Excerpt from The Reign of Queen Anne, Vol. 1 of 2 One of the poets of the later Victorian literature, William Morris, has told in his melodious verso the story of the "Man born to be King," the idea of which is taken from that rich treasure-house of fantasy, the Gesta Romanorum. The story, however, is very different from that which begins under the heading of this first chapter - the story of the Woman born to be Queen. William Morris's hero becomes king in default of every hereditary claim to such a position and in despite of all disadvantages, difficulties, and seeming impossibilities, just because nature had endowed him with the special gifts which are sure to win for their owner a complete success. Queen Anne, on the contrary, was born to be a queen, and under no other conditions could have had the slightest chance of becoming the ruler of a great monarchy. Anne was the last of the Stuart sovereigns. She was the second daughter of James the Second by his first wife, Anne Hyde, who was the daughter of Edward Hyde, afterwards Earl of Clarendon, the famous lawyer, politician, and historian. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.