H.M. the King_ (_Stuart Papers_, i.); _Stowe MSS._ in Brit. Museum; Sir J.

Mackintosh's Transcripts, _Add. MSS._ in Brit. Museum, 34, 487-526; _Edinburgh Rev._, October 1835, p. 1; _Notes and Queries_, vii. ser.

iii. 178, viii. ser. i. 72, xii. 368, ix, ser. iv. 282, xi, 254; C.

Hodgson, _An Account of the Augmentation of Small Livings by the Bounty of Queen Anne_ (1845); _Observations of the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty_ (1867); _Somers Tracts_, xii. xiii. (1814-1815); H.

Paul, _Queen Anne_ (London, 1907). (P. C. Y.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See also _Hist. MSS. Comm., MSS. of Duke of Rutland at Belvoir_, ii. 109.

[2] Dalrymple's _Memoirs_, ii. 175.

[3] Dalrymple's _Memoirs_, ii. 249.

[4] Lord Ailesbury's _Memoirs_, 293.

[5] Macpherson i. 241; Clarke's _Life of James II_., ii. 476. The letter, which is only printed in fragments, is not in Anne's style, and if genuine was probably dictated by the Churchills.

[6] Luttrell ii. 366, 376.

[7] Macpherson i. 257; Clarke's _James II_., ii. 559. See also Shrewsbury's anonymous correbpondent in _Hist. MSS. Comm. Ser.; MSS.

Duke of Buccleugh at Montagu House_, ii. 169.

[8] Macaulay iv. 799 _note_

[9] Swift's _Mem. on the Change of the Ministry._

[10] _Conduct of the d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough_, p. 225.

[11] For their names see Hume and Smollett's _Hist_. (Hughes, 1854) viil. 110.

[12] See also _Hist. MSS. Comm. Ser._ Rep. vii. App. 246b.

[13] _Ibid. Portland MSS_. v. 338.

[14] Sir J. Leveson-Gower to Lord Rutland, _Hist. MSS. Comm., Duke of Rutland's MSS_. ii. 173.

[15] See Bolingbroke's _Letter to Sir W. Wyndham_.

[16] _Private Correspondence_, ii. 120.

[17] _Hist. MSS. Comm., MSS. of Marq. of Bath at Longleat_, i. 237.

[18] _Notes and Queries_, xi. 254.

ANNE (1693-1740), empress of Russia, second daughter of Tsar Ivan V., Peter the Great's imbecile brother, and Praskovia Saltuikova. Her girlhood was pa.s.sed at Ismailovo near Moscow, with her mother, an ignorant, bigoted tsaritsa of the old school, who neglected and even hated her daughters. Peter acted as a second father to the Ivanovs, as Praskovia and her family were called. In 1710 he married Anne to Frederick William, duke of Courland, who died of surfeit on his journey home from St Petersburg. The reluctant young widow was ordered to proceed on her way to Mittau to take over the government of Courland, with the Russian resident, Count Peter Bestuzhev, as her adviser. He was subsequently her lover, till supplanted by Biren (q.v.). Anne's residence at Mittau was embittered by the utter inadequacy of her revenue, which she keenly felt. It was therefore with joy that she at once accepted the Russian crown, as the next heir, after the death of Peter II. (January 30, 1730), when it was offered to her by the members of the supreme privy council, even going so far as to subscribe previously nine articles which would have reduced her from an absolute to a very limited monarch. On the 26th of February she made her public entry into Moscow under strict surveillance. On the 8th of March a _coup d'etat_, engineered by a party of her personal friends, overthrew the supreme privy council and she was hailed as autocrat. Her government, on the whole, was prudent, beneficial and even glorious; but it was undoubtedly severe and became at last universally unpopular. This was due in the main to the outrageous insolence of her all-powerful favourite Biren, who hated the Russian n.o.bility and trampled upon them mercilessly. Fortunately, Biren was sufficiently prudent not to meddle with foreign affairs or with the army, and these departments in the able hands of two other foreigners, who thoroughly identified themselves with Russia, Andrei Osterman (q.v.) and Burkhardt Munnich (q.v.) did great things in the reign of Anne. The chief political events of the period were the War of the Polish Succession and the second[1] Crimean War. The former was caused by the reappearance of Stanislaus Leszczynski as a candidate for the Polish throne after the death of Augustus II.

(February 1, 1733). The interests of Russia would not permit her to recognize a candidate dependent directly on France and indirectly upon Sweden and Turkey, all three powers being at that time opposed to Russia's "system." She accordingly united with Austria to support the candidature of the late king's son, Augustus of Saxony. So far as Russia was concerned, the War of the Polish Succession was quickly over. Much more important was the Crimean War of 1736-39. This war marks the beginning of that systematic struggle on the part of Russia to recover her natural and legitimate southern boundaries. It lasted four years and a half, and cost her a hundred thousand men and millions of roubles; and though invariably successful, she had to be content with the acquisition of a single city (Azov) with a small district at the mouth of the Don. Yet more had been gained than was immediately apparent. In the first place, this was the only war hitherto waged by Russia against Turkey which had not ended in crushing disaster. Munnich had at least dissipated the illusion of Ottoman invincibility, and taught the Russian soldier that 100,000 janissaries and spahis were no match, in a fair field, for half that number of grenadiers and hussars. In the second place the Tatar hordes had been well nigh exterminated. In the third place Russia's signal and unexpected successes in the Steppe had immensely increased her prestige on the continent. "This court begins to have a great deal to say in the affairs of Europe," remarked the English minister, Sir Claudius Rondeau, a year later.

The last days of Anne were absorbed by the endeavour to strengthen the position of the heir to the throne, the baby cesarevich Ivan, afterwards Ivan VI., the son of the empress's niece, Anna Leopoldovna, against the superior claims of her cousin the cesarevna Elizabeth. The empress herself died three months later (28th of October 1740). Her last act was to appoint Biren regent during the infancy of her great-nephew.

Anne was a grim, sullen woman, frankly sensual, but as well-meaning as ignorance and vindictiveness would allow her to be. But she had much natural good sense, was a true friend and, in her more cheerful moments, an amiable companion. Lady Rondeau's portrait of the empress shows her to the best advantage. She is described as a large woman, towering above all the cavaliers of her court, but very well shaped for her size, easy and graceful in her person, of a majestic bearing, but with an awfulness in her countenance which revolted those who disliked her.

See R. Nisbet Bain, _The Pupils of Peter the Great_ (London, 1897); _Letters from a lady who resided some years in Russia (i.e._ Lady Rondeau) (London, 1775); Christoph Hermann Manstein, _Memoires sur la Russie_ (Amsterdam, 1771; English edition, London, 1856); Gerhard Anton von Haiem, _Lebensschreibung des Feldm. B.C. Grafen von Munnich_ (Oldenburg, 1803); Claudius Rondeau, _Diplomatic Despatches from Russia, 1728-1739_ (St Petersburg, 1889-1892). (R. N. B.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Vasily Golitsuin's expedition under the regency of Sophia was the first Crimean War (1687-89).

ANNE OF BRITTANY (1477-1514), daughter of Francis II., duke of Brittany, and Marguerite de Foix. She was scarcely twelve years old when she succeeded her father as d.u.c.h.ess on the 9th of September 1488. Charles VIII. aimed at establishing his authority over her; Alain d'Albret wished to marry her; Jean de Rohan claimed the duchy; and her guardian, the marshal de Rieux, was soon in open revolt against his sovereign. In 1489 the French army invaded Brittany. In order to protect her independence, Anne concluded an alliance with Maximilian of Austria, and soon married him by proxy (December 1489). But Maximilian was incapable of defending her, and in 1491 the young d.u.c.h.ess found herself compelled to treat with Charles VIII. and to marry him. The two sovereigns made a reciprocal arrangement as to their rights and pretensions to the crown of Brittany, but in the event of Charles predeceasing her, Anne undertook to marry the heir to the throne. Nevertheless, in 1492, after the conspiracy of Jean de Rohan, who had endeavoured to hand over the duchy to the king of England, Charles VIII. confirmed the privileges of Brittany, and in particular guaranteed to the Bretons the right of paying only those taxes to which the a.s.sembly of estates consented, After the death of Charles VIII. in 1498, without any children, Anne exercised the sovereignty in Brittany, and in January 1499 she married Louis XII., who had just repudiated Joan of France. The marriage contract was ostensibly directed in favour of the independence of Brittany, for it declared that Brittany should revert to the second son or to the eldest daughter of the two sovereigns, and, failing issue, to the natural heirs of the d.u.c.h.ess. Until her death Anne occupied herself personally with the administration of the duchy. In 1504 she caused the treaty of Blois to be concluded, which a.s.sured the hand of her daughter, Claude of France, to Charles of Austria (the future emperor, Charles V.), and promised him the possession of Brittany, Burgundy and the county of Blois. But this unpopular treaty was broken, and the queen had to consent to the betrothal of Claude to Francis of Angouleme, who in 1515 became king of France as Francis I. Thus the definitive reunion of Brittany and France was prepared.

See A. de la Borderie, _Choix de doc.u.ments inedits sur le regne de la d.u.c.h.esse Anne en Bretagne_ (Rennes, 1866 and 1902)--extracts from the _Memoires de la Societe Archeologique du departement d'Ille-et-Vilaine_, vols. iv. and vi. (1866 and 1868); Leroux de Lincy, _Vie de la reine Anne de Bretagne_ (1860-1861); A. Dupuy, _La Reunion de la Bretagne a la France_ (1880); A. de la Borderie, _La Bretagne aux derniers siecles du may en age_ (1893), and _La Bretagne aux temps modernes_ (1894). (H. Se.)

ANNE OF CLEVES (1515-1557), fourth wife of Henry VIII., king of England, daughter of John, duke of Cleves, and Mary, only daughter of William, duke of Juliers, was born on the 22nd of September 1515. Her father was the leader of the German Protestants, and the princess, after the death of Jane Seymour, was regarded by Cromwell as a suitable wife for Henry VIII. She had been brought up in a narrow retirement, could speak no language but her own, had no looks, no accomplishments and no dowry, her only recommendations being her proficiency in needlework, and her meek and gentle temper. Nevertheless her picture, painted by Holbein by the king's command (now in the Louvre, a modern copy at Windsor), pleased Henry and the marriage was arranged, the treaty being signed on the 24th of September 1539. The princess landed at Deal on the 27th of December; Henry met her at Rochester on the 1st of January 1540, and was so much abashed at her appearance as to forget to present the gift he had brought for her, but nevertheless controlled himself sufficiently to treat her with courtesy. The next day he expressed openly his dissatisfaction at her looks; "she was no better than a Flanders mare."

The attempt to prove a pre-contract with the son of the duke of Lorraine broke down, and Henry was forced to resign himself to the sacrifice. On the wedding morning, however, the 6th of January 1540, he declared that no earthly thing would have induced him to marry her but the fear of driving the duke of Cleves into the arms of the emperor. Shortly afterwards Henry had reason to regret the policy which had identified him so closely with the German Protestantism, and denied reconciliation with the emperor. Cromwell's fall was the result, and the chief obstacle to the repudiation of his wife being thus removed, Henry declared the marriage had not been and could not be consummated; and did not scruple to cast doubts on his wife's honour. On the 9th of July the marriage was declared null and void by convocation, and an act of parliament to the same effect was pa.s.sed immediately. Henry soon afterwards married Catherine Howard. On first hearing of the king's intentions, Anne swooned away, but on recovering, while declaring her case a very hard and sorrowful one from the great love which she bore to the king, acquiesced quietly in the arrangements made for her by Henry, by which she received lands to the value of 4000 a year, renounced the t.i.tle of queen for that of the king's sister, and undertook not to leave the kingdom. In a letter to her brother, drawn up by Gardiner by the king's direction, she acknowledged the unreality of the marriage and the king's kindness and generosity. Anne spent the rest of her life happily in England at Richmond or Bletchingley, occasionally visiting the court, and being described as joyous as ever, and wearing new dresses every day! An attempt to procure her reinstalment on the disgrace of Catherine Howard failed, and there was no foundation for the report that she had given birth to a child of which Henry was the reputed father. She was present at the marriage of Henry with Catherine Parr and at the coronation of Mary. She died on the 28th of July 1557 at Chelsea, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.