Page:The life and times of King Edward VII by Whates, Harry Richard 1.djvu/38

20 20 LIFE AND TIMES OF EDWARD VII. itself in her intellectual powers, her cultivated tastes, her high courage, her steadfast resolution. Though a severe Lutheran, steeped in the doctrines of Calvin, she was no bigot, and cherished the ideal of an eventual reunion of the sects. When at her mother's Court in England, it had been her practice to attend the services of the Church of England, and she understood to a nicety the kind of Protestantism which would be accept- able to the English nation, which was then beginning to recover from the bitter intolerance of the Reformation period. Her life had been spent, in a political sense, in watching and waiting upon events in England, and as these developed, the probability of the Crown passing to her or through her to her children became almost a certainty. The provision in the Bill of Rights barring Catholics or those who married Catholics swept out of the field a host of possible candidates in the event of Anne leaving no successor, as was all too likely, for the Duke of Gloucester was a weakling. Indeed, at that time Bishop Burnett, acting on the instruction of King William, moved in the Lords an amendment naming Sophia and her descendants as next in succession. But the Commons rejected it in the interests of the possible children of Anne, and the point was not pressed, especially as Anne gave birth to the Duke of Gloucester while the subject was still open. The way was thus prepared for the Hanoverian succession, and through- out the reign of Anne the eyes of England at least, with the exception of those whose vision was directed to the fugitive Sovereign in France, and the son whom Louis had acknowledged as James III. were directed to the Court at Hanover. QUEEN ANNE. (From the mezzotint by J. Smith, after Sir Godfrey Kneller.) The Electress Sophia would probably have made a great Queen of England had her chance come early in life. She was English enough to be able to adapt her- self to English ways and modes of thought. She had known the country in childhood. She was a woman of large mind and generous sympathies, of cultivated and refined tastes. Her son George Lewis did not share her finer qualities. He had no wish to become King of England. That was one of the disagreeable neces- sities of his lot. He knew no English, and would not learn the language. To the end of his reign he could not converse with his Ministers. His chief interest in the succession was in the military power it would bring to his House in the affairs of Europe, for he had the ambitions of a soldier, and his courage was indisputable. But enough has been said of him for