Lady Anne Bowesley, often referred to by her self-granted title of Queen Anne, was the Ventrue Prince of London.
Biography[]
| “ | “It doesn’t matter how many battles you’ve lost, so long as you win the war.” | ” |
Mortal Days[]
Anne Bowesley was brought up as part of the English nobility, immersed in the idea that she was born to rule not by an accident of birth but by God’s decree. While as a woman Lady Anne was not expected to become involved in politics, it was hard to avoid the subject. The Bowesley family was deeply entrenched in the internecine fighting over the crown of England.
Anne learned from her father at an early age that life gives you only what you squeeze out when you take it by the throat. As a woman in the mid-17th century, she was denied a formal education but nonetheless learned much of politics by listening to her father and brothers.
While her siblings were hotheaded and tempestuous, Anne was a subtle diplomat and peacemaker, adept at getting her own way by manipulating those around her. The Bowesley family had sided with Cromwell, unlike most of the nobility, and even founded their own secret society dedicated to taking control of the throne behind the scenes. Lady Anne was expected to do her part in these machinations, but as far as the family was concerned, that amounted to marrying the right husband and producing heirs for the cause.
She married James Churchill, joining two powerful families. James was no politician, but he was clever enough to take the council of the more talented Anne. The arranged union was passionless, as such affairs tended to be, but Anne’s husband received a well-bred wife, and Anne received a wider circle of contacts and continued access to wealth. They manipulated the English court and made powerful alliances with the nobility of other nations, in some cases to a potentially treasonous degree.
After the death of her husband, Anne fell in with a group of noblemen who dreamed the same kind of dreams as her father. However, instead of seeking someone strong enough to make himself king and then hold the position (as was Cromwell’s aim), the group merely sought a king who would submit to the control of Parliament. Anne’s work was critical to the execution of the plan, and it was this time spent with Parliamentarians that sowed the seed for her continued reliance on that malleable institution.
Kindred Nights[]
In 1688, Lady Anne worked to convince a group of noblemen (“The Immortal Seven”) to write to William, Prince of Orange, and declare he would be met with support if he landed on English shores with the intent to take the crown. While it would be another year before William took the throne, his ascension was all but assured due to Lady Anne’s machinations. While few mortals had noticed Lady Anne had been the driving force behind the plot, the Seneschal of London, Valerius, saw her part in the affair quite clearly and was extremely impressed. Seeing in her a potential ally, possibly against Mithras one day, he asked for permission to embrace her. Lady Anne lost no time in accepting the offer and quietly faking her own death.
Unfortunately, Lady Anne discovered the misogyny she was used to in the human world was also prevalent in the Camarilla. She was expected to act as an adviser to Valerius and told to wait for ‘her turn’ behind a long line of men. Still, ever the pragmatist, Lady Anne performed the tasks London’s elders felt beneath them for over a hundred years. It wasn’t long before she knew the city better than anyone and quietly became the person to ask if you needed something done.
Her ambition and acumen fighting the Toreador and Tremere for influence over British society led to Mithras recognizing Parliament as her domain. Anne was fulfilling her father's dreams, but all was not well. Valerius now saw her as a threat. She had accomplished more in a century than he had in half a millennium. As "Lady Anne", she served under her sire Valerius, the seneschal for the ancient prince Mithras.
During one of Mithras' numerous sojourns out of London in the 18th century, Valerius made a de facto coup, taking the Prince's power in all but name, the appointment sent Lady Anne into a rage. But Valerius barely wanted the job and was only keeping the seat warm for Mithras anyway. However, once she had calmed down, she realized Valerius needed her help, and she could rule quietly by whispering in the Prince’s ear. After a series of various disasters, including a Sabbat insurrection and the Night of Bloody Tears — when Anne was to be married to the Toreador Louise Marie de Rambaud — Mithras returned in the mid-19th century. It took Lady Anne nearly another hundred years, but slowly she took control of the city, Valerius was ousted and disgraced and Anne took her sire's place in the prince's court. Eventually, it was Lady Anne who was left as Regent instead of Valerius whenever Mithras left the city.
On two subsequent occasions, she was given covert permission by her Prince to lower her generation though diablerie, becoming an inveterate diablerist. Those who fall afoul of her political machinations find themselves under her fangs. She constantly searches for the opportunity to diablerize elder vampires to improve her powers. Thankfully, her blood bond to Mithras masks the taint of diablerie in her aura.
When Mithras mysteriously disappeared during World War II (later to be diablerized himself by Monty Coven), In the 1940s, Valerius came to her to confess he had killed Mithras. For decades, however, she was only the acting prince, in the increasingly unlikely event that Mithras had survived. She made the most of the head start Valerius had given her over her rivals and not only claimed the Princedom but declared Mithras was dead, the effective confirmation of Mithras' destruction in the 1990s, Anne consolidated her power base, isolating her rivals and enemies before any of them could make a first strike against her.
She was not to rule as Regent, but as Queen of London. It was a move of such boldness her challengers could not match it. Queen Anne used Parliament to pass a series of laws that weakened the other clans' power base, while taking steps to keep the primogen weak, installing Ventrue loyal to her and paying off Toreador to support her. She destroyed the Tremere who opposed her and manipulated the Brujah to withdraw from the council and the Anarchs. Anne finally rose to become the "Queen of London", ruling as the uncontested Prince of the domain and one of the most influential power-brokers of the European Kindred.
Queen Anne constantly seeks to improve herself. She is an unrepentant diablerist and already consumed two elders to lower her generation. Now she seeks more powerful blood, but to take down a 5th or even 4th generation elder will take extensive planning. She has already murdered one elder to lower her generation.
Queen Anne rules the city with a deliberately complicated balancing act of one power against another. A complex series of alliances and favors keep the wheels turning, and only Queen Anne really understands them all. While she is personally powerful, few wish to stand against her, as it means catching all the balls she has in the air at any given time.
V5 - Fall of London[]
Reports about Queen Anne's whereabouts are conflicting. Some think she was killed in the attack on the Shard, but few really want to believe their Prince fell so easily. The sparse Kindred who survived the party are angry, blaming her for a failure to stop the attack or see it coming. However, there are other rumors that Queen Anne and Justicar Parr are working together to purge Operation Antigen and restore Camarilla control. The idea of an organized counter strike has given many Kindred hope things might return to normal. Queen Anne indeed survived the assault on the Shard and is fighting to defend her city against the rise of Mithras and Operation Antigen hunters.
On November 2013, the SO13 discovered the resting place of Lady Anne and she was quickly destroyed. After the raid, Captain Ishaq Khan took a photograph holding her severed head.
Appearence[]
Queen Anne is a good-looking, if pale, white woman in her early 50s. Her bearing is graceful and regal, with her short grey hair always immaculately styled. She wears little makeup and feels no pressure to hide her age. Instead, she wears it like a badge of honor, as it shows how adept she was at surviving such a tumultuous time as hers. Her clothing is all high-end and immaculately tailored, though she never wears designer labels unless few people have heard of them.
For meetings and business, she wears plain but very expensively tailored suits. For parties and court occasions, she dresses like she is on the way to an Oscars party and has stopped off at this gathering as a favor, even if it’s her own party.
She never uses any other identities. You either know her as the Prince of London or you do not know her at all. When dealing with mortals, she prefers to use proxies and agents rather than deal directly.
Character Sheet[]
† A World of Darkness & A World of Darkness Second Edition applicable stats
‡ Children of the Night applicable stats
⸸ London by Night applicable stats
Note: Anne is blood bound to Mithras, but the strength of the ties has weakened to the level of the second drink, allowing her to ignore Mithras's dictates by spending points of temporary Willpower.
Image LBN: Anne is small and slightly built, with delicate features and chestnut hair tied in a bun. Indeed, casual observers mistake Anne for an elegant and well-heeled matriarch. Those who survive their first encounter with Lady Anne come to know a confident and powerful woman who maintains her domain with an iron will and whose eyes, bearing, and dress betray her aristocratic roots.
Image CotN: Anne is a petite woman, but her five-foot-two stature seems dauntingly energetic. She still dresses in the power suits of the 1980s, but she operates like an empowered 1990s woman at her peak. Though her actions may be controlled, her explosive emotions radiate intensely nonetheless.
Roleplaying Hints LBN: You are quite literally a born aristocrat and natural leader. You can be by turns charming and domineering, knowing exactly how and when to change attitudes to get what you want. You tolerate no insolence and accept few as equals, and only one person, the prince, as your superior—and him, though you do not yet admit it to anyone, only grudgingly.
Roleplaying Hints CotN: Your power base is more secure than ever, so you don’t need to show your control as openly as you once did. However, it’s in your nature to be demonstrative. You do not hesitate to cut people off mid-sentence if you don’t like what they are saying or if they bore you. Of course, you don’t do so to anyone of higher station than yourself, but that group has diminished since you gained a better hold of your London prize in recent years.
Beyond this show of power, your position has not gone to your head. You know you do not possess the personal power of Mithras, and an organized attempt to overthrow you could certainly succeed. And so, you watch over your fief like a hawk....
Fifth Edition[]
Note: As Prince of London, Queen Anne has a variety of agents and contacts across the city. However, she has no particular followers or thralls among the kine. She prefers to make use of multiple unknowing low-level agents sending her information, rather than dedicated followers under her direct command. This makes her control less powerful but more decentralized and harder to infiltrate.
She currently has three favourite mortal agents, although Lady Scarlett is often the one to deal directly with them.
Gallery[]
References[]
- WOD: A World of Darkness, p. 35-36
- WOD: A World of Darkness, 2nd Edition, p. 56, 61-62
- VTM: Children of the Night, p. 58-60
- VTM: Fall of London, p. 67-69
- VAV: London By Night, p. 104-106
- VTM: Camarilla
- VTM: Gehenna: The Final Night, p. 75, 219, 222
- VTES: Fall of London
- VTM: In Memoriam
