The ingratitude of public men and the furious quarrels of politicians
so teased and vexed the Queen that she at last fell into a fatal
illness. Her physician wrote to Dean Swift, "I believe sleep was
never more welcome to a weary traveler than death was to her." When
she laid down the scepter (1714) she left no heir to the throne, and
so the power of the Stuarts (S415) came to an end.
According to the terms of the Act of Settlement (S497) the crown now
passed to George, Elector of Hanover, a Protestant descendant of James
I of England. (See Table, p. 323.) James Edward, son of James II,
believed to the last that his half-sister, Queen Anne, would name him
her successor;[1] instead of that it was she who first dubbed him the
"Pretender" (S491).
[1] Anne and the so-called "Pretender" were children of James II by
different mothers.