ABSTRACT
One of the most important historical problems of the reign of Queen Anne is to clarify how the crown coped with a new, emerging constitutional system, in which its powers were being gradually eroded. Queen Anne and her advisers retained enough influence to try to exercise power independent of party. What is surprising is that for much of her reign Queen Anne chose to work with and appoint Whig ministers and not Tories, who seemingly had views on the Church and other matters that she would find compatible with hers. Lord Godolphin was the first to realize the inevitability and the necessity of the appointment of Whig ministers for the sake of effective government and he began to press for this from 1705. Whig and Tory political rivalries in the reign of Queen Anne were intense but they did not threaten the established social and political order.
