Article
Sickly and Spent: Reassessing the Life and Afterlife of Anne of Great Britain
Later Stuart Queens,1660–1735: Religion, Political Culture, and Patronage
(2024)
Abstract
As a reigning queen and historical figure, Queen Anne’s memory and reputation have long been shaped by the perspectives of her contemporaries and historians regarding her body and poor health. To understand the ways in which views of Anne’s body and health have framed her historical legacy and afterlife, this chapter examines the place of reputation, legacy, and notoriety in the primary documents and early historiography about Anne of Great Britain (r. 1702–1714) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the field of queenship studies, especially, Anne’s reign demonstrates how contemporary gossip and historiographical ills affect the long memory of royal women and how those perspectives can hinder their legacy. Despite Anne’s record in European political history in the early eighteenth century, the “failures” of her health, reproductive politics, and court culture have overshadowed how modern audiences and scholars have understood her place in early modern and modern British history. To reposition Anne in early modern studies and understand her reign outside of the challenges of her early historiography, this chapter will argue that Anne—as a flesh and blood woman and a ruler—deserves wider examination beyond her “bad” reputation and ailing body.
Disciplines
Publication Date
2024
Citation Information
Jessica Minieri. "Sickly and Spent: Reassessing the Life and Afterlife of Anne of Great Britain" Later Stuart Queens,1660–1735: Religion, Political Culture, and Patronage (2024) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/jessica-minieri/3/