Out of this impeccably written and researched new biography emerges the portrait of a wise, loving, tolerant woman who held the reins of government in calm, capable hands. This is a must-read for all those who love English royal history and, after three centuries of misogyny and misunderstanding, Anne Stuart has found a worthy champion in Anne Somerset. Traditionally depicted as a weak ruler dominated by female favourites and haunted by remorse at having deposed her father, Queen Anne emerges rather as a woman whose great good sense and unshakeable commitment to duty enabled her to overcome private tragedy and painful disabilities, setting her kingdom on the path to greatness. Having lost the will to continue a ruinously expensive war that the Marlboroughs and their political allies favoured, the Queen changed her ministers and embarked upon a peace process that some condemned as dishonourable.ĭrawing widely on unpublished sources, Anne Somerset vividly depicts the clashes of personality, party rivalries and backstairs intrigues that aroused such strong feelings at the time, and made politics so contentious.

Political differences partly explained why the Queen’s earlier passionate adoration for this wilful and outspoken woman transformed to loathing, but Sarah precipitated the final rupture with the startling claim that, despite Anne’s ostensibly happy marriage, it was the Queen’s lesbian infatuation with another lady-in-waiting, Abigail Masham, that had destroyed their friendship.

Yet even while her great general, the Duke of Marlborough, was performing feats of military genius on the continent, Anne’s relationship with his wife Sarah was becoming ever more rancorous. Her reign was marked by many triumphs, including Union with Scotland and glorious victories in war against France. This poorly educated and chronically shy invalid seemed ill-equipped to take on the responsibilities of sovereignty, but against all expectation she proved Britain’s most successful Stuart ruler. Childless, despite seventeen pregnancies that had either ended in failure or produced heartrendingly short-lived offspring, in some respects she was a pitiable figure. In 1702, fourteen years after she helped oust her father from his throne and deprived her newborn half-brother of his birthright, Queen Anne inherited the crowns of England and Scotland.

We Two by Gillian Gill