THE hugely successful film The Favourite features one of the least-known Scottish monarchs, Queen Anne, the last person from the House of Stuart to reign over Scotland and the first to be Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

So why feature her in a pro-independence newspaper? Should she not be vilified as the woman who helped force the Union of Parliaments upon Scotland?

The point about learning history is to know the facts and the contexts of those facts, and that is why Anne Stuart should be known for what she was – an English woman determined to get her own way, with a mindset whose principal element was ensuring that she was succeeded by a Protestant, and whose machinations changed Scotland, The third and final queen regnant of Scotland after Mary and her own sister, who should always be correctly known as Mary II, Anne was born in London on February 6, 1665, to James VII and II, while he was Duke of York and Albany, the latter his Scottish title.

Her mother Anne Hyde had been born a commoner, though her politician father was later made Earl of Clarendon.

Mary and Anne were the only two of the eight children of James and Anne to live beyond infancy, and at first, as she was the second niece of a still young Charles II, it was difficult to see how she would ever become Queen.

Charles insisted that both his nieces be raised as Protestants in case they were needed as successors. That involved the girls being raised away from court in an Anglican household, with the Bishop of London, no less, being made responsible for Anne’s religious instruction.

Suffering occasional ill-health, her childhood was less than happy, her father and mother losing her siblings and she being only able to visit her parents occasionally. Worse was to come in 1671 when Anne was only six – her mother died of breast cancer at the age of just 34.

James married the Catholic princess Mary of Modena in 1673, and Anne is reputed to have had a good relationship with her father and stepmother at this stage of her life. Anne then lost her beloved sister to marriage, Mary tearfully wedding Prince William of Orange in 1677. Anne was not in attendance as she had smallpox.

In 1681 and 1682, Charles felt it prudent to send his brother to Scotland to head up his government there and thus Anne spent around 10 months in Holyrood – the only time she would visit Scotland in her life.

Charles II died with no legitimate heir and James became King of England, Scotland and Ireland, in 1685. His conversion to Catholicism seemed no great problem at first, but led to the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when William and Mary gained the three thrones.

Anne was immediately declared heir presumptive, despite the fact that James II’s son James Francis Stuart had the immediate claim to the thrones, though as a Catholic he was barred.

Anne was by then married to Prince George of Denmark in a dynastic arrangement promoted by Charles II. They appear to have been devoted to each other – she had 18 pregnancies in all, five ending in stillbirths, eight in miscarriages and only one of her live children making it past infancy. He was Prince William of Gloucester, who died in 1700 at the age of just 11.

When her sister Mary died in 1694, it became increasingly clear that Anne would become Queen, which duly happened on March 8, 1702, with the death of King William.

The English Parliament had passed the Act of Settlement the previous year, which effectively confirmed Anne as heir and named Sophia, Electress of Hanover and grand-daughter of James VI and I, and her Protestant descendants, as heir to Anne.

The Scottish Parliament could hardly complain, as the 1689 Claim of Right stated: “By the law of this Kingdome no papist can be King or Queen of this realme nor bear any office whatsomever therin.”

By now crippled with gout and other illnesses, Anne had to be carried into her own coronation when she declared: “As I know my heart to be entirely English, I can very sincerely assure you there is not anything you can expect or desire from me which I shall not be ready to do for the happiness and prosperity of England.”

She made no such declaration when handed the Scottish crown, but did say that a greater union was needed.

As The National has previously described, Anne was the principal driving force behind the Treaty of Union, both for religious and political reasons, and at the same time she was also responsible for fomenting the divisions within the English ruling elite – the Tory and Whig alignments. Her friendships with Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and Abigail Hill are behind the plot of The Favourite, so please go and see it to learn more about Anne.

In an age of misogyny, Anne Stuart was remarkable in that she not only overcame lifelong ill-health, but largely got her own way as the last Queen of Scotland and first Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. She died shortly after a stroke on August 1, 1714, aged 49.