There is no doubt that after she had lost all her own children, her sympathies were with her father’s son, generally known as _The Pretender_. She felt more and more as her life was ebbing to its end, that she had not been a dutiful daughter. In her own loneliness she must have had abiding thoughts of her young brother, expatriated from his father-land. Whilst she was living in royal estate, he, the legitimate heir of that estate, was a homeless waif,—ever tantalized by fruitless hopes and longings. What to her was this second cousin in Hanover,—a foreigner by birth and in all his interests? She was horror-stricken at, and absolutely refused to sanction, a Whig proposal, that Elector George should be invited to visit Britain, and make some acquaintance with the country which he was one day to rule over. Anne’s two leading ministers—Oxford and Bolingbroke, at one in their Jacobite proclivities, were yet at personal variance. At a council meeting, on 27th July, 1714, at which the queen was present, they had a fierce quarrel, and, under the joint influence of Bolingbroke and Mrs. Masham, the Queen dismissed Oxford from office. But the triumph of Bolingbroke was short-lived, for the stormy council meeting so acted on the queen, that she next day fell into a lethargy, from which—with brief intervals of semi-consciousness—she never rallied. On the 30th of July, when it was known that the queen was sinking, two Whig lords, the Dukes of Somerset and Argyle, took upon themselves, in virtue of their position as privy-councillors, to attend unsummoned the council board. They found the ministers in a state of utter perplexity and alarm; humble enough to agree to a proposal that in the present grave crisis, the queen should be asked to confer the premiership upon the Duke of Shrewsbury. He had taken a leading part in the revolution, been one of William’s chief secretaries of state, and was much respected by both parties. The dying queen gave, by a sign, her consent to his receiving the staff of office. That feeble sign was the last public action of the Stuart dynasty. Anne died on the 1st of August, and next day the Elector of Hanover,—through his mother and grandmother, a great grandson of James I.,—was, as George the First, proclaimed king in London. The new king, knowing that the Whigs were his best friends, formed his ministry from their ranks. Three of Anne’s ministers, Oxford, Bolingbroke, and the Duke of Ormond, were impeached for high treason; Oxford was sent to the Tower; Bolingbroke and Ormond escaped to the Continent, where they joined the councils of the Pretender. The Tory party, although out of official power, comprised the bulk of the landowners, the clergy, and the learning of England; and the popular mind—as shewn in tumultuous crowds, cheering Jacobite speeches, and burning effigies of King William—was largely reactionary.