Anne
Anna
Queen of England · Queen of Scotland (until 1707) · Queen of Great Britain · Queen of Ireland
1665 – 1714
Biography
Younger Protestant daughter of James II and the last Stuart to wear the crown. Her reign saw the Act of Union with Scotland in 1707 creating the kingdom of Great Britain, Marlborough's victories at Blenheim and Ramillies in the War of the Spanish Succession, and the founding of the first British political parties. She endured seventeen pregnancies and saw no child survive to adulthood; on her death the throne passed under the Act of Settlement to her distant Hanoverian cousin George, great-grandson of James VI and I.
Events
Parallel Acts passed by the parliaments of England and Scotland in 1706 and 1707 dissolved both legislatures and created a single Kingdom of Great Britain with a unified parliament at Westminster. Scotland retained its distinct legal system, established church, and educational institutions. The union was politically driven (Scotland's financial collapse after the Darien venture, English fears of a separate Stuart restoration) and deeply unpopular in Scotland for generations.
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