In the early 18th century, around 15,000 people fled southwestern Germany for the British Isles with the hopes that Queen Anne would send them to North America. Once they reached England, they established refugee camps near the Thames in and around London, raising fears of disease, competition of refugee artisans with locals, and other issues. Feeling the pressure, Queen Anne supported three resettlement schemes: one to shore up the Protestant presence in Ireland and two to produce naval stores (tar, pitch, turpentine, etc.) in North Carolina and New York. Naval stores were strategic materials used for shipbuilding and consequently European expansion around the world, yet their production involved onerous work in pine forests. The British, having denuded most of their forests for fuel and building materials, were dependent on Scandinavian sources for them. Although the two resettlement schemes targeting North America failed, they constituted early experiments with deploying immigrant labor for difficult, dangerous tasks in the New World.

Capturing the cumulative effect of the innovative modes of engagement outlined in previous chapters, this chapter examines a term for Scottish public opinion that had become current by the end of the seventeenth century: the sense of the nation. This phrase (and its variants, the sentiments or mind of the nation) suggested the thoughtful conclusions of a national political community. Attention was drawn to these extra-institutional opinions by changes arising from the 1688-90 Revolution, including greater freedom of debate in parliament, the confirmation of a right to petition the crown and weaker monarchical oversight of Scottish politics from London. As a series of scandals created discontent in Scotland, a ‘Country’ opposition re-energised adversarial petitioning alongside political pamphleteering. In 1706-7, opponents of proposals for an incorporating Anglo–Scottish union asserted collective objections in petitions, pamphlets, speeches and street protests, securing some treaty amendments alongside measures to safeguard parliament from violent resistance. Though the stature of extra-institutional opinion was still contested, these efforts to defuse its force indicate its contemporary profile in Scottish political culture.

This chapter charts social conservatives' efforts to provide new historical and philosophical foundations for female sovereignty -- ones in keeping with, rather than at odds with, a patriarchal state. They did this by rewriting the histories of past English queens in order to downplay their agency and leadership. They also did this by valorizing particular Victorian statesmen who they insisted were doing Victoria's work on her behalf. Finally, they did this by stressing the decorative, moral, and fundamentally apolitical role of the female sovereign within the modern British nation-state.

This chapter places the nineteenth-century feminist interest in Victoria in conversation with discourses on queenship of earlier periods. It shows that many Britons were already beginning to equate female sovereignty with robust interpretations of liberty and equality long before Victoria became queen. Although this chapter touches on the Elizabethan period, its primary focus is on the period from 1688 to 1837.