In Scotland annat or ann is half a year’s stipend allowed by the Act 1672, c. 13, to the executors of a minister of the Church of Scotland above what was due to him at the time of his death. This is neither assignable by the clergyman during his life, nor can it be seized by his creditors.
[1] For cases see du Cange, Glossarium, s. Servitium Camerae Papae; J.C.L. Gieseler, Eccles. Hist., vol. iii. div. iii., notes to p. 181, &c. (Eng. trans., Edinburgh, 1853).
[2] Durandus (Guillaume Durand), in his de modo generalis concilii celebrandi, represents contemporary clerical hostile opinion and attacks the corruptions of the officials of the Curia.
ANNE (1665-1714), queen of Great Britain and Ireland, second daughter of James, duke of York, afterwards James II., and of Anne Hyde, daughter of the ist earl of Clarendon, was born on the 6th of February 1665. She suffered as a child from an affection of the eyes, and was sent to France for medical treatment, residing with her grandmother, Henrietta Maria, and on the latter’s death with her aunt, the duchess of Orleans, and returning to England in 1670. She was brought up, together with her sister Mary, by the direction of Charles II., as a strict Protestant, and as a child she made the friendship of Sarah Jennings (afterwards duchess of Marlborough), thus beginning life under the two influences which were to prove the most powerful in her future career. In 1678 she accompanied Mary of Modena to Holland, and in 1679 joined her parents abroad and afterwards in Scotland. On the 28th of July 1683 she married Prince George of Denmark, brother of King Christian V., an unpopular union because of the French proclivities of the bridegroom’s country, but one of great domestic happiness, the prince and princess being conformable in temper and both preferring retirement and quiet to life in the great world. Sarah Churchill became Anne’s lady of the bedchamber, and, by the latter’s desire to mark their mutual intimacy and affection, all deference due to her rank was abandoned and the two ladies called each other Mrs Morley and Mrs Freeman.
On the 6th of February 1685 James became king of England. In 1687 a project of settling the crown on the princess, to the exclusion of Mary, on the condition of Anne’s embracing Roman Catholicism, was rendered futile by her pronounced attachment to the Church of England, and beyond sending her books and papers James appears to have made no attempt to coerce his daughter into a change of faith,[1] and to have treated her with kindness, while the birth of his son on the 20th of June 1688 made the religion of his daughters a matter of less political importance. Anne was not present on the occasion, having gone to Bath, and this gave rise to a belief that the child was spurious; but it is most probable that James’s desire to exclude all Protestants from affairs of state was the real cause. “I shall never now be satisfied,” Anne wrote to Mary, “whether the child be true or false. It may be it is our brother, but God only knows ... one cannot help having a thousand fears and melancholy thoughts, but whatever changes may happen you shall ever find me firm to my religion and faithfully yours.”[2] In later years, however, she had no doubt that the Old Pretender was her brother. During the events immediately preceding the Revolution Anne kept in seclusion. Her ultimate conduct was probably influenced by the Churchills; and though forbidden by James, to pay Mary a projected visit in the spring of 1688, she corresponded with her, and was no doubt aware of William’s plans. Her position was now a very critical and painful one. She refused to show any sympathy with the king after William had landed in November, and wrote, with the advice of the Churchills, to the prince, declaring her approval of his action.[3] Churchill abandoned the king on the 24th, Prince George on the 25th, and when James returned to London on the 26th he found that Anne and her lady-in-waiting had during the previous night followed their husbands’ examples. Escaping from Whitehall by a back staircase they put themselves under the care of the bishop of London, spent one night in his house, and subsequently arrived on the 1st of December at Nottingham, where the princess first made herself known and appointed a council. Thence she passed through Leicester, Coventry and Warwick, finally entering Oxford, where she met Prince George, in triumph, escorted by a large company. Like Mary, she was reproached for showing no concern at the news of the king’s flight, but her justification was that “she never loved to do anything that looked like an affected constraint.” She returned to London on the 19th of December, when she was at once visited by William. Subsequently the Declaration of Rights settled the succession of the crown upon her after William and Mary and their children.
Meanwhile Anne had suffered a series of maternal disappointments. Between 1684 and 1688 she had miscarried four times and given birth to two children who died infants. On the 24th of July 1689, however, the birth, of a son, William, created duke of Gloucester, who survived his infancy, gave hopes that heirs to the throne under the Bill of Rights might be forthcoming. But Anne’s happiness was soon troubled by quarrels with the king and queen. According to the duchess of Marlborough the two sisters, who had lived hitherto while apart on extremely affectionate terms, found no enjoyment in each other’s society. Mary talked too much for Anne’s comfort, and Anne too little for Mary’s satisfaction. But money appears to have been the first and real cause of ill-feeling. The granting away by William of the private estate of James, amounting to 22,000 pounds a year, to which Anne had some claim, was made a grievance, and a factious motion brought forward in the House to increase her civil list pension of 30,000 pounds, which she enjoyed in addition to 20,000 pounds under her marriage settlement, greatly displeased William and Mary, who regarded it as a plot to make Anne independent and the chief of a separate interest in the state, while their resentment was increased by the refusal of Anne to restrain the action of her friends, and by its success. The Marlboroughs had been active in the affair and had benefited by it, the countess (as she then was) receiving a pension of 1000 pounds, and their conduct was noticed at court. The promised Garter was withheld from Marlborough, and the incensed “Mrs Morley” in her letters to “Mrs Freeman” styled the king “Caliban” or the “Dutch Monster.” At the close of 1691 Anne had declared her approval of the naval expedition in favour of her father, and expressed grief at its failure.[4] According to the doubtful Life of James, she wrote to him on the 1st of December a “most penitential and dutiful” letter, and henceforward kept up with him a “fair correspondence.”[5] The same year the breach between the royal sisters was made final by the dismissal of Marlborough, justly suspected of Jacobite intrigues, from all his appointments. Anne took the part of her favourites with great zeal against the court, though in all probability unaware of Marlborough’s treason; and on the dismissal of the countess from her household by the king and queen she refused to part with her, and retired with Lady Marlborough to the duke of Somerset’s residence at Sion House. Anne was now in disgrace. She was deprived of her guard of honour, and Prince George, on entering Kensington Palace, received no salute, though the drums beat loudly on his departure.[6] Instructions were given that the court expected no one to pay his respects, and no attention in the provinces was to be shown to their rank. In May, Marlborough was arrested on a charge of high treason which subsequently broke down, and Anne persisted in regarding his disgrace as a personal injury to herself. In August 1693, however, the two sisters were temporarily reconciled, and on the occasion of Mary’s last illness and death Anne showed an affectionate consideration.
The death of Mary weakened William’s position and made it necessary to cultivate good relations with the princess. She was now treated with every honour and civility, and finally established with her own court at St James’s Palace. At the same time William kept her in the background and refrained from appointing her regent during his absence. In March 1695 Marlborough was allowed to kiss the king’s hands, and subsequently was made the duke of Gloucester’s governor and restored to his employments. In return Anne gave her support to William’s government, though about this time, in 1696—according to James, in consequence of the near prospect of the throne— she wrote to her father asking for his leave to wear the crown at William’s death, and promising its restoration at a convenient opportunity.[7] The unfounded rumour that William contemplated settling the succession after his death on James’s son, provided he were educated a Protestant in England, may possibly have alarmed her.[8] Meanwhile, since the birth of the duke of Gloucester, the princess had experienced six more miscarriages, and had given birth to two children who only survived a few hours, and the last maternal hope flickered out on the death of the young prince on the 29th of July 1700. Henceforth Anne signs herself in her letters to Lady Marlborough as “your poor unfortunate” as well as “faithful Morley.” In default of her own issue, Anne’s personal choice would probably have inclined at this time to her own family at St Germains, but the necessity of maintaining the Protestant succession caused the enactment of the Act of Settlement in 1701, and the substitution of the Hanoverian branch. She wore mourning for her father in 1701, and before his death James is said to have written to his daughter asking for her protection for his family; but the recognition of his son by Louis XIV. as king of England effectually prevented any good offices to which her feelings might have inclined her.
On the 8th of March 1702 Anne became, by King William’s death, queen of Great Britain, being crowned on the 23rd of April. Her reign was destined to be one of the most brilliant in the annals of England. Splendid military triumphs crushed the hereditary national foe. The Act of Union with Scotland constituted one of the strongest foundations of the future empire. Art and literature found a fresh renascence.