All language subtitles for Royal History_s Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley 3of3 Queen Anne and the Union.srt - ave(2)

Royal history is at the heart of
our national identity.

We think of it as
the definitive truth about our past.

Kings and queens, dates and facts,

all consigned to a past
that's unchanging and fixed.

But it's not like that at all.

History is a chorus of voices.

Each of them shouting out
its own version of the story.

And very often, it's the loudest
voices that get heard most clearly.

In this series, I'm lifting the lid

on three of royal history's
great nation-building stories.

Henry VIII's Reformation.

It's often seen as
a bawdy royal soap opera,

but was it really
England's first Brexit?

The Spanish Armada -

Elizabeth I's triumphant foundation
of an empire,

or a ripping yarn
that's riddled with fibs?

And in this programme, Queen Anne
and the forging of Great Britain.

She's gone down in history
as a feeble monarch.

Fat, sickly and pushed around
by her politicians

and, above all, her
ladies-in-waiting, her favourites.

But did Anne really lack
political skill?

Queen Anne herself
was a very astute politician.

And was she truly
a weak military leader?

People see something they hadn't
seen in a century - a French army,

the scourge of Europe,
breaks and runs.

All of Anne's achievements
and victories

seem to have been forgotten.

So who started
this character assassination?

And why has Anne's memory
been blackened for centuries?

BELL TOLLS

Queen Anne's path to the throne
begins in 1688.

The upheavals of the Reformation
were far from over.

France and Spain was still fighting
to restore Catholicism to England.

And they had a royal ally.

Anne's father, King James II,
had converted to the faith.

The country's Protestants rose up

and Anne had to make a hard choice.

Anne was brought up a Protestant,

so now she was in
a terrible position.

She had to either abandon her
religion, or abandon her father.

In this dilemma, though,
she was supported by

her childhood best friend, almost
her soulmate, Sarah Churchill.

History remembers Queen Anne
as a weak and dithering monarch,

but her bold decision
to join the revolt

reveals this to be a fib
right from the start.

There's a sentry guarding the door,
Anne is trapped in her rooms,

but Sarah finds
an unguarded back staircase.

And at the bottom of it, she's got
a Hackney carriage waiting.

They escape.

Sarah Churchill would be by Anne's
side all the way to the throne.

When James heard what had happened,
he burst into tears.

"God help me," he said.

"My own children have forsaken me."

One observer said that
he felt the loss of his daughter

as badly as the loss of his army.

James now lost heart
and he fled into exile in France.

Anne's older sister, Mary,
now took the throne,

with her Protestant husband,
the Dutch William of Orange.

By joining the revolt,
Anne had also positioned herself

to inherit the Stuart crown.

Sarah and Anne
had made a sensational escape.

This was such a bold move!

And they were now more than friends,
they were partners in crime.

Queen Anne came to the throne
14 years later, in 1702.

The rule of her sister
and her Dutch brother-in-law

had been unpopular in England,

and Anne was committed
to the nation's revival.

As a young woman, Anne had predicted
that England will flourish again.

And now she aimed to make good
on that.

But the new queen's reign
was already being undermined

by the prejudices of her politicians
and subjects.

Many were against her
simply because she was a woman.

Despite 17 pregnancies,

she and her husband George had also
failed to produce a Protestant heir.

And many believed she was too sick
to defend Protestant England

against the might
of Catholic France and Spain.

Anne's various illnesses
seemed impossible to cure.

Her symptoms included
a blotchy red face,

sore legs, horribly swollen feet.

Her doctors said all this was gout.

And if the illnesses sound bad,
the treatments sound almost worse.

There was blood-letting,

placing of hot irons on her skin,
and blistering.

Add in arthritis and the poor woman

really was a prisoner
in her own body.

Back then, they said it was
all caused by gluttony

and excessive drinking.

But this is another fib.

The illnesses were real.

Modern doctors have diagnosed
the debilitating

autoimmune disease, lupus.

Anne's enemies saw it as
a sign of moral weakness.

Sir John Clerk, a Scottish MP,
once met Queen Anne,

and he said it was like meeting

"the most despicable mortal
in the world".

He said that she had
a "blotched countenance",

and she was "surrounded by some
plasters and some dirty-like rags".

Now, I, personally, find it
impressive that Queen Anne

was able to be queen
despite her physical condition.

And I suspect that

our generally-negative view
of her reign today

has been shaped by that,
and other juicy quotations

about the imperfections of her body.

Many historians struggle to believe

that Anne could be both chronically
ill and an effective queen.

And that doubt existed
in Stuart times, as well.

At this period, the monarch
is not just a figurehead.

So if the monarch
is chronically unwell,

that really puts
the...the...the nation,

um...politics, Parliament,

the state, in peril.

Um...with Anne, I think this is
accentuated because she is a woman.

If there's one long-term purpose
of a queen,

it's to create the next generation,
the next monarch.

So Anne's health,
and in particular, her fertility,

is the subject of intense scrutiny
throughout her reign.

And, of course, it's an area
where she experiences

great tragedy and sadness,
and ultimately, she fails.

What did people make of the fact
that they had a woman on the throne?

Well, I think it's undeniable
that female power

is a problem in this society.

Female rule is a...
it's a kind of aberration.

The fact that she's a woman
is very often used against her.

On the other hand,
right from the start,

she uses it to her advantage
in really canny ways, I think.

So in her coronation, she chooses
a passage, a biblical passage,

which refers to queens
nursing the nation.

So she... Right from the start,
she's using this idea

of a mother's authority, really.

And she sets herself up
as mother of the nation.

One of Anne's first tasks as queen

was to address a speech
to Parliament.

Once again, expectations were low.

In the early 18th century,
Parliament was a brutal place.

There were two factions,
who despised each other.

FAINT RAISED VOICES

The Whigs were the party of
business. The metropolitan elite.

They wanted to restore
England's glory

by going to war
with Catholic France.

And they believed Parliament should
curtail the power of the monarch.

The Tories were landed gentry,
country squires.

They resisted going to war
with France

because it would lead to
an increase in land tax.

They were committed monarchists.

Tory values could be summed up as
God, Queen and country.

Anne dreaded entering this bear pit.

To make matters worse,
one of her ministers said

that she was too "unwieldy and lame"

even to appear before Parliament.

It looked like
it was going to be a disaster.

But Anne had a secret weapon.

Sarah Churchill had ensured that
her friend was immaculately dressed,

perfectly prepared
and stunningly regal.

Sarah had also arranged for
Anne to be carried into Parliament.

She learned her speech off by heart.

People noticed that she gave it
without book, no notes.

And she said, "There is nothing
you could expect or desire me to do

"that I wouldn't do

"for the happiness
and prosperity of England."

But it was another line of the
speech which became a sort of a meme

and got relayed around the country.

She said, "I know my own heart
to be entirely English."

And this was a dig
at her predecessor,

the unpopular Dutch King,
William III.

It went down a storm.

Anne had done brilliantly.

Many of the doubts about her reign
were beginning to melt away.

"Her Majesty charmed both houses
on Wednesday,"

reported one observer.

"Never any woman spoke more audibly,
or with better grace."

The Earl of Sunderland gushed,

"If she acts as she speaks,

"she will be safe, happy
and adored."

FAINT CHEERING

Queen Anne herself
was a very astute politician,

and she was a very shrewd
manipulator

of political actors to her own ends.

But Anne's cleverly-planned debut
would soon be forgotten,

due to the machinations
of her political enemies.

In the early 18th century,

the position of Prime Minister
hadn't yet been established.

The monarch selected MPs for
the top jobs, and approved policy.

Anne was often caught in the
crossfire between what she called,

"the merciless men".

But the standard story of her reign

diverts our attention
away from Parliament

and on to intrigues at court.

History, and Hollywood,
have often painted Queen Anne

as a woman under the thumb of
other women - her favourites.

They controlled access to the queen
for political purposes.

Now, like all myths, there's a grain
of truth at the heart of this,

but really, it's
very much of an exaggeration.

Sarah Churchill was a Whig,
and Tory politicians were suspicious

of her political influence
on the queen.

It's true that she was influential.

She was Mistress of the Robes,
Keeper of the Privy Purse

and Groom of the Stool,

symbolised by
her golden key of office.

Sarah controlled Anne's clothes,

her social calendar and her money.

But stories depicting the queen
as Sarah's puppet

were often motivated by jealousy
of Sarah's power and privileges.

Lady Sarah Churchill

had one of the most important
apartments at Hampton Court.

And this was her little closet,
dressing room area?

A closet or dressing room.

How does it compare to other rooms
the courtiers had in the palace?

It is as richly decorated
as the monarch's apartment.

So it's a very, very cushy
little room she's got here.

It is the best place in the palace
if you're a courtier.

Because it is so close to the most
private spaces of the monarch.

Mm. Queen Anne would have slept
right next door.

Oh, yes! Very cosy arrangement.

Well, if you're the queen,

you don't want to be sleeping in
the grand chambers upstairs.

They're cold
and not very comfortable.

A room like this is much
more homely, much more cosy.

You have to imagine
it once had a bed in.

A bed in it? Yes!

That was a big part of her life,
being surrounded by women

in these funny little
downstairs rooms.

Yes. But because those women
are there,

they can also talk politics
with the queen.

There's no escape, is there,
if you're the queen?

Monarchs can't have
normal relationships

because everybody wants something
from them.

At Hampton Court, any politician
hoping to influence the queen

in the early years of her reign
needed access to her private study.

The queen was both extremely ill
and extremely shy.

She kept away from high society.

She kept herself to herself,
mainly in the company of her ladies.

So, if you were
an ambitious politician,

how would you get access
to her reclusive majesty?

Well, there are two routes.

Here's the official way.

Firstly, you'd come up
this epically-grand staircase,

with its magnificent murals.

Right down at the other end there
is Queen Anne's study.

It seems an awfully long way away.

And between us and it, there
were all these different rooms,

each with its own door and its own
lock and its own guard.

These rooms form a hierarchy.

And the more important you are,

the deeper you're allowed
to penetrate into the palace.

But ultimately, it was the queen's
favourite who'd decide

whether you were allowed into
the royal presence or not.

But this isn't the only way in
to see the queen.

These are the back stairs.

It's a working part of the palace.

This is where servants would bring
things up to the queen's study.

The only people who are supposed
to use these stairs

are the servants themselves, and,
of course, the queen's favourite.

Clever politicians knew that

the secret backstairs route,
via Sarah Churchill,

could get you enormous influence
over the queen.

And, as a result,
the power-hungry Sarah

became even more powerful still.

One of the queen's
first appointments

was Sarah Churchill's husband,
Lord Marlborough.

He was keen to go to war with France
to crush the Catholic threat.

He would lead the queen's army.

For many historians,

this looks like a blatant favour
to Sarah and the Whigs.

The history books
have Anne down as feeble.

A puppet, with strings pulled
by her politicians.

But if you actually look at
her political career,

it was much more nuanced than that.

Anne was clever enough
to take advice,

but she put both Tories and Whigs
into her Cabinet,

and she was no pushover.

Anne once said of herself,

"If any of the Whigs think I am
to be hexed or frightened

"into compliance
because I'm a woman,

"they are mightily mistaken in me."

Despite all her problems,
Anne was holding her own.

But her tragic lack of children
was still a problem.

England's stability as
a Protestant nation was at stake.

Scouring the family tree
for a Protestant heir

meant skipping over no fewer than
50 eligible Catholics.

The next contender was
a German called Sophia of Hanover.

And Anne would do

everything in her power

to fix this Protestant succession.

But the Catholic threat was growing.

A royal crisis in Spain was
taking England to the brink of war.

Charles II of Spain
was also childless.

On his death, Spain and its colonies

would pass to the grandson
of the King of France.

This would create
a Catholic mega-empire

intent on restoring a Catholic king
to the English throne.

The war of the Spanish succession
was brewing.

This was one of the greatest tests
for Queen Anne

and her Protestant allies in Europe.

This war determined
the future of Europe

and, in many ways, the future
of world civilisation.

There's no question that the
consequences are world consequences

if Louis XIV controls the wealth
of the Spanish Empire.

Essentially,
that's a global empire for him.

Why does Louis threaten Queen Anne
quite so much?

Well, he would remove her
from the throne.

The fear was that they would impose
Catholicism on the nation.

So actually, asking the nation
to change its religion yet again.

Imagine the bloodshed.

Queen Anne's military legacy
tends to be forgotten.

But in 1704,
she overruled the Tories

and backed the hawkish
Duke of Marlborough.

Anne's shrewd choice of
military commander

was about to pay dividends.

Marlborough definitely wants
to take the war to Louis XIV,

but he's got these allies,
he has the Dutch allies,

and, quite frankly,
they're frightened of

the reputation of Louis XIV.

France's armies had dominated the
continent for over half a century.

Louis XIV was unbeatable,
unstoppable.

There was a real sense,
"We can't really beat him.

"Why are we even trying?"

In 1704, the French actually
give Marlborough his opportunity.

Basically, a French army,
in conjunction with a Bavarian army,

is driving towards Vienna.

So Louis is marching on Vienna.

What's Marlborough going to do
about that?

So he works out a plan with
Prince Eugene of Savoy,

the allied commander in the south,

that what they're going to do is
Savoy is going to march north,

Marlborough is going to march south,
and they will meet

and cut the French forces off
before they reach Vienna.

Now, to do this, it's a major
logistical undertaking.

Marlborough actually has to set up
shoes and boots along the route

because he is going to march
his troops so far and so fast

that they are going to wear out
their footwear.

The two armies meet
on the way to Vienna.

What happens at the battle

is that Marlborough proves himself
a tactical genius.

He makes a feint
early in the morning

towards the village of Blindheim,

he draws the French forces off
from the river.

He saves his cavalry
till the afternoon.

When he sends in the 81 squadrons
of cavalry,

they smash through the French lines.

And people see something they hadn't
seen in a century - a French army,

the scourge of Europe,
breaks and runs for the river.

At the end of the day,
Marlborough is exhausted.

He's on horseback.

He writes a note to his wife,
Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough.

"Quickly, get me a piece of paper."

He writes on the back of
a tavern bill,

"Please tell the queen her army
has won a glorious victory."

And that message is, in fact,

the announcement of England's
arrival on the world's stage.

You're making me feel quite proud
to be English.

THEY CHUCKLE
Well...

Queen Anne's army
had won the most crushing victory

against the French since Agincourt.

On hearing the news,
Anne said it gave her more joy

than she had ever received
in her life.

Not bad at all, for a queen who'd
go down in history as a disaster.

Queen Anne's army
had shattered French morale.

It had stopped Austria
from being invaded.

It had won one of the most decisive
victories in European history.

England was now in the ascendant.

And here was
the Duke of Marlborough's reward

from his queen -
the Palace of Blindheim,

or, in plain English, Blenheim.

Historians have presented this
as purely Marlborough's victory.

The usual story rarely acknowledges

that it was the queen
who appointed him.

Elizabeth I gets remembered
for beating the Spanish Armada,

Mrs Thatcher gets remembered
for winning the Falklands War.

Why doesn't Queen Anne
get remembered?

Queen Anne was fully the equal
of any of her Tudor predecessors,

but she lacked the star quality
of Queen Elizabeth

and other people
who sat on the British throne.

She was quiet, she was shy,

she was significantly overweight.

And I think people then,
and people today,

still draw conclusions about that,
which amount to mere prejudice.

You never hear, "fat and competent,
fat and politically astute",

and yet, that's exactly
what Anne was.

She knew who she was and was exactly
the queen that England,

and then, later, Great Britain,
needed during her reign.

The war with France continued.

And it was getting closer to home.

Louis XIV was eyeing up
a French alliance with Scotland.

Together, they could perhaps
crush England.

But the queen had a solution.

And it would also help secure
the Protestant succession.

England and Scotland
shared one monarch,

but had two separate parliaments.

Anne was urging Scotland to join
a united parliament in London

in return for economic rewards.

This would shut the door on
a French alliance with Scotland

and secure the Protestant
Hanoverian succession.

Great Britain was about to be born.

The story of
how the union came about

usually goes something like this:

England said to Scotland, "How
about it? Shall we get together?"

The Scottish nobles
thought about it, debated it

and eventually decided, yes!

The only people who thought that
this was a bad idea

were a small rabble of dissenters.

Most people in England and Scotland
thought that it was great.

What a triumph!

But this version of the story

is one of the biggest fibs
in British history.

Scotland's archives reveal the truth
about the people's response

to the idea of a union with England.

What do you think that people
generally, in Scotland,

felt about the union
when it was proposed?

If you had an opinion, I think
contemporaries would have said

most Scots were against it.

We've got here a copy of a petition
from the Scottish National Archives,

which is saying,
"We don't want the union".

So this is a petition
from the inhabitants

and the trades and merchants
of the borough of Ayr.

It's signed by over 1,000 people,
which is very large for this time.

So it's signed by officers of
the trade guilds, senior merchants,

and then, as it goes down,
you get more ordinary people.

We can see the initials of people
who are not actually literate enough

to sign their full signature.

And were there
lots of these petitions?

And what about the pro-union
petitions? Where are they are?

There's only one petition
that we can call pro-union,

and it's from the borough council
of Ayr.

And they say, "We're OK
with this union in principle,

"but could you please amend
some of the articles of the treaty?"

How many petitions were there
against the union?

There were about 80,
about 80 petitions.

And they're signed by
approximately 20,000 people.

Which, for the time, is...is a lot.

And there was ONE
pro-union petition?

Yes. At this time, there was a very
strong sense of national identity.

People saw Scotland as
an ancient kingdom.

It had been around,
according to history of the time,

for 2,000 years.

And it was seen as really
dishonourable to give that up.

The real story at the union involved
the bribery of Scottish politicians

with the promise of titles
and riches.

The Duke of Hamilton
was a Scottish anti-unionist hero.

But late one September night
in 1705,

he abruptly changed his tune.

The Scottish Parliament was debating
how to choose commissioners

to negotiate for Scotland
over the suggested union.

BELL TOLLS

The Duke of Hamilton suddenly did
a very surprising thing.

He announced that

he thought that the queen
ought to pick her own commissioners.

This was inexplicable
to the rest of the opposition.

They were confused,
they were dismayed.

They walked out of the chamber.

And this allowed the motion
to slip through by just eight votes.

Hamilton had been bribed.

He would later become the first
British Ambassador to France.

His U-turn allowed Anne to select
Scotland's own negotiators.

Anne was getting
exactly what she wanted.

Not exactly the action of
a politically-naive pushover.

This corridor behind
10 Downing Street

once led to Henry VIII's
cockfighting pit.

And it was here that

the queen's ruthless battle
for the union was won.

The two teams of commissioners
were kept apart from each other

in separate, locked rooms,
and written messages were exchanged.

So 300 years ago, this corridor
was where it was all at,

with the messengers
going up and down.

Scotland's future was at stake here,

and yet the Scottish
negotiating team had been muted.

The deal was struck
in just three days.

The two parliaments
would be united in London

as Her Majesty's Parliament
of Great Britain.

Scotland would be free to trade
with England's colonies.

And the Protestant Hanoverians
would succeed Queen Anne

to both the Scottish and English
thrones.

Now, Anne's deal went back to be
approved by the Scottish Parliament.

And once again, Anne's ministers
manipulated the outcome.

�20,000 worth of English gold,
about five million today,

was used to persuade Scots MPs
to vote for union.

Here, in the hall
of the Scottish Parliament,

MPs voted their independence away.

Scotland's national poet,
Rabbie Burns,

was appalled by
the corruption and lies.

So the last line we heard there was,

"We're bought and sold
for English gold -

"Such a parcel of rogues
in a nation."

Why is Robert Burns so cross
with the Scottish people?

So he's reflecting the notion
that the union was made

with a degree of corruption.

It is a marriage of convenience.

It is created because there
is no successor to Anne.

And that problem needs to be solved.

If Anne had had a surviving child,

it probably would not have happened
at that point in time.

So amazingly, the union really
came down to the womb of one woman.

Mm-hm. Yep.

Queen Anne's lack of a successor
is what drives the union.

It's an incredible thought.

By May 1707, Anne had secured
a Protestant succession,

foiled the French alliance
with Scotland,

and created Great Britain
into the bargain.

She was now eager to bring
the bloody and expensive war

with France to an end.

But she was distracted
by a growing conflict at home.

Sarah's cousin, Abigail Masham,
had joined the queen's staff,

and Sarah was dismayed
to see Abigail

quickly winning
the queen's affection.

The queen now had a new favourite.

It was Abigail who tended to her
day and night.

Sarah was out.

But just how close

was the relationship between Anne
and Abigail?

Well, that's a secret
that remains shrouded in darkness.

Abigail Masham was the cousin
of the Tory leader, Robert Harley.

And she gave him special access
to the queen.

Anne now used Harley
as an ally against the Whigs,

who wanted to fight on
against the French.

And Harley was the finest
political schemer of his age.

His nickname is
the Backstairs Dragon.

He's called the Backstairs Dragon

because he's always thought to have
some Machiavellian plan.

He's always playing both sides
against the middle.

And so, this is a man who always has
three or four plots going at once.

The queen worked with Harley
on secret plans

to make a peace treaty with France.

Sarah and the Whigs
were utterly furious.

Speculation about Abigail's
relationship with the queen

has diverted attention from Anne's
shrewd political tactics ever since.

A popular song began spreading
a rumour, originating from Sarah,

which would destroy
the queen's reputation.

Ballads had already been
very popular,

right from Shakespeare's day,

and they were the way that people
enjoyed themselves, singing.

It was very much part of
oral culture in ale houses

and inns and taverns,
to sing popular songs.

In this period, it becomes a way of
expressing political satire.

And so, you could have a ballad
about a king and a pauper

without naming the king, or naming
the individuals involved.

And you could satirise
what was going on in politics

without ending up
in the Tower of London.

So they have to have
a thinly-disguised satire

on what's going on in high places.

"When as Qu... A..."

That's Queen Anne...

Well, we can recognise immediately
it's Queen Anne,

and so would people at the time.

"When as Queen Anne of great renown

"Great Britain's sceptre sway'd

"Besides the church,
she dearly lov'd

"A dirty chamber-maid.

"O! Abi... That was her name."

That's Abigail Masham, isn't it?
This is about Abigail.

"She starch'd and stitch'd
full well

"But how she pierc'd this royal
heart, no mortal man can tell."

"She pierced this royal heart."

That is romance, then.

It's...it's cross-class romance.

Whoever's written this ballad
is causing mischief

and really kind of
putting Abigail down.

She's being positioned as
an ignorant, low-born woman

who's illiterate,

"but had the conduct and the care
of some dark deeds at night."

"Dark deeds at night."

Well, that's got to be
girl-on-girl action.

It's a trivial thing,
on one level,

but it's been really influential,
hasn't it,

in shaping our view of Queen Anne?

It's like a pop song that's
also spreading gossip and rumour

and political intrigue.

Well, even if there's no smoking gun
proving it was Sarah,

you sort of think, who else could it
have been? It must have been her!

It must have been her.

And I think, definitely, Sarah
is...is playing with fire here.

She's engaging in
open propaganda wars. Hm.

Great Britain was now alive
with rumours

that Abigail and Anne were lovers.

Do you think that dark deeds

actually happened in the night
in this room?

We will never know for sure.

If we could make these walls talk,
we might know.

But there's no reason,
just because of who Anne was,

the position she had in society
and the time she lived in,

that she might not have felt
same-sex love and desire.

What kind of evidence
would you expect, anyway?

It's not really going to exist,
is it?

Very often, evidence doesn't survive
because it was taboo.

Who would write this down,
and why would you write it down?

If you're whispering
intimate secrets to somebody,

you don't need to write them
a letter.

Sarah knew Anne
better than anybody else.

Sarah would have known

that there could have been
a grain of truth in her rumours.

But the unintended consequence
of that

is that people assumed
that not only Abigail

was having an intimate
relationship with the queen,

but that Sarah had, as well.

Sarah's relationship with Anne was,
by now, spiralling downwards.

At St Paul's Cathedral in 1708,

Queen Anne and Sarah
were attending a service of thanks

for another Marlborough victory
over the French.

Sarah had laid out
spectacular jewels for Anne to wear.

And on the way to St Paul's,
she noticed Anne hadn't put them on.

To Sarah, the message was clear.

The queen didn't value
Sarah's husband's victory enough

to be bothered to wear the jewels
to the ceremony to celebrate it.

And Sarah also thought that

she could detect
the influence of Abigail here.

And if Abigail was in,
then Sarah was out.

In the coach, they argued.

And it all grew to a head as they
arrived here, at the cathedral,

where Sarah's feelings boiled over
as they were going up the steps.

Crowds were all around them
as the argument continued.

There were lots of people here,
at the entrance to the cathedral,

and as the queen came in,
they all heard Sarah saying to her,

"Be quiet."

Everybody heard Sarah
telling the queen to shut up!

This was terrible!

This was still an age when queens
were considered to be semi-divine,

and here was Anne being humiliated
in public by her own servant.

This time, Sarah had gone too far.

The queen who's been remembered
as a feeble puppet

was, in fact, now ready to dismiss
her lifelong friend.

Sarah resorted to blackmail.

To back up the rumours
about Anne's sexuality,

she said she'd publish
intimate letters

the queen had sent her
over the years.

So, what is the truth
about Anne's sexuality?

These letters are often taken
as so-called evidence

that Queen Anne
was our lesbian queen.

What's your take on the letters
as support for that, or not?

Well, I mean, you know, the letters
obviously don't contain anything

that explicit about
some carnal relationships,

so I think
the only thing we do know,

for which there is evidence
in the letters,

is the emotional intensity
of their relationship,

especially on Anne's part.

Sarah said that Anne's letters were

sometimes full of
"flames of extravagant passion".

What sort of thing
was she referring to?

She was referring to
letters like this one.

"I have been in expectation of you
a long time,

"but can stay no longer
without desiring to know

"what you intend to do with me.

"For it is most certain I can't go
to bed without seeing you.

"Could you see my heart,

"you would find I have not one
thought but what I ought of that

"dear woman whom my soul loves."

"The dear woman whom my soul loves."
Mm-hm.

Such a special feeling to read
such an intimate letter. Yeah.

I truly feel that if you are
a royal woman, as well,

you would be married off at a young
age to an arranged marriage

that was all about
producing the kids, really.

So, you would naturally seek
emotional fulfilment, wouldn't you?

Yeah. I mean, Anne did, I think,

um...she did really like/love
her husband.

There's certainly no correspondence
like this between her and George.

I mean, the suggestion that
there is something unnatural

about Anne's feelings
for other women

really originates from Sarah
herself.

So here we have Sarah
writing to Anne

about Anne having "no inclination
for any but of one's own sex".

So the evidence for Anne being
what we might call gay is shaky.

But after Sarah's threat
of blackmail,

Queen Anne dismissed Sarah
from her court.

When she moved out, Sarah asked
if she could store her belongings

at St James's Palace.

Anne agreed, but the rent would be
10 shillings a week.

Sarah was spitting with rage,

so she took with her all sorts of
things that she shouldn't have done.

Like the mantelpieces
and the door knobs.

If it moved, Sarah swiped it.

So Anne retaliated.

She stopped the building works
here, at Blenheim.

She said, "I'm not going to build
a house for the duke

"if his duchess is taking my house
to pieces."

What had been a beautiful friendship
had become a furious feud.

And the queen hadn't finished yet.

This would become battle royal.

In January 1711, Sarah was forced
to return that golden key of office.

She and her husband
were also advised to leave England

to avoid further trouble.

Harley's Tories had won the election

with the promise of signing a
peace treaty with France and Spain.

But the Whigs still wanted to
fight on to victory,

and they outnumbered the Tories
in the House of Lords.

The queen was desperate to win,

so she and Harley
resorted to a strategy

that was described as
a "mighty stretch of her powers".

She knew that she didn't have enough
Tory lords to win the vote,

so before you could even say
"dodgy",

she just created a dozen new ones.

This was shocking to Parliament.
One observer said

it was "as stunning as if
she'd burnt Magna Carta".

The queen had won again.

And this peace treaty
would transform Britain.

History rarely even remembers
Anne's Treaty of Utrecht,

but it changed the world.

It marked the end of
French dominance in Europe,

and it landed some massive
trade deals for Britain.

One of the most lucrative
was with Spain.

It was called the Assiento.

It gave Britain a 30-year monopoly

in a trade that would turn us into
the world's greatest economic power.

A trade in slaves.

How do you feel about narratives
that still exist

that present Queen Anne's reign as

the epic beginnings of this
fantastic thing, the British Empire?

Well, there's some truth in that,

in the sense that all the conditions
are being created for this takeoff,

when Britain was able to dominate
world politics.

And all of that is facilitated by
the human trafficking

of African men, women and children
in their...

Not just tens of thousands or
hundreds of thousands, but millions.

How essential was the slave trade
to Britain's 18th-century economy?

Well, you can't think of Britain's
economy in the 18th century

without what's called
the "slave trade".

You're stimulating shipbuilding
because you need the ships.

Rope-building, sail-making, um...

everything connected with weapons,

alcohol, metal industries. Um...

So if we look at all the kind of
major cities of this period,

something like a city
like Manchester

develops based on this trade.

The Bank of England,
the...the British Museum, the...

Everything. All the stately homes
in the country.

All the wealth of this period
is connected with colonial trade.

Queen Anne's deal is shocking today,

but the Assiento
and the Treaty of Utrecht

launched an empire of which
the Tudors could only dream.

Elizabeth I was Anne's
much-admired heroine.

And she'd held a thanksgiving
at St Paul's

after seeing off the Spanish Armada.

Now Anne was going to go one better.

There was planned,
also at St Paul's,

a procession of 4,000 children.

They were going to sing hymns
to God,

thanking Him for Her Majesty,
and for the gift of peace.

For the music of the thanksgiving,

Anne included
a sneaky bit of support

for the Hanoverian succession.

The English composer, Purcell,
was out...

..and the German composer,
Handel, was in.

Handel's previous patron
had been the Hanoverian court.

But once again,
Anne's body was to let her down.

This was supposed to be
her moment of glory,

but she was too ill to attend.

The queen would also miss
the unveiling of this statue.

Anne had shown courage by using
military force at crucial moments,

but she'd also shown wisdom

by making peace
when she had the chance.

Sounds like
exactly what you'd hope for

in a natural-born leader,
doesn't it?

Like her heroine, Elizabeth I,
Anne had been victorious,

and she'd helped create
the Europe that we know today.

After a lifetime beset by illness,

on 1st August, 1714,
at the age of 49,

Queen Anne died.

Today, she's been all but forgotten.

But in just 12 years,
England had been transformed

into a new world power.

The mighty Great Britain.

And despite her fertility problems,

Anne had also fixed
the smooth succession

of a new Protestant dynasty.

On 18th September, 1714,

a man called Georg Ludwig
landed here, at Greenwich.

He'd just arrived from Hanover,
in Germany.

Now, his English wasn't that great

and certainly, today,
he would have struggled

with the citizenship test,

but pretty soon, he would be crowned
King George I.

But Sarah Churchill had used
her time in exile

spreading her fibs to blacken
Anne's reputation in Europe.

Despite all her victories,
the queen's legacy was undermined.

The statue's supposed to celebrate
Anne's military success,

but pretty soon after it got put up,
it was graffitied.

A disrespectful rhyme appeared,
calling her, "Brandy Nan".

"Brandy Nan," it went,
"left in the lurch,

"face to the gin shop,
back to the church."

She didn't even have the respect
of Georgian street urchins.

Sarah's final act of revenge
for the Whigs

came nearly 30 years
after Anne's death.

She scandalised Britain

with a treacherous account
of her time in the queen's service.

What kind of a Queen Anne emerges
from Sarah's kiss-and-tell memoir?

Sarah portrays Anne
as just sort of blindly,

stubbornly, um...unreasonable.

And dominated by a Tory view
of the world.

So here, for example, it says that,
"the queen had, from her infancy,

"imbibed the most unconquerable
prejudices against the Whigs."

Anne was raised as a Tory and just
couldn't see past those blinkers.

Sarah's making Anne sound
inflexible,

and therefore, a bit dim, really.

Can't see both sides
of the argument.

Anne mainly comes out of this book
as seeming just very boring

and insipid, and quite weak.

So that image of Anne
as not being as intelligent,

or as, um...in control of
the course of events,

really is reinforced by the way
she's depicted in this memoir.

So on one level,
it's sophisticated propaganda,

on another, is just a big fib,
isn't it?

It oversimplifies.

It does oversimplify,
but I think Sarah,

she wasn't consciously fibbing,

I think she oversimplified
her view of Anne.

Sarah, really, just treats Anne
as quite an infantile character.

This little book,
it's just a little book,

but it has torpedoed
Anne's reputation in history.

Sarah wasn't the last Churchill
to rewrite Anne's story.

In 1874, another Churchill, Winston,

was born at Blenheim Palace.

As he grew up, he was fascinated
by his ancestor,

the Duke of Marlborough.
He dubbed him, "John Duke".

The great 19th-century historian,
Thomas Macaulay,

had cast a shadow over his memory.

"The splendid qualities
of John Churchill

"were mingled with alloy
of the most sordid kind," he'd said.

But Winston Churchill
wasn't going to take

that slur on his family name.

As a backbench MP in the 1930s,

he began writing a biography
of his famous ancestor.

By the time he'd finished his book,

Winston Churchill
had fought and re-fought

the Duke of Marlborough's world war
over and over again in his mind.

He was using history to prepare
himself for his own world war.

"The longer you can look back,"
he said,

"the farther you can look forward."

One of Winston's own biographers

said that, "the great showman aimed
to blast Macaulay out of the water."

In Winston Churchill's
colourful prose,

the Duke of Marlborough, John Duke,

gets a dramatic rehabilitation.
How about this?

"Behind Queen Anne,
ever faithful in her service,

"lay the pervading genius
of Marlborough,

"with his enchanted sword."

In trumpeting Marlborough
as this great hero,

he relegated Queen Anne
to a bit-part player.

Sidelined, infantilised
and misrepresented.

Winston Churchill wrote that,
"Marlborough was not only the chief,

"but the sole guide of the Queen,

"and the decisions to which
she obtained her assent

"shaped the future.
Anne relied on Marlborough."

Churchill was patronising
to Queen Anne

in order to rescue the reputation
of his beloved John Duke.

But it's Sarah Churchill's fibs
that have most distorted her memory.

Sarah Churchill's version
of the story

has had 250 years now
to stew and to spread.

And her juicy titbits about
"dark deeds done at night"

are so powerful that they've pushed
all the other stories

that could have been told
about Queen Anne out of our minds.

You sent for Abigail to try and make
me jealous, I think! Perhaps.

QUEEN ANNE GASPS

And now, the film, The Favourite,

is spreading the fibs
to a whole new generation.

It goes even further than
Sarah Churchill's version of events.

You look like a badger.

Oh!

Well, what do you think
you look like?

A badger.

Do you really think you can
meet the Russian delegation

looking like that?

No. I will manage it.

Go back to your rooms.

Queen Anne in The Favourite
is a tragic figure.

She's overweight,
she's insanely greedy. Mm!

She's easily manipulated
by other people.

She has two lesbian lovers

and she's obsessed
with her pet rabbits.

Now, you could argue about
whether all these things

are really true or not,
except for the last.

She definitely did not have bunnies.

Along with so much else, the rabbits
in the film are total inventions.

So, what do historians
make of The Favourite?

I think visually, it's sumptuous,
and I think it's...

Anything that gets people interested
in history is worthwhile.

I found the favourite to be
delightfully entertaining

and wicked good fun,
and utter rubbish as history.

Queen Anne's memory
has been blackened for centuries

by her embittered lady-in-waiting.

Now Hollywood appears to have
sealed her fate

as a queen destined to be remembered
as a disaster.

But it was the Georgians

who colluded in putting the lid
on Anne's legacy.

Anne had defeated the French,

she'd restored peace to Europe

and she'd gracefully handed over
the succession to the Hanoverians.

To see how they thanked her
for that,

we need to visit the most
magnificent building in Greenwich,

the Painted Hall.

It was designed to be
a hospital dining room,

but it's also Britain's answer
to the Sistine Chapel.

It took the artist, James Thornhill,
two decades to paint,

and his posture would never recover.

Ah!

There's William and Mary -

Anne's brother-in-law
and her sister.

They're absolutely plumb centre.
They dominate the whole room.

And here, on the end wall,
we have George's family,

the Hanoverian clan.

The whole darn lot of them.
There's loads of them.

With their rather modest motto,
that says,

"Here we have a new race of men
from heaven."

And where in all of this
is Queen Anne?

Well, you could be forgiven
for missing her.

She's tucked away
on the ceiling here,

next to her slightly-useless
husband.

She's not at all
the focus of attention.

And that pretty much sums up the
Georgians' attitude to Queen Anne.

In fact, that end wall
was originally supposed to be

a celebration of Anne's victories.

This would have
cemented the image of her

as a successful military leader.

But along came George and put
his own family there instead.

It's like he painted out her legacy.

Being forgotten is perhaps
the greatest indignity of all.

Queen Anne's story
shows just how dangerous

royal history's fibs can be.

So we should set aside the poisonous
tone of Sarah Churchill's memoirs

to reveal the real Queen Anne.

She WAS significant.

She gave the world Great Britain,
for better or for worse.

She saved the nation
from the French.

We need to rescue Anne
from the mythology

and restore her to her rightful
place in royal history.