WHAT HAPPENED TO QUEEN ANNE’S CHILDREN? Stuart history documentary | Royal history | History Calling

WHAT HAPPENED to Queen Anne's children by her husband, Prince George of Denmark and why? Queen Anne of Great Britain had 17 PREGNANCIES, but no surviving heir to the throne. Her last child, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester died aged just 11. So why did Queen Anne miscarry so many of her children and why did those who survived birth die? Discover the tragic tale in this Queen Anne Stuart documentary from History Calling. You’ll hear about Queen Anne’s medical history, what modern doctors think the problem was and the reproductive difficulties faced by some of the other women of the British royal family in the mid to late seventeenth century, including her mother Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, sister Mary II and step-mother, Mary of Modena.

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[arualblues_zero]

Just picture this poor woman, heartbroken beyond anything I could ever imagine, but instead of being able to properly mourn her last lost child, back into the marital bed, pressuring herself into getting pregnant over and over again, just because she was the queen and needed an heir. It squeezes my heart.

[kkandsims]

The fact her body actually managed to have 18 pregnancy’s back then without giving out after then 5 or 6th child is amazing

[nonosays]

It is almost unthinkable mental and physical torture to lose 17 babies.
Poor woman!

[ARiddle]

I'm amazed she didn't go mad. Somehow she kept it together and pushed herself through all of those pregnancies. Her legacy for me is her strength and determination.

[rebeccashaw]

Her losing two pregnancies, as well as her daughters, dying within days of each other in the same year, is horrific. :-( Poor Queen Anne.

[BSG]

Miscarriages and infant mortality may have been common for the time, but I’m sure the heartbreak is no less painful.

[veronicaroach]

I'm 81 now but in my work in UK as a young woman I visited old people a lot, and was amazed at how many of the old ladies used to tell me that they had 4 or 5 children 'but only raised nn ' (less than the birth number) - that told me how common it was to lose a child in those days...it was very sad, and that is right up to WW2 I am talking about. So we must never take for granted how lucky we are to live in modern times & have a lot of the issues that took children at an early age now prevented the childhood diseases were common before the max vax era. Some of those antivaxers out there need to be educated on what the situation used to be before such things were globally available ! And those poor women of the previous centuries had to endure so much heartbreak !

[kittymr.hedgehog]

I found out 3 years ago that that is what caused my 9 miscarriages, it was a relief and a curse at the sametime, I feel for the Queen in those days no matter who's fault it was, it was always the woman's fault, the guilt is real and sometimes debilitating.

[maryellencook]

As a retired Maternal-Child RN with 34 years experience in the field, my first thought was Queen Anne's body was exhausted and didn't have time to recover between miscarriages. Couple that with the "sticky blood" theory, it's surprising that she had the 3 children who survived as long as they did.

[ImCarolB]

My husband's grandmother, born in 1900, had an Rhneg. blood type and lost five of her 9 children. She had three boys, lost 5 children as infants or toddlers, and happily, the ninth, a girl, survived. She spoke of her deep, deep sorrow every time she recognized the signs in another child. One evening, she was holding her sick child and feeling that she couldn't bear it any more. She felt a presence in the room, and looking up, she saw Jesus with her other children. You may not believe that, but it gave her strength to trust that her babies were safe. When she was very old, she would talk about her future hope of being "with Eli (her husband) and the little ones".

[Timeflyer]

I don’t think it helped that her body wasn’t given time to heal between pregnancies and miscarriages was partially responsible.

[alicewatt]

17 pregnancies the poor woman, she must have spent the whole of young years being pregnant with nothing but heartbreak. I don't think being a queen back in those would have been much of a life, so much expectation and pressure to create the next king especially when she was supposed to be at fault if no son was produced. Great video

[semiramide]

Somewhat off topic, but Mary Stuart Queen of Scots, an ancestor of Anne, executed 1587, When her tomb in under floor of Westminster was opened in Victorian times, her casket with it's lead seals intact after over 300 years, was found to be surrounded by the tiny caskets of many of Anne's dead or miscarried babies-

[bostonblackie]

This is simply a sign of the times. It is amazing she lived long enough to have conceived so many children.

[conmckfly]

Besides losing her children, her hormones must have been fluctuating like crazy. Plus add in post-partum depression.

[ritawoodland]

My cousin's wife had a divided uterus of unequal sizes, she gave birth to a healthy boy without knowing there was an issue.
Tragically their next child a daughter was born prematurely at 7 months and was stillborn.
This was when they discovered the problem.
Doctors believe their first child was conceived in the larger side while the girl was in the smaller side and possibly did not get the right amount of blood flow, nutritional value needed.
It was never repaired however once aware they monitored following pregnancies carefully to ensure feotus was growing on the bigger side.

[christmasina]

I started listening to the birth and losses and my first thought was I can’t believe there is another woman out there who is like me. I stopped counting at 12 miscarriages. I also had 2 sets of twins that only one survived. I still ended up with 9 children. I can get pregnant so easily, but holding onto them is not so easy. I wonder about her recorded stillbirths. I wonder if she miscarried but the baby was so developed they counted it as a still birth. The fact that they saw the babies sex means she was at least 4 months. So devastating. She didn’t have any little one to hold in the end.

[GradKat]

I can clearly remember a history lesson in which our teacher told us that Anne had had 17 pregnancies. I was astounded, as at that time I had a strange belief that women couldn’t get pregnant more than twice (🤣🤣🤣🤣).
Can you imagine conceiving time after time, and yet still leaving no living child when you died? Awful for any woman, but especially for a Queen.

[PrincessQ-fjly]

Poor Queen I can't imagine losing ONE baby, much less SEVENTEEN OR EIGHTEEN! That must've been torture! Lucy Worsley describes her perfectly, theologically fit to rule, but biologically cursed. 😢 Just heartbreaking! 😭 I wish I could hug her. ❤

[beth]

Awesome! I agree 100% that usually, having several miscarriages, stillbirths & deaths in infancy didn't indicate anything out of the ordinary, very sadly. I also agree that Anne's history *was* out of the ordinary tho, & might not just be the Stuart bad luck. I love historical "diagnosis" (ie, speculation!) & Anne appears in a book I have about historical people's health. The author suggests placental insufficency causing intra-uterine growth retardation, & notes that it's often associated with high blood pressure, which fits with Anne's later health problems... Who knows, but it must've been beyond horrible for her & George :(