Queen Anne Stuart. Introduction. Part One

 

 

I have written three novels set in the reign of Queen Anne Stuart, 1702 – 1714, during which the Duke of Marlborough won the War of Spanish Succession, and the Act of Union with Scotland was signed. I hope you enjoy Part One of my introduction to her.  

 

The Cinderella Princess.

 

 

At the birth of the future Queen Anne, Stuart on the 6th February1665 neither her uncle, the second King Charles, nor her father, James, heir to the throne, imagined she would become the Stuart monarch. The king’s seven illegitimate children proved his virility, so there was every reason to believe he and his queen of three years would have legitimate heirs to the throne. However, in the unlikely event of their not producing one, his brother and sister-in-law, James and Anne, the Duke and Duchess of York, had produced an older brother and sister for the latest addition to their nursery, Baby Anne.

Infant mortality was high. The son ‘Cinderella’s’ mother carried when she married only lived for six months. Fortunately, Anne and her older sister, Mary, survived the Great Plague, which broke out in the year of her birth. The little princesses grew up in their nursery but their brother James, another brother and two little sisters died. One can imagine the effects of these deaths on ‘Cinderella’, a small girl with poor health whose weak eyes watered constantly.

Doubtless, it was with the best of intentions that with the consent of ‘Cinderella’s’ uncle, the king, her parents sent the four-year-old to her grandmother, widow of the executed first Charles, who now lived in France.

A portrait of the Anne as a small girl painted by an unknown artist at the French Court depicts a plump, adorable little girl, dressed in brocade and playing with a King Charles spaniel. Yet her eyes, set in an oval face with a mouth shaped in a perfect cupid’s bow, are wary.

 

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To read the first three chapters of Far Beyond Rubies, Tangled Love and the Captain and the Countess, my#classic#historical#romances, set in Queen Anne Stuart’s reign, published by BooksWeLove please visit my website. www.rosemarymorris.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

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