Transcript
Professor Susannah Lipscomb (0:01)
Want to walk the halls of Anne Boleyn's childhood home? Or explore the castles that made up Henry VIII's English stronghold? With a subscription to History Hit, you can dive into our Tudor past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week, covering everything from the ancient world to to World War II.
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Professor Susannah Lipscomb (1:24)
Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb, and welcome to Not Just the Tudors From History Hit, the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to samurais, relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors. Queen Anne is one of those monarchs whose reputation seems to arrive before she does. If you ask people what they know about her, you'll often hear the same things repeated that she was sickly, overweight, emotionally needy, easily led by favorites, and somehow overshadowed by the more dramatic figures who came before and after her. She doesn't, at first glance, look like a ruler for a grand or transformative age. And yet, when you linger a little longer, Queen Anne starts to look very different indeed. This is the woman who ruled Britain through near constant war, who oversaw the creation of Great Britain in 1707, who attended Cabinet meetings more diligently than any monarch before or since, even when she was in pain, exhausted and barely able to stand. Her reign sits at a crucial moment in our Restoration series. We've already traced the upheavals of James II and the experiment in shared monarchy under William and Mary. Anne is the last Stuart to sit on the throne and the bridge to what comes next. Anne's private life was marked by almost unimaginable loss. 17 pregnancies, one surviving child, and then his death at just 11 years old. Her health was poor throughout her reign, her body worn down by chronic illness and pain. But rather than weakening her resolve, Anne's faith and sense of duty seemed to have sustained her. Power for her was not theatrical or flamboyant. It was dogged, conscientious and deeply moral. Then there are the relationships that so often dominate popular portrayals of her reign. Anne's intense friendships with women like Sarah Churchill and Abigail Masham have been cast as scandalous, manipulative, even salacious. It may not be possible to say whether these were friendships or romantic relationships, Philia or eros, but when we place them back into their political and emotional context, they tell us something very interesting about favour, trust and authority in a female court, and about Anne's determination not to become the creature of any one party politically. Anne ruled during the War of the Spanish Succession, a conflict that reshaped Britain's military finances and place in Europe. She balanced Whigs and Tories, resisted being made a slave to faction and ultimately sanctioned a controversial peace when she believed the country could bear the war no longer. All the while, British rumors swirled about the Jacobites and the future of the Protestant succession, lending her final years a nervous, watchful edge. This episode is the penultimate chapter in our Restoration story. So far we've looked at why Oliver Cromwell's republic failed, the return of King Charles ii, the Merry Monarch, the disastrous reign of James ii, Britain's last Catholic king, his ousting and the so called Glorious Revolution of of Mary II and William of Orange. Next time we'll be looking at the regime change that followed Anne's death, the shift from Stuart to Hanoverian rule. But before we get there, we need to understand the Queen who made that peaceful transition possible. Joining me to rethink Queen Anne's life and legacy is Lady Anne Somerset, whose wonderful book, Queen Anne, the Last Stuart Monarch, strips away caricature and restores Anne as a serious, engaged and resilient ruler. Professor Susannah Lipscomb. And this is not just the Tudors from history hit.
