William (S504) left no children, and according to the provisions of
the Bill of Rights (S497)[1] the Princess Anne, younger sister of the
late Queen Mary, now came to the throne. She was a negative
character, with kindly impulses and little intelligence. "When in
good humor she was meekly stupid, and when in ill humor, sulkily
stupid."[2] But if there was any person duller than her Majesty, that
person was her Majesty's husband, Prince George of Denmark. Charles
II, who knew him well, said, "I have tried Prince George sober, and I
have tried him drunk, and drunk or sober, there is nothing in him."
[1] See the Bill of Rights (third paragraph) on page xxxi of the
Appendix.
[2] Macaulay's "England"; and compare Stanhope's "Reign of Anne."
Along with the amiable qualities which gained for the new ruler the
title of "Good Queen Anne" her Majesty inherited the obstinacy, the
prejudices, and the superstitions of the Stuart sovereigns. Though a
most zealous Protestant and an ardent upholder of the Church of
England, she declared her faith in the Divine Right of Kings (SS419,
429), which had cost her grandfather, Charles I, his head, and she was
the last English sovereign who believed that the touch of the royal
hand could dispel disease.
The first theory she never openly proclaimed in any offensive way, but
the harmless delusion that she could relieve the sick was a favorite
notion with her; and we find in the London _Gazette_ (March 12, 1712)
an official announcement, stating that on certain days the Queen would
"touch" for the cure of "king's evil," or scrofula.
Among the multitudes who went to test her power was a poor Lichfield
bookseller. He carried to her his little half-blind, sickly boy, who,
by virtue either of her Majesty's beneficent fingers or from some
other and better reason, grew up to be known as the famous author and
lexicographer, Dr. Samuel Johnson.[2]
[2] Johnson told Boswell, his biographer, that he remembered the
incident, and that "he had a confused, but somehow a sort of solemn
recollection of a lady in diamonds and a long black hood."--Boswell's
"Johnson."