[Sidenote: 1714--Fighting for the Crown] England watched with the greatest anxiety the latest days of Queen Anne's life; not out of any deep concern for the Queen herself, but simply because of the knowledge that with her death must come a crisis and might come a revolution. Who was to snatch the crown as it fell from Queen Anne's dying head? Over at Herrenhausen, in {3} Hanover, was one claimant to the throne; flitting between Lorraine and St. Germains was another. Here, at home, in the Queen's very council-chamber, round the Queen's dying bed, were the English heads of the rival parties caballing against each other, some of them deceiving Hanover, some of them deceiving James Stuart, and more than one, it must be confessed, deceiving at the same moment Hanoverians and Stuarts alike. Anne had no children living; she had borne to her husband, the feeble and colorless George of Denmark, a great many children--eighteen or nineteen it is said--but most of them died in their very infancy, and none lived to maturity. No succession therefore could take place, but only an accession, and at such a crisis in the history of England any deviation from the direct line must bring peril with it. At the time when Queen Anne lay dying, it might have meant a new revolution and another civil war. While Anne lies on that which is soon to be her death-bed, let us take a glance at the rival claimants of her crown, and the leading English statesmen who were partisans on this side or on that, or who were still hesitating about the side it would be, on the whole, most prudent and profitable to choose.