Queen Anne and Oxford: The Royal Visit of 1702 and Its Aftermath

Abstract

Anne's accession was greeted warmly in the University of Oxford, the intellectual centre of Toryism in the early eighteenth century, and she made Oxford the destination of one of her earliest excursions out of London in 1702. Yet Anne never returned to Oxford again, while majority opinion in the university was disappointed at her unwillingness to champion wholeheartedly the high-church cause. It was only after 1714 that the reign of Anne came to be represented by Oxonians as a golden age for the university; the reality was more variable and confused.Anne's accession was greeted warmly across her kingdoms, and nowhere more so than in the University of Oxford, the intellectual powerhouse of Toryism in the early eighteenth century; she reciprocated its acclamation by making Oxford the destination of one of her earliest excursions out of London in 1702. That visit was, in one sense, born of necessity: she was en route to Bath so that her husband, Prince George of Denmark, could gain the therapeutic benefit of the waters; Oxford was on a major route to the south-west, and not to go there would have been a pointless insult to the university authorities. They, in return, papered over the fortuitous character of her last-minute visit and rejoiced in this mark of royal favour. It would prove to be the nearest thing to a celebration of queenly solidarity with the Tories that her reign would hold.The royal visit ought to have been the harbinger of a flourishing exchange of compliments and favours throughout Anne's reign, but that was not how events turned out. The queen never returned to Oxford again, while majority opinion in the university was disappointed at her unwillingness -even in the last four years of her reign -to champion unambiguously the high-church cause that they hoped she and her ministers would adopt for the national good. It is this article's contention that it was only retrospectively, after 1714, cast out into the cold by the early Hanoverian establishment, that the reign of Queen Anne came to be represented by Oxonians as a golden age for the university, one in which royal favours had not been withheld. The reality had been more variable and confused, one of regular academic celebration of the high points of the queen's reign, but otherwise tending towards formality and a degree of distance. The university resultantly played a less important part in modelling and sustaining the dominant 'image' of Queen Anne than might have been anticipated in the wake of the successful impression made on dons and students alike by the 1702 royal visit. 1 I.Oxford University had struggled to come to terms with the new order in church and state that the revolution settlement had ushered in. On the one hand, William III had ended the