Regarding Henry (the Eighth)

Henry Tudor (1491-1547)  was certainly something of an overachiever, but he didn't know shit about biology.  After all, he went through six wives any number of ministers and all the wealth of the monasteries of England.  It didn't hurt that he was the surviving younger brother of the heir apparent and son of the king of England at the time, Henry VII.  Henry VII was the first Tudor king, a somewhat peripheral Lancastrian claimant to the throne who managed through conquest,  historical revisionism, and his marriage to Elizabeth of York, to resolved the unpleasant late medieval mess of succession that has come to be known as the "Wars of the Roses".  

It was the excessive fecundity of Edward III (1312-1377) that, ironically, started it all.  Edward had the following children by his wife Phillippa of Hinault:  (1) Edward the black prince,  (2) Isabella, Lady of Coucy, (3)  Joan of England,  (4) William of Hatfield, (5) Lionel of Antwerp , First Duke of Clarence, (6) John of Gaunt, First Duke of Lancaster, (7) Edmund of Langley, First Duke of York, (8) Mary, Duchess of Brittany, (9) Margaret, Countess of Pembroke,  (10) Thomas of Woodstock, First Duke of Gloucester, and finally (11-14) John, Jane, and Joan de Southeray.  This set the stage for some monumental family squabbles concerning who got the prize after Edward shuffled off his mortal coil. 

Then there was the  Hundred Years War, which was a series of conflicts from 1337 to 1453 (more like the hundred and sixteen years war but never mind).   In 1066 William the Conqueror added England to his existing domain in Normandy.  At the same time he was the vassal to the king of France.   This conflict or series of conflicts was the protracted sorting out of the national identities of France and England.  For a long time English kings had claim to a lot of French real estate owing to the complex web of intermarriage and primogeniture.  

Primogeniture of course is the practice of maintaining royal and ducal houses and land by the expedient of granting the eldest son of the household ownership of all.  The younger siblings in this arrangement were left with nothing.  This was thought preferable to the division of kingdoms into however many heirs as there were, which, in time would lead to a fragmentation of kingdoms and an intolerable situation related vividly in Shakespeare's King Lear. 

Getting back to Henry the Eighth,  these successional problems seemed to have been the focus of much of his reign.  It has been speculated that Henry may have been a victim of McLeod Syndrome, which leads to both neurological problems in the possessor but in hemolytic disease in his children (1).  It works in much the same way as Rh disease in which an Rh- mother develops antibodies to her Rh+ child.  The first pregnancy goes without a hitch because the mother gets immunized by exposure to the baby's blood at the time of birth.  However each successive child dies from an immune assault on its blood via antibodies that cross the placenta.  

If only I could have sat down with King Henry and explained this to him without being labelled a heretic and burned at the stake.  And if I could also have explained to him the fact that the father (you, Henry) are the determiner of the sex of the child and that it has very little to do with the woman.   In short the problem was with HIM not with the ladies he was mating with.   

I would say to him: 

"In the process of meiosis, wherin males have an X and a Y chromosome in each of their cells, one of the 23 pairs of chromosomes all normal humans have.

  The production of gametes (sperm and egg) requires the reduction of those chromosomes to half their number (23 individual chromosomes) that then go on to unite with the 23 chromosomes of the mother.   Since each one of your sperm cells contains either an X or a Y you determine the sex of the child.  If an X sperm cell reaches the egg first, then it combines with one of the mother's X chromosomes (She has two X chromosomes) then the child is a girl.  :(      If one of your Y sperm cells reached the egg first then the child is a boy. :)   And your succession is assured.  

"The fact is, Hank, (can I call you Hank?) every child is a crapshoot.  You KNOW that the child gets half of everything you inherited from your parents, but what you don't know is which half.  I am talking only about your "genes" not your royal possessions.   The only way to avoid this problem is if I could take a sample of your precious jizz back to the 21st century and put it in an ultracentrifuge. 

You see, your X chromosome bearing sperm cells are heavier than the Y chromosome bearing ones, enough so that if you speed up the process of gravity (using this machine) the heavier ones you don't want will sink lower in the test tube.  Then we could harvest the Y chromosome ones you want from the top of the density gradient and deliver them to the queen's womb at the right moment in her 28 day cycle and you would have a male heir or at least we'd hope so.  Even in the 21st century this isn't an exact science.  You would have to promise to keep your hands off her until she has conceived.    

"But of course you have to do this when the queen is ovulating.   Some time between the time of her previous period and the next one she will ovulate, and you can kind of tell when this is,  by using this handy digital thermometer.

At that moment give me a sample of your jizz and go back to the 21st century.  I brought along a condom for you.  You aren't allergic to latex are you? 

 Just so I don't try to switch tubes or something let me take Cromwell back to verify the procedure.  Less than an hour later I'll return  and we'll artificially inseminate your queen.   Now just to help you in producing your sample material I have taken the liberty of bringing along these magazines.  I expect you will find something to your liking here, but I'll need those back when you are done, okay?"

As it happened of course, it was a successional train wreck.  "Why can't you accept it, Henry, one boy and two girls isn't bad.  Shame about all those miscarriages however, and in any case, none of your children will make a grandparent of you: your male heir Edward VI, will die when he is only 15,  Mary won't be able to conceive at all, and Elizabeth, seeing what a mess marriage and reproduction had been for you and the gruesome fact that you blithely chose to ax her mum,  will decide not to marry at all.  Can you blame her?  

"So after the last of your heirs die the English will have to bring in this bisexual king from Scotland to carry things on for you royals after 1603. Even James the first will have better luck in the baby daddy game than you did, and he liked boys.  But then England will get Scotland in the bargain so I guess that should be consolation enough, but France will never be your dominion, and besides, around the middle of the next century the people started to get really tired of being jerked around by their kings and queens and also got tired of being dictated to regarding how they were

supposed to worship.   They even had the nerve to execute your cousin Charles for treason.  Imagine it!  A king executed for treason?  The world truly will turn upside down.  

And besides, I suspect a major problem you and all your other royal kindred had was this matter of inbreeding.  If you are going to be marrying your first and second cousins like a bunch of demented hillbillies, you shouldn't have been surprised, knowing what we know now, that you got miscarriages and mental defectives and other problems.  Ask the Habsburgs about it.  They had it even worse. 

And if you must view it from a theological point of view then it is self-evident that God hates inbreeding.  Don't do it, or God will punish you.  Nuff said? 

A Summary of the Differences between Christian Denominations part 1

The Roman Catholic Church.  The Catholic Church, as it is called, is an outgrowth of the early Christian church as developed in Ancient Rome and is ruled by a serial monarchy, which, owing to the practice of priestly celibacy was not dynastic but elective, at least in its present form. "Catholic" means "universal" and all-encompassing and it sort of is, although less so than in the past. 

The Council of Elvira in 306 was the first explicit ruling that the upper church hierarchy was forbidden to engage in sexual behavior, even though they may have up till their ordination had children and wives.  Of course 1 Corinthians 7:32-33 famously remarks that "The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife.".  On the other hand those who oppose clerical celibacy cited 1 Timothy 3:2-4, which refers to a bishop as being the husband of one wife, and rules his house well and has his children "in subjection".  In any case, it is clear that up till the 4th Century, celibacy in the church hierarchy was not an issue.  Indeed the Apostle Peter, the first "pope" was himself married. 

The Roman Catholic Church claims to be the original, universal Christian church founded by the apostles of Christ.

  The Eastern Orthodox Church which represents the original Christian Church in Eastern Europe shares with claim with a couple of other ancient groups.  Indeed the Roman Church and the Eastern Church, based in Byzantium were the same church until the formal schism in 1054.    This resulted from a doctrinal dispute over matters such as whether or not to perform the Eucharist with leavened or unleavened bread, and the ultimate authority of the pope in Rome. 

This led to reciprocal excommunications and in time massacres and military actions against one another against a background of the crusades.  Although efforts were made later to patch things up, the two branches of the original church remain separate up to the present day.

The Great Western Schism.  Another pre-reformation split in the church originated in the Avignon papacy.   In 1309 the new pope Clement V, who was French, declined to take up his papacy in Rome but chose Avignon in southern France instead. 

Nine years later Clement V died, was succeeded by John XXII, Benedict XII, Clement VI, Innocent VI, Urban V (who served both in Rome and Avignon), and finally Pope Gregory XI, who returned the papacy to Rome in 1376.   This however was not the end of the problem, but the beginning of the Schism, as different parts of the church sided with either Avignon's or Rome's popes.  France, Castile, Aragon, Naples, and Scotland sided with Avignon.  England, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Hungary, and Northern Italy sided with Rome. Portugal and the Holy Roman Empire vacillated between the two.   Avignon continued to name popes (referred to as "anti-popes" after Gregory XI's departure for Rome.  Urban VI, the Roman pope after Gregory was a something of a tyrant and most of the cardinals under him left and set up another papacy in Anagri which nominated the Avignon Anti-pope Clement VII.  This rather unsatisfactory state of affairs lasted until 1409 when a council was held at Pisa to resolve the issue but at the last moment the rival claimants backed out and the council went on to name still another person as pope, this time based in Pisa.  This was Alexander V, who was succeeded by John XXIII (not to be confused with the 20th century John XXIII).  This John XXIII convened still a further council at Constance in 1415, where Martin the V was made pope, while the Roman pope stepped down to accommodate Martin V, and the Avignon anti-pope Benedict XIII, who had refused to step down was excommunicated.   Thus this messy state of affairs came to an end in 1415.

The Reformation   Martin Luther is credited with initiating the Reformation in 1517 by nailing his "95 Theses" to the church door in Wittenberg, a document outlining his differences with the Pope regarding certain church practices.  

A major one of these being the sale of indulgences.  This was the practice of monetary gifts to the Church serving to remit the sins of the benefactors.  Salvation was not won by good deeds or by gifts but only by the grace of God and by faith in Jesus Christ.  This removed material considerations or the judgements of ecclesiastical bureaucrats from the supposed bargain for salvation.  He also objected to all church dogma that could not be supported by scripture.  This got him in a world of trouble, beginning with the Diet of Worms in 1520, where he appeared and from which he fled, as the assembled group declared him a heretic and outlaw.

The fact of the invention of a movable type printing press by Gutenberg in 1450 had the effect of greater dissemination of printed matter, more reading of the bible and more of the faithful thinking for themselves after reading it.  The 95 Theses was translated into German and other languages, printed and disseminated throughout Europe.   Luther also, in his spare time translated the bible into German, which led to a hitherto unknown standardization of what became High German.

Lutherans in general view the Eucharist in a subtly different way from the Roman Catholics or the Eastern Orthodox churches.  Transubstantiation is the the belief of the church that the consecrated bread and wine are transformed magically (i.e. in a way surpassing understanding)  into the actual blood and flesh of Christ.  Lutherans believe that the bread and wine are transformed "in, within, and under" the form of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. 

John Calvin was a French theologian who broke with the Catholic church in France in 1530. 

This led to his exile to Basel, Switzerland, and eventually settling in Geneva, where he came to dominate the religious affairs of that city.  He is considered the founder of the Reformed, Congregational, and Presbyterian churches.  Chief among his beliefs was the idea of predestination, or the idea that those chosen to be saved have been known from the beginning.  This goes against the idea of free will and seems to be incompatible with it.  Only God can save your soul and only if God wills it.  This goes against the idea that humans through their own works or by their own will can find a way to salvation.

Opposed to the ideas of Calvin in Protestant circles were the ideas of Jacobus Arminius.  His "Five articles of remonstrance"  stated that (1) Salvation is conditional on upon faith in Christ, (2)  Christ died for all sinners,  (3)  Man is totally depraved and can't be saved unless through grace, (4) man has the choice through free will to resist God's grace, and (5) disagrees with the Calvinist idea that once a believer is saved, nothing will separate him from his salvation, ie "perseverance of the Saints". 

The Arminians were known as "Remonstrants".   Calvinists believe on the other hand that (1) Man is totally depraved and incapable of salvation by his own efforts (2) God chooses to save whom he will, which is a matter of his mercy towards particular sinners,  (3) Christ died to save only God's elect, i.e. the ones through God's mercy he has chosen to save,  (4)  Grace is irresistably provided to those whom God has chosen, and (5) once saved, nothing will separate the chosen or elect from his or her salvation. 

The Anglicans, or Church of England (in America the Episcopal Church) were formed when Henry VIII made his celebrated break with Rome and made himself head of the English church.  

In doing this Henry and his successors made a limited foray into things Protestant, going so far as to stop requiring priestly celibacy, allowing the bible to be owned and read by lay people (as long as they were nobility), and other matters, but preserving much of the ritual and trappings of the Roman church.  The governance of the church is through what is called "apostolic succession" in which the leaders of the church are its bishops, such as the Bishop of Canterbury, who choose their own successors.   This is in contrast with the Presbyterian Church (see below) which is governed by a committee of elders in each congregation. 

Back in the time of Henry VIII and in the early reformation, there was only one legal church, the Church of England, and it encompassed a spectrum of views regarding the bible, its sacraments, and ritual.  In time the "dissenters" moved on to form their own churches more closely as religious diversity began to be allowed.

The Methodists started as a movement within the Church of England, with "Methodist" being originally a term of disapprobation.  It was founded as a movement by John and Charles Wesley, and George Whitefield at Oxford when they were students there in the early 18th century. 

It was a movement against the apathy and stuffiness of he Church of England, trying harder to be socially conscious, helping the poor, witnessing to prisoners, and with preaching with enthusiasm.   Central to its beliefs were the ideas that (1) people are by nature, sinners,  (2) faith alone will "justify them",  and (3) faith makes one holy.  While John Wesley favored the Arminian view that salvation was not pre-ordained, George Whitefield took a more Calvinist view as did many of the early Methodists who later went on to form the Free Church of England, or joined the Presbyterians.  

What finally led to the split between the Anglicans and the Methodists was the shortage of preachers during the American Revolutionary War.  This led Wesley to begin ordaining ministers according to his own criteria rather than those specified by the Anglican Church. 

History of England from the Tudors to the Stuarts by Robert Bucholz

On a recent long drive east through Indiana and Ohio  I have been reviewing the history of the Tudors and Stuarts, a series of lectures recorded by The Teaching Company and featuring Loyola History Professor Robert Bucholz.   It is an entertaining series of lectures that takes English history from the times of the Wars of the Roses prior to the reign of Henry Tudor, (aka Henry VII), through the Tudor dynasty and through the Stuart dynasty ending with Queen Anne in the 18th century.   It cleared up for me a stretch of English history that has been in my mind a bit fuzzy and colored by all the films I'd seen and all. 

Who is this man and where did he come from?

It all started as Bucholz states with what is known as the "the Great Chain of Being" which is a medieval concept of how society is supposed to be configured.  Kings rule according to divine right, by primogeniture, with the Church and the nobility on his right and left hand, and all the little people standing around below with caps off and respectful.  At least this is how it was supposed to be.  

A complicated series of succession crises occurred which led to the wars, the conflict being between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians, which ended with the death of Richard III on Bosworth field.  (It was not clear what happened to his body until in the last year or so his body was discovered during excavations under what was now a parking lot in Leister).  Richard III was the bad king (or at least portrayed as such by the decidedly pro-Tudor Shakespeare) who was apparently responsible for the disappearance of the two princes held prisoner in the Tower of London.  "Princes?  What Princes?"

His death at Bosworth Field in 1485 led to the resolution of the conflict and the establishment of the house of Tudor under Henry VII. 

The Battle of Bosworth Field 1485

Henry married Elizabeth of York thus re-uniting the two families.  Henry VII ruled England from 1485 to 1509.  While the heir apparent, Arthur would have succeeded him, Arthur had since died, and Henry VIII in 1509 became king.  Henry married Catherine of Aragon, Arthur's widow and everything would have been just fine except no male heirs were forthcoming from Catherine though she did produce a female one, Mary. 
 

At least we think this is Catherine of Aragon (Spouse #1)  

What happened next is very much the story of the reformation in England, which began as Henry's desire to be divorced without the complicating factors of foreign policy and the ever present need for money with which to wage wars both offensive and defensive.  The monasteries were due to be taken down a notch because prior to Henry VIII they owned about 1/4 of all the lands of England.  As people died they regularly bequeathed their property to the Church in order to gain favorable treatment in the next world.  As a result some of the richest men in England were not the king but persons such as Cardinal Wolsey. 

 There was not a problem with getting a divorce or an annulment if you were an influential person such as Henry.  Poor Catherine of Aragon seemed only to produce female children in an age when it seemed male heirs were only suitable.  What was worse, she was obtained by Henry second hand, when his older brother Arthur and heir presumptive died, she was married to him in turn.  There were after all scriptural justifications for such a move, but later also scriptural justification for disqualifying her as a mate, and it all really depended on which part of the bible was most conveniently remembered.   All this would probably have sailed through the upper reaches of the church but for some diplomatic problems within the church.    The pope balked at this proposal partly because he was the political captive of other powers in Europe representing the interests of Catherine of Aragon.  For this reason the trial or whatever it was they were planning to have was delayed and delayed.

Henry decided, being kind of a theological wonk himself, that perhaps the Church was better served if it was under local management and proceeded to sever ties with Rome and set up a church in England with himself as the leader.  Furthermore this also had the convenient result that he became the proprietor of all the Church lands in England.  Meanwhile protestant ideas were infiltrating the court in the person of Ann Boleyn and her crowd.

Ann Boleyn (Spouse #2)

  After he managed his own divorce he was married to Ann Boleyn, who promptly presented him with ANOTHER female heir, the future Queen Elizabeth.    The king was not amused, and Boleyn was not sufficiently wary of her male friendships apart from the king and was convicted of adultery and promptly deprived of her head.  He then moved on to Jane Seymour, who provided him with a male heir and then quite as promptly died.  His much desired male heir was produced and his boy lived long enough to succeed Henry as king, but not much longer. 

He went through three more women before he died but produced no more heirs. The last one outlived him. These were  Anne of Cleves (annulled), Catherine Howard (beheaded), and Catherine Parr (his widow).

Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr (R to L).

Nor were his issue very fertile either.   When the son Edward VI died not quite old enough to rule himself he tried to place Lady Jane Grey, his cousin as a suitable Protestant heir, which countered the wishes of his father Henry, however other factions prevailed and she only got to keep the crown for 9 days, and her head for a short while longer. She was only 16 or 17 years old when she died.

Edward VI, Lady Jane Grey, and Mary Tudor

Mary, his first daughter finally succeeded in 1553, a Catholic.  She did her best to stuff the reformation genie back in its bottle but to no avail. She burned a number of protestants in the process. She tried to produce an heir but failed.  Finally she died from ovarian cancer which she thought for a time was a pregnancy in 1558.    Elizabeth succeeded her and reigned  for more than 40 years, until her death in 1603. She produced no heirs and in fact never married but was celebrated as a great ruler, guiding England through the perilous struggles against Spain and its Armada, and the competition with other powers for a place in the New World.

Elizabeth I ( queen from 1558-1603)

The idea of female monarchs was still something of an innovation and never really caught on in the rest of Europe.  Maybe Ferdinand and Isabella were the closest thing to such a thing, but then they both had their separate domains.  With Elizabeth it was a resounding success.  Maybe looking about her at the wreckage caused by her father's many dalliances, she took a hands off approach to the very idea of marriage.  She took a cautious middle path between reform and anti-reform and ruled as a Protestant.  She managed to keep control of this explosive issue and it was only when the Stuarts took over that things began to unravel.  


  
Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587) unlucky in her marriage to her cousin Henry Stuart, or Lord Darnley, who was later murdered possibly with her connivance. Later, being Catholic and thus on the losing side of the reformation in Scotland, Mary was forced to flee from her native Scotland to England in 1568, where she was imprisoned for the last 19 years of her life. 

 She was a Catholic heir to the throne of both Scotland and had a claim as well to the English throne, so she was a security risk.  Catholics in England along with foreign agents supported by France were actively plotting the assassination of Elizabeth and the placement of Mary on the throne.  When there came incontrovertible proof that Mary was complicit in these plots, Elizabeth very reluctantly consented to have Mary put to death.   When Elizabeth herself died years later,Mary's son, James VI of Scotland, raised as a Protestant, succeeded to the throne of England in 1603.

James VI of Scotland and James I of England

Within the thus constituted Church of England, there was a wide range of opinion as Protestant ideas continued to seep into the body politic, as the bible began to be read by the people in English and who were increasingly literate and increasingly of a mind to think for themselves.  King James, the Stuart brought in from Scotland, commissioned the translation of the bible which set the standard for the many translations to come.  Being a Scot, and a funny looking Scot at that who seemed a bit too friendly to his young male associates, he was not universally loved.  Also his financial woes took its toll on his idea of absolute power, which back then kings still insisted on.  He called parliament to gain their blessing on new taxes and revenue enhancements, but the parliament even though it was constituted of persons of high birth and influence created by the crown, began having the temerity to question some of the king's policies, especially in his insufficiently Protestant foreign policy.  He only called on Parliament when he needed money, and they had the nerve to sometimes say no. 

His son Charles, when he succeeded to the crown, was even worse.  His attitude was that he was king, okay?  so you subjects mind your own business.  His increasingly Protestant subjects might have put up with him forever except that he began forcing high church ritual on people who to put it mildly were suspicious of his popish affinities. 

It did not help that there was only one church and the king felt the need to be its chief proprietor.  The idea of religious freedom had yet to be born, and if you didn't like the Church of England and the way it was run, you were in a heap of trouble.  Thus did the Puritans, originally a term of abuse, choose to emigrate to America, and others remaining in England began to wonder about the wisdom of just blindly following the dictates of this king.  Once people started reading the bible for themselves and thinking for themselves, things started getting worse and worse for the king. 

Charles pressed his luck and came to the end of it, when he decided to impose the book of common prayer on the Scottish presbyterians.  The Scots took this badly and raised an army and moved South.  What was worse was the discovery that far from having the English people behind him, they weren't all that gung ho about defending the king.  In short, many English joined the rebellion and he was defeated by them.  Stopping short of removing the king, they proceeded to deprive him of any power.  When in his political captivity he persisted in plotting against them with the aid of Catholic powers abroad,  they came up with a new idea, the idea that the king himself could be guilty of treason.  So they lopped his head off in 1649 and the Puritan faction took over for the next 11 years in what became known as the commonwealth.

The execution of Charles I, January 30, 1649

At that time, the only legal church was the Church of England, with the king at its head.   Puritans were the more radical of the Protestants within that church who wished to distance themselves from the trappings of the Roman church, its idolatry, its rituals, and even the celebration of holidays such as Christmas.   Oliver Cromwell served as the "Lord Protector" of what they called "The Protectorate".

  At this point the Catholics and Old English of Ireland rebelled and were suppressed in a very sanguinary manner.   The army, having taken down the King, turned to other amusements in Ireland, whereever spoils might be found.  Oliver was talented militarily, but when it came to dealing with parliament he wasn't much better than the former King, and he finally dissolved Parliament and ruled as a dictator.   When he died He was succeeded by his son, whose legitimacy as protector was questioned by the army and he was deposed and went into exile in France.

A short time later in 1660, Charles II was restored as the king, the more extreme reforms of the Puritans were swept away, and the royalists, the high churchmen, and the Anglicans resumed control.  He ruled for 25 years until his death in 1685.

Although married to a Catholic, Charles II in the Declaration of Breda, swore that he would rule as an Anglican, which he did for the next 25 years.  12 of those surviving rebels that had signed the death warrant for Charles I and not fled into exile were sentenced to death. Oliver Cromwell was exhumed and hanged in chains at Tyburn.

Charles II was succeeded by his brother, James II, whose religious outlook was altogether different.  He was an unapologetic Catholic. 

James II

The Protestants did not view him with much approval, but figured they could wait for him to be succeeded by the next in line, Mary who was married to William of Orange in Holland.  However when Charles II had a son, the complexion of the succession changed.  With his pro-French foreign policy and the likelihood that a Catholic succession would occur, a revolution took place in 1688.  William of Orange invaded England and support for James II collapsed.  In 1690 he decisively defeated James in the Battle of the Boyne, where James tried to rally the largely Catholic sympathies of Ireland.

As co-rulers, William III and Mary II, were on the throne together until she died in 1694. His rule as successor was not obtained without giving Parliament further concessions, such as the British Bill of Rights.   William III met with an accident involving his horse tripping on a mole hole, and died a while later (1702).  He was succeeded by Queen Anne, who ruled for the next 12 years.

  This led to widespread Schadenfreude among the Jacobites, with  toasts to "the little gentleman in the black fur waistcoat."

Anne's reign, as it turned out, coincided with the War of the Spanish Succession.   In Spain the last Spanish Habsburg, Charles II finally died in 1700.  This ruler, perhaps the culmination of excessive inbreeding among the Habsburgs in general, was an unstable and weak monarch with a prominent lower jaw and not much else to recommend him.  One of his last acts was the naming of a successor in Philip of Anjou, thus throwing his lot with the French.   The Grand Alliance (consisting of the Holy Roman Empire, England,  the Dutch Republic, Savoy, and Portugal)  wished that Archduke Charles be on the throne in Spain, thus preventing the dynastic union of France and Spain. The interests on both sides of the question of the succession led to the War of the Spanish Succession, which lasted the next 14 years. 

The war has a complicated landscape.  The war was in a sense the first "World War" in everything but name, since the French and the Allies were fighting each other not only in Europe but also in the extensive colonial empires of the French, Spanish, English and Dutch.  The English Duke of Marlborough along with his ally prince Eugene of Savoy defeated the Bavarian and French forces at a small Danube town known as Blindheim.  This knocked Bavaria out of the war, saved Vienna, though the war ground on for another 10 years.    For this achievement and several others later in the war, John Churchill was named the first Duke of Malborough, and began construction of the grand country home known as Blenheim Palace.  His wife, Sarah Churchill was a close associate of Queen Anne, but the relationship soured eventually owing to Sarah's Whig sympathies.  

The War of the Spanish Succession ended with the Treaty of Utrecht, which is actually a series of peace treaties between the various belligerents.  The Allies said okay, you can have Phillip V as king of Spain, but he can't succeed to the throne in France too.   Great Britain (it had performed the act of union in 1707) got Minorca and Gibraltar.   It later lost Minorca in 1756, getting it back in 1763, and then losing it again in 1782.   It got it back briefly in 1798, but gave it back permanently to Spain in 1802 at the Treaty of Amiens. Gibraltar, however, remains a British possession to this day. 

When Queen Anne died in 1714 having left behind her many miscarriages but no heirs,  the crown went by an act of Parliament to the nearest Protestant heir to the throne, which was the Elector of Hanover, George I.  Thus the Stuart dynasty ended and that of Hanover began.