ANN ARBOR, a town of the United States, the capital of Washtenaw county, Michigan, situated upon the Huron, about 40 miles west of Detroit, with which it is connected by the Michigan Central Railway. The town, which is healthy and well built, is a place of considerable commercial importance, its chief manufactures being iron, wool, and flour, while the trade in the produce of the surrounding district is large and valuable. It is the seat of the university of Michigan, a liberally-endowed institution, founded in 1837, and at present containing three subsidiarycolleges devoted to legal, medical, and literary studies respectively, with a total attendance, in 1870, of 1072 students. The college buildings are large and pleasantly situated, and the university possesses a library, an observatory, and a chemical laboratory. The population of Ann Arbor in 1870 was 7363.
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ANNA, Ana, or Anah, a town of Turkey in Asia, situated on the right bank of the Euphrates, about 160 miles N.W. of Baghdad. It is an open, defenceless place, consisting chiefly of a single street, which extends for several miles along a narrow strip of land that lies between the river and a ridge of rocky hills. The houses are separated from each other by beautiful and fertile gardens filled with fruit trees, and in the river, facing the town, is a succession of equally productive islands. The most easterly of these islands contains the ruins of the old castle, while the remains of the ancient Anatho extend from this island for about two miles down the left bank of the Euphrates. Coarse cloth is almost the only manufacture at Anna.
ANNA, Baldasarre d, , a painter of some repute, who flourished during part of the 16th and 17th centuries. He was born at Venice, probably about 1560, and is said to have been of Flemish descent. The date of his death is uncertain, but he seems to have been alive in 1639. For a number of years he studied under Leonardo Corona, and on the death of that painter completed several works left unfinished by him. In the opinion of many judges he surpassed his master in richness and mellowness of colour, though he was inferior to him in design. His own activity seems to have been confined to the production of pieces for several of the churches and a few of the private houses in Venice; and though there exists no accurate list of his works, the old guide-books and descriptions of the city notice a considerable number of paintings by him. Scarcely any of these, however, have survived to the present time.
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the daughter of Phanuel, a prophetess and widow, of the tribe of Asher, Luke ii, 36, 37. She was married early, and had lived only seven years with her husband. Being then disengaged from the ties of marriage, she thought only of pleasing the Lord; and continued without ceasing in the temple, serving God night and day, with fasting and prayer, as the Evangelist expresses it. However, her serving God at the temple night and day, says Dr. Prideaux, is to be understood no otherwise than that she constantly attended the morning and evening sacrifice at the temple; and then with great devotion offered up her prayers to God; the time of morning and evening sacrifice being the most solemn time of prayer among the Jews, and the temple the most solemn place for this devotion. Anna was fourscore years of age when the holy virgin came to present Jesus in the temple; and entering accidentally, while Simeon was pronouncing his thanksgiving, she likewise began to praise God, and to speak of the Messiah to all those who waited for redemption in Jerusalem. We know nothing more either of the life or death of this holy woman.
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ANNA CARLOVNA, who for a few months held the position of regent in Russia, during the minority of her son Ivan, was the daughter of Catherine, sister of the Empress Anna Ivanovna, and was born in 1718. In 1739 she married the duke of Brunswick Wolfenbüttel, and their son Ivan was, in 1740, adopted by the empress and proclaimed heir to the throne. A few days after this proclamation the empress died, leaving directions regarding the succession, and appointing her favourite Biron as regent. Biron, however, had made himself an object of detestation to the Russian people, and Anna Carlovna, with the assistance principally of the able but intractable Munich, had little difficulty in overthrowing his power. She then assumed the regency, and took the title of grandduchess; but she knew little of the character of the people with whom she had to deal, was utterly ignorant of the approved Russian mode of government, and speedily quarrelled with her principal supporters. In December 1741, Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, who, from her habits, was a favourite with the soldiers, excited the guards to revolt, overcame the slight opposition that was offered, and was proclaimed empress. Ivan was thrown into prison, where he soon afterwards perished. Anna and her husband were banished to a small island in the River Dwina, where, in 1745, she died in childbed. Her husband survived her for many years.
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ANNA COMNENA, daughter of the Emperor Alexius Comnenus I., was born 1st December 1083. She was her father’s favourite, and was carefully trained in the study of poetry, science, and Greek philosophy. With a mind superior to the effeminacy and voluptuousness of the court in which she was educated, she cultivated literature and sought the acquaintance of the more eminent philosophers of the period. But wise and studious as she was, she was also intriguing and ambitious. Having married an accomplished young nobleman, Nicephorus Bryennius, she united with the Empress Irene in attempting to prevail upon her father during his last illness to disinherit his son, and give the crown to her husband. The affectionate virtue of the father prevailed over female address and intrigue; but this only stimulated the ambition of Anna. She entered into a conspiracy to depose her brother; and when her husband displayed timidity in the enterprise, she exclaimed that “nature had mistaken their sexes, for he ought to have been the woman.” The plot being discovered, Anna forfeited her property and her fortune, though, by the clemency of her brother, she escaped with her life. Excluded by her base conduct from the enjoyments of court, she employed her solitude in writing the Alexiad —a history, in Greek, of her father’s life and reign. The production is still extant, and forms part of the celebrated collection of the Byzantine Historians. Her style is extravagantly rhetorical, diffuse, and panegyrical. In her account of the first Crusade she is often at variance with the Latin authorities. The Alexiad, in fifteen books, was first published at Augsburg in 1610; but the best edition is that of Schopen, with a Latin translation (Bonn, 1839, 2 vols. 8vo), and Schiller in his Historic ...Memoirs gives a German translation.
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ANNA IVANOVNA, Empress of Russia, daughter of Ivan, brother of Peter the Great, was born in 1693, and married in 1710 to the duke of Courland, who died the following year. After the death of Peter IL, in 1730, the imperial council offered the vacant throne to Anna on the following conditions :—She was to govern according to the decisions of the supreme council, and she was not allowed, without its consent, either to declare war or to conclude peace, to impose new taxes, to grant any important office of the state, to dispose of crown lands, to contract a matrimonial alliance, or to nominate a successor to the throne. She was also not to punish any noble, or to confiscate any one’s property without a legal sentence. Anna signed these conditions without any demur; but after her arrival at Moscow, a numerous party, jealous of the authority which' this constitution, imitated from that of Sweden, gave to the supreme council, or rather to the families of the Princes Dolgorouki and Galitzin, of whose members it wa3 chiefly composed, petitioned the empress to assume the autocracy of her predecessors. Anna immediately complied with this request, and the framers of the constitution either were banished to Siberia, or perished on the scaffold. Russia was governed in a most tyrannical and oppressive manner during the whole reign of Anna by her favourite Biren, who was made by her influence duke of Courland. According to Russian authorities, 20,000 victims of Biren’s tyranny perished during Anna’s reign of six years, and amongst them persons belonging to the highest ranks in the country. The principal events of Anna’s reign were the voluntary restoration, in 1732, to Shah Nadir of the Russian provinces, Shirvan, Ghilan, and Mazanderan, acquired by Peter the Great, but which ...caused more expense than they yielded revenue to Russia; a Chinese embassy at St Petersburg, the only one that was ever sent to Europe; the assistance given to the elector of Saxony and king of Poland, Augustus III., against his competitor Stanislaus Leszczinskι, supported by France; a Russian army sent to the assistance of the Emperor Charles VI. against France; a war with Turkey from 1736 to 1739, which, notwithstanding several successful campaigns, gave no advantage to Russia at the conclusion of peace; and an advance made into Central Asia by the establishment of the Russian protectorate over the khan of the Kirghises, who, with the assistance of Russian officers, conquered Khiva, but failed to maintain himself there. Anna died in 1740. Her reign is considered as a period of transition from the old Muscovite semi-barbarian manners to the polish, though not the civilisation, of the West.
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ANNABERG, a town of Saxony, situated in the Erzgebirge, about 1830 feet above the level of the sea, and at a distance of 18 miles south from Chemnitz, with which it is connected by railway. The chief importance of Annaberg is derived from its large lace and ribbon manufactories, the latter of which were first established in the town by Belgian Protestants, who were driven from their country by the tyranny of the duke of Alva. There are also extensive and valuable silver, tin, and cobalt mines in the neighbourhood. Population, 11,693.
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ANNALS(Annales, from annus, a year), a concise historical record in which events are arranged chronologically, year by year. The chief source of information in regard to the annals of ancient Rome is a passage in Cicero (De Oratore, ii. 12, 52), which has been the subject of much discussion. He states that from the earliest period down to the pontificate of Publius Mucius Scaevola (circa 131 b.c. ), it was usual for the Pontifex Maximus to record the events of each year on a white tablet (album), which was exhibited in an open place at his house, so that the people might read it. These records were called in Cicero’s time the Annales Maximi. After the pontificate of Publius, the practice of compiling annals was carried on by various unofficial writers, of whom Cicero names Cato, Pictor, and Piso. The Annales have been generally regarded as the same with the Commentarii Pontificum cited by Livy, but there seems reason to believe that the two were distinct, the Commentarii being fuller and more circumstantial. The nature of the distinction between annals and history is a subject that has received more attention from critics than its intrinsic importance deserves. The basis of discussion is furnished chiefly by the above quoted passage from Cicero, and by the common division of the work of Tacitus into Annales and Historioe. Aulus Gellius, in the Nodes Atticoe (v. 18), quotes the grammarian Verrius Flaccus, to the effect that history, according to its etymology (urτopeiv, inspicere, to inquire in person), is a record of events that have come under the author’s own observation, while annals are a record of the events of earlier times arranged according to years. This view of the distinction seems to be borne out by the division of the work of Tacitus into the ...Historioe, relating the events of his own time, and the Annales, containing the history of earlier periods. It is more than questionable, however, whether Tacitus himself divided his work under these titles. The probability is, either that he called the whole Annales, or that he used neither designation. (See Tacitus.) So far as the distinction between annals and history is real, it seems to arise out of the more restricted conditions imposed upon the annalist as compared with the historian. A narrative strictly annalistic must necessarily be a mere register of isolated facts, and not a record of historical processes. Confined at each stage within the narrow limit of a single year, it cannot trace the progress of events or exhibit their connection and interdependence, as is done in history. (See on this subject an ingenious though somewhat fanciful paper by Niebuhr contributed to the Rheinisches Museum, and translated by Thirlwall in the Cambridge Philological Museum, vol. ii.) In modern literature the title annals has been given to a large number of standard works which adhere more or less strictly to the order of years. The best known are Grotius’s Annales et Historia de Rebus Belgicis (Amst. 1557), written in imitation of Tacitus; Baronius’s Annales Ecclesiastici, comprising the first twelve centuries of the Christian era; Hailes’s Annals of Scotland from the Accession of Malcolm III. to the Accession of the House of Stuart; Chambers’s Domestic Annals of Scotland; and the Annales de Chimie, founded in 1789 by Lavoisier and others, and continued, with two interruptions, down to the present time.
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ANNAMABOE, or Anamaboe, a British fort and town on the Gold Coast of Africa, about 10 miles E.N.E, of Cape Coast Castle. It exports palm oil, ivory, gold dust, pea nuts, and Guinea grains; and in return its imports of manufactured goods are considerable. The town suffered severely during the invasion of the Ashantees in 1807, but the fort, although garrisoned only by a few soldiers, resisted the whole Ashantee host. Population about 4500.
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ANNAN, a royal and parliamentary burgh of Scotland, in the county of Dumfries, situated on the riper Annan, nearly two miles from the Solway Firth, and about fifteen from Dumfries. It iβ a well-built town, containing a town hall, a.parish church, several dissenting chapels, and an excellent academy. The river Annan which has been embanked, is navigable for vessels of 300 tons up to within half a mile of the town, and for vessels of 60 tons to the bridge, a fine structure of three arches built in 1824. Annan is a station on the G. and S.-W. Railway, and is connected with the main line of the Caledonian Railway, and also with England, by the Solway Junction branch which crosses the firth by means of a very strong viaduct. The principal manufactures are cotton, ropes, and cured hams; shipbuilding and salmon fishing are also carried on, while there is a considerable trade w ith England, the chief exports being cured hams, cattle, sheep, and grain. The town, which is governed by a provost and fourteen councillors, including three bailies, unites with Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, Lochmaben, and Sanquhar, in returning one member to parliament. In 1871 the population of the royal burgh was 4174, of the parliamentary, 3172....
Annan, a river rising near the source of the Tweed, in the range of hills that lies on the confines of the counties of Dumfries, Lanark, Peebles, and Selkirk. About two miles beyond Moffat it receives two large tributaries, —-the Moffat Water, which flows westward from Loch Skene, a mountain lake in the north-eastern corner of Dumfriesshire, and the Evan Water, which flows eastward from the upper part of Lanarkshire. The Annan has a total length of about 40 miles, and below its junction with the Moffat and the Evan it is joined by the Kennel Water from the west and the Dryfe Water from the east. Annandale was once the name of a stewartry which comprehended a large portion of Dumfriesshire.
. ANNAPOLIS, a seaport town of the United States, the capital of Maryland, situated on the Severn, about 2 miles from its mouth in Chesapeake Bay, and about 25 in a direct line from Washington, with which it is connected by railway. It is a neat, regularly-built place, but the trade which at one time seemed likely to enrich it has been transferred almost entirely to Baltimore, and Annapolis is now little more than the political capital of the state. It contains handsome Government buildings, a college, and the United States Naval Academy, which was established at Annapolis in 1845, and was for a time removed to Newport, Rhode Island. Providence, as Annapolis was first called, was founded in 1649, but it did not get a charter until 1708, when it also received its present name in honour of Queen Anne. It has been the seat of government since 1689. Population in 1870, 5744.
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ANNAPOLIS, a town of Nova Scotia, capital of Annapolis county, and up to 1750 of the whole peninsula, situated on an arm of the Bay of Fundy, at the mouth of a river also called Annapolis, 95 miles west of Halifax. Annapolis is one of the oldest settlements in North America, having been founded in 1604 by the French, who called it Port Royal; it was finally captured by the British in 1710, and was ceded to them by the treaty of 1713. It possesses a good harbour, but its trade at present is small. Apples of a very fine quality are grown in the surrounding country. Population, 1500.
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or ANANUS, as Josephus calls him, was the son of Seth, and high priest of the Jews. He succeeded Joazar, the son of Simon, enjoyed the high priesthood eleven years, and was succeeded by Ishmael, the son of Phabi. After he was deposed, he still preserved the title of high priest, and had a great share in the management of public affairs. He is called high priest in conjunction with Caiaphas, when John the Baptist entered upon the exercise of his mission; though Calmet thinks that at that time he did not, strictly speaking, possess or officiate in that character, Luke iii, 2. On the contrary, Macknight and some others are of opinion, that at this time Caiaphas was only the deputy of Annas. He was father-in-law to Caiaphas; and Jesus Christ was carried before him, directly after his seizure in the garden of Olives, John xviii, 13. Josephus remarks, that Annas was considered as one of the happiest men of his nation, for five of his sons were high priests, and he himself possessed that great dignity many years. This was an instance of good fortune which, till that time, had happened to no person.
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ANNATES. As early as the 6th century it began to be customary for those who were ordained to ecclesiastical offices to pay a fee or tax to the ordaining authorities; and this tax at length amounted to a half or the whole of a year’s income. When, in course of time, the Roman See had appropriated the right of consecration, the money was paid into the Papal treasury, not, according to the defenders of the system, as a remuneration for the benefice conferred, but as a natural contribution to the maintenance of the Pope and his ecclesiastical government. These annates, or first-fruits, were of different kinds, though the chief features were the same in all. First, When a bishop, archbishop, or abbot received his investiture, he paid to the Pope a year’s revenue of his new benefice (servitia communia) ; Secondly, If his benefice was one of those “reserved” by the Pope, he handed over to the Papal treasury the annates paid to him by those whom he at any time collated to livings in his diocese (annalia, medii fructus, jus deportuum); Thirdly, According to a bull of Paul II. in 1469, if benefices were united to certain communities, the annates were only to be paid every fifteen years, and not at every presentation (quindenia) ; and, Fourthly, A small addition was made to the servitia communia as a kind of notarial fee (servitia minuta). It must not be supposed that this system ever was worked with absolute uniformity and completeness throughout the various parts of the Papal domain. There were continual disagreements and disputes: the central authorities endeavouring to maintain and extend this most important of their financial schemes, and the subordinate ecclesiastics doing their best to get rid of the impost altogether, or to transmute it into some less objectionable ...form. The subject frequently became one of national interest, on account of the alarming amount of specie which was thus drained away, and hence numerous enactments exist in regard to it by the various national governments. In England the annates, which had previously been paid for the most part to the archbishop of Canterbury, were claimed by John XXII. (1316— 1334) for three years, and permanently usurped by his successors till the time of Henry VIII., when, in 1531, their collection was prohibited. At that time the sum amounted to about £3000 a year. On the completion of the Reformation, the annates were, along with the supremacy, bestowed on the crown; but in February 1704 they were appropriated by Queen Anne to the assistance of the poorer clergy, and thus form what has since been known· as “Queen Λnne , s bounty.” The amount to be paid was originally regulated by a-valuation by the bishop of Norwich in 1254, later by one instituted in 1292, which in turn was superseded by the L·iber Regis of 1535. In France, in spite of royal edicts,—like those of Charles VI., Charles VIL, Louis XL, and Henry IL,—and even denunciations of the Sorbonne, the custom held its ground till the famous decree of the 4th of August during the Revolution of 1789. In Germany it was decided by the concordat of Constance, in 1418, that bishoprics and abbacies should pay the servitia according to the valuation of the Roman chancery in two half-yearly instalments. Those benefices only were to pay the annalia which were rated above 24 gold florins; and as none were so rated, the annalia fell into disuse. The Basle Council (1431-1443) wished to abolish the servitia, but the concordat of Vienna (1448) confirmed the Constance decision. The Congress of Ems (1786) also declared against them; but they continued to be paid till 1803, when, to indemnify the powers that had sustained territorial loss through the recent wars, a very great amount of ecclesiastical property was secularised. In some parts of Germany, the payment of annates is still made under particular concordats. In Scotland annat or ann is half a year’s stipend allowed by the Act 1672, c. 13, to the executors of a minister of the Church of Scotland above what was due to him at the time of his death. This is neither assignable by the clergyman during his life, nor can it be seized by his creditors.
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ANNE, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, was born on the 6th of February 1664. She was the second daughter of James Duke of York, afterwards James II. She was only seven years old when her mother, Anne Hyde, died, having previously professed adherence to the Church of Rome, a step which was immediately imitated by her husband. The duke, however, had to allow his daughters, the princesses Mary and Anne, to be brought up as Protestants; and Anne always continued to be attached, zealously and even bigotedly, to the Church of England. In her twentieth year she was married to Prince George, the brother of the King of Denmark. In the establishment then formed for her, a place was given, on her own earnest desire, to her early playfellow Lady Churchill, afterwards Duchess of Marlborough; and this ambitious and imperious woman, acquiring rapidly an irresistible authority over the feeble mind of the princess, thenceforth ruled her absolutely for more than twenty years. Not long afterwards, when the Duke of York had become king, he made repeated attempts to convert the princess Anne to his own creed; he engaged that, if she would become a Roman Catholic, she should be placed in the line of succession to the throne before her elder sister Mary. Prince George appears to have received those overtures favourably; but he, an indolent and goodnatured man, who cared for nothing but good eating and field-sports, never had any influence over his wife. She remained firm in her Protestantism, lived in retirement during the whole of her father’s reign, and did not allow her opinions or feelings any further vent than that which they found in her private correspondence with the Princess of Orange. When, in 1688, James’s queen gave birth to a son, the sisters took a lively interest in the ...suspicions and, inquiries that arose; and Anne was easily led to believe that the child was supposititious; though later in her life she must have been convinced that he was really her brother. Before the landing of the Prince of Orange Prince George was pledged to join him; and his wife and Lady Churchill abandoned King James on the first opportunity.
From the Revolution till the death of William HL, Anne’s way of life was as quiet and obscure as it had been during the reign of her father. She did, indeed, on the prompting of her favourite, acquiesce in the act of the convention-parliament, which, postponing her place in the succession, gave the throne to William in case he should survive Mary. But the sisters soon quarrelled, and never were reconciled. The misunderstanding began in trifling questions of etiquette, quite fitted to the calibre of both of the royal minds; but considerations of real importance soon compelled the king himself to interfere. The Churchills, traitorous to their new sovereign, as they had been to the old, were known to be intriguing for the restoration of James; and they induced Anne to write secretly to her father, and declare repentance for her desertion of him. Even when William dismissed Marlborough from all his places, the princess obstinately persisted in retaining his wife in her household. After Queen Mary’s death the king and his sister-in-law went through the forms of a reconciliation; but there was no confidence on either side; and indeed the secret correspondence with Saint Germains was still carried on. The state of the succession to the crown threatened new difficulties. Anne had seventeen children, but most of them were still-born; and the Duke of Gloucester, the only one who survived infancy, died in 1700 at the age of eleven. The Jacobites, however, were unable to prevent the passing of the Act of Settlement, which placed the Electress of Hanover after Anne in the succession to the crown.
On the 8th of March 1702, Anne became queen of England by the death of William, being then thirty-eight years of age. Into her short reign there were crowded events possessing vast importance, both for the British Emp⅛e and for the whole of Europe; and her name is customarily associated with one of the most characteristic epochs in the history of English literature. Marlborough and Peterborough commanded her armies; her councils were directed in succession by Godolphin and Somers, by Harley and St John; Berkeley and Newton speculated and experimented; and the “wits of Queen Anne’s time” were mustered, in poetry and in prose, under such chiefs as Prior and Pope, Swift, Addison, and Steele, Arbuthnot and Defoe. But no sovereign could have exerted less of real and personal influence than Queen Anne did, either on the national polity or on the national enlightenment. A blessed thing it was that she should have been thus powerless. For, beyond her own epicurean comforts, and the petty ceremonial of her court, there were just three ideas which her narrow and uninstructed intellect admitted: each of these ideas was full of danger to the peace and happiness of the state; and each of them was cherished by her with the hereditary stubbornness of a Stuart. She was as eager as any one of her race to enlarge the prerogatives of the crown: her father’s devotion to the Church of Rome was not stronger than was her desire to increase the power of the Church of England; and she never ceased to wish earnestly that her exiled brother should be her successor on the throne. In no stage of Anne’s reign was even the last of these designs impracticable: there were always able statesmen inclined to lead the way; and more than once the tide of public opinion set towards absolutism, both political and ecclesiastical. The queen, however, was not only dull and ignorant, but also indolent, fond of flattery, and accustomed from her youth to let herself be guided by stronger and more active minds than her own. Whatever her wishes might be, her actions were ruled by her female favourites. Fortunately the earlier of her two directresses, a woman of extraordinary force of character, was both willing and able to keep in check the queen’s private inclinations: not less fortunate was it that the sway exercised by the next possessor of the royal favour was speedily cut short by her mistress’s death. The course of English history might have flowed less smoothly if the Duchess of Marlborough and her husband had not become convinced that their own interest lay in supporting the principles of the Revolution; and those principles might have sustained a rude shock, if Mrs Masham and her Jacobite allies had been allowed a few months longer to mature the queen’s plans and their own.
The reign of Queen Anne, lasting for twelve years, falls naturally into two unequal periods.
During the first of these, the Duke of Marlborough was paramount in the houses of parliament, and his wife in the royal closet. A ministry of Tories was formed on the queen’s accession; but the leaders of it were Marlborough and Godolphin, who immediately began to edge off from their party. The principal measures were, from the beginning, in substantial conformity to the policy of King William: the war with France, hardly resisted then by any part of the nation, was prosecuted with ardour and success; and the victories of Oudenarde, Ramillies, and Blenheim, gained by the consummate generalship of Marlborough, made England formidable and illustrious throughout Europe. In the internal affairs of the kingdom, Whig principles for a time prevailed more and more; the party acquired a decided majority in the House of Commons; and the ministry came to be composed almost entirely of Whigs, some of the Tories being dismissed, and others, like the two leaders, showing the accommodating flexibility of opinion which was so rife among the statesmen of that slippery age. The union of England and Scotland was carried through in the face of many difficulties; and, while the proceedings of the ministry in the matter were by no means perfectly pure, the measure owed its success mainly to the independent and honourable assistance of the best man among the Whigs, the accomplished and patriotic Lord Somers. During several years, in short, barriers were gradually and firmly built up against the old system and the old parties. But other days were at hand. The domineering favourite of the queen presumed rashly on her power, and offended the self-esteem of her mistress. Mrs Masham, a poor relation of the duchess, whom she had introduced into the royal household, soothed Anne’s fretful temper, gratified her vanity, and quickly, though secretly, acquired her confidence and affection; and, under the guidance of the new favourite, and her prompter Harley, the queen was encouraged to hope for the attainment of all her most cherished aims. The state of public opinion underwent a corresponding change. Even under the masterly government of William, disappointments had been felt by those who expected impossibilities from the Revolution; discontent now diffused itself very widely, the main cause being the increase of taxation which had been rendered necessary by the Continental war. The Tories and Jacobites, led by some of the ablest of the statesmen, and assisted by some of the most skilful and energetic of the political writers, dexterously used the combustible materials that were accumulating, and made the church also an active engine of mischief. The ministry saw their parliamentary majorities wasting away; they were personally treated at court with open contumely; and their ruin was completed when, still relying too boldly on their supposed strength, they impeached Sacheverell for publicly preaching in favour of^ Jacobitism and the divine right of kings. In August 1710 the Whig administration was ignominiously discarded.
The second period of the queen’s reign began at this point. She was thenceforth governed by Mrs Masham; Mrs Masham was governed by Harley and St John, the chiefs of the new ministry; and these able and unscrupulous men exerted themselves to the utmost of their power in undoing all that had been done by their predecessors. The fruits of the war were immediately abandoned, and the allies of England shamefully betrayed, by the treaty of Utrecht. If open attacks were not made on the constitution, it was only because the Parhament could not be trusted in such a case, and because, also, the two ministerial leaders became jealous of each other, and formed separate intrigues. Harley, the Sinon of the time, corresponded both with St Germains and with Hanover; St John, more decidedly Jacobite, plotted with Mrs Masham and the queen to procure the crown for the Pretender, on the ostensible condition of his professing Protestantism. But these cabals oozed out sufficiently to alarm the honourable Tories, and to array them and the bishops against the ministry in Parliament. The time, likewise, during which the danger was growing, proved too short to allow it to become ripe. Harley and Mrs Masham came to an open quarrel one evening in Anne’s presence; after they had squabbled for hours, the poor queen just retained strength enough to insist that the minister should resign on the spot; she then retired at two in the morning, and lay down on her deathbed. She was seized with apoplexy, and died on the 1st of August 1714. St John’s schemes were not ready for execution; and, by the prompt activity of a few patriotic statesmen, the accession of George I. was immediately and peaceably secured. (w. s.)
(See Earl Stanhope’s History of England, comprising the Reign of Queen Anne until the Peace of Utrecht, Lond. 1870.)
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