Women of History; The Lives of Women Who in All Ages, All Lands and in All Womanly Occupations Have Won Fame and Put Their Imprint on the World's History (Paperback)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1913. Excerpt: ... QUEEN ANNE (1665-1744) THE COMMONPLACE QUEEN OF A MAJESTIC ERA PERHAPS too many Americans will associate the name of Queen Anne with a bizarre type of architecture which a few years ago covered our countryside with cottages of multitudinous gables, much jig-saw work, and a uniform color scheme of garnet and old gold. Being as a rule flimsy, the cottages have disappeared; the more substantial memorials of the reign of a queen of Great Britain and Ireland, who was truly fortunate in her contemporaries, endure. The reign of Anne was one of the greatest in English annals, though the queen herself was not great. But moving in the official circles of her time, or enlivening the coffee houses of London, were statesmen and soldiers as great as England ever knew, and essayists and wits unequalled in modern times. Sir Isaac Newton was director of the mint, John Locke commissioner of trade, and Joseph Addison a secretary of state. The first Duke of Marlborough won the battle of Blenheim in her time, and in return received his title, and the palace of Blenheim which in these later days it has fallen to the lot of a Vanderbilt heiress to restore to its bygone glories--the palace, not the title. The latter she found beyond restoration. Dean Swift lived in the days of Anne, and wrote "Gulliver's Travels" as a satire on the temper of the times. The satire is forgotten, but the children, always good critics, have taken out the story in which it was enveloped and made it one of their favorite books. Then too Defoe lived and wrote "Robinson Crusoe" --perhaps the most widely read book ever written in the English tongue. The statesmen of Anne's day first cast him into prison, and then stood him in the pillory for writing what he believed; then elevated him to a place and a certain measure of power for w...