History So wrote an observer in 1715, a year after the end of the Queen Anne period. Queen Anne of England had reigned from 1702 and in this age English baroque furniture, a tradition begun in the time of Carolean furniture and continuing in the William and Mary era, reached a mature stage, the peak of its history. The Queen Anne era sees all the forces that had been at work through the preceding half century of history, the French and Dutch importations, both in human and idea form, the rise of the cabinet maker, and the flowering of local design talents, come to fruition, in a restrained and elegant way, with the best embodiment of this being seen in Queen Anne chairs. Prior to the period of Queen Anne furniture England had been a backwater in design terms, a pale shadowing of the great things which had been accomplished in France and Italy. Queen Ann furniture puts the efforts of English furniture craftsmen almost on a par with their French and Dutch neighbours, not however slavi...