Anne became Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland on 8 March 1702. Anne's life was marked by many crises relating to succession to the Crown. Her Roman Catholic father, James II, had been forcefully deposed in 1688; her sister and brother-in-law then became Queen and King as Mary II and William III. The failure of Anne and of her sister to produce a child who could survive into adulthood precipitated a succession crisis, which ultimately produced the Act of Union 1707. When, on 1 May 1707, England and Scotland combined into a single Kingdom, Anne became the first Sovereign of Great Britain. Anne was the last British monarch of the House of Stuart; she was succeeded by a distant cousin, George I, of the House of Hanover. Anne's reign was also marked by the development of the two-party system. Anne personally preferred the Tory Party, but endured the Whigs. Her closest friend, and perhaps her most influential advisor, was Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, whose husband, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, led the English armies in the War of the Spanish Succession.

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