The Duke and Duchess of Marlborough afterwards went abroad, and their history is no longer connected with that of Queen Anne.
The famous peace of Utrecht was signed in 1713. The remainder of Queen Anne’s reign was unmomentous. After her experience with the Duchess of Marlborough she determined to assert her own will, but she deceived no one but herself, as she was now alternately swayed by her two favorites, the Duchess of Somerset, who was appointed mistress of the robes, and Lady Masham, whom she had raised to a title and made the keeper of the privy purse. Swift says of Anne at this time:—
“Often, out of fear of being imposed upon by an over-caution, she would impose upon herself; she took a delight in refusing those who were thought to have the greatest power with her, even in the most reasonable things, and such as were necessary for her service; nor would let them be done till she fell into the humor of it herself.”
In her best days, Anne was merely a dull, uninformed woman, without the slightest literary tastes, and yet her reign is called the “Augustan Age of Anne,” and the “wits of Queen Anne’s time” are held only second to the “poets of the Elizabethan age.” No one would probably have been more surprised than Anne herself to have been thus classed with the glorious names of literary fame, for she never read, and was hardly cognizant of the existence of the brilliant minds which gave her reign its brightest lustre. Sir Isaac Newton, Pope, Dryden, Addison, Steele, Swift, De Foe, Gay, Prior, Arbuthnot, Congreve, Young, Parnell, Granville, and Bishop Atterbury, were the most celebrated among the literary lights in her time.
The daily etiquette of the court life of Queen Anne is thus described:—
“The bedchamber-woman came into waiting before her majesty arose, and previous to prayers. If a lady of the bedchamber were present, the bedchamber-woman handed her the queen’s linen, and the lady put it on her Majesty. Every time the queen changed her dress in the course of the day her habiliments made the same formal progress from hand to hand. When the queen washed her hands, her page of the back stairs brought and set upon a side-table a basin and ewer. Then the bed-chamber-woman placed it before the queen, and knelt on the other side of the table over against the queen, the lady of the bedchamber only looking on. The bedchamber-woman poured the water out of the ewer on the queen’s hands. It was also her duty to pull on the queen’s gloves when her Majesty could not do it herself, which was often the case, owing to her infirmity of gout. The page of the back stairs was always called to put on the queen’s shoes. When Queen Anne dined in public, her page passed the glass to her bedchamber-woman, and she to the lady in waiting; in due time it reached the lips of royalty.”
There was little of the pomp and ceremony which distinguished the court of the proud Elizabeth; indeed, Anne herself was too careless and dull-witted, and the imperious Duchess of Marlborough was too defiant of all restraints to have insured that subservient obeisance which Elizabeth demanded and received. Having been obliged, even in her coronation procession, to be borne in a low arm-chair on account of her gout, which prevented her walking in regal majesty as all her predecessors had done, she continued subject to this infirmity, which her gross eating and drinking greatly increased. The stormy disputes between her ministers, Oxford and Bolingbroke, became so violent that at length the fear of having to submit to a third terrible council with them, after two hot disputes had been interrupted by her attacks of violent illness, caused a burning fever, which threatened her life. Submitting to the old remedy of bleeding, she was found to be no better, and it was evident that her end was near. Oxford having resigned his office of lord treasurer in a rage, it became necessary to appoint some one in his place. The Duke of Shrewsbury was suggested for the office, but he would not accept the staff unless the queen herself laid it in his hand. Accordingly the white wand was placed in the stiffening fingers of the dying queen, and the Duke of Shrewsbury, approaching her bedside, asked:—
“Do you know to whom you give the white wand?”
“Yes,” murmured the still-conscious queen; “to the Duke of Shrewsbury; and for God’s sake, use it for the good of my people!”
Thus perished the last of the sovereigns of the House of Stuart.