HistoryExtra https://www.historyextra.com/people/queen-anne Wed, 21 Oct 2026 23:47:13 GMT en hourly 1 Maria of Modena: The queen who started a revolution https://www.historyextra.com/membership/maria-of-modena-the-queen-who-started-a-revolution/ Mon, 11 Aug 2025 09:03:21 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/maria-of-modena-the-queen-who-started-a-revolution/ She was an Italian Catholic in a ferociously anti-papist English court. An aspiring nun in a hotbed of hedonism. Breeze Barrington follows the extraordinary trials and tribulations of James II & VII’s second wife, Maria of Modena Shortly after the queen rose on 10 June 1688, she felt a familiar swell of pain. “Send for the king!” she called, while her ladies helped her back into bed.

Maria (Mary) of Modena was in labour. Soon the room in St James’s Palace began to fill: some 70 people crowded in to watch the queen give birth. There was no screen to shield her, and the bedcurtains were kept open as she screamed in pain: “I die! Oh! You kill me! You kill me!”

Her cries were so terrible that many said they could hardly bear to listen. Yet the king – James II & VII – exhorted the members of his council to come nearer, to look more closely. He had heard the rumours that the pregnancy was fake, and was determined to ensure that no one could say this child was not born of the queen.

The sight of so many faces so close to Maria was overwhelming; she could not give birth with so many men looking on her, she said. But while James stooped to cover her face with his periwig, the rest of her body remained on full display – and everyone present witnessed that crucial moment.

That evening, the London Gazette reported the news to the citizens of the capital: “This day between 9 and 10 in the morning the Queen was safely delivered of a PRINCE.” Protestant England now had a Catholic heir – and a constitutional crisis.

It did not take long for the crisis to unfold. To keep the queen warm as her labour began, a serving woman had placed a bedpan full of hot coals under the blankets. That simple act prompted whispers that a child had been smuggled in – and, whether or not anyone believed the rumour, it provided sufficient pretext for seven politicians and nobles to invite William of Orange to invade England, launching the episode now widely known as the ‘Glorious Revolution’.

If Queen Maria of Modena is known today, it is for these events of 1688. But behind the story of political upheavals lies another tale – of an Italian Catholic princess who, at just 15 years old, was sent to a Protestant country that feared ‘popery’ more than anything else. There she would marry a man 25 years her senior, heir to the English throne. It is the story of a young woman whose purpose in life was seen as the breeder of heirs, but who deserves to be viewed as far more than merely a Catholic womb.

Dynasty in decline

Maria Beatrice d’Este was born on 5 October 1658 in Modena, around 23 miles north-west of Bologna in northern Italy. Though once a great ruling dynasty, by the mid-17th century the Estensi family was much in decline. Maria’s father died when she was not yet four years old, leaving her two-year-old brother, Francesco, to take his place as Duke of Modena, with their mother, Laura, acting as regent. A formidable and highly educated woman, Laura kept her children at what Maria later called an “awful distance” from her, and was determined that both of them would be scholars.

Much of Maria’s education took place in the convent attached to the palace, and she felt at home in that life of devotion to God, in a place of education, community and friendship. While still a child, she determined that she would become a nun. Unbeknown to her, events unfolding in England would soon change the course of her life.

Anne Hyde, the first wife of James, Duke of York – younger brother of King Charles II – died in 1671. Her body was hardly cold before talk turned to James’s remarriage. Charles’s nine-year marriage to Catherine of Braganza had produced no children, so James was the heir to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland, and would have to make a dynastic match with one of the princesses of Europe. James sent his trusted friend the Earl of Peterborough as ambassador extraordinary, to find him a wife and future queen. After many months of searching, Peterborough encountered a portrait of a beautiful young girl, and wrote to James and Charles that he had “found his mistress and the Fortune of England”.

• Read more | Alternate history: what if James II and VII had kept his throne?

The fact that Maria wanted to become a nun mattered little to these powerful men. When she told Peterborough that she would rather throw herself in the fire than marry James, he replied that he “could not believe… that she was made for any other end than to give Princes to the World”.

Tellingly, another powerful man had taken an interest in the match: Pope Clement X. He informed Maria by letter that, in marrying James, she would open herself “to a vaster field of merit than that of the virginal cloister”: by bearing Catholic heirs, she could bring England back to the true faith. After reading this letter, she cried for three days – to the extent that she was held down by force. Peterborough merely wrote that: “The princess at last gave herself up to the will of her friends.” Over in England, James sent a note to his daughters, Mary and Anne, explaining that he had “found a new playfellow”. They were 11 and 8 years old, respectively; Maria was 14.

Controversial match

Maria arrived at the hedonistic court of the ‘Merrie Monarch’ in 1673, completely unprepared for what she encountered there.

“I cannot yet adapt myself to this state – a state to which, as you know, I have been opposed,” she wrote to her former mother superior. “Many nights I weep and grieve and cannot get rid of this melancholy.”

The match caused controversy. Cruel and scurrilous pamphlets circulated, in which it was hoped that she would “be envenom’d with the pox” and to “die before 20, rot before 16”.

But though young in years, Maria was resourceful. She learned English quickly, and began to navigate court politics by using the kind of soft power for which the Estensi family was so celebrated – notably, through patronage of the arts. The poet John Dryden wrote verse in her honour, Dutch artist Peter Lely painted her portrait, and the court was filled with the sounds of Italian opera – “the first that had been in England of this kind”, according to renowned diarist John Evelyn.

As her friendship with her stepdaughters burgeoned, Maria encouraged their talents for singing and dancing by commissioning The Masque of Calisto. This was a lavish spectacle even by the standards of the Restoration court, and the princesses – along with Maria’s favoured maid of honour, Sarah Jennings (later Sarah Churchill, Queen Anne’s ‘favourite’) – took the starring roles.

Shortly before the masque’s first performance, Maria gave birth to her first child. It was not the hoped-for boy, but the infant’s parents were overjoyed, and named her Catherine Laura – Catherine after the queen, Laura after Maria’s mother. Soon after, Maria had her daughter baptised in her rooms – as a Catholic. When her brother-in-law, King Charles II, learned what she’d done, he smiled and patted her hand. That was all very well, Charles said, but the child would be raised in the English church, so she would have to be baptised again, as a Protestant.

This experience gave Maria a concrete understanding of her position at court for the first time. Her children were not just her own, but children of the crown; though she gave birth to them, she had no say over their upbringing. (Tragically, Catherine Laura did not live long; though Maria was pregnant a total of 12 times, only two of her children survived to adulthood and one outlived her).

• Read more | How glorious was the Glorious Revolution?

Maria’s own life as Duchess of York was one of constant uncertainty, as anti-Catholic feeling intensified. Parliament was increasingly divided into two factions, Tories and Whigs; the former supported hereditary monarchy, while the latter was implacably opposed to James ever becoming king. Meanwhile, tensions were rising more broadly in London. The years after Maria’s arrival in England were marked by two plots. The first, the so-called ‘Popish Plot’ of 1678, was a series of accusations by the fantasist Titus Oates, who claimed to have unearthed treasonous Catholic plans to kill the king. Despite being a complete fabrication, it resulted in imprisonments and the execution of some of Maria’s close friends, and she and James were sent into exile – first in Brussels, then in Scotland.

The second plot was real, and came shortly after James and Maria’s return to court in 1682. Had it been successful, the ‘Rye House Plot’ of 1683 would have seen Charles and James assassinated, with James, Duke of Monmouth – Charles’s favourite illegitimate son – made king.

It was over the years following the Rye House Plot that Maria was finally able to recreate something of the life of female friendship and intellectual endeavour that she had enjoyed in the convent in Modena. Two of her maids of honour, Anne Kingsmill (later Finch) and Anne Killigrew, were prodigiously talented: both were poets, and Killigrew was also a painter. Among her maids more generally, Maria encouraged a culture of learning and intellectual endeavour, and both Annes produced work in her honour.

Two pieces in particular provide a snapshot of this shared creative life, both depicting Maria as the goddess Venus. The first, a collaboration between Kingsmill and Killigrew, was a masque entitled Venus and Adonis – a proto-feminist retelling of the classical myth. The second was Killigrew’s painting Venus Attired by the Graces, featuring both Annes among the Graces. A new dawn of women’s art and poetry seemed on the horizon.

A Catholic queen

On 6 February 1685, Charles II died suddenly, aged 54. Maria mourned him deeply – though was wary of displaying her grief in public. “I was so greatly afflicted by the death of King Charles that I dared not show how much,” she wrote, “lest I be suspected of hypocrisy.” Despite their worries about the reception they might encounter, James and Maria were welcomed as the king and queen. This gave her an opportunity for greater patronage: the writer Aphra Behn wrote a celebratory coronation ode, and Anne Killigrew painted coronation portraits. Then tragedy struck again in April when Killigrew died of smallpox, aged just 25.

The new king, James II & VII, had learned all the wrong lessons from the execution of his father, Charles I; he thought that anyone who disagreed with him was against him, and believed that all of parliament were his enemies. His longstanding mistress, Catherine Sedley, was made a countess, and seemed to hold more influence over him than anyone, including his wife. It was said that Maria “loves her husband in all sincerity” but that “she is an Italian, and very proud”. She decided that, unlike queens who had come before, she would not tolerate this situation, and told James to choose: his mistress or his wife. If he continued his affair, she would leave England. “Give her my dower,” she told him. “Make her Queen of England, but let me see her no more!” If James was surprised by this outburst, he would soon be even more astonished when he encountered Maria’s priests, all on their knees, begging him to send away his mistress and save his soul. Overwhelmed, he agreed.

These growing tensions were heightened by the absence of a male heir. Maria had not been pregnant in three years so, at the end of August 1687, went to Bath to take the waters in search of fertility. Her treatment became a form of popular entertainment: members of the public flocked to the galleries to watch her bathe as an Italian orchestra performed. Almost immediately afterwards Maria became pregnant but, no sooner had she found out, rumours began – fuelled (perhaps even started) by King James’s daughter Anne, whose own anti-Catholicism had turned her against her father and stepmother.

Hot coals in a bedpan

After the keenly observed birth of Prince James Francis Edward in June 1688, the rumours only intensified. Some said that the pregnancy had been a hoax; others claimed that Maria had miscarried, or that the child had been a girl and replaced with a boy. All agreed that the child, who was given the title of Prince of Wales, had been smuggled into the room in a bedpan, even though at least two Protestant witnesses saw the bedpan full of hot coals at the beginning of the labour.

The seven men who wrote to encourage the invasion by James’s nephew and son-in-law, William of Orange, exploited these rumours, including in their letter the claim that the child was an imposter. William ensured that his fleet landed on 5 November – a day on which effigies of the pope were ritually burned in bonfires.

Fearing for their safety, James and Maria took their baby and fled into exile at the court of Louis XIV in France. They never stopped believing they might be able to get back the throne. But it wasn’t to be, and they remained at Saint-Germain-en-Laye for the rest of their lives. Here, freed from the obligations of queenship, Maria could once again devote herself to patronage of the arts and of women’s education. In some ways, her life had come full circle: she became the patron of a convent of the Visitation – the same order that she had wanted to join as a child.

Maria outlived her husband by 17 years, bearing him another child in exile. She “has been overwhelmed with calumnies,” James said of Maria on his deathbed. “But time, the mother of Truth, will I hope, at last make her virtues shine as bright as the sun.”

Breeze Barrington is a cultural historian specialising in the artistic cultures of the 17th century. Her latest book is The Graces: The Extraordinary Untold Lives of Women at the Restoration Court (Bloomsbury, 2025)

This article was first published in the August 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine

]]> Your guide to Queen Anne, the last of the Stuart monarchs https://www.historyextra.com/period/stuart/queen-anne-facts-life-favourites-duchess-marlborough-union-england-scotland/ Fri, 31 Jul 2020 10:30:32 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/period/stuart/queen-anne-facts-life-favourites-duchess-marlborough-union-england-scotland/ Queen Anne (1665–1714) was the last of the Stuart monarchs, remembered for achieving the union of England and Scotland in 1707 and for bringing the War of the Spanish Succession to a conclusion. James Anderson Winn, professor of English at Boston University, explores the life and reign of Queen Anne, bringing you the facts about the royal and her court… A quick guide to Queen Anne

Born: 6 February 1665

Died: 1 August 1714

Ruled from: 1702 to 1714

Family: The daughter of James, Duke of York (later James II) and Anne Hyde

Successor: Georg Ludwig, Elector of Hanover, who ruled as George I

Remembered for: Achieving the Union of England and Scotland and bringing the War of the Spanish Succession to a conclusion

• The Favourite: The real history behind the new Queen Anne film

What was Queen Anne like as a princess?

Anne Stuart and her older sister Mary were the only surviving offspring of James, Duke of York by his first Duchess, Anne Hyde. At the age of three, Anne was sent to France to have her eyes treated (as she suffered from an eye condition). There she stayed more than two years, learning the language perfectly.

In 1671, not long after her return, her mother died, and her father, who had become a Roman Catholic, was soon in search of a duchess. His 15-year-old bride, Maria Beatrice of Modena, was less than four years older than Princess Mary, who would later be married (at 15) to William of Orange.

• How popular was Queen Anne? Tracy Borman explains…

Princess Anne’s own marriage was delayed by politics: fearful of Catholics in the wake of a supposed plot to assassinate the king, a strong party in parliament attempted to pass laws preventing James from succeeding to the throne. Charles sought to defuse the crisis by sending James and Maria to Scotland, where Anne visited them in 1681–82.

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In 1683, shortly after Charles had defeated his foes, Anne married Prince George of Denmark. When the king died (on Anne’s 20th birthday), her father succeeded as James II, but his arrogant attitude toward parliament and his aggressive Catholicism alienated the English establishment, and a group of powerful men invited William of Orange to invade.

• How glorious was the Glorious Revolution?

Anne and her husband supported the Revolution of 1688, which replaced James II with William and Mary, though they later had reasons to regret that choice. The princess, who had already suffered several miscarriages and had lost two infant daughters to smallpox in 1687, gave birth to a son in 1689, just months after the coronation. As William, Duke of Gloucester, he would live the longest of her children.

Despite the welcome presence of a Protestant heir, the two sisters quarreled, and when William removed John Churchill, Earl of Marlborough, from his court and military posts, Mary insisted that Anne part company with Sarah Churchill, who was her favorite. Refusing to obey this command, Anne left the court and moved into separate lodgings – this was the beginning of estrangement that continued until Mary’s death in 1694. To Anne’s eternal regret, Gloucester died in 1700, a few days after his 11th birthday.

Who were Queen Anne's feuding favourites?

Beautiful, intelligent, witty and strong-willed, Sarah Churchill (née Jennings) could be described as the opposite of the plainer, less intellectually gifted Queen Anne. Yet from their first meeting as children, the pair formed a tight bond, which made them almost inseparable at times. Such was Anne’s a ection for her that she suggested that they come up with alternative names for each other so that they could be more equal. Sarah, therefore, became ‘Mrs Freeman’, while the Queen would be referred to as ‘Mrs Morley’. Sarah’s influence over Anne grew, making her one of the most powerful people in England – as well as furthering the position of her husband, John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough. For herself, she earned the title Keeper of the Privy Purse, Groom of the Stole and Mistress of the Robes. Yet she was perhaps too headstrong to get away with it for long. When Anne started to tire of her constant pro-Whig mutterings and the heated disagreements between them, she turned to another woman, Abigail Masham. Sarah’s jealousy led her to come to court with a poem, suggesting a lesbian relationship between the Queen and Masham, and in an argument at the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral, she told Anne to be quiet – a humiliation for any monarch. By 1710, Anne had had enough. After a fractious final meeting, she stripped Sarah of her titles and dismissed both of the Marlboroughs from her service. Read more about Queen Anne's favourites…

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Queen Anne's reign

When William died (on 8 March 1702), Anne succeeded to the throne. Within a few weeks she had named Marlborough as her Captain-General and her longtime friend Sidney Godolphin as Lord Treasurer. For most of her reign, these two men executed her policies at home and abroad. Forming an alliance with the Netherlands and the Holy Roman Empire, the queen declared war on France in May, and Marlborough won significant victories at Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706), Oudenarde (1708), and Malplaquet (1709).

Despite these unprecedented successes, domestic politics were fierce. The Tory party gained a substantial majority in the election of 1702, and withstood an attempt by the ministry to break their power in 1705. The Whigs swept into power in 1708, but were soundly defeated in 1710 and 1713.

Because the party holding a majority in parliament did not automatically gain all the ministerial posts, the queen was subject to relentless partisan pressure from both sides, yet she managed to prevent party passions from erupting into violence, and achieved a major success in forging the Union with Scotland in 1707.

What were the Acts of Union during Queen Anne's reign?

Since the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, England and Scotland had been ruled by the same monarch, beginning with James I (of England) and VI (of Scotland). Yet it took over a century and several attempts before the two countries were united into a single kingdom. So what was different in the first years of the 18th century? Firstly, Anne proved an ardent advocate of union, announcing in her inaugural speech to Parliament that is was “very necessary”. That need became greater when the Scottish passed a law in 1704, allowing them to ignore the Act of Settlement and name their own successor on the event of Anne’s death. The English retort was the Alien Act, a draconian measure that threatened Scots living south of the border. Both sides had reason to stop the petty back-and-forth of increasingly extreme laws. In Scotland, they were still reeling from the ‘Darien scheme’, a disastrous attempt to establish a colony in modern-day Panama to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. They needed the economic security England could provide. The English, meanwhile, wanted to make the border safe from potential attacks from the French (in case any nostalgic Scots looked to reignite the ‘Auld Alliance’) and put an end to the succession crisis. It took just three months in 1706 for the commissioners, appointed by Anne, to agree on a treaty, leading to the passage of the historic law by mid-1707. Not everyone was happy with Scotland coming under the yolk of England, however, as it meant there would only be one Parliament – in Westminster. The argument over Scottish independence still rages on today.

• Why isn't Queen Anne more fondly remembered?

The later years and death of Queen Anne

Anne was left devastated by the death of her beloved George, aged 55, in 1708. At the time when she needed loved ones the most, she couldn’t rely on them. Her relationship with Sarah had soured over politics, as she grew frustrated by her friend’s pro-Whig stance and insistence that the Queen should appoint men against her wishes. Things only intensified with George’s death, and they parted company. Anne found a new favourite in Harley’s cousin Abigail Masham, signalling a shift in who held influence over the Queen. Unsurprisingly, the dismissals of Marlborough and Godolphin followed. All Anne knew had been shaken or removed, and there was little left on this Earth to comfort her.

At 7.30am on 1 August 1714, Anne passed away, worn out physically and mentally. One of her doctors wrote: “Sleep was never more welcome to a weary traveller than death was to her.”

At the time of her death, Anne had grown so vast that she had to be placed in a square-shaped coffin, before being carried (once again) to Westminster Abbey and buried next to her faithful husband. The Stuart line ended, and George I became the first Hanoverian king.

• Everything you wanted to know about the Georgians

The reign of Anne, it could be argued, fulfilled the promise that she made on her coronation. While a nation’s happiness is a subjective matter, England certainly became more prosperous, with gains made in the war, the unification with Scotland and a flourishing in the arts, architecture and culture.

Today, we still talk of Queen Anne furniture. Her unfair assessment as weak-willed and ignorant stems from the pen of the embittered Sarah. In her memoirs, she commented: “She certainly meant well and was not a fool, but nobody can maintain that she was wise, nor entertaining in conversations.”

Anne lived at a time when monarchy gave way to parliamentary authority, but she wielded power when she could, appointed who she thought to be the right people, like any monarch before or after her, and provided the first female royal voice in a century, since Elizabeth, and the last for another century, when Victoria would be crowned. And she did it all facing debilitating illnesses and enduring more heartbreak than most could be.

James Anderson Winn is a professor of English at Boston University and the author of Queen Anne: Patroness of Arts (Oxford University Press, 2014).

This article was first published by History Extra in July 2014

]]> The 10 best English queens in history https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/best-english-british-queens-history-victoria-elizabeth-consort-wife/ Wed, 29 Jul 2020 02:30:00 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/best-english-british-queens-history-victoria-elizabeth-consort-wife/ Thanks to some much-married monarchs, England has had many more queens than kings. Each has made a significant contribution to English history, whether she wielded power as a queen consort (like Eleanor of Aquitaine) or as a ruler in her own right (like Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria). But who were the best women rulers? Here, Elizabeth Norton, the author of England's Queens: The Biography, reveals in chronological order her top 10 English (and later British) queens in history...

Bertha of Kent (539–c612)

Perhaps the most well known of all the pre-Conquest queens, Bertha played a crucial role in the establishment of Christianity in England. She was the daughter of the Christian king, Charibert I of Paris, who insisted that she be free to practise her own religion when she married the pagan king, Æthelbert of Kent.

Bertha crossed the Channel with her chaplain, Bishop Liuthard, and the pair converted an old Roman building into a chapel. She discussed her beliefs with her husband, ensuring that he welcomed the pope’s missionary, St Augustine, when he arrived in 597. She also corresponded directly with the pope, with the pontiff flattering her with comparisons to Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine.

Bertha and Æthelbert were buried together inside a Christian church in England’s first Christian kingdom.

• St Augustine and 6 other controversial saints in history

Eadgifu (c904–after 966)

Few English queens were as influential as Eadgifu, the great matriarch of the House of Wessex. At 20, she became the third wife of the elderly King Edward the Elder. The marriage was unsurprisingly brief, and she was rarely at court during the reign of her stepson, Æthelstan (reigned 924–39).

As Queen Mother, however, Eadgifu was pre-eminent, residing at court and advising her sons, Edmund (r939–46) and Eadred (r946–55). She was deeply involved in the monastic reform movement, patronising leading churchmen, including St Dunstan.

After Eadred’s death, her grandson, Eadwig, confiscated her property when she offered her support to his younger brother, Edgar. On becoming king in 959, Edgar restored his grandmother to her property. By the 960s, Eadgifu was elderly and living in semi-retirement, but she maintained an important role in the royal family. Her last public appearance was at the refoundation of the New Minster at Winchester in 966.

Matilda of Scotland (1080–1118)

Although a Scottish princess by birth, Matilda was also a descendant of the Anglo-Saxon kings of England, making her a dynastically important bride for Henry I, the son of William the Conqueror.

Matilda was raised first at Romsey Abbey and then Wilton Abbey. Her aunt, Abbess Christina of Romsey, was anxious that her niece should become a nun. She forced the girl to wear a veil, although Matilda reportedly tore it off and stamped on it when her aunt left the room. On his accession to the throne in 1100, Henry cemented his position by marrying Matilda – overcoming church objections that she was a nun.

The couple had two children but were frequently apart, with Matilda acting as regent of England during the king’s long absences in Normandy. She issued her own charters, and administered justice. She was also renowned for her charity, with calls for her canonisation following her death in 1118.

• 5 quick-fire questions about medieval queens – answered

Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122–1204)

As Europe’s greatest heiress, Eleanor of Aquitaine was married at 15 to the monkish Louis VII of France. The couple proved incompatible and, with no son, divorced in 1152.

Within weeks Eleanor had married Henry of Anjou, who became king of England in 1154. Eleanor and Henry worked together to rule an empire that, as well as England, included much of modern France. By 1166, however, the couple, who had eight children, were estranged. Eleanor returned to Aquitaine in 1168.

Five years later she rebelled against Henry, and consequently spent the next 16 years imprisoned in Salisbury Castle. She returned to prominence as queen mother in 1189, governing England on behalf of her absent son, Richard I. Following his death in 1199, Eleanor helped to secure the throne for her youngest son, John. She was John’s greatest and most active supporter, finally dying in April 1204 at the age of 82.

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Philippa of Hainault (1314–69)

Philippa of Hainault’s marriage to Edward III was agreed between his mother, Isabella of France, and her father, the Count of Hainault. The count provided troops for Isabella’s invasion of England, in which she deposed her husband, Edward II, in favour of her teenage son. Philippa and Edward couple were soon devoted to each other, producing 12 children.

Edward’s reign was dominated by war with France, and Philippa often accompanied him on campaign. At other times she served as regent, with her army capturing the king of Scots at the battle of Neville’s Cross in 1346. She was also a merciful influence upon her husband, regularly interceding with him on behalf of captives. She is remembered as the founder of Queen’s College, Oxford and as a patron of scholars.

Philippa, who was queen for just over 40 years, was the archetypal medieval queen, and one on whom many later queens modelled themselves.

Elizabeth I (1533–1603)

No list of the best English queens is complete without Elizabeth I, who reigned between 1558 and 1603. Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, and had an unpromising start, being declared illegitimate following her mother’s execution. She survived interrogation and imprisonment during the reigns of her half-siblings to become England’s greatest ruling queen.

Elizabeth presided over a period of exploration and great invention, as well as the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. She also ordered the execution of her Catholic cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1587. One of her first acts as queen was to create a Protestant religious settlement for the Church of England, which has proved lasting.

At times ruthless, the queen refused to share power with a husband, although she ultimately paved the way for the smooth succession of her cousin, James VI of Scotland, and the union of the two crowns.

• Why did Anne Boleyn have to die?

Anne (1665–1714)

Anne may seem a surprising choice as one of England’s best queens but, as the first monarch of a united Great Britain, she deserves her place.

Queen Anne was the younger daughter of the Catholic James II and VII. She helped to spread rumours that James’s son, ‘the Old Pretender’, had been smuggled into his mother’s chamber in a warming pan at his birth in 1688. When her Protestant brother-in-law, William of Orange, invaded, Anne joined with him against her father.

She was a virtual invalid by the time she succeeded William in 1702, but presided over an important period in British history, including the Duke of Marlborough’s victories in the War of the Spanish Succession, and the Act of Union of 1707, which established her as queen of Great Britain.

Although she endured 17 pregnancies, Anne left no heir, and her Protestant cousin, George of Hanover, succeeded her in 1714.

• Why isn't Queen Anne remembered with the same regard as Elizabeth I or Queen Victoria?

Caroline of Ansbach (1683–1737)

Caroline of Ansbach was one of the most politically influential queen consorts, and is popularly considered to be the power behind George II’s throne. She was highly intelligent, managing affairs in such a way that her husband never suspected her true influence. In 1727, for example, when George decided to replace his father’s prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, with his own candidate, Caroline was able to quietly persuade her husband that it was his idea that Walpole should remain.

She worked closely with Walpole throughout the reign, with the pair meeting to discuss policy privately before raising it with George, manipulating him to ensure that he followed their wishes. She also acted as regent during the king’s absences in Germany.

Although he was never faithful, George was devoted to Caroline – on her deathbed when she urged him to remarry, he refused, saying he would only have mistresses. He was devastated when she died in 1737.

• When did British kings and queens start using surnames?

Victoria (1819–1901)

Before Elizabeth II, Queen Victoria – who came to the throne as an 18-year-old in 1837 – held the record as Britain’s longest-reigning monarch. Her reign of more than 60 years saw great changes: she presided over the peak of Britain’s power and influence, while her nine children married into most of the royal houses of Europe.

Victoria married her cousin, Prince Albert, in 1840, and remained devoted to him for the rest of her life – she entered perpetual mourning following his death in 1861. She was, however, able to retain control of her affairs, regularly meeting with her prime ministers, as well as becoming empress of India in 1876. She reached the peak of her popularity at her golden jubilee in 1887 and diamond jubilee in 1897.

Old age finally caught up with the queen on 22 January 1901, when she died at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.

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Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (1900–2002)

While Victoria was Britain’s longest-reigning monarch (until Elizabeth II), the longest-lived queen was Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (better known as the Queen Mother), who was 101 when she died in 2002.

Her husband, George VI, became king unexpectedly in 1936 following the abdication of his elder brother, Edward VIII. The couple proved a successful team, with Elizabeth coming into her own during the Second World War. Hitler is supposed to have called her the most dangerous woman in Europe and, from the outset, she strove to improve British morale. She refused to allow her two daughters to be evacuated, while declaring that she could “now look the East End in the face” when Buckingham Palace was bombed.

Elizabeth spent half a century as Queen Mother after her husband’s death in 1952, during which time she was arguably the most popular member of the royal family. 

Elizabeth Norton is the author of England's Queens: The Biography (Amberley Publishing, 2011). To visit her website, click here.

This article was first published by HistoryExtra in September 2014

To read more about kings and queens in history – from Henry VIII's wives to the worst-ever monarchs – click here.

]]> Queen Anne's reputation: why isn't she more fondly remembered? https://www.historyextra.com/membership/queen-anne-reputation-last-stuart-monarch-legacy/ Wed, 01 Apr 2020 11:10:52 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/queen-anne-reputation-last-stuart-monarch-legacy/ Queen Anne ruled during one of the most important periods of British history, overcoming her own personal tragedies to oversee the creation of Great Britain. Why then, isn't she remembered with the same regard as Elizabeth I or Queen Victoria? Emma Slattery Williams profiles the last of the Stuart monarchs... Britain’s male monarchs vastly outnumber their female counterparts, making the few women who have ruled Britain even more iconic. Elizabeth I and Victoria are hailed as exceptional leaders in a world ruled by men. There is one queen, however, who ruled during one of the most important periods of British history, but whose reign is often overlooked. How did Queen Anne – the last of the Stuarts – rise above her personal tragedies to oversee the creation of Great Britain?

Born in 1665, during the reign of her uncle, Charles II, Anne knew how treacherous the path of the monarch could be – the execution of her grandfather, Charles I, was still fresh in many minds. Her father was James, the Duke of York, heir presumptive, but it seemed doubtful he would rule as there was still time for Charles to produce legitimate children. Anne also had siblings who would need to predecease her in order for her to become queen, so at her birth it looked unlikely that she would ever reign. But out of her seven full-blood siblings, only herself and her elder sister Mary survived to adulthood.

• "A charming, popular monarch": Tracy Borman on Queen Anne
• The Favourite: the real history behind the new Queen Anne film

Her father may have been royalty, but her mother – Anne Hyde – was not. She was a common-born lady-in-waiting to James’s sister Mary. Her parents’ marriage caused a scandal that rocked the royal family: Hyde was plagued with enemies at court, who spread rumours about her infidelity and unsuitability as a consort to James – causing Anne to later feel unfit to wear the crown.

Although both her parents were Roman Catholic, Anne and her sister were raised as Protestants at Charles II’s request. There were fears within government that the royal family was too sympathetic to the Catholic cause, and anti-Catholic sentiment still lingered from the Bye Plot of 1603 and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, both of which would have seen James VI and I removed from the English throne.

Who did Queen Anne marry?

Anne’s marriage to Prince George of Denmark in 1683 – her second cousin once removed – was an arranged but happy union. Charles II wanted to cement an Anglo-Danish alliance, and Anne’s father approved as it restricted the power of the Dutch Republic and therefore his son-in-law, William of Orange, who was married to his other daughter, Mary.

Even though Anne was content with her loyal husband, he was reputed to be a bore, with Charles II commenting: “I have tried him drunk and I’ve tried him sober, but there is nothing in him.” Years later, Queen Victoria would comment that she hoped Prince Albert would never occupy the role of the “stupid and insignificant husband”, as George had.

Charles II died without legitimate heirs in 1685, so Anne’s father ascended the throne as James VII and II, to the dismay of Parliament. James tried to promote religious liberty by reversing laws that punished Catholics and nonconformist Protestants. The fear of the King’s tolerance and his close ties with France led to fierce opposition in political circles, which reached their zenith in 1688.  at was when his new wife – Anne Hyde had died in 1671, and James had remarried in 1673 – gave birth to a son. The infant, another James, displaced Mary as heir apparent and would almost certainly have been raised as a Catholic.

Seven leading nobles secretly called for William of Orange to sail from the Netherlands to seize the throne in Mary’s name. Anne did not protest, and when the invasion came in November 1688, Anne announced her support. The so-called Glorious Revolution had begun.

William III and Mary II became joint rulers in 1689. The Bill of Rights was declared later that year: it restricted the rights of the royal prerogative, created a constitutional monarchy and settled the line of succession so that in future only a Protestant could wear the crown. This put Anne next in line.

As a female member of the royal family, Anne was constantly reminded that her principal duty lay in producing children to ensure the future of the Stuart dynasty. Fears of a Catholic monarch had whipped Britain into a frenzy during James’s reign, circumstances that no one wanted to see repeated.

In 1689, Anne delivered, giving birth to a son named William – her first surviving child after a string of miscarriages. He was the cause of much joy, as his birth cemented the Protestant succession.

Sarah Churchill: who was Queen Anne's favourite?

The relationship that would define Anne’s life and reign, was that with her childhood friend Sarah Churchill. Their close bond is often seen as a weakness of Anne’s – contemporaries believed she was under the thumb of Churchill’s scheming. Some historians have even suggested that Churchill was the real power behind the throne. Friends from a young age, Churchill was swiftly promoted through the royal household and under Anne became the Mistress of the Robes – the most senior position a woman could hold – meaning that she always had Anne’s ear.

Unusually for a woman at that time, Churchill was obsessed with politics and was allowed to control her salary, allowing her to become one of the richest women in England. Her husband, John, reaped the benefits from Anne’s relationship with his wife. Anne made him captain-general of her forces when she became Queen, as well as Duke of Marlborough.

• Listen | Historians Amanda Vickery, Hallie Rubenhold and Hannah Greig discuss the acclaimed new historical drama The Favourite and consider how accurately it reflects the reality of Queen Anne’s court in the early 18th century

The bonds between Anne and her sister, on the other hand, became strained over time. They argued over money, with Anne claiming an allowance – spurred on by Churchill – and declaring that William was unkind to her. She also distanced herself from many of William and Mary’s policies, to the point that the King and Queen thought Anne might be trying to undermine them.

The joint monarchs despised Churchill, who they believed held far too much sway over Anne. Repeated calls to have her dismissed were ignored. After a severely painful labour in 1692 that resulted in a child who survived just minutes, Anne, who was still in bed recovering, received a visit from her sister.

Mary chose this moment to again demand Churchill’s dismissal – and Anne refused for the last time. The two sisters would never meet again. Mary died in 1694, childless, leaving William to rule alone until his own death in 1702. It was then that Anne, aged 37, ascended the throne.

Like her sister, Anne too was now childless. The hope that had blossomed in 1689 with William’s birth proved short-lived. Within weeks, it became clear that he was an ill child. He suffered from debilitating convulsions and struggled to walk, and he died in 1700 at the age of 11. That caused Parliament’s fear of a future Catholic monarch to resurface, which led to the 1701 Act of Settlement. Should Anne not produce another heir, the throne would pass to James VII and II’s cousin Sophia, the Electress of Hanover.

• Royal mothers and childbirth: a brief history
• Retaining the royals: why has the British monarchy survived – and thrived?

When did Anne become queen?

Anne, who by this time suffered badly from gout, had to be carried into her coronation on a sedan chair. It was hardly the regal and independent impression she had hoped to give. Yet her reign was marked by two major events that would demonstrate her effectiveness as a ruler.

The first was her role in the War of the Spanish Succession of 1701–14. At the turn of the 18th century, Europe was ruled by a collection of related and powerful families. When Charles II of Spain died childless in 1700, his closest heirs were members of the French Bourbon and Austrian Habsburg families: the ascension of either to the Spanish throne would overturn the delicate power balance that had persisted for so long.

Anne involved herself in political decisions, attending more cabinet meetings than any of her predecessors. She had the wisdom to realise that the war was unpopular. She sought peace and the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, which granted Britain territories including Gibraltar and Menorca – ensuring naval supremacy for Britain in the Western Mediterranean – as well as the right to a controlled trade with the Spanish New World.

The second was the creation of Great Britain. When James VI and I ascended the English throne in 1603, the kingdoms of England (which included Wales) and Scotland had the same monarch but were separate sovereign states. Tensions between the two parliaments had been high for years, and a union was deemed the best solution to avoid war. Scotland needed economic security and England wanted assurance that Scotland wouldn’t be a back door for a Jacobite rebellion. Anne was in full favour of a union: “We shall esteem it as the greatest glory of our reign…being fully persuaded it must prove the greatest happiness of our people.”

The Acts of Union came into effect on 1 May 1707, uniting England, Scotland and Wales as the Kingdom of Great Britain. The entirety of Ireland, at this time, was a separate polity. Despite these triumphs, Anne’s personal tragedies haunted her throughout her life.

She suffered no less than 12 miscarriages and stillbirths, and of the five children she gave birth to, only William survived past infancy. The horrific loss of so many children hit both Anne and George hard. Her multiple miscarriages are now thought to have been caused by Hughes Syndrome or Lupus – conditions that affect the immune system. Anne’s inability to produce a surviving heir stalked her: she believed God was punishing her for abandoning her father.

What happened to Sarah Churchill?

Anne’s friendship with Churchill was also suffering. While Sarah was a strong supporter of the Whigs, Anne preferred the Tories. They were known as the Church party and religion was a subject close to Anne’s heart – she was a devout Protestant and was well aware of the trouble religion had caused her family. Sarah’s behaviour towards Anne also differed to many at court. She would never flatter or compliment the Queen, and insisted on giving her advice on state matters.

In earlier years, Anne had found this a refreshing change from the pandering and fawning of court, but as the years went on, the Queen’s affection for Churchill waned. At the death of Prince George in 1708, Churchill reprimanded the Queen for mourning, removed a painting of George from Anne’s room and refused to adhere to the rules for mourning attire. This perceived heartlessness hardened Anne’s heart against her once-beloved friend. Just as the devastating grief Queen Victoria felt at the loss of Albert has been well documented, so was Anne believed to have been as affected by her loss of George. She allegedly burst into tears when handed papers regarding naval affairs, which George had dealt with as Lord High Admiral.

Out of pity for a poor relation, Churchill had introduced the Queen to a distant cousin of hers, Abigail Masham, in the hope of finding her a role at court. This had the unintended consequence of giving the Queen a new favourite, and Churchill became incredibly jealous, spreading rumours about Anne’s ‘immoral’ relationship with Masham. Unlike Churchill, Masham was timid, unassuming and never spoke out of turn.

Finally fed up of the Churchills’ attempts to influence her, Anne removed John as Captain-General and cut Sarah from the royal household. With the loss of both Prince George and Sarah Churchill, Anne was left without the two people who had been constants in her life for more than 20 years.

By July 1714, the Queen’s health had worsened – she struggled to walk and was overweight. On the anniversary of Prince William’s death, she suffered a stroke and died two days later, with one of her doctors commenting: “I believe sleep was never more welcome to a weary traveller than death was to her.” She attended cabinet meetings up until her stroke and it’s possible the stress of matters of state took their toll on her – on top of her own losses and illness.

Many modern opinions of Anne come from Churchill’s disparaging memoirs, in which she wrote that Anne “certainly meant well and was not a fool, but nobody can maintain that she was wise, nor entertaining in conversation” and “ignorant in everything but what the parsons had taught her”. These comments could be the cruel remarks of a scorned woman; modern assessments view Anne as a queen who was popular with her people, had a strong sense of loyalty to her country and was known to like a brandy or two.

With Anne died the House of Stuart, though many pretenders to the crown rose up in rebellion over the years. The House of Hanover began its rule of Britain and the Georgian era swept in – though Anne’s reign forever changed the face of Britain, politically and geographically, and created a prosperous nation that flourished for centuries.

Ask the expert: Anne Somerset

Lady Anne Somerset is a historian who specialises in the Tudor and Stuart monarchies. Her book Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion (Harper Collins, 2012) is an in-depth biography of the life of the last Stuart   Q: Why is Anne often overlooked as a monarch? A: One mundane reason for Anne not being betterknown is that when students study the Tudors and Stuarts, Anne’s reign comes at the fag-end of the period, and often the time to focus properly on the subject is lacking. Studies of the reign tend to concentrate on the Duke of Marlborough’s [John Churchill’s] victories in the War of the Spanish Succession, for which Anne is given no credit, and that Great Britain effectively first became a major power during her reign is not ascribed to her. She is perhaps best known for her tragic history as a mother, and this has overshadowed all other aspects of her life. She lacked glamour and charisma, presided over a pretty dreary court and was certainly the least colourful Stuart. On the other hand, it is also arguable that she was the most successful member of the dynasty, but spectacular failure would perhaps have made her more memorable.   Q: How did the losses of her children affect her reign? A: The fact that Anne had failed in what many would have regarded as the primary function of female royalty – to secure the succession by providing a direct heir – lessened her prestige. After the death of her son in 1700, Anne was so emotionally shattered that she withdrew from the world, but on her accession to the throne “considerations of the public good ... dragged her out of a retired life that suited her so greatly”. But her tragic history inevitably shaped her character, and she made no secret of the sadness that still haunted her. Her relations with her Hanoverian heirs presumptive were complicated by her sense of personal loss. For the first few years of her reign, Anne still clung to the hope that she would produce a child of her own, and the insensitive demands of Sophia of Hanover to be given official recognition as Anne’s successor infuriated the Queen – implying that it was out of the question that she would have another baby. If Anne’s son William had survived, no one would have imagined that Anne hankered to reinstate her half-brother James in the succession, and the Whigs would have been unable to create the impression – prevalent by the end of her reign – that the Protestant settlement was in danger.   Q: Was she an effective ruler? A: The assumption that Anne was a weak and ineffective ruler is without foundation. She did not suffer from a belief that because she was a woman she was automatically unfitted to wield power, and was not prepared to allow her male ministers to impose their will on her on that account. Despite herb lack of training, she adapted to the demands of sovereigntyv remarkably well. Her great aim was to prevent any one political party from becoming dominant, at the expense of the monarch’s power, and on the whole, she achieved this. She held out against the Whigs taking permanent control of government, but when sheb dismissed her Whig ministers, she also resisted allowing the Tories to monopolise power. At her death, monarchical power was handed largely intact to her successor.   Q: What was her lasting legacy? A: It is sometimes alleged that Anne damaged the interests of her country by bringing the War of the Spanish Succession to a premature close, meaning that France remained more powerful – and more of a threat to Britain – than would have been the case if Marlborough had been permitted to inflict a resounding defeat on the enemy. But, conversely, if the war had continued for longer, Britain might have been bankrupted by the struggle, and revolution and social unrest could have ensued. Although Anne is often depicted as a secret Jacobite, who longed to bequeath her throne to her half-brother James, this is grossly unfair. She should be credited with the fact that at her death, the crown went not to a Catholic Stuart with absolutist tendencies, but to the Protestant Hanoverians who, for all their flaws, had to work with Parliament. Anne has some claim to be regarded as Britain’s first constitutional monarch, and deserves recognition for her role in ensuring that Britain remains a constitutional monarchy to this day. The fact that Anne did not confer the title of King on her husband changed for ever the position of Queens Regnant, ensuring that their power to rule in their own right was formally established.

Emma Slattery Williams is BBC History Revealed's staff writer

This content first appeared in the Christmas 2018 issue of BBC History Revealed

]]> 11 podcasts about royal women from history to listen to right now https://www.historyextra.com/period/tudor/podcasts-royal-women-queens-history-listen/ Wed, 18 Mar 2020 16:56:08 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/period/tudor/podcasts-royal-women-queens-history-listen/ Want to learn more about royal women of the past? We've rounded up 11 fascinating episodes from our podcast archive, ranging from the life of warrior queen Matilda to a look inside the mind of Elizabeth I. Listen now to episodes with Helen Castor, Lucy Worsley, Alison Weir and many more expert historians… Learn more about fascinating queens and female royals from history with these episodes from the HistoryExtra podcast…

Eleanor of Aquitaine: myth and reality

In late 2019, Sara Cockerill, author of a biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine, explored the story of the remarkable medieval queen and challenged some common misconceptions about her life. She was joined in conversation by the popular historian Dan Jones.

Listen here

Lucy Worsley on Queen Victoria

In September 2019, we headed to Kensington Palace, once home to the young Victoria, to discuss the queen’s life with the author, historian and broadcaster Lucy Worsley. And if you'd like to hear more about Queen Victoria, we also have podcasts with Jane Ridley on the unexpected side of the monarch, and Deborah Cadbury on the queen's matchmaking.

Listen here

Empress Matilda: a medieval warrior queen

Back in 2019, historian Catherine Hanley joined the podcast to tell the story of Empress Matilda, the daughter of Henry I whose battle with Stephen for the English throne in the 12th century became known as ‘the anarchy’.

Listen here

Marie Antoinette

In this episode, historian John Hardman discusses his 2020 biography of the 18th-century French queen Marie Antoinette, exploring her role in the politics of the revolutionary era and explaining why she met a tragic end. You can read more about the queen's life here.

Listen here

Mary, Queen of Scots’ tragic life

At our October 2018 History Weekend in Winchester, we caught up with historian, author and broadcaster Kate Williams, who detailed the dramatic story of the 16th-century Scottish queen and reflected on her doomed relationship with Elizabeth I of England. As part of the conversation, Williams also discussed the film Mary, Queen of Scots, released in early 2019.

Listen here

Catherine the Great: fact and fiction

Ahead of HBO's 2019 TV drama about the Russian empress, we sat down with historian Janet Hartley to explore Catherine the Great’s life and consider whether there is any truth behind the scandals that continue to damage her reputation. You can also read a feature by Janet, Catherine the Great: was she a hypocrite, reactionary, usurper, sex maniac?

Listen here

Margaret Beaufort, mother of the Tudors

In late 2019, we welcomed historian and author Nicola Tallis to the podcast, to discuss her biography of Margaret Beaufort, who played a key role in the Wars of the Roses and whose son, Henry VII, began the Tudor dynasty.

Listen here

Agrippina the younger: a Roman woman of great power

In this podcast from early 2019, historian Emma Southon explores the extraordinary life of Agrippina the Younger, who was the wife of Claudius, the mother of Nero and the sister of Caligula, as well as being a remarkable woman in her own right. You can also read a feature by Emma on Agrippina's life, here.

Listen here

Inside the mind of Elizabeth I

In one of five special programmes to mark the 500th episode of the HistoryExtra podcast, historian, author and broadcaster Helen Castor explores the psychology of Elizabeth I and discusses the challenges of writing a new biography of one of England’s best-known historical figures. Helen also joined the podcast to talk about another royal – Lady Jane Grey – in 2018.

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Queen Anne and the real history of The Favourite

As one of the most popular historical films of 2019, The Favourite sparked a wave of fresh interest in ‘forgotten’ monarch Queen Anne. The last Stuart’s reign is the main subject of this lively chat with three historians – Amanda Vickery, Hallie Rubenhold and Hannah Greig – plus there are also broader takes on the choices made by period dramas.

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Jane Seymour: Henry VIII’s favourite queen

Bestselling author and historian Alison Weir joined the podcast back in 2018 to discuss the life and tragic death of the Tudor king’s third wife Jane Seymour, who bore him his long-awaited male heir. Alison also revealed the challenges of recreating Jane for her historical novel.

Listen here

Read more about women’s history here

]]> The Favourite: the real history behind the new Queen Anne film https://www.historyextra.com/period/stuart/real-history-the-favourite-film-queen-anne-olivia-colman-hannah-greig/ Wed, 27 Feb 2019 10:00:29 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/period/stuart/real-history-the-favourite-film-queen-anne-olivia-colman-hannah-greig/ Yorgos Lanthimos's "punk Restoration romp" The Favourite explores the changing power dynamics in the court of Queen Anne (played by Olivia Colman), the last of the Stuart monarchs. Writing for HistoryExtra, Hannah Greig, historical adviser to the Oscar-winning film, examines the women who jostled for the attentions of the tragic, eccentric queen and considers how the film defies the conventions of period drama… Released in UK cinemas at the beginning of January, The Favourite has left reviewers scrabbling for adjectives. Described as a “punk Restoration romp’, an “outrageous period comedy”, a “misanthropic baroque costume drama”, a “tragicomedy”, the labels have been varied – but together they indicate a universal agreement: the director, Yorgos Lanthimos, breaks new ground in his dramatisation of the past.

Set in the court of Queen Anne (1665–1714), The Favourite explores the changing power dynamics and relationships between three female protagonists: Queen Anne (Olivia Colman); Abigail Masham (Emma Stone); and Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz).

The latter was Anne’s companion and confidante since girlhood. When Anne succeeded to the throne in 1702, the Duchess of Marlborough was among those she brought with her to court. Granted all the major posts in Anne’s royal household – Groom of the Stole, Mistress of the Robes, Keeper of the Privy Purse and Ranger of Windsor Great Park – Churchill occupied a position of vast authority that she endeavoured to wield to the advantage of her preferred political faction, the Whigs.

For a time, the duchess’s pre-eminence at court and friendship with the queen seemed unshakeable. It was gradually eroded, however, by personal and political differences between the women, and finally shot through by the emergence of a new court favourite. Marlborough’s usurper was Abigail Masham, a lower ranking courtier and cousin of the Duchess of Marlborough, brought into court circles under the patronage of the duchess herself. The Favourite dramatises their triangular and tense struggle for dominance, putting female politics at the heart of every scene while foppish men in red high heels and extravagant suits watch from the edges.

Read more:

• In profile: Queen Anne
• 12 facts about the Stuarts
• Game of Queens: when women ruled Renaissance Europe

When any period drama is released, reviewers and audiences often reach instinctively for an accuracy-o-meter, measuring the success of the drama by how it communicates historical facts. Period dramas are relentlessly taken to task for perceived errors, anachronisms or brazen artistic license, with the scale of potential ‘historical howlers’ ranging from the correct way to hold toast in 1910 to putting Connecticut on the wrong side of the vote to end slavery in 1865.

Brace yourselves, then, for the unfamiliar sound of accuracy-o-meters exploding once The Favourite is released. Complete with denim costumes and speech that is neither obviously period nor modern – and with a duck race and dance sequence like no other you’ll have seen in court before – Lanthimos doesn’t simply ignore the perceived conventions of a period drama. He pulps, composts and mixes them into a florid international filmography to conjure an entirely new genre that is distinctly his own. As a director typically associated with postmodern and quirky dystopias, his step back in time has surprised many.

• Listen | The true history of The Favourite

Artistic license vs historical reality: did Queen Anne really have bunnies in her bedchamber?

Spying on Queen Anne’s court through Lanthimos’s distorting fish eye lens should not trick us into presuming that the drama is heretically ahistorical. Historical insight is layered throughout, underpinning what might seem to be even the most eccentric touches.

Take for instance, Anne’s bunny menagerie. In the film. the queen’s bedroom – the location for much of the plot – is a haven for 17 fluffy rabbits who must be petted by any courtier claiming to be loyal. The bunnies are typical of the film's aesthetic, and serve as a cute (albeit eccentric and surprising) addition. Of course, pet rabbits would never have been found lolloping around a royal bedchamber: they were an early 18th-century foodstuff and pest. Their function is instead historically symbolic, representing an adult lifetime of pregnancies endured by Anne that only ever resulted in miscarriage, still birth, or the premature death of newborns, infants or children.

Until rescued by more recent historical revisions that recognise both her political and cultural legacies, Anne was a queen who was badly treated by history, subject to quick caricatures that portray her as being frail, ungainly, emotionally needy and ineffective. Her incredibly traumatic obstetric history was often rendered as a footnote, or yet another item on a long list of regal failings levelled against her. She was labelled as the ‘childless’ queen – despite her bearing and burying child after child after child after child. In The Favourite this aspect of her life and reign is brought much more firmly into our vision. Personal pain and court politics come together in the form of the rabbits. The pets remind us of the impact that so many dead heirs must have had not only on the queen as an individual, but also on her court, her reign, and the future of the crown and constitution. No one will leave the film having missed the rabbits. No one will leave without an emotive sense of Anne’s antenatal agonies.

Read more:

• "A charming, popular monarch": Tracy Borman on Queen Anne
• Queen Anne's feuding favourites

The film makes no attempt to lecture to us about what happened in Britain in the 1700s. The narrative point is the female power play, not the economic, politics or cultural changes of the day. In consequence, the film’s focus is resolutely on the interior world of the court, and the interpersonal politics waged in the monarch’s bedchamber, private back stairs, and corridors policed by ambitious courtiers. There is little in the way of explanatory contextual information. The narrative rarely ventures beyond the court walls and there are no street or crowd scenes, or panning shots of what society looked like in the early 1700s.

And yet the film very matter-of-factly brings into focus the ways in which the ‘small world’ jostling for power between individuals at court had a much wider significance. At stake in the race to be a court favourite is not just personal gain or some mean girls’ cliques and vanities. It is the grist of state power and high politics. Whether taxes will be raised and whether war will continue or treaties will be signed is indivisible from the question of who attends the queen’s person and who is her most trusted confidante. While the film visualises the relationships between the protagonists in ways that are clearly historical and stylised – the Duchess of Marlborough relaxing in breeched riding clothes, for example – it also takes as read that the historical prize for these women was power of political and national importance. The male politicians stand around in their peacock finery trying to exploit what opportunities they can find, but it is the women who hold all the cards and are not afraid to deal them.

Read more:

• The 10 best English queens in history
• 9 of the worst monarchs in history
• 7 forgotten monarchs

How much power did women have in the court of Queen Anne?

A sense of women’s access to politics and power in early modern England is often presumed to be hard for a modern audience to understand, brought up as we are on a commitment to a narrative that women were excluded from power until a long hard fight for 20th-century suffrage. Any film that ventures into an earlier world of female political influence risks losing the audience’s suspension of disbelief. Hopefully The Favourite’s fearless take on women’s political pasts may encourage more productions to move into this territory. In Lanthimos’s film there is no attempt to explain, justify or judge the fact that the three female protagonists were politically minded. There are no obvious winners or losers, nor is any one of the three clearly more 'the heroine' than the rest.

A straightforward acceptance that women exercised political authority in Queen Anne’s court reflects some of the most recent scholarship in the field. The film resists the temptation to cast any one of the three as obviously ‘feminist’, or ‘a woman ahead of her time’ representing relatable 21st-century audience values but in fancy dress. Instead The Favourite is unashamedly historical in its acceptance of female political power as being at the heart of Anne’s court. It burrows down into the passionate, complex and flawed ambitions of the three ruling women while presenting their power as a fait accompli.

Read more:

• Stuart Britain: what was life like for ordinary people?
• Norman women: the power behind the thrones
• Accidental explosions: gunpowder in Tudor and Stuart London

I have enjoyed Lanthimos’s concise responses to the inevitable questions about historical accuracy. “Some of the things in the film are accurate and a lot aren’t,” he told The Hollywood Reporter at The Favourite's New York Film Festival premiere. He is absolutely right in this – as, in fact, would any director be in their approach to a drama set in the past.

Accuracy (as generally defined by our clunky accuracy-o-meters that make us think it is measurable) was never the goal in The Favourite. The film does not look like your conventional period drama. And coming from Lanthimos, we would all be hugely disappointed if it did. Costume designer Sandy Powell’s spectacular clothes take us far from the typical period wardrobe. Court servants wear recycled denim, and the leading ladies wear monochrome popping with riotous patterns and African-style prints. In their silhouettes and structures, however, they are purposefully of their time. As Powell has stated in recent red carpet interviews, “you need to know the rules before you break them”. In this regard, her costumes work as a metaphor for the film’s relationship to history in general. The history is there, they have just played around with it, but with a very firm commitment and purpose.

Read more:

• Does historical accuracy really matter in period dramas?
• Poldark and historical TV drama (podcast)
• Wolf Hall: author Hilary Mantel talks Tudors, historical accuracy and winning the Man Booker Prize

The Favourite is not – and was never – about providing a documentary-style history lesson. But, to me, its engagement with history runs far deeper in its construction and expression than in films where history is regarded as only the stuff of surface detail. The Favourite did not spend time or effort double-checking whether a hat was cocked correctly or whether or not a lady should hold a fan. Instead it draws on your emotions and focuses on complex character, motivation, intrigue and pain. Here lies history, a human history. The period chintz and flummery have been stripped away to reveal a murkier, fleshier realism.

**Dr Hannah Greig is a senior lecturer in early modern history at the University of York and a historical consultant to The Favourite (2018). Her research interests lie in the social, political and material history of Britain in the long 18th century (c1688–1830). She’s the author of The Beau Monde: Fashionable Society in Georgian London (OUP, 2013)

This article was first published by HistoryExtra in November 2018

]]> "A charming, popular monarch": Tracy Borman on Queen Anne https://www.historyextra.com/membership/queen-anne-the-favourite-last-stuart-monarch-olivia-colman/ Mon, 14 Jan 2019 13:08:41 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/queen-anne-the-favourite-last-stuart-monarch-olivia-colman/ She was recently brought to life by actress Olivia Colman in the film The Favourite, but what was Queen Anne really like? Her reign was the final of the Stuart dynasty, but she was – as Tracy Borman argues – a much more popular monarch than her predecessor William III... The fact that Queen Anne was the last of the Stuarts was due to an extraordinary, and tragic, quirk of fate. By the time of her accession in March 1702, she had been pregnant no fewer than 17 times, though only five children were born alive, and all of those died in infancy. Her son William, Duke of Gloucester, lived the longest, dying in 1700 at the age of 11.

The same reproductive misfortune had befallen Anne’s sister, Mary, who had also failed to produce an heir – if she had, then Anne would not have come to the throne upon William III’s death on 8 March 1702. The two women were daughters of James II by his first wife, Anne Hyde. The future Queen Anne’s birth had taken place on 
6 February 1665 during the reign of her uncle, Charles II.

At the time, there seemed little prospect of Anne’s inheriting the throne. Charles II had fathered numerous illegitimate children and there was little reason to suppose that his marriage to Catherine of Braganza would not result in a legitimate one. But his queen remained barren and, upon his death in 1685, he was obliged to leave the throne to his brother, Anne’s father, James. Anne was now second in line to the throne, but James had remarried after his first wife’s death and his second wife, Mary of Modena, was proving a fertile one. Ironically, when she gave birth to a son in 1688, it ought to 
have removed any prospect of Mary 
and Anne inheriting the throne. In fact, it brought them to it. By then, James II had so alienated his people that the prospect of a new son and heir continuing his dogmatic and absolutist policies was too much to bear. James was duly ousted from power and replaced by his protestant daughter, Mary, and her husband, William of Orange.

James never gave up the idea of reclaiming the throne for himself or his son, and the ‘Jacobite’ movement would remain a thorn in both Mary and Anne’s side throughout their respective reigns. Nevertheless, Anne’s accession in 1702 was a peaceful one – even if it had only been decided upon the year before. The death of her longest-surviving child, William, duke of Gloucester, in 1700 had thrown the succession into question. William III had adored the boy and had intended him as his heir. Anne was the next natural choice, but her gender and the fact that William disliked her made it possible that the throne would revert to the male Stuart line in the form of James II’s son. But James Francis Edward Stuart was as rigidly Catholic as his father had been and this proved the deciding factor. In 1701, Parliament passed the Act of Settlement, reaffirming the principle that a Roman Catholic should never be monarch.

• The Favourite: the real history behind the Queen Anne film
• Queen Anne's feuding favourites

Charm offensive

Anne was 37 at the time of her accession. She had never been a great beauty like her sister Mary, but she was a handsome woman. Her numerous pregnancies had taken their toll on her figure, though, and her widening girth would become ever more pronounced during the years that followed. It contributed to the gout that plagued her from her mid-thirties and which left her barely able to walk, often resorting to sedan chairs, wheelchairs and walking sticks. One uncharitable observer remarked: ‘Nature seems to be inverted when a poor infirm woman becomes one 
of the rulers of the world.’

But Anne made up for her physical deficiencies with the power of her personality. She had inherited the charm 
of her late uncle, Charles II, and had the popular touch that William III had so markedly lacked. When she gave her first speech to Parliament three days after her accession, she won widespread acclaim for declaring: ‘I know my heart to be entirely English.’ It was exactly what her naturally xenophobic people wanted to hear after being ruled by a Dutchman for eight years.

• The true history of The Favourite
• 12 facts about the Stuarts

As well as her gift for public relations, Anne possessed another attribute which made her subjects delight in their new queen. She was firmly committed to the Protestant Anglican Church, so there was no question that she would try to inflict her father’s despised brand of dogmatic Catholicism upon the nation. She also combined the perfect blend of a high regard for the ancient ceremonies and pageantry 
of the crown with a firm commitment to a modernised monarchy. During her reign, the notion of a constitutional monarchy, 
in which the sovereign reigned and the ministers ruled, was consolidated, thereby laying the foundations for the modern state of Britain.

Although she presented a welcome change to her predecessor, Anne upheld most of William’s policies – including his aggression towards France. Barely two months after her accession, the Grand Alliance of Britain, the Netherlands, the Empire and the German princes declared war on Louis XIV. Anne’s choice of commander was inspired. John Churchill had been dismissed from court by William III, but appointed captain of the forces towards the end of his reign. The fact that Anne retained him in this post was due not just to his undoubted qualities as a military leader, but to the fact that his wife Sarah was the queen’s best friend.

Losing her mother at the age of six and being separated 
from her father because of his conversion to Catholicism had made Anne reserved and lonely. She had subsequently forged a number of close friendships with women, and by far the most significant and enduring was that 
with Sarah. In the countless letters they wrote to each other, they assumed the pseudonyms of Mrs Morley (Anne) and Mrs Freeman (Sarah). William III’s dislike for the Churchills had prompted him to demand that Anne dismiss them from her household. When Anne refused, her 
brother-in-law had been furious and their relationship had never recovered.

As soon as she was queen, Anne wasted no time in appointing Sarah to the vaulted position of Groom of the Stole and head of the royal bedchamber. John, meanwhile, was given a plethora of military commands, as well as being made ambassador extraordinary to the Dutch Republic. He excelled in the latter post, freeing the Dutch from French domination, and winning himself the dukedom of Marlborough. His victory at Blenheim in 1704 inspired the building of his magnificent Oxfordshire palace of the same name.

Committed queen

Despite her poor health, Anne was assiduous in all of her duties as queen. She wrote letters to her fellow heads of state by hand, which must have been a challenge given that as well as gout in her hands, she had poor eyesight. One of the greatest achievements of her reign was the Act of Union, which came into effect on 1 May 1707. This united England and Scotland into a single state and parliament. It had been hard won: relations between the two kingdoms had been increasingly hostile, not least because of Scotland’s support of the Jacobite cause. In 1703, the Scottish Parliament had passed the Act of Security, which decreed that the next monarch of Scotland need not be the same person as the successor to the English throne. England’s Parliament retaliated with the Alien Act, which banned all of the major Scottish export trades south of the border. It followed this up with a proposal “that the two kingdoms of England and Scotland be for ever United into one kingdom by the name of Great Britain”. Threatened by the loss of their lucrative trade, the Scots relented and the union was forged.

The following year was a turbulent one for Anne. The overweening influence of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough had caused widespread resentment across the court and country – in particular among the Tories, against whom the Whiggish Sarah had ceaselessly conspired.

By 1708, the queen herself was tiring of the Duchess’s domineering and high-handed manner. On 19 August, the simmering hostility suddenly erupted when the two women shared a coach to St Paul’s Cathedral for a service of thanksgiving for Marlborough’s victory at Oudenarde. Earlier, Anne had refused to wear the cumbersome jewels that Sarah had laid out for her and, as she stepped out of the coach, Sarah was heard to hiss ‘Be quiet’ to her royal mistress. She had gone too far. Anne never forgave this insult to her majesty and ended the friendship immediately.

Two months later, Queen Anne’s adored husband, Prince George of Denmark, died. In every other respect than producing heirs, theirs had been a successful marriage, marked by mutual love and affection. In 
her loneliness, Anne forged a close friendship with another female courtier, Abigail Masham. Modest and undemanding, she formed a welcome contrast to Sarah Churchill, who flew into 
a jealous rage and accused the queen of conducting a lesbian affair with her new friend and confidante.

Tired of the crippling expense and loss 
of life that the protracted war with France had exacted, and no longer cajoled into supporting her chief commander, Anne dismissed Marlborough in December 1711 and made peace with France. A treaty 
was formally agreed in 1713 and England emerged triumphant. Despite the heavy losses that she had suffered, she was now more powerful militarily than France 
and more commercially effective than 
the Netherlands.

Anne did not long savour her victory. She died on 1 August 1714, aged just 49, after suffering two violent strokes. Her 
Tory ministers secretly offered the crown to James II’s son on condition that he convert to Protestantism. He refused and the crown passed peacefully to George Louis, Elector of Hanover, as decreed in the 1701 Act of Settlement and confirmed by the Act of Union six years later. The turbulent century of Stuart rule was at an end.

This article was first published in BBC History Magazine's 'The Life and Times of the Stuarts' bookazine 

]]> The true history of The Favourite https://www.historyextra.com/membership/true-history-the-favourite-queen-anne-olivia-colman-historical-accuracy-podcast/ Thu, 10 Jan 2019 16:32:23 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/true-history-the-favourite-queen-anne-olivia-colman-historical-accuracy-podcast/ Amanda Vickery, Hallie Rubenhold and Hannah Greig discuss the acclaimed new historical drama The Favourite Historians Amanda Vickery, Hallie Rubenhold and Hannah Greig discuss the acclaimed new historical drama The Favourite and consider how accurately it reflects the reality of Queen Anne’s court in the early 18th century.

]]> Queen Anne's feuding favourites https://www.historyextra.com/membership/queen-anne-feuding-favourites-women-olivia-colman/ Wed, 02 Jan 2019 06:00:03 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/queen-anne-feuding-favourites-women-olivia-colman/ For a few years during the reign of Queen Anne, women dominated the political arena – from biting satirists to MPs' powerful wives. Hannah Greig, historical advisor on a new film about Anne's turbulent inner circle, celebrates a golden age of female influence For a few years during the reign of Queen Anne, women dominated the political arena – from biting satirists to MPs' powerful wives. Hannah Greig, historical advisor on a new film about Anne’s turbulent inner circle, celebrates a golden age of female influence

“May I remind you, you are not the queen!” When Robert Harley utters these words to Sarah Churchill in one of the most memorable scenes in Yorgos Lanthimos’s new film The Favourite, he is undoubtedly right: Churchill is not the queen. But, as Harley has just discovered to his cost, she might as well be.

Harley (played by Nicholas Hoult), a leading Tory minister, has come to court seeking an audience with the real monarch, Anne. Instead, he is confronted by Churchill – a supporter of the Tories’ enemies, the Whigs – who has used all her power to stop that meeting going ahead. With his attempts to gain the queen’s ear blocked, Harley is forced to retreat in an impotent rage.

Read more:

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Set in the English court at the dawn of the 18th century, The Favourite explores the shifting balance of power between Queen Anne (played by Olivia Colman) and her two most influential courtiers: Abigail Masham (Emma Stone) and the indomitable Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz). As the duchess’s clash with Harley suggests, the court, seen through Lanthimos’s eye at least, is a world controlled by female power. Women are at the heart of the drama, exploiting messy, sexualised and often darkly manipulative personal relationships that intersect with the mechanics of state power. The excessively bewigged men are ignored, overruled or, at best, required to coax the women to drop them some patronage.

But is this interpretation of events anchored in reality? Did women truly hold the whip hand? Given that The Favourite features lobster racing, fire breathing and the pelting of a plump, naked courtier with pomegranates, it’s tempting to dismiss it as two hours of overblown make-believe. Yet that is to do the film a disservice. In its scrutiny of early 18th-century matriarchal politics – an era in which women at court exercised unparalleled influence and political power – The Favourite is closer to the truth than you might think.

Great controversy

“The nation is particularly jealous of favourites,” declared the author Daniel Defoe, as he watched the politics of Queen Anne’s court unfold before him. And it would be two favourites – both of them women – who would define the trajectory of the queen’s reign, and embroil it in one of its greatest controversies.

When Anne succeeded to the throne in 1702, Sarah Churchill, a charismatic companion and close confidante since girlhood, was in the ascendant. To bridge the status gap between gentlewoman and royal, as young women Anne and Sarah had adopted the informal aliases of Mrs Morley (Anne) and Mrs Freeman (Sarah), retaining the nicknames for decades, until their friendship soured.

Thanks to Anne’s close patronage, Sarah Churchill and her army officer husband, John (hero of the battle of Blenheim), were rapidly promoted through the peerage, emerging as the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, a power-broking couple aspiring to command of court, military and state. As queen, Anne awarded the duchess the highest positions available to a woman at court: mistress of the robes, groom of the stole, keeper of the privy purse and ranger of Windsor Great Park. Together these put the duchess in charge of the monarch’s property, person and finances, but her ambitions extended further still.

Characterised by Defoe as a “she-dictator”, the duchess was driven by a passion for government and a powerful political conviction. Partisan feeling ran high during Anne’s reign, with two broad political factions – the Whigs and the Tories – vying for influence over a monarch who had the power to hire and fire governments and veto policies. The Duchess of Marlborough was a dyed-in-the-wool Whig, and endeavoured to use her influence with the queen to secure appointments for Whig men and their families at court, to facilitate or thwart ministerial access to the monarch, and to inveigle the queen to support the Whig desire for England to remain an active participant in the War of the Spanish Succession.

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But the duchess had a problem. The queen was no puppet, and the role of court favourite was not a lifelong sinecure. Soon, disputes over politics and matters of states began to drive a wedge between Mrs Morley and Mrs Freeman – and these were exacerbated by the emergence of a new contender as court favourite, Abigail Masham (née Hill).

Masham had come to court under the Duchess of Marlborough’s patronage, but ultimately usurped her as the one who, in the words of the Duke of Shrewsbury, “could make the queen stand upon her head if she chose”. Masham proved a political as well as a personal rival to the duchess. She was a key confidante of Tory minister Robert Harley, who used her close relationship with the queen to further his own goals. Despite the length of her friendship with Queen Anne, the Duchess of Marlborough was frozen out. In 1711, the queen stripped Sarah of all her official roles, and in turn the duchess stripped her court apartments clean of all fixtures and fittings on her way out.

Political trailblazers

The controversial soap opera that was Anne, Churchill and Masham’s relationship fascinated contemporaries, and has intrigued historians ever since. Yet they were not the only female political players of the age, and nor was the court the only arena in which women made a significant impact. This was a period of remarkable political journalism, and the animosity between Marlborough and Masham was scrutinised, fanned and spun across all forms of print media. Many of those penning political commentary – and being paid for it – were women. Mary Astell, the ‘first English feminist’, wrote advice books advocating women’s right to education and disavowing the tyranny of marriage – all laced with polemics in support of the Tory party.

Astell was certainly not the only female critic of the Whigs. The sharpened quill of the ‘first female political journalist’, Delarivier Manley, impaled the Duchess of Marlborough, her husband and leading Whig ministers with a prolific output of satirical novels, political essays and pamphlets. At times taking pay from Lord Harley and working to commission, Manley was an effective political propagandist, her influence confirmed by the rage she elicited among the Whigs.

The work of playwright Susanna Centlivre was of a different political hue, coloured with support for the Whigs, as expressed in plays such as 1709’s The Man’s Bewitch’d, in which the heroine liberates herself from the tyranny of a Tory guardian and finds happiness with a handsome Whig hero.

But women didn’t just seek to shape political opinion via the written word. Others chose a more personal approach, using their influence as wives, sisters and daughters of ministers or go-getting MPs to befriend, win over and persuade. One of the best exponents of this tactic was Anne, Countess of Strafford, who spent months in London trailing from townhouse to townhouse, firming up acquaintances and trading inside political news. Chief among her targets were Lady North and Grey (whose husband was an opponent of the Duke of Marlborough in the House of Lords), the Duchess of Somerset (who replaced the Duchess of Marlborough as groom of the stole), and Abigail Masham.

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The Countess of Stafford was particularly pleased to receive an invitation to assemblies hosted by the Duchess of Shrewsbury, often used by Lord Harley’s Tory supporters as a gathering point outside court. Shrewsbury’s success as a political hostess is implied by her enemies’ haughty disdain – the Duchess of Marlborough simply couldn’t resist a dig, mocking Shrewsbury for “thrusting out her disagreeable breasts in such strange motions”.

The Countess of Stafford’s centre of operations was her St James’s Square home. A few doors away, another peeress – Lady Hervey, later Countess of Bristol – was similarly engaged in winning over a network of elite women to a political cause. However, her targets were Whigs, not Tories.

Hervey cosied up to the Duchess of Marlborough and her daughters (most shrewdly married off to Whig aristocrats), sitting beside them at the theatre and attending their balls, as well as those hosted by other high-ranking Whig wives, such as Lady Wharton and Lady Portland.

Such politicking didn’t go unnoticed in the press – and not all male correspondents were impressed by what they saw. Commenting on the growing number of women wielding political influence, The Spectator warned that “Party-rage” was a “male vice”, and women caught up in “party-zeal” jeopardised their delicate beauty. “There is nothing so bad for the face as party-zeal. It gives an ill-natured cast to the eye, and disagreeable sourness to the look; besides that it makes the lines too strong, and flushes them worse than brandy […] I have never known a party-woman keep her beauty for a twelvemonth.”

Movers and shakers

Even if women bought the lie that politics ruined their looks, they clearly deemed it a price worth paying. With a queen as head of state, the early 1700s were especially conducive to female political debate and activity, but it was far from an anomaly. The kind of political engagement found in the century’s opening decades has also been located at its close, where the Whigs found another indomitable female mover and shaker in Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. And around such high-profile women were many more, discussing, writing, campaigning, petitioning and participating in the rich discourses of the day.

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• 5 women who challenged the Westminster boys’ club in the 18th century
• Norman women: the power behind the thrones

At press junkets, Yorgos Lanthimos has been fielding questions about the extent to which The Favourite can be regarded as part of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, as if the female politics on the screen must be modern gender politics in fancy dress. Yet the film, as Lanthimos has made clear, was in development long before these recent campaigns, and of course the story itself is far older. We seem to struggle to recognise the longevity of female political participation – its opportunities as well as its limits. Hopefully, through Lanthimos’s wide-angle lens, trailblazers such as Mary Astell, Delarivier Manley and Lady Hervey will begin to get the recognition they deserve.

Hannah Greig is a senior lecturer in early modern history at the University of York. She was a historical advisor on The Favourite, which is out in UK cinemas this month.

This article was first published in the January 2019 edition of BBC History Magazine

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