Three hundred years later, Americans owe a debt to King George I

Three hundred years ago, on Aug. 1, 1714, by the Julian calendar (Aug. 12 by the Gregorian calendar we use now), Queen Anne died. She was just 49 years old but was weakened by obesity, gout and the effects of 17 pregnancies, from which only one child lived beyond infancy — William, Duke of Gloucester, who died of smallpox at age 11 in 1700.

That posed a constitutional crisis in an era when monarchs actively led governments and religion was inextricably intertwined with government. Who would succeed the Protestant Anne as king of England, Scotland and Ireland?