All language subtitles for The Queens That Changed the World s01e02 Queen Anne.eng

Across the centuries
and around the world...

..women have ruled
kingdoms and built empires.

She could not be hidden,
she could not be suppressed.

Now, we'll discover the real
story of six iconic queens.

She tore the city down,

despite the fire, despite
the whole city being massacred,

we still have these walls.

In this series,
we'll follow in the footsteps...

Here it is, the Chapel Royal,
a pretty magical place.

..of history's most
important female monarchs...

She believed that every single man

who fought on the
battlefield in her name,

was worthy of honour and respect.

..to find out how they overcome
the prejudices of their times...

She is their mother,
she is their commander,

she is their goddess.

..and the challenges
facing their reigns...

This was a dangerous place to be,

she wouldn't have shown any fear,
but I'm sure she felt it.

..to change their world, and ours.

She is sassy, she is fearless.

She is a badass queen.

1st of May, 1707.

Queen Anne is making her way to the
nearly finished St Paul's Cathedral.

Today, she's here to give
thanks for the creation of

a new country, Great Britain.

To her dying day, Anne saw that

as one of her greatest achievements.

Queen Anne was the first
monarch of Great Britain,

the first monarch where

England and Scotland formed

a permanent union

as a permanent nation.

This is truly significant.

Scotland an independent,
free and equal member

of the family of nations.

The legacy of Anne's
reign is all around us.

We're still coming to
terms with the consequences

of Anne's Union of
Scotland and England.

And yet Anne is one of
England's least celebrated queens.

Queen Anne is often
left out of the equation,

almost as if she didn't exist.

Anne's been traditionally seen

as this dowdy ill invalid queen

who presided over a very dull court
and was very much pushed around.

She has been overlooked,
seen as being boring, ineffectual.

I don't think any of
those things are true.

Anne deserves her moment
in the sun now.

It's about time
that we celebrate her.

In fact, Anne had
already changed the world,

15 years before
she even became queen.

October 1687.

The 22-year-old
Princess Anne is furious.

She has just discovered her father,
King James II,

and her stepmother,
Queen Mary Beatrice,

are expecting a child.

The announcement of the pregnancy,

it was probably the least
welcome pregnancy announcement

in the history of humankind.

Anne absolutely hated Mary.

Their family dynamics were
really complicated

especially because Mary of Modena

was only a few
years older than Anne.

Just two years after
her mother died,

eight-year-old Anne gained
a new stepmother.

The 15-year-old
Mary Beatrice of Modena.

Any young girl whose
father marries a girl

who's only a few years
older than them,

would be able to empathise
with the young Anne,

that that must have been quite
an uncomfortable position to be in.

But there's another reason
why Anne isn't celebrating

the King and Queen's big news.

Her father, James II, is a Catholic.

While she was still a child,

her father and her mother
both converted to Catholicism.

Now, to be a Catholic in
the 17th century was a big no-no.

This is a period where people
are severely anti-Catholic,

to a scale that we
probably cannot even imagine.

People tolerated James's Catholicism

because it would be short term,
it would be over soon.

Anne's father James
converted to Catholicism

at least 15 years earlier,

when his brother,
Charles II was king.

As a protestant, Charles took
action to safeguard his nieces,

Anne and her older sister, Mary.

Charles II demanded, basically,

that Anne and Mary have
a Protestant education

and they grow up
with Protestant peers and influences

all around them, so they are
taught to be devout Protestants.

Anne is a devout follower
of the Church of England.

Some might say she had
been fully indoctrinated.

The depth of Anne's
faith is revealed at

one of her royal residences,
Hampton Court Palace.

The Chapel Royal.

This is, I think, one
of my favourite rooms

at Hampton Court Palace.

You can't underestimate how
important a space like this

would've been to Anne.

Anne will spend four years
transforming this chapel,

an expression of her
devotion to the Protestant faith.

And she uses the greatest architect
of the day, Sir Christopher Wren.

It's a really big statement
about Anne's religion.

We've got this
enormous altar screen,

this is called a reredos,

and it's a triumph of the Baroque

with these oversized cornices and
these enormous Corinthian columns.

The height of fashion.

And this amazing organ,
which has these golden pipes.

Pretty lavish.

some might say garish,
but I'll leave that to you.

Until now, the
22-year-old Princess Anne

has been second in
line to the throne.

But with her stepmother,

Queen Mary Beatrice pregnant,
all that could change.

If this child is a boy,
he will outrank Anne

and her sister and become heir.

It kind of threw Anne.

This would ruin everything.

England is in danger
of turning Catholic.

Anne takes action.

Anne starts writing letters
to her sister saying

that the queen's
belly is suspicious,

that she's not sure
that she's really pregnant,

that perhaps she's wearing
some kind of false belly.

Anne wants to convince her
sister Mary something must be done

to keep the country Protestant.

And Anne knows the
information she sends,

Mary will share with her husband,
William of Orange.

Who happens to be the most
powerful protestant in Europe.

She definitely was trying
to influence her sister.

And she had influence
because she was an eyewitness.

So Anne keeps writing.

It's like drip, drip,
drip, drip of information.

She spread rumours that
she looked too healthy

to be pregnant and that she
thought that it was suspicious

that her stepmother
wouldn't undress in front of her.

She does lots of bizarre things
that actually feel a bit creepy.

She goes into
her stepmother's bed chamber

and asks if she can
see or touch her belly.

She says that she won't believe that
the queen has really been pregnant

unless she sees this child
separated from the mother.

It's quite a remarkable
tactic on Anne's part.

Here's a very morally
upstanding woman,

but she can play dirty
when she wants to.

June, 1688.

Anne is taking the
waters in Bath Spa.

Here she learns her
stepmother Queen Mary

has given birth to a baby boy.

He's called
James Francis Edward Stuart.

He's now heir to the throne
and will be raised a Catholic.

When Mary of Modena gives birth,

that doesn't stop the rumours
that Anne was trying to spread.

She supports a rumour that
her half-brother

is actually a changeling,
an impostor.

That he was switched at birth,

that her father's real son died.

And, he has absolutely
no right to the throne,

and she makes sure that that
rumour spreads far and wide.

25th of November, 1688.

Anne is fleeing London for her life.

Her rumours have helped
kick start a series of events

that in just six months' time,
will see the world changed forever.

It feels like cloak
and dagger stuff.

Gutsy is definitely the word.

Anne's claim that the
king's son is a changeling

has helped to start a revolution.

This adds fuel to the fire
for William of Orange,

because not only is
there a Catholic heir,

but potentially an illegitimate one.

She paved the way
for her sister, Mary,

and her brother-in-law,
William, to take power.

Encouraged by Anne's gossip,

her brother-in-law,
William of Orange,

and his invasion
fleet set out for England.

This Protestant
Dutch prince is intent

on removing James
II from the throne.

Anne needs to join
him in the revolution.

What she is doing is treason.

This is risky.

Anne has been writing
to William saying,

I wish you success
in your endeavours,

while she's at her father's side.

Not a great daughter, granted.

Now, that's quite a quite a thing,

for a daughter to
oppose her own father

in a male dominated society.

And I think what it shows
is not only the strength

of Anne's Protestant faith,

but also her determination,

when she puts her mind to it,
she's really gonna go for it.

In a matter of weeks,
Anne's months of scheming pay off.

Her father, James II,
flees to France.

Parliament invites Anne's sister

and brother-in-law
to take the throne.

The so-called
Glorious Revolution is complete.

All of this flies in the face of the
typical image of Anne as this weak,

rather hesitant woman
who was devoid of all power.

Clearly, she's an operator.

July, 1689.

Princess Anne has just
given birth to a son.

Now, she's having him christened in

the Chapel Royal at
Hampton Court Palace.

In the congregation are
the new king and queen,

William III and Anne's sister,
Queen Mary II.

It would've been incredible in here,

the king and queen,
William and Mary,

and all the great
members of the court,

all in their finest dress.

And it was William,
who at the font declared that

this new baby boy would be
William Henry,

named after the king himself,

and titled the Duke of Gloucester.

William is born just after
the Glorious Revolution.

So this is a really
kind of key moment.

William and Mary have
just taken the throne.

There's this new regime.

For the dynasty
to continue there must be issue,

there must be children.

Trouble is, despite being
married for almost 12 years,

Anne's sister, now Queen Mary,
has no children.

Young William was seen as a
sort of Protestant champion

who could be a beacon of
hope for the Protestant cause.

Anne's son is the
one and only chance

to continue the
Protestant Stuart dynasty.

For Anne, I imagine standing here,
she has a sense of pride.

She has provided this solution
to the country's problem.

July, 1700.

Princess Anne, her husband, George,

and their son William
are at Windsor Castle

to celebrate his 11th birthday.

It's a moment of joy in
an otherwise difficult year.

The beginning of the year in
January, she has a miscarriage.

And sadly there was
the child in her womb,

they believe may have
been dead up to a month.

It's not the first time
Anne has lost a pregnancy.

She has been pregnant 17 times.

But William is her
only surviving child.

I can't imagine

what Anne must have suffered

by losing so many children.

Every miscarriage, every stillbirth

must've taken a
profound toll on Anne.

She's also lost
two daughters to smallpox.

This is a woman already in grief
who has unimaginable pain.

But she does have this
11-year-old boy, William.

And he is all of
her hopes and dreams.

In this portrait,
we feel the immediacy

and the tenderness
of their relationship.

The drapery is
draped around them both,

holding them together.

They are intertwined.

The hands are holding.

We have a real sense here of
Anne in the role of mother.

After a day of celebrations,
that end with a fireworks display,

William says he's feeling unwell.

Six days later, he's dead.

Anne was absolutely
devastated by this loss,

she went into a
very deep depression.

There are accounts
saying that she would sit

and stare into space.

It almost suggestive
of a catatonic level of depression,

where she was just
unable to function.

Once William dies,

Anne would never again
have a reported pregnancy.

I think there's a
good likelihood that this was

a conscious decision,

that maybe she just couldn't
face any more prospects of loss.

But in less than two years,
she will be queen.

23rd of April, 1702.

King William III died six weeks ago.

His wife Queen Mary has
been dead for eight years.

And so, today,
Anne will be crowned Queen.

There was a huge
procession of people.

There would've been
lots of people drinking

and revelling and enjoying the show.

Anne makes her way
to Westminster Abbey.

She's only the third
woman in English history

to be crowned queen
in her own right.

A queen who's ruling
in her own right,

some people see
them as placeholders.

They're just keeping
the seat warm, if you like,

until another man
can take the throne.

Women are the inferior of men.

The expectation is that
a woman is, in essence,

chattel, property,

that she will pass
from father to husband.

So if a woman misbehaves,

then that's the man's fault
for not controlling her properly.

In many ways,
they're like big children.

And so Anne's coronation
look has been carefully chosen

to help assert her power.

Particularly as, for many,

Anne doesn't look
like a strong leader.

She's seriously overweight.

In the 18th century,

it was kind of normal to be plump,

especially if you were upper class,

people were
absolutely fine with that.

But there was stigma around being
more overweight, like Anne was.

They would call people
things like bacon faced.

Fussock was a word for a
woman that was considered

lazy and fat.

They did have some
fatphobic attitudes.

And Anne's size
isn't the only issue.

What would normally happen would be

that the Monarch would walk towards,
or ride towards Westminster Abbey

in this procession.

Queen Anne was suffering from
what they thought at the time

was a bad case of gout,
and she couldn't really walk.

She was carried on a sedan chair

with her six foot train behind her.

Gout was definitely
associated with men over women.

It was associated with
eating and drinking to excess.

And so was definitely
criticised from that perspective.

To help overcome this,
Anne looks to the past.

Her gown mirroring what Queen
Elizabeth I wore at her coronation.

By the early 18th century,

Elizabeth had an
almost legendary status.

Referencing back to
Elizabeth was a useful way

of solidifying and normalising

the fact that there
was a female monarch

that would be ruling on her own.

This had happened before,
this would be fine.

But the comparison
doesn't seem to have worked.

After seeing the Queen,
one politician would later remark,

In the 18th century,
people felt that your appearance

reflected your capabilities.

So because she was larger and
she was also physically disabled,

there was this idea that she
wasn't capable as queen.

Historians have looked back

at all of the
different symptoms that she had.

And the belief now is that she
was actually suffering from lupus.

Lupus, is an autoimmune disorder,

which is much more serious and
much more debilitating than gout.

She likely would've
had fatigue, headaches,

intense muscle and joint pain,
swelling in her body.

It was the 18th century,

they wouldn't have had
great painkillers for her.

It makes me admire her, definitely,

that she was able to even function.

From the very start of her reign,

Anne shows she is more than
confident in her ability to rule.

Anne goes into her queenship knowing

that the house of
Stewart dies with her.

This is not about dynasty.

She knows that the
sum total of her legacy

is going to be the state
she leaves her nation in.

And her approach will
change the monarchy forever.

Anne is in a very
unusual situation of being

a regnant queen who
comes to the throne married.

So if you think about
the two who preceded her,

Mary and Elizabeth Tudor,

neither were married
when they came to the throne.

William and Mary had come to
the throne as a married couple,

but in a very different situation

because they were the dual monarchy.

Anne does something different.

Anne has been married
to Prince George of Denmark

for almost 19 years.

This rare portrait of them together

reveals clues about
their relationship.

Now on the surface it may seem,

because Anne is seated next
to her standing husband,

that she is in some
way subservient to him,

that she's lesser than him.

But if you look carefully,

you'll find that she
is actually taking up

more of the portrait than he is.

We're told in no uncertain
terms in this painting

that Anne is a solo act.

She is the queen,
and George is there to support her.

What's really remarkable about
this painting is that it shows

Anne as being in
charge not only as Queen,

but in her own marriage.

George is turning to face his wife,

his body is twisting
in deference to her.

She may be sitting down,

but she's the anchor
around which he's moving.

Her entire upbringing has
taught her that as a woman,

she has a place in the world,
and it's not the same as a mans.

Interesting then that she chooses to

have a loving
relationship with her husband,

but give him no political role,

not turn to him
for political advice.

She sets herself up
almost as if she was single.

She's not on the coinage
with George as William

and Mary or Philip and Mary were,
he's not on the seals.

She acts as if she has no husband.

Anne's husband George will
only be her Prince Consort.

That clarification that the husband
is not in control of his wife,

in this case and not in
control of the sovereign,

is really important for asserting
female power and authority.

Anne's actions would have
an impact for centuries.

The monarchy runs on precedent.

When Victoria comes to the
throne and she marries Albert,

that precedent has been set,

and it's expected that
Albert will frame his role

in the same way as George.

The consort, not a king.

And eventually obviously
Elizabeth II

and the Duke of Edinburgh,

there's no suggestion that he
might have the crown matrimonial.

It's not only within her marriage
that Anne puts women on top.

She surrounds herself
with female advisers.

If we compare Anne's reign
to other Regnant Queens,

women who we hold up as being these
bastions of female power,

let's take Elizabeth the first.

When we think about
her leading advisers,

they're all male.

Victoria, who were her advisers?

Albert.

Where are the ladies?

And Anne's relationships with women

would cause scandal
for centuries to come.

Hampton Court Palace.

Queen Anne's royal residence 12
miles south west of central London.

During her reign, the baroque
makeover of this Tudor Palace

is completed.

Making it ready to receive
early 18th century society.

When you come to big palaces,
you often find this long corridor.

This is called an enfilade.

And what it does is it links
up all of these state rooms,

and every time we go
through one of these doorways,

you're always going
up a level of status.

The further down
the enfilade you got,

the closer you got to the queen
and the greater your position.

Controlling all this is
Anne's childhood friend,

Sarah Churchill,

who the Queen met when she
was just eight years old.

Anne, as a young
eight-year-old girl had experienced

a series of losses from

key maternal figures in her life.

When she was three, she was
taken to another country

to live with her grandmother.

A year later,
the grandmother sadly died.

She was then put in
the care of her aunt.

A year later, she sadly died.

She was then brought back to
England to live with her mother,

and only two years later,
her own mother died.

There's a good likelihood

that that led to her
almost lifelong drive

to seek connection
with female figures.

And Sarah enters Anne's life when
she's at an impressionable age.

When they were eight and 13,

Anne would've been like this
older girl that seemed really cool

and all the things that

Anne maybe felt at the
time that she wasn't.

Sarah Churchill is brilliant,

she is educated, cultured.

She's the person at a
party who is the life and soul.

When she's in a good mood,

you are bathing in the
sunlight of her personality.

Anne, is the opposite.

She was shy and awkward,

so she really looks up to Sarah.

When Anne becomes Queen,

she gives Sarah a
number of key roles.

Mistress of the Robes.

Sarah had control
over Anne's wardrobe.

Groom of the Stole,
in charge of Anne's bedchamber

and her most senior
lady-in-waiting.

Groom of the Stole an
important role in terms of access.

Keeper of the Privy Purse.

That's significant because that's
having control of, literally,

Anne's purse strings.

And Ranger of Windsor Park.

For one person to hold all
of those jobs is very unusual.

For it to be a woman is
to my knowledge, unprecedented.

Even though Anne's now queen
she wants to stay close to Sarah.

She says, we must have it
that you can always talk to me.

I value your advice so much, Sarah,

and I would not have it
that you treat me differently

because I am a queen.

How little you know
your friend, Anne.

So what we're going to do is
we're gonna have these pen names,

and I will be Mrs Morley
and you will be Mrs Freeman.

When you read their correspondence,

it does seem very intimate.

Anne once says to Sarah,

"I cannot live without you."

Queen Anne says, "I'd rather...

It was normal at the time to have
quite emotive language in letters,

especially between women,

more normal than it would be
considered now, but even so.

There are definite
lesbian overtones

when it comes to their relationship.

But it's quite well
documented that Anne

had a very affectionate
relationship with her own husband.

We know that there was an
awful lot of bedroom activity.

She got pregnant 17 times.

Historians that look at Queen
Anne's life are either in two camps.

She was heterosexual.
She was devoted to her husband.

Or people are
convinced that she was lesbian

and that she was this Sapphic icon.

It could potentially be
somewhere in the middle.

You know, we can't rule out
that she was maybe bisexual.

It's significant she
could have been bisexual

because it shows that bisexual
people have always existed.

And challenges some of
the outdated ideas that

the royal family are quite
conservative and patriarchal

and heteronormative.

Today, Anne's meeting the
cabinet at Hampton Court Palace.

I don't even know where
to start with this room.

Every inch of the
wall is just covered in,

in the most elaborate,
ridiculous, some might say,

decoration.

We've got swirls and
flowers and swags and foliage,

and right in the centre, of course,

is Anne looking pretty glorious.

And actually now I'm
standing in the room,

I can realise that we are
right in the centre of the gardens.

We're in the centre of the facade.

This is the central point
of Hampton Court Palace,

and Anne has placed
herself bang in the centre.

This is no accident.

Anne's palace at Hampton Court
is the perfect halfway point

to meet politicians
coming from London

whenever the queen
is at Windsor Castle.

And Anne's using
the space to portray

a more regal image than the reality.

We have all these classical
gods that are all imbuing Anne

with historic validity.

She is someone who is imbued
with the power of the past.

What I think is
really touching about this

and perhaps gives an insight into

the more intimate
workings of Anne's mind

is that the figure of Anne
herself is almost a direct copy

of an earlier portrait
of her that was painted

with her young son, William.

And I think this is
a lovely call-back by Anne

to the earliest stages in her life

and a moment where she felt
proud of her achievements.

She's also depicted with a dagger.

She's often thought of as a
monarch who is easily manipulated.

And instead, what we get here is

a woman who is literally
wielding her own weapons,

her own power.

She is someone who is in charge.

Anne needs her image
to project authority.

She's the head of state
in a new political system,

a constitutional monarchy.

And it's Queen Anne that will
set the standard for centuries.

Anne's reign was in
a very challenging time.

It was not long after
the glorious revolution.

We've got the advent of kind
of constitutional monarchy.

This is kind of a new framework
for how the rulers should act.

After the so-called
Glorious Revolution,

the monarch is no
longer all powerful.

Parliament is now in charge.

However, the
relationship between the two

is by no means fully defined yet.

Anne is really in many ways
the test drive for kind of

what will become the system
of monarchy that we have today.

The constitutional monarchy

is something that we
take for granted now.

We have to remember
that Anne was navigating

this brand-new system in its very,
very early days.

Anne is important because
she created the example

of what a constitutional
monarch can be.

How it was possible to be a ruler

and be bound by the
authority of parliament.

She didn't conform to
what people expected of her.

Most people were surprised
at how well she could speak,

how she could command a room,
how eloquent she was,

how determined and
dedicated she seemed.

Anne was probably one of the hardest
working monarchs we've ever had.

Anne attended more cabinet meetings

than any other
monarch before or since.

And that's absolutely typical of
her approach to her queenly duties.

She wasn't always the most
glamorous show stopping queen,

but she dedicated
herself to her royal duty.

Anne's character means
she is perfectly positioned

to create the template for
constitutional monarchs to come.

The infirmities that
she had meant that she had

to develop a different
methodology of ruling,

it forced her to take up
a position of leadership

that was not usual for monarchs.

She couldn't be the leader
that leads from the front.

She was an observer.

It's a kind of leadership
that works well in this new era.

She's still going to rule,
she's still going to reign.

She becomes the centre of power,

not by being the
largest person there,

or the one with the loudest voice,

uh, or even being the most dogmatic.

She appears to be
the objective observer.

She's not objective, of course,

but she has the appearance of it,

and this is a very
clever and important role

because it is the precursor by
which later monarchs develop

their style of leadership.

It creates an idea
where a monarch can rule

as a symbol of authority,

and in many ways this symbol of
authority is harder to challenge.

23rd of July 1706.

Queen Anne has called
a meeting to discuss

the union of her two kingdoms,
Scotland and England.

If she was able to get the
union to actually happen,

she would finally be
able to realise that

almost century old Stewart
dream of having a United Britain.

But creating this legacy
seems almost impossible.

This is no small thing.

This wasn't an easy union.

It's a political quagmire.

July, 1706.

Queen Anne is at the most
important meeting of her reign.

One that would have
reverberations down the centuries.

Ever since she came to the throne,

Anne's ambition has been
to create a political union

between England and Scotland.

Today she will find out if
her dream will become reality.

Anne realised that
this union between England

and Scotland was
something that she absolutely

had to achieve,

because she has no child,
she has no direct heir.

Ever since Scottish King James VI
took to the English throne

as James I over 100 years earlier,

the two nations have
shared the same monarch.

When Anne's great-grandfather
became king of England in 1603,

he had this grand
ambition that he would unite

the two countries of Scotland

and England into this one Britain.

But it was a big ambition that
kind of fell flat on its face.

They were joined in the sense
because of the monarch,

but they were never
joined politically.

These were two entirely
separate countries.

This is a problem for Anne.

She has no children.

And England and
Scotland have different ideas

about who should succeed her.

She is devoutly Protestant.

She's determined that the
throne will pass to a Protestant.

But the fact is that Protestants
don't have the strongest claim.

Not when James Francis Edward Stuart

is alive and well
and living in France.

He's the son of Anne's
father King James II,

her half-brother, the baby she'd
spread rumours about 19 years ago.

Scotland maybe will invite
James Stewart to be our king.

That would be a Roman Catholic
in Scotland

and a Protestant in England.

That would've been war
between those two nations,

and I can't see how it
plays out any other way.

It would've been
century of violence.

To prevent this,
Anne wants to unify Scotland

and England into one kingdom.

It's no easy task, though.

England was unsure of
its neighbour to the North.

And there were certainly
moments where Scotland was unsure

of its neighbour to the South.

Even deciding who would debate
the issues was a sore spot.

One of the issues from
the Scottish point of view

was who would select the people
that would be part of this committee

that would determine the
fate of the two countries.

And there was lots of
discussion about this until one

prominent figure said,
"Let the queen choose."

Anne supports those who she
thinks are good for the job.

And part of being good for
the job is being prepared

to compromise, engage diplomatically
with their opponents.

She allows there to be
concessions about there being

a Presbyterian faith of Scotland

while there is a church of England.

And as we know, it's not
the Church of Great Britain.

Anne's leadership style was
influenced by what we might consider

to be typically feminine traits,

connection, relationship,
collaboration.

It's possible that those feminine

qualities that she exhibited

actually directly helped

to bring about the unification.

Now, the men Anne appointed have
agreed that England and Scotland

should unite with the same monarch,
and the same parliament.

The union between England and
Scotland is something

that had escaped every single
government minister and Monarch

for 100 years.

Yet Anne managed to bring it about.

So why doesn't history
celebrate Queen Anne

and her successes more?

19th of August, 1708.

Queen Anne is in a carriage on
her way to St Paul's cathedral

with her favourite Sarah Churchill.

What happens today will shape
how we have viewed Anne's reign

for centuries.

Anne and Sarah are great friends,

but Sarah begins to push harder

and harder for the positions

and appointments that
she wants for herself,

for her husband, for her son-in-law.

Sarah is constantly haranguing Anne.

There's no peace. There is no peace.

Today Sarah's berating the Queen
about the jewels she's wearing.

She thinks the queen has ignored
her advice as to what to wear.

And jumps to the conclusion
Anne's wearing jewellery chosen

by one of her women of the
bedchamber, Abigail Masham.

Abigail Masham starts to gain an
increasing amount of Anne's time

and attention.

And Sarah hates that.

They become very,
very fierce rivals.

Now, things between Anne
and Sarah start getting heated.

Anne tires of
Sarah's constant rebukes

and tires of being belittled

and made out to be a fool.

Sarah who'd been overstepping
the mark for a number of years,

she went too far and she
told the queen to be quiet.

Shouting at her in public
is just beyond the pale

in terms of protocol.

That was it for Anne.

Sarah is stripped of all her
positions and banished from court.

Anne made it clear that
it had been her all along,

who was in charge, not Sarah.

But Sarah doesn't
go without a fight.

With women,
particularly with Queens,

sexual slander is what's
used to bring them down.

Sarah Churchill starts to kind of
threaten that her relationship

with Abigail if it became public,
might cause scandal,

completely ignoring
the fact that she's also had

a letter writing
relationship with the Queen

that breaks the bonds of protocol.

She is somebody who will
set her own self on fire

to burn you down.

She a liability.

Sarah starts this smear campaign
against Abigail

hinting at a sexual relationship
between the Queen and Abigail.

Within months of their public spat,

a ballad written by Sarah's
close friend is published.

Sarah would never be
Anne's favourite again.

But it's Sarah who
has the last laugh.

Sarah ended up quite bitter
and jealous and spurned.

After Queen Anne died,
she published a memoir.

In the memoir, she paints
Queen Anne as this dull,

stupid woman that
had a big influence

on how we view Queen Anne now.

It's why, for centuries,

Anne and her achievements
have often been underestimated.

We need to change the
narrative about Queen Anne,

stop being obsessed with her
numerous pregnancies

or her relationships
with Sarah Churchill

or the other women of her household.

That's only part of the story.

What we should
really be focusing on

are Anne's achievements as Queen.

The fact that she got things done,

she was one of the most effective
rulers that Britain has ever seen.

We're really starting
to see Anne in a new way.

She was actually the kind
of glue at the centre

that was holding
everything together.

Someone who overcame adversity,

overcame illness to actually become
a really important ruler

at a pivotal time
in England's history.

This is Anne's motto,

"Semper Eadem",
which means ever the same.

Anne was in many ways ever the
same in terms of being even handed,

staying above political faction

and steadying the course of
a potentially turbulent time.

In Anne's short reign,

she managed to achieve what
no Stuart had achieved before her,

the Union of Scotland and England.

This was an incredible feat,

and I think if she'd
been a male monarch,

she might have been remembered more.

In so many ways,
she's England's forgotten queen.

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