Queen of England and Scotland (known as Great Britain from 1707) and Ireland 1702–14. The last of the Stuart monarchs, daughter of the Catholic James II (but herself a Protestant), she succeeded her brother‐in‐law William III to the throne, there presiding over the Act of Union, which completed the unification of Scotland and England. None of her five children born alive survived childhood, and by the Act of Settlement (1701) the throne passed to the House of Hanover on her death.