Until 1694, no one expected Anne Stuart, Protestant younger daughter of James II by his first wife, to become queen of England. Her birth to the Duke and Duchess of York during the plague year of 1665 went unrecorded even by the fastidious diarist Samuel Pepys. Her mother died in 1671, then her father wed a teenage girl in 1673 only seven years older than Anne. Deprived of her mother’s affection and unhappy with her Catholic stepmother, at age eight Anne established a great friendship with a thirteen-year-old attendant in the service of Mary of Modena—Sarah Jennings, later Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough; their friendship lasted almost to the end of Anne’s life. After an unpleasant, failed meeting in 1681 with potential spouse Prince George of Hanover, Lady Anne accompanied her father to Scotland during the exclusion crisis that threatened his succession. While she was in the northern kingdom, the Danish envoy proposed to Charles II that Anne marry Prince George of Denmark, a Lutheran and the thirty-year-old second son of Frederick III. No one had any serious objections and since Protestant princes of any denomination were hard to come by, the engagement was announced. John Evelyn described George, as blonde, heavy, and reticent, but known for his valiant combat rescue of his brother, the Danish King Christian V. Following the nuptials in 1683, Sarah became Anne’s lady of the bedchamber and persuaded her to keep a low profile during James’s unpopular reign. Though Prince George escorted King James to Salisbury when William of Orange invaded, he soon deserted James and Anne fled to Nottingham for safety. Throughout the revolution, Anne was strongly influenced by the Churchills, who advised the princess to support the triumphant claims of her brother-in-law to be co-monarch with her sister, Mary. As a consequence of that support, the title would settle on Anne and her offspring if Mary’s line failed.

Anne and her sister had always been close, but after Mary’s coronation an estrangement, magnified by Sarah Churchill and her husband, took place over Anne’s apartments, allowance, and rights to James II’s private estate. After Mary’s death, King William reconciled with Anne and treated her with every courtesy, mindful that her court could become a magnet for any plots to depose him. In 1701, being childless, Anne acquiesced to the Act of Settlement, which named Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and her progeny in line for the crown on the grounds of their descent from James I. On March 8, 1702, Anne, last of the Stuart sovereigns, acceded to the throne. She was only thirty-seven, yet so infirm from various physical ailments that she had to be carried to her coronation.