5 - Military Affiliations, 1702–8: Stuart-Oldenburg Kingship and War

Summary

Queen Anne declared war on France on 4 May 1702 and the country would remain at war until April 1713, when she ratified the Peace of Utrecht. Prolonged military conflict on both land and sea had a major impact on all aspects of English life and exerted a powerful influence on court culture. In the absence of a soldier-king, however, the effects on court culture were significantly different from those discernible at the Stuart-Orange court in the 1690s. William's residential pattern had followed a seasonal cycle, dictated by the nature of early modern warfare, although when war ended he continued to spend months at a time on the continent. While Anne reversed the peripatetic trend set by William, the inability of a female monarch to lead troops into battle, in an age when the princely soldier was the norm, remained a significant weakness. Anne's impotence in the martial arena was exacerbated by George of Denmark's failing health, which prevented his active involvement in military combat. These dual problems, compounded by Anne's precarious state of health and the issue of how to present a physically frail queen during a long period of military conflict, when England led the confederate allies, presented considerable challenges to Anne and her advisers. New representational strategies were required for both the domestic and international arena and these policies set Anne's reign apart from William's and Mary’s. The visual presentation of militarised Stuart-Oldenburg kingship involved three key individuals: Queen Anne, Prince George of Denmark and Captain-General of Allied Forces John Churchill, first duke of Marlborough. By the skilful deployment of ceremony and art in England (and from 1707 Britain) Queen Anne was presented as a warrior figure at the forefront of a pluralist vision of Protestant nationhood. This positioning enabled the promotion of Anne as a symbol of national unity and encouraged loyalty to the monarchy in the wider population. Art commissioned by the Crown was deployed more subtly but it supported these ceremonial activities. These ceremonies and artworks stimulated the commercial market for visual materials, although government-sponsored art production was also part of a commercial process and at times the ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ overlapped.