vourable word of him."[13] No answer appears to have
been sent to James's letter in 1714; on the contrary, a proclamation was
issued (June 23) for his apprehension in case of his arrival in England.
On the 27th of April Anne gave a solemn assurance of her fidelity to the
Hanoverian succession to Sir William Dawes, archbishop of York; in June
she sent Lord Clarendon to Hanover to satisfy the elector.

The sudden illness and death of the queen now frustrated any schemes
which Bolingbroke, or others might have been contemplating. On the 27th,
the day of Oxford's resignation, the discussions concerning his
successor detained the council sitting in the queen's presence till two
o'clock in the morning, and on retiring Anne was instantly seized with
fatal illness. Her adherence to William in 1688 had been a principal
cause of the success of the Revolution, and now the final act of her
life was to secure the Revolution settlement and the Protestant
succession. During a last moment of returning consciousness, and by the
advice of the whole council, who had been joined on their own initiative
by the Whig dukes Argyll and Somerset, she placed the lord treasurer's
staff in the hands of the Whig duke of Shrewsbury, and measures were
immediately taken for assuring the succession of the elector. Her death
took place on the 1st of August, and the security felt by the public,
and perhaps the sense of perils escaped by the termination of the
queen's life, were shown by a considerable rise in the national stocks.
She was buried on the south side of Henry VII.'s chapel in Westminster
Abbey, in the same tomb as her husband and children. The elector of
Hanover, George Louis, son of the electress Sophia (daughter of
Elizabeth, daughter of James I.), peacefully succeeded to the throne as
George I. (q.v.).

According to her physician Arbuthnot, Anne's life was shortened by the
"scene of contention among her servants. I believe sleep was never more
welcome to a weary traveller than death was to her." By character and
temperament unfitted to stand alone, her life had been unhappy and
tragical from its isolation. Separated in early years from her parents
and sister, her one great friendship had proved only baneful and
ensnaring. Marriage had only brought a mournful series of infant
funerals. Constant ill-health and suffering had darkened her career. The
claims of family attachment, of religion, of duty, of patriotism and of
interest, had dragged