Customer Reviews

Yale English Monarchs - Queen Anne (The English Monarchs Series)

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During Queen Anne's reign Britain consolidated its position as a first rank
European power. Prior to that England had been the doughty underdog, who
somehow survived to trade another day, its politics plagued with factions and bloody
divisions. During Anne's reign the divisions persisted, but was worked out with less
bloody consequences.

Professor Gregg's was allowed access to the large volume of correspondence between
Anne and her one time close friend Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. The Duke and Duchess of Marlborough were the power couple of the period. The Duke won great military victories for Britain on the continent and the Duchess was very influential in the early years of Queen Annes' rule. So the correspondence is very revealing of the twists and turns of the political process. Anne could only rule through parliament, and being childless (despite sixteen pregnancies!) was
susceptible to pressure as to who should succeed her. Her father, James II, a Catholic, had been deposed and was living in exile in France, where he had the support of Louis XIV. The next nearest Protestant relative was George Augustus of Hannover, a rather dour, provincial potentate. Through the later
years of her reign, Anne struggled with parliament to establish her own authority, limit the power of Louis XIV in Europe, secure the Protestant succession and
simultaneously deter the George Augustus from coming to Britain while she lived - this last was necessary to stop a rival power structure emerging. This was done against the backdrop of increasing expensive military campaigns and a country which was sentimentally attached to the Stuarts and neutral about the Hannovarians. The struggles within parliament and between parliament and the court are well described by Professor Gregg, who is especially good at describing the rather-stoic Anne's stuggle to establish her authority. The early letters to the Duchess of Marlborough are unusually revealing of her struggle to assert herself.

If the book has a weakness it is the over-reliance on these letters. The friendship between Anne and Sarah soured considerably, as Anne took more and more
decisions which contradicted Sarah's advice. Eventually Anne turned to a number of
other advisors, however correspondence with these others is much more limited, while Sarah continued to inundated Anne with increasingly shrill correspondence. Gregg, in the absence of other documentation, quotes heavily from later correspondence between the women, even though the relevance to contemporary events diminishes.

Overall the book is an excellent, personalized description of Annes times and life.
By being so focussed on the monarch it gives an insight into the connections between families in the fight for preferment - several examples exist of proximity to royalty translating into high office; the father of James II's `low born' wife became the Earl of Clarendon, and Anne spent most of her reign ignoring and avoiding him. In this way it is possible to trace and understand the patterns of
patronage and influence which make English history seem so impenetrable.

I highly recommend this book

I throughly enjoyed this book by Edward Gregg. It reads well and tells a story of one of England's most misunderstood monarchs. Much of our views about Queen Anne come from that excellent British series "The First Churchills" based mostly on the memoirs of Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough. Churchill shows Queen Anne as dull, easily bullied and indecisive. In fact, as Gregg demonstrates, Anne was engaged in all aspects of British political life. She pursued a balanced policy between Whigs and Tories. Under her reign, Britain emerged as the premier military power in Europe- defeating the Sun Kings' plans to unite the Spanish and French empires into one political unit. The empire expanded to new heights. Importantly, she navigated England through a tumultous time. While stubborn, like most Stuart monarchs, she did not display the arrogance of power that afflicted her father, James II. She appears to me to be somewhere between the pragmatism of Charles II and the implacable Mary II. Handel has written a wonderful ode about Anne "The day that gave great Anna birth, Who fix'd a lasting peace on earth." Gregg has done a wonderful job in reminding us that Queen Anne deserves better recognition as one of England's great monarchs.

This is not an easy book to read, relying as it does on intense scrutiny of many contemporary records and letters to tease out the intricate and constantly changing politics of the day. I originally posted a critical review of this book because in four hundred pages it hardly mentions anybody who is not at least an aristocrat and barely mentions 'popular feeling'. In fact nor does it bother to explain in even cursory fashion political events at large - like the War of the Spanish Succession - except in as much as they impact on the personal experience of the Queen.

What it does do however is show how the religious and internal political controversies - internal to Britain - of the preceding century are resolved by the ability of an astonishingly able - if introverted - and determined monarch to contain these conflicts within herself.

Her story as monarch is of resisting the continual and somewhat ferocious efforts of extreme elements within both Whig and Tory parties to seize control of the political agenda. Even her greatest allies - the Duke of Marlborough and especially his wife Sarah failed to understand or value Anne's position which was to assert the independence of the monarchy and her own right to choose her own path without plunging into interminable war or succumbing to the retrograde desire to resurrect the Stuart succession.

Her difficult choice made it possible for the Hanoverian succession to occur relatively smoothly and usher in a period of tranquility for many decades after the continual upheaval of the Stuart years.

Gregg's introduction reveals that this is still a controversial period which seems to excite strong feelings. Anne her self was willing to adopt a posture of self-abnegation for years in order to maintain her focus on a middle path when all around her were urging extreme solutions, and it is Mr. Gregg's achievement to tease out this narrative.

To do so he relies heavily on extensive quotations, especially from Sarah Churchill's letters. At times his meaning is hard to follow because of the ambiguities so frequent in the situations he describes which he often states baldly leaving the reader to make sense of. But Gregg has confidence in his narrative, a confidence which communicates itself to the reader.

I have no authority to call this book the definitive work on Queen Anne's life and reign, but that is how I feel after having read it. Gregg's research is exhaustive and very well documented with over 50 pages of reference notes following the main text. Needless to say, this is an excellent starting point for any student's research. Moreover, if you are interested in learning about the later Stuarts, Anne is always a good subject because she lived during the reigns of all post-restoration Stuarts. Elements of Charles II, James II, Mary II, and William III's reigns are touched upon in some capacity, at least insofar as they pertain to Anne.

Gregg does an excellent job providing readers with both political information as well as insight into Anne's character. Of course, politics and emotions were often intertwined and the results are always interesting. Most monarchs have defining aspects of their reign, and Anne was no exception. This book could reasonably be called "Whigs vs Tories" because the rivalry between those political factions overshadowed the entire 12 years of Anne's reign. An ongoing theme in the book is Anne's personal dedication not to be controlled by one party, and the ups-and-downs that resulted from that determination. Gregg shows that on numerous occasions, personal decisions led to political outcomes and vice-versa.

You will certainly find an interesting story in this book. However, be warned: this book is not a "popular history" - it is purely scholarly. That means lots and lots of names, dates, and tiny details. The intriguing story is all there, but it is not a fast-paced or exhilirating read. It is definitely meant to be read slowly and carefully. If you are looking for a "popular history" version of this story, I recommend "Ungrateful Daughters" by Maureen Waller, which provides a broader discussion of the Glorious Revolution. However, for a full and complete work on Anne, Gregg's book is the best, in my opinion. I highly recommend taking your time with it and absorbing the history of the final years of the House of Stuart.