1. Lord Melbourne, Queen Victoria’s first prime minister, considered George of Denmark “a very stupid fellow,” as he recounted to Victoria the story of James II and “est il possible ? ” Viscount Esher, ed, The Training of a Sovereign (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912), 129.
2. Charles Beem, The Lioness Roared: The Problems of Female Rule in English History (New York, 2006).
3. See Jayne Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens (Oxford, 2004), 92–4.
4. For a larger study on George of Denmark, see Charles Beem, “I Am Her Majesty’s Subject: Prince George of Denmark and the Transformation of the English Male Consort,” Canadian Journal of History vol. 39, no. 3 (December 2004) 457–87.
5. For a medical reconstruction of Anne’s efforts to further the protestant succession and its devastating effects on her health, see H. E. Emson, “For the Want of an Heir: The Obstetrical History of Queen Anne,” British Medical Journal, 304 (May 1992), 66–7.