You’ve probably seen the movies. Maybe you remember Olivia Colman screaming about her rabbits or throwing a tantrum in a corset. It’s a great image, but it isn't exactly the whole truth. When people ask who is Queen Anne, they usually expect a story about a weak, sickly woman who let her friends run the country while she mourned her seventeen lost children. That’s the "Pop History" version.
The reality? She was a powerhouse.
Anne Stuart was the last monarch of the House of Stuart, and she reigned from 1702 to 1714. If you live in the UK, you literally wouldn't have a "United Kingdom" without her. She was the one who signed the Acts of Union in 1707, finally joining England and Scotland into a single sovereign state. She wasn't just some figurehead sitting in a drafty palace. She was a hard-working, stubborn, and deeply religious leader who navigated some of the messiest political infighting in British history.
She did all of this while her body was basically falling apart.
The Woman Behind the Crown
To understand who is Queen Anne, you have to look at the sheer trauma of her personal life. Imagine being pregnant seventeen times. Seventeen. Out of all those pregnancies, only five children were born alive. Only one, William, Duke of Gloucester, survived infancy. Then, at age eleven, he died too.
It’s heartbreaking.
Because of this constant cycle of pregnancy and loss, Anne suffered from chronic gout and what historians now believe was likely an autoimmune disorder like systemic lupus erythematosus. By the time she was in her late thirties, she couldn't even walk. She had to be carried to her coronation in a sedan chair because her legs simply wouldn't support her weight.
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Despite the physical agony, she attended more cabinet meetings than almost any monarch before or after her. She took the "job" part of being a Queen seriously. She wasn't just a face on a coin; she was the glue holding a fracturing government together.
The Power Struggle: Sarah Churchill and Abigail Masham
You can't talk about who is Queen Anne without mentioning the drama. This is the part everyone loves. For decades, Anne’s closest confidante was Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough. Sarah was beautiful, sharp-tongued, and incredibly manipulative. She basically ran Anne’s household and had a massive influence on political appointments.
They even had pet names for each other: Mrs. Morley (Anne) and Mrs. Freeman (Sarah). It was a way to pretend they were equals.
But things soured. Sarah was a Whig, and Anne leaned Tory. Sarah was also, quite frankly, a bit of a bully. She would mock Anne's weight, her grief, and her political choices. Eventually, a cousin of Sarah’s named Abigail Masham came into the picture. Abigail was everything Sarah wasn't—gentle, flattering, and submissive.
The shift in power between these two women wasn't just gossip; it changed the course of European history. When Sarah lost favor, her husband, the Duke of Marlborough, lost his political backing during the War of the Spanish Succession.
Why the Acts of Union Changed Everything
People often forget that before 1707, England and Scotland were two different countries that just happened to share a monarch. It was a clunky, weird arrangement. Anne pushed for the Acts of Union because she wanted stability. She saw a future where the island of Great Britain was a single economic and military unit.
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It wasn't an easy sell. There were riots in Edinburgh. There was massive pushback in London. But she got it done.
This is why her legacy matters so much. She presided over the rise of the British Empire. Under her watch, the "Two-Party System" of Whigs and Tories really solidified. She oversaw the development of the British press—this was the era of Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe. It was an intellectual explosion, and she was the one sitting at the top of it all, trying to make sure the country didn't descend into civil war.
The Misconception of "Weakness"
Historians for a long time—mostly men, let’s be honest—portrayed Anne as a "dull" woman who was easily led by her favorites. They looked at her physical ailments and her quiet demeanor and assumed there was no brain behind the crown.
That’s a total misreading of her character.
Anne was actually incredibly savvy at playing her ministers against one another. She hated the idea of being a "party" monarch. She wanted to be the Queen of all her people, not just the Whigs or the Tories. She frequently resisted pressure from her advisors to appoint people she didn't trust.
She was also the first monarch to truly understand the power of public image. She used her "Englishness" as a weapon. Her predecessor, William III, was Dutch and never quite fit in. Anne, in her first speech to Parliament, famously said, "I know my heart to be entirely English." The crowd went wild. She knew exactly what she was doing.
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The Tragedy of the Succession
The biggest shadow over Anne’s reign was the question of who came next. Since none of her seventeen children survived, the Stuart line was ending with her. This was a massive crisis. The closest heirs were Catholics (like her half-brother, James Francis Edward Stuart), but the English Parliament had passed the Act of Settlement to ensure only a Protestant could take the throne.
Anne was caught in the middle. She was a devout Anglican, but she also felt the pull of family blood. In the end, she stayed loyal to the law, which led to the Hanovarian succession and the rise of King George I.
She died in 1714, aged only 49. Her body was so swollen from dropsy (edema) that her coffin was reportedly square. It’s a grisly end for a woman who spent her life trying to hold a kingdom together while her own family tree withered away.
How to See Anne’s Legacy Today
If you want to move beyond the question of who is Queen Anne and actually experience her history, there are a few places you need to look:
- Blenheim Palace: While it was built for the Duke of Marlborough, its existence is tied to Anne’s favor (and eventual fallout) with the Churchill family.
- St. Paul's Cathedral: Anne was a huge patron of its reconstruction after the Great Fire of London. There’s a statue of her right out front.
- Queen Anne Style Architecture: Look for those beautiful red-brick houses with white window frames and symmetrical fronts. That aesthetic was born during her reign.
- The Royal Navy: She poured massive resources into the fleet, setting the stage for Britain to "rule the waves" for the next two centuries.
Practical Steps for History Buffs
If you’re looking to dive deeper into the real Queen Anne, don’t just rely on Hollywood. Here is how to get the real story:
- Read Anne Somerset’s Biography: Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion is widely considered the gold standard. It uses her actual letters to show her political intelligence.
- Visit the National Portrait Gallery: Look at the portraits of Anne from her early youth versus her later years. You can see the physical toll the crown took on her.
- Explore the 1707 Acts of Union: Check out the original documents via the UK National Archives online. It gives you a sense of the legal heavy lifting she participated in.
- Listen to the Music: The music of George Frideric Handel began to flourish in London during the very end of the Stuart era; he even wrote a birthday ode for her.
Anne wasn't a victim of her circumstances. She was a survivor who navigated a man's world with a broken body and a grieving heart, and she left behind a unified nation that would eventually change the world.