Memoirs of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and of the Court of Queen Anne Vol. 1 (of 2)

by Mrs. A. T. Thomson

CHAPTER VII.

State of Parties—Character of Lord Nottingham—of Bentinck—Influence of the Villiers family—Of Lady Orkney—Quarrel of the Queen and Princess—Marriage of Frances Jennings to the Duke of Tyrconnel—Suspicions of the Earl and Countess of Marlborough entertained at court—Disgrace of Lord Marlborough. 1689.

In order to understand the vicissitudes of favour which Lord and Lady Marlborough experienced, some insight into the state of parties, and some acquaintance with the characters of public men, are essential; although a lengthened discussion upon the subject, in a work of this nature, would be wearisome and inconvenient.

Scarcely had William the Third ascended the throne, than he found that “his crown was encircled with thorns.”[^[197]] In the hurry and stir of events, carried away by the strong current of sympathy, the Tories had promoted his elevation; but when dangers were past, they remembered, too late to retrieve, what they considered to be their error—that in so doing they had departed from all their established maxims; they recollected, not only that they had dethroned James, but that they had preferred his daughters and the Prince of Orange in the succession, to the infant Prince of Wales; and, to excuse their inconsistency, they were forced to pretend a mere submission to events which they had actively promoted. This faction, reluctantly styled by Burnet, in the portion of his history[^[198]] relating to this period, “Tories,” were therefore avowedly hostile to the court, and yet not to be considered as its sole, nor indeed as its most dangerous enemies.

The clergy, the majority of whom had inveighed from the pulpit against the right of infringing upon the order of succession, were, from motives of the same description, inimical also to the Calvinistic King, whose known attachment to Dissenters inspired a jealousy of him, and towards his numerous adherents of the same tenets with himself, which was quickly manifested by the Bishops. Among the seven prelates who had been persecuted by the late King, only one, the Bishop of St. Asaph, did homage to the new monarch, and took the oaths. And when Mary sent to ask Sancroft’s blessing, the cutting reply of the Archbishop was, “that she must seek her father’s first, otherwise his would not be heard in heaven.”[^[199]]

Thus repelled, William looked in vain for a servile compliance from the Whigs; they had the plea of consistency to shackle the support which they might be expected to give the royal minion of their power; and, having always opposed the crown, they were unwilling to relinquish that jealousy of its prerogative for which their party had hitherto been distinguished.

After the happy termination of the war in Ireland, factious spirits, like gnats after rain coming forth in the sunbeam, began to show themselves, and to congregate for action. Whilst some complained of the great standing army kept up after the contest with James and his adherents was finally and triumphantly concluded—whilst some murmured at one grievance, some at another—Englishmen of all parties were disgusted with the preference given to the Dutch, on whom alone the confidence of the sovereign was bestowed. Nor did William take any means to ingratiate himself in the affections of his adopted country. He shut himself up all day, attended chiefly by Bentinck, whom he had created Earl of Portland, and who shared his favour with Henry Sidney, the only Englishman whom the King really liked. By degrees, a new feature in the character of the chosen successor of James, alienated from him that party who had placed him on the throne, and who began to think that there was something contagious around that unenviable position. Naturally cautious, and ignorant of our constitution, William took offence at the warmth of those who professed liberal opinions, mingled with notions of republicanism, from which he recoiled with as much dread as his prerogative-loving predecessors. The name of liberty became intolerable to him; and it was soon found that his love of monarchy, and his sense of its high privileges, were far greater than could possibly have been expected, in a prince whose pretensions rested upon the suffrage of the great body of the nation.[^[200]]

These opinions were supposed to be cherished in William by the Earl of Nottingham, who was chosen Secretary of State with the Earl of Shrewsbury. Lord Nottingham had opposed the settlement of the crown with vehemence, and in copious orations; declaring, however, when the party opposed to him had prevailed, that “though he could not make a king, yet, upon his principles, he could obey one better than those who were so much set on making one.”[^[201]] It was this minister’s successful endeavour to infuse distrust and dislike of the Whigs into the mind of his sovereign—to gain every species of information which could assist his efforts, from the lowest sources and by the lowest means—every angry speech in political meetings being reported to his Majesty’s ears, and making a deep impression on the mind of William.[^[202]] Yet Nottingham has been said, even whilst holding his office of secretary, to have always kept “a reserve of allegiance to his exiled master;”[^[203]] whilst the necessities of a numerous family induced him to take an employment in the existing government.

The great ambition of this nobleman was to be at the head of the church party. Regular in his religious duties, strict in morals, and of a formal, unbending character of virtue, the zeal of Nottingham, affected or real, aided by a solemn deportment, and by a countenance the inflexible gravity of which accorded with his disposition,—it was not until years afterwards that his actual insincerity was discovered, and that it was found that the principles which he professed had been all along at variance with those which he actually entertained.[^[204]]

Amongst sundry Tories and Jacobites who, by the influence of Nottingham, were preferred, Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, contrary to all expectation, was made a privy counsellor. His near relationship to the Queen, his niece, had not hitherto secured royal favour. He was accounted a man of abilities, although immeasurably inferior in that respect to his celebrated father; he wrote well, but was an ungraceful speaker. Devoted to the exiled monarch, Rochester, whilst he perceived the errors of his royal brother-in-law, opposed the act of settlement, and voted for a regency—a step which Queen Mary found it difficult to forgive; nor was it until after Bishop Burnet had wrought upon her mind, that she consented to receive her uncle, or to forget his opposition to her reign. By degrees, however, he rose in her regard, and attained a degree of influence which was exerted against Lady Marlborough in particular, and of which she felt the effects. Lord Rochester, with many excellent and respectable qualities, united a spirit somewhat too zealous to be productive of benefit in the state affairs at that time; he was considered as the leader of the high church party; and, refusing the oaths of allegiance to William and Mary, remained a non-juror until his death.[^[205]]

The more placid, but more steady opposition of Bentinck, Earl of Portland, to all that Lady Marlborough proposed and desired, was supposed by her to be even more effective than the turbulent temper of Lord Rochester. Brave, faithful, disinterested, charitable, a favourite without presumption, a consummate statesman without forgetting the higher duties, Bentinck would have been a valuable and a devoted friend, had Lady Marlborough been so fortunate as to possess his esteem; nor is there any reason to suppose that he was at any time her implacable enemy, although his interests, and even his affections, were centered in the monarch whom Lady Marlborough has treated, in her “Conduct,” with so little respect.

Descended from an ancient family in the province of Guelderland, Bentinck was first page to William Prince of Orange, and afterwards gentleman of the bedchamber. When William was made stadtholder, Bentinck continued near him, and was with him when the Prince was attacked with the small-pox, a disease which had been peculiarly fatal to the stadtholder’s family. On this occasion, and during the progress of a disorder then shunned with as much alarm and horror as the plague and cholera have since been, and the first symptoms of which were regarded almost as the signal of death, Bentinck never deserted the sick room of the Prince. He administered medicines to his master, and was the only person who lifted him in and out of bed.[^[206]] The first day of the Prince’s convalescence was the commencement of Bentinck’s illness. He begged of William to allow him to return home, as he could no longer combat against the symptoms of disease. Happily, William had not to grieve that the life of his devoted servant had been sacrificed by his tender care. From that time Bentinck was peculiarly favoured by the reserved but not ungrateful Prince; yet so little dependence is there to be placed on human affections, so constantly are we to be admonished that nothing is stable, nothing wholly satisfactory, in this life of chances and changes, that the generous Bentinck afterwards found himself supplanted in his sovereign’s regard by Keppel Earl of Albemarle; and, whilst he still retained the confidence of William, perceiving that his personal influence with the King was gone, in 1698 he retired from court, leaving those offices which he had so long held in the household to be performed by deputy.

During the first six or eight years of the reign of William and Mary, Lord Portland, however, enjoyed all that favour and those distinctions which his prudence, and the courage which he had displayed both in military and civil affairs, so well justified. The avowed favourite of the King, and deriving considerable grants from the crown, he spent the sums for which he was indebted to the Treasury and to British lands, in promoting the welfare of the English peasantry. Besides daily extensive charity among his poor neighbours, Lord Portland built and endowed a charity school on his estate in Buckinghamshire; and passed his days in the domestic, and dignified, and useful retirement of an English nobleman of the old school; visiting Holland every summer, but living mostly in England. It was before going as ambassador to negociate the peace of Ryswick, that he endeared himself to the English nation by being actively instrumental in saving the noble edifice of Whitehall, in which a fire had broken out, which was chiefly checked by the zeal and liberal aid of this noble foreigner graft upon our English nobility.[^[207]]

The Earl of Portland became eventually one of the richest subjects in England. But, as there is a dark spot on all human brightness, he rendered himself unpopular to many, notwithstanding his extensive charities—notwithstanding his profusion “in gardening, birds, and household furniture,”—qualities truly English,—by a frugality which, in the continental nations, is carefully instilled into youth by education and practice, but which is uncongenial to the habits of the English nation. The resentment of Queen Anne and of the Duchess of Marlborough was shown in a manner not displeasing to the public, when, on her accession, the Queen deprived Portland of “the post of Keeper of Windsor Great Park.”[^[208]]

Whilst we accord to Bentinck every merit due to one so estimable, it must be allowed that his relationship to the Villiers family contributed greatly to the support of that rank which he held in the King’s esteem, whilst it was at the same time the cause of the hostilities afterwards declared between his lordship and the vehement lady whom he had the fortune mortally to offend. By his first marriage with Mrs. Villiers, fourth sister of the Earl of Jersey, Lord Portland strengthened his interests doubly. Lady Jersey was the confidante of Mary; Lord Jersey was in high favour with William; whilst Elizabeth Villiers, afterwards Lady Orkney, was the mistress of the gloomy and grave, but, as it seems, not altogether faithful husband of the subservient and devoted Mary Stuart.

There was, however, an intermediate person, a third sister of Lord Jersey, the Viscountess Fitzharding, one of the favoured few who were prized by the Countess of Marlborough, but, as it seems, a spy upon her friend, and a betrayer of her secrets. This lady held a confidential situation in the household of the Princess of Denmark, and was also one for whom Lady Marlborough entertained what she truly calls “a very singular affection”—a possession of which she shamefully availed herself, by repeating all that she heard, and perhaps more than what she heard, in the Princess’s family. The pernicious effect of such repetitions, even between relatives affectionately attached, may readily be conceived; but in the dissensions of two sisters, whose earliest instructions, when they referred to conduct to each other, had in all probability been those of distrust—whose interests clashed, whose relative position was every way awkward, whose husbands were on indifferent terms, and who resembled each other only in one respect, that of displaying filial ingratitude to a misled and culpable monarch, but an affectionate father—it was certain that a spark would kindle a flame between spirits so ready for combustion.

At length the smothered discords between Mary and her sister broke out, and once blazing, they were never entirely extinguished. The imprudence, vulgarity of taste, or rather deficiency in feeling, of the Princess and of her favourite, in their ordinary conversation and correspondence, cannot be justified. It is often from errors apparently trivial, though originating from coarseness of mind and violence of temper, that the most serious inconveniences, sometimes the greatest misfortunes, originate. The Princess and her favourite considered it high diversion to vent their dislike to the King, in applying to him opprobrious terms, the most decorous of which was “Caliban,” whilst others will not bear repetition.[^[209]] These offensive expressions, though, after the death of Queen Anne, carefully expunged by the Duchess even from her original letters, as well as in her “Conduct,” were, however, acknowledged by Lady Marlborough, in the indorsements of letters from Lady Orkney to her ladyship; and they were carefully collected and repeated by Lady Fitzharding, whom the malcontents supposed to be in their confidence. The hour of disgrace was, however, at hand—disgrace inflicted in the tenderest point, and calculated to humble, if any thing could humble, the lofty spirit of Lady Marlborough. That, however, which would have crushed a gentler spirit, scarcely pressed upon hers; as appears by her subsequent effrontery, which even her own skilful defence could not extenuate.

But even if the comparative grossness of the times, and the aggravations received from the court, cannot justify the Princess and her “dear Mrs. Freeman,” neither can the petulance, meanness, and love of power which Queen Mary displayed, be excused.

There is always something in feminine altercations that is ludicrous as well as painful. Few women know how and where to stay the course of anger; when it once begins to flow, every charm, every grace so fondly prized by the sex, is obliterated, when retort follows retort, and retaliation grows vigorous; and dignity, to assert which the fair sex is oftentimes so valiant, takes its departure immediately we become vociferous in its defence.

One evening, in the interregnum between the quarrel concerning the settlement and their final feuds, the Queen, who had lived outwardly on tolerable terms with her sister for some time, “began,” as the Princess Anne expressed it, “to pick quarrels,” upon the sore subject of the annuity, and to intimate that supposing some twenty or thirty thousand pounds were to be taken off the fifty thousand allowed, the Princess, she presumed, could live upon it “as she had done before;” upon which an indecorous altercation ensued.[^[210]] On the following day, Lord Marlborough, after performing his usual duties as lord of the bedchamber, received, through Lord Nottingham, the humiliating intimation that he was dismissed from all his employments, both civil and military, and forbidden the court. This blow is said to have been totally unexpected by the Earl, from whom the King had parted on that very morning in the usual manner.[^[211]]

Lord Marlborough received the intelligence communicated by Lord Nottingham with the composure of a superior mind. “He retired,” says one of his biographers, “with the calmness of the old Roman dictator, wishing to be succeeded by a better servant, and by one more concerned for his Highness’s honour.”[^[212]]

Of course, innumerable causes for this unlooked for occurrence were started by the public, always curious on such occasions. By some it was said that a letter had been intercepted, which gave rise to suspicions unfavourable to the Earl. By others the disgrace of Marlborough was ascribed to the resentment of Lord Portland, whom Marlborough was in the habit of designating “un homme de bois;”[^[213]] by many, the interference of Marlborough and the Countess in the matter of the settlement was referred to as the cause of his loss of favour and office, without taking into account that it was then two years since that affair, and that Marlborough had been in the mean time so employed and distinguished by the King as to have obtained from the Marquis of Carmarthen the invidious appellation of the “General of favour.” But, whilst it has been allowed that these various causes, severally and conjointly, might have, in some degree, effected the result so painful to the Earl and so aggravating to the Countess, the recent boldness of Marlborough, in representing to his Majesty the detrimental effects of his undue partiality to the Dutch, was the immediate source of the King’s marked displeasure.

“It was said,” relates Lediard, “that all the resentment was, for the liberty he had taken to tell the King, that though himself had no reason to complain, yet many of his good subjects were sorry to see his royal munificence confined to one or two foreign lords.” French historians make no scruple to name the Earl of Portland and Rochford, both Dutchmen, to be the lords here hinted at; and add that the King turned his back upon the Earl without making any answer, and soon afterwards sent him a dismissal from his employments, and forbade him the court. Those who considered the jealousy or envy of foreign officers a reason for his lordship’s disgrace, assert it to be a confirmation of their opinion that the Earl was not employed again, nor recalled to council, until this motive ceased, and an end was put to the war by the peace of Ryswick.[^[214]]

The Countess of Marlborough, however, makes no allusion to this ungrateful and petulant behaviour of the King.[^[215]] “This event may be accounted for,” she says, speaking of the dismissal of his lordship, “by saying that Lord Portland had ever a great prejudice to my Lord Marlborough, and that my Lady Orkney, (then Mrs. Villiers,) though I had never done her any injury, except not making my court to her, was my implacable enemy. But I think it is not to be doubted that the principal cause of the King’s message was the court’s dislike that anybody should have so much interest with the Princess as I had, who would not obey implicitly every command of the King and Queen. The disgrace of my Lord Marlborough, therefore, was designed as a step towards removing me from about her.”[^[216]]

Lord Rochester, the Countess proceeds to say, was also her foe, having warmly opposed her coming into the Princess’s family in the first instance, and wishing at that time greatly for her removal; believing that if he could compass it, he should infallibly have the government of both the sisters, his nieces, although he had never done anything to merit the confidence of the Princess.

There was, however, still another reason assigned for the event which caused so much speculation. The beautiful Frances Jennings, the “glass and model” of her fair countrywomen in the days of Charles the Second, had twice changed her condition since she had officiated, in the bloom of youth, at the court of the Duchess of York. The first affections of Frances were bestowed on the noted Jermyn, for whose unworthy sake she rejected the brave Talbot, marrying, in a temper of mind betwixt pique and ambition, Sir George Hamilton, a maréchal-de-camp in the French service, and grandson of the Earl of Aberdeen.

In 1667, Lady Hamilton becoming a widow, and the attachment of Talbot being unchanged by time, she became his wife; a marriage unfortunate, as far as ambitious views were concerned, as the high rank which Talbot afterwards obtained as Duke of Tyrconnel was not acknowledged at the court of William.

Between the Duchess of Tyrconnel and her sister Lady Marlborough, there never subsisted any very cordial intercourse,[^[217]] nor was the connexion likely to prove anything but a source of suspicion towards the Earl and Countess. The Duchess of Tyrconnel, on the part of William, exercising the ingenuity with which nature had endowed her, in tormenting those admirers who were too importunate, or, when she ceased to attract those who were too cold, turned her lively talents to political intrigue, in which she played a deep game: but her cabals were often detrimental to the cause which she espoused, and terminated finally in her becoming one of those needy Jacobites about the court of St. Germains, whom the beset and unfortunate exiled monarch—as unfortunate in his friends as in his enemies—was obliged to satisfy with some portion of his own pension.[^[218]]

The Duke of Tyrconnel, united as he was to this busy spirit, had qualities which would have adorned a better cause than that for which, with zeal and address, he long combated in the sister country. “He was,” says Clarendon, “a very handsome man, wore good clothes, and was, without doubt, of a clear, ready courage, which was virtue enough to recommend a man to the Duke’s good opinion; which, with more expedition than could be expected, he got, to that degree, that he was made of his bedchamber.”

To this qualified praise must be added the undoubted stigma attached to the conduct of Tyrconnel, having in his youth been one of those “men of honour,” so termed by Grammont, who acted as counsel to James the Second, when Duke of York, in order to facilitate his nullifying the marriage contract between his Highness and Miss Hyde. If such were the arts by which he recommended himself to James, and obtained, added to various other means, a fortune, as we are told, of forty thousand a year, they are not much to his credit.

The first object of Tyrconnel’s admiration was Miss Hamilton, to whom he offered his hand and fortune; and further proffered as many sacrifices as she could desire of the letters, hair, and pictures of a former flame, the Countess of Shrewsbury; and although these articles had no intrinsic value, they testify strongly—such, at least, is the opinion of that competent judge, Count Grammont, of a lover’s “sincerity and merit.”

Refused by Miss Hamilton, whose affections were engaged to the gay, the captivating, the admired, the profligate Grammont, Lord Tyrconnel had next wooed, and nearly won, the capricious Frances Jennings. In both these instances he had the good sense and good taste (only to be mentioned as remarkable in such days as those) to select women of reputation—with our modern ideas, we can scarcely say of virtue—for the objects of his adoration. But whilst he laid at Miss Jennings’ feet the honours, in prospect, of a peerage, and the present respectability of an ancient name, though represented by an impoverished family—though his wealth tempted her, and the elegance of his person and manners, in a court where the art of good-breeding was the only art studied, were acknowledged, he had been again, as it has been seen, unsuccessful. In this mortification the vanity of the rejected suitor was solaced by the languishing attachment of the automaton, Miss Boynton, one of those young ladies who enjoyed the reputation of performing fainting-fits upon the slightest occasion, and who had formerly won his regard by swooning away upon his account at their first interview. To this languid lady, a contrast to the lively Frances Jennings, Lord Tyrconnel had been eventually united. Affected in manners, weak in mind, and uninteresting in person, she proved perhaps a better helpmate to this determined Jacobite than his equally resolute and more intriguing second wife, to whom, after the death of her first husband, he was united.

Such is the account of that historical romance by Grammont, to which we owe the very questionable advantage of an intimate acquaintance with the court of the second Charles.

To those personal gifts which appeared so dangerous in the eyes of Miss Boynton,[^[219]] the Duke of Tyrconnel added the still more important acquisition, derived from the habit of frequenting the best company, of knowing how to recommend himself to others by that knowledge, which seems in a man of the world a sort of instinct, of the dispositions, the weaknesses, and wishes of those with whom he converses. With prodigious vanity, much cunning, and little principle, Tyrconnel displayed some noble qualities. By James the Second he had been appointed to the command of the army in Ireland; by James raised to the Peerage—first to an earldom, then a dukedom; by James he was appointed Viceroy of Ireland. Upon the invasion of Ireland by the Prince of Orange he bravely defended it, nor could the offers which were held out to induce him to submit, make any impression upon his integrity.[^[220]]

Tyrconnel sank into insignificance after the battle of the Boyne in 1690, but the English court still jealously watched his movements; and his close connexion with the Earl and Countess of Marlborough was not forgotten by those who envied the high qualities of the one, and disliked the proud spirit of the other, and aggravated, doubtless, the secret dislike which Queen Mary indulged towards the Countess of Marlborough. Since the origin of most mischief is attributed to women, an imputed act of indiscretion, on the part of that lady, was alleged, at any rate, to have been made an excuse for the sudden disgrace of her husband.[^[221]] The Earl, it was reported, had mentioned to his wife, in confidence, a scheme which had been confided to him, to surprise Dunkirk—a project which had been concerted by William, and had proved abortive. Lady Marlborough, as it was also rumoured, had spoken of this plan to the lady of Sir Theophilus Oglethorp;[^[222]] and it had been carried, in some manner, of course, to Lady Tyrconnel, and from her to the French court.

The author of “The Other Side of the Question,” in confirmation of this report, has stated, but on no assigned authority, that four persons only in England were privy to the design on Dunkirk; namely, “the King, Lord Marlborough, and two more; that one”[^[223]] of these four communicated the secret to his wife, who, as it was said, sold it to Lady —— for what she could get: that in consequence, the said design miscarried, and those concerned in it abroad were hanged: that upon this, the King sent for his three confidants, and having with some trouble found out the leak, expressed himself, on the occasion, in his dry way, as follows—“My lord, you have put a greater confidence in your wife than I did in mine.”

This conjecture, or tradition, however,—for though a prevalent report at the time, it is nothing more,—is refuted by the fact that the design against Dunkirk was not projected until the month of August, 1692, whereas the Earl had been dismissed from his employments in the previous January;[^[224]] and although every possible obloquy that could be cast upon the Countess of Marlborough was likely to be propagated in the court, where she was known to be out of favour, yet it is certain that no misconduct of hers, nor indiscretion on the part of her husband, on the score of the projected siege of Dunkirk, could have occasioned the harsh usage which his lordship had experienced.

Lord Marlborough, although disgraced, was not without advocates, as the King soon perceived. Admiral Russell, one of a family noted for magnanimous courage in the cause of justice, “put himself on ill terms with the King,” as Lediard relates, by pressing to know the grounds of the Earl’s disgrace; and almost reproached William with his oblivion of the Earl’s services, who had, as he said, “set the crown on the King’s head.”[^[225]]

This generous interference, and the regret for the occasion of it which the Princess of Denmark evinced, only irritated the King and Queen more and more against their oppressed sister-in-law and her favourite. On the twenty-ninth of January, the Princess received an anonymous letter, informing her that a dangerous cabal was formed among the Portland and Villiers family against the Earl and Countess of Marlborough, and apprising her that their misfortunes would not end with the Earl’s dismissal, but that he would be imprisoned as soon as the prorogation of Parliament had taken place. The unknown friend who wrote this letter, added, that the interview which Marlborough had held with his friends Godolphin and Russell, on the day of his disgrace, had excited the jealousy of the court; whilst the tears which the Princess had herself been seen to shed since that event, had added to the irritation of her sister and brother.[^[226]]

Perhaps the Princess Anne might, in the midst of her tears, remember with a pang the indulgent conduct of the father whom she had deserted, and who, according to a writer contemporary with her favourite, had twice paid debts which the mercenary spirit of that favourite, according to the same account, which must be taken with some reservation, had led the Princess to incur.[^[227]]

Whatever were Anne’s feelings, those expressed by Lady Marlborough were quite in accordance with her high spirit, which, with a hardihood which certainly has the effect of disguising our faults far more than the varnish of dissimulation, she avows in her own peculiar way.[^[228]]

“But to come to the sequel of the King’s message: I solemnly protest that the loss of my Lord Marlborough’s employments would never have broke my rest one single night upon account of interest; but I confess, the being turned out is something very disagreeable to my temper; and I believe it was three weeks before my best friends could persuade me that it was fit for me to go to a court which (as I thought) had used my Lord Marlborough very ill. However, at last they prevailed, and I remember the chief argument was urged by my Lord Godolphin, who said that it could not be thought that I made any mean court to the King and Queen, since to attend the Princess was only to pay my duty where it was owing.”

The consequence of this advice, upon which Lady Marlborough so much relied, was, that “she waited on her mistress to Kensington.” Particulars of the interview may readily be conceived. The offended dignity of Mary, the suppressed vexation of the tearful Anne, the flush of anger on the brow of the haughty lady in waiting, that subdued but not intimidated favourite, nature struggling with etiquette, as she bent before the Queen whom she hated, and followed the Princess whom she governed and despised;—all these circumstances combined must have formed a fine scene for the pen or the pencil.

Unfortunately, no details of the meeting are permitted us, but the effect which it had upon the temper even of the mild and prudent Mary, may be inferred from a letter which the Queen wrote to her sister on the ensuing day.

After premising that she had something to say which she thought would not be very pleasing to the Princess, the Queen reminded her sister that nobody was ever “suffered to live at court in my Lord Marlborough’s circumstances.” It was therefore incumbent on her Majesty, as she thought, though much against her will, to tell her sister how very unfit it was that Lady Marlborough should stay with the Princess either; “since that,” added the Queen, “gives the husband so just a pretence of being where he ought not.”

“Taking everything into consideration,” the Queen, therefore, plainly intimated to her sister, that, since she had allowed Lady Marlborough to accompany her to Kensington on the foregoing night, her Majesty was reduced to the necessity of plainly telling her, that her lady of the bedchamber “must not stay,” and “that she had all the reason imaginable” to look upon Anne’s bringing her as “the strangest thing that ever was done; nor,” added the Queen, “could all my kindness for you, (which is ever ready to turn all you do the best way at any other time,) have hindered me from showing you that at the moment; but I considered your condition, and that made me master myself so far as not to take notice of it then.”

“But now,” adds the Queen, “I must tell you, it was very unkind in a sister, would have been very uncivil in an equal, and I need not say I have more to claim, which, though my kindness would make me never extort, yet when I see the use you would make of it, I must tell you I know what is due to me, and expect to have it from you. ’Tis upon that account, I tell you plainly, Lady Marlborough must not continue with you in the circumstances her lord is.”

This assumption of the Queen towards her offending sister, Mary softened by kinder terms. “I have all the real kindness imaginable for you,” she added, “and as I ever have, so will always do, my part to live with you as sisters ought;” and neither the King nor she were willing, as she said, to have recourse to harsher means.

But, notwithstanding the resolution expressed in the foregoing paragraph,—“the sight of Lady Marlborough,” the Princess proceeds to say, “having changed her style, does naturally change her thoughts.”[^[229]] “She could pass over most things,” and “live with her sister as became her,” but she complained of the want of common civility exhibited by that sister, in not comprehending her wishes, and avoiding the contact with which she had placed her with Lady Marlborough.

This reproof was felt severely by Anne, and gave dire offence to her who had courted the rebuke, and it afforded Mary the desired opportunity of putting a direct affront upon her. Nor could numbers of affectionate expressions, nor what the Duchess of Marlborough calls, in the conclusion of the epistle, “useless repetitions,” intended “to remind her sister of the distance between them,” heal the wounds thus made, nor reconcile Anne to a sister who had incurred the displeasure of one whom she loved better than all the world besides.

From this time the firebrand of discord, thrown between the two royal sisters, was never extinguished except by death. The mortification inflicted upon Lady Marlborough was bitterly commented upon by her, years after she had outlived the effects of other changes in those whom she served, and those whom she endeavoured to serve. This first humiliation was, perhaps, her bitterest pang of the sort; and she, to “whose temper the being turned out was not very agreeable,”[^[230]] must have writhed under the banishment from that court, in whose atmosphere she had been accustomed from her early youth to consider herself as a privileged individual.

Queen Mary, having struck the first blow, was resolved not to relax in her displeasure. The Duchess, in recalling this period of her life, endeavours to show the inconsistency of the Queen, in expelling from her sister’s service one whom she had formerly designated as a “kind, dear friend, from whom she hoped that her sister would never part.”[^[231]] But Mary then knew the Countess only by letter, and by report, as the beloved wife of an influential man disposed to liberal measures, and devoted to Protestantism,—as a Whig in principle herself, and having influence enough to make her husband turn round to her opinions; as a woman to be feared, encouraged, courted. Even after her arrival in England, Mary behaved towards her subsequent foe with a consideration which would, says the Duchess of Marlborough, have engaged “some people to fix the foundation of their future fortunes in her favour;” nor could any one, she asserts, have had a greater chance to rise in it than herself, “if she could have broken the inviolable laws of friendship;” but this transient sunshine was now overclouded, and events succeeded each other, which added to the darkness of the storm.

The Princess Anne returned an answer to the Queen’s letter the day after she had received it, having first consulted her uncle, Lord Rochester, requesting him, with the greatest earnestness, to assist her in this affair, and to convey her letter to the Queen; an office which his lordship declined, promising, however, that he would speak to the Queen upon the subject. The epistle, in consequence of his lordship’s refusal to act as a mediator, was therefore sent to Mary by one of the Princess’s own servants.

The reply, probably penned only by Anne, and composed either by her who was termed her “Dictatress,”[^[232]] or by Godolphin, is couched in calm but resolute terms.

No apology is tendered for the act which had offended the Queen; no possible reason for the dismissal of Lady Marlborough is allowed: she is justified throughout; whilst a reference to Lord Marlborough’s conduct, which might have called down an answer, is prudently avoided. It is to the unkindness of her sister to herself personally, that the Princess principally objects. The whole letter bespeaks a stronger mind to have been employed in its careful construction than the Princess of Denmark possessed; doubtless, he who gave the advice to go to court, and she who followed her there, were its authors.[^[233]] Lord Rochester, who had only recently crept into royal favour, was wise enough not to convey the offensive document. No other answer was returned to it than a message by the Lord Chamberlain to the Countess of Marlborough, to forbid her remaining any longer at the Cockpit.

The residence designated by this undignified name has been already described, and its appropriation to the Princess Anne, at the time of her marriage, specified. It appears to have been only sufficient for the Prince and Princess of Denmark and their household, their children being established in the Duchess of Portsmouth’s former apartments in the palace, whither it had formerly been the wish of Anne to remove.[^[234]]

The Cockpit being, however, within the precincts of Whitehall, the command issued by Queen Mary for the removal of the Countess of Marlborough was certainly an undue exertion of authority, since it was disputed by several people whether the King had power to remove any individual from the Cockpit. At the time of the Princess Anne’s marriage, Charles the Second had bought this house from the Duke of Leeds, and settled it on his niece, and on her heirs. It was, therefore, clearly her own property, and the attendants whom she chose to retain under its roof were separately and especially her servants. But Anne, though she might, says the Duchess, have insisted on her right “of being mistress in her own house,” was resolved to avoid all risk of irritating the King and Queen; and she determined, consequently, upon retiring from the Cockpit, instead of continuing to brave the displeasure of these royal personages by retaining her favourite in that abode. She wrote, therefore, respectfully, but not submissively, to her sister, declaring that since all that she had said, and all that Lord Rochester had urged, could not prevent the Queen from exacting a mortifying sacrifice from her, she was resolved to retire, and to deprive herself of the opportunity of assuring her of that duty and respect which she had always been, and which she should always be, desirous of showing her Majesty.[^[235]]

The Princess took prompt measures for her departure. She sent to desire an interview with the Duchess of Somerset,[^[236]] from whom she requested the temporary loan of Sion house; and the Duchess, with many professions of service, after retiring to consult with the Duke her husband, waited on her highness, to acquaint her, in a very respectful manner, that Sion house was at her service.

As soon as this arrangement was known, the King, according to the Duchess of Marlborough, sent for the Duke of Somerset,[^[237]] and did all he could to persuade his grace to retract his promise to the Princess; “but in vain; so,” as the Duchess contemptuously remarks, “there was an end of that matter.”[^[238]]

Previous to Anne’s removal from the Cockpit, however, she deemed it incumbent on her to wait upon the Queen at Kensington, and to make “all the professions that could be imagined;” but Mary met all these advances with a cold disdain; or, in the words of the Duchess, “was as insensible as a statue;” and when she did answer her sister, it was in the same imperative and offended style as that in which her letter had been dictated.

This alienation of the royal sisters was, however, fully explained by events which reflect no honour either upon Lord or Lady Marlborough. Even the panegyrists of the great Churchill have not attempted to extenuate, whilst they were unable to deny, his political intrigues at this epoch.

No individual in the British dominions was more fully aware of the fact, that King James still lived in the hearts of the English, than he who held the unenviable post of his successor. The progress of the French arms abroad contributed greatly to the unpopularity of William, whilst at the universities, and amongst churchmen of all ranks, the divine and indefeasible nature of hereditary right was still strenuously, and by the Archbishop of Canterbury, with eight bishops in his train, publicly maintained.

The retired habits of the King, his cold exterior, his uniform preference of his Dutch followers in all appointments about the court, the vast expense and indifferent management of the war in Ireland, the presence of foreign troops, and the neglect of the navy, all grievous and tender points with the English nation, produced a secret but universal discontent. The Marquis of Halifax was heard to declare, that if James could be prevailed on to make advances to the Protestants, it would be impossible to keep him four months longer out of the kingdom.[^[239]]

Under these circumstances, there were, even in the British cabinet, not a few who regretted, and even repented, the part which had been so recently enacted in the late settlement of the crown. The dissolution of the Parliament, or Convention as it was called, irritated these discontents; a secret correspondence was held, even from the very centre of the court, with the monarch at St. Germains; the Duke of Bolton, the Marquis of Winchester, the Earls of Devonshire and Montagu, the Marquis of Carmarthen, one of the principal abettors of the Revolution, were all more or less implicated in the conspiracy.

At this critical period, the fidelity, the honour, and the prudence of Marlborough, sank beneath the powerful temptation of avenging upon William the slights which he had suffered, and of raising his own fortunes by restoring the Stuart dynasty. Historians have been at a loss to comprehend the motives of one who had so recently sacrificed all private considerations to what he justly deemed imperative necessity.[^[240]] Ambition, and, in the mind of Marlborough its too frequent attendant, the love of gain, sufficiently account for his defection from William, who, prejudiced, as the Duchess asserts,[^[241]] by Bentinck, availed himself of the services of Marlborough in war, but was little disposed to recompense his toils by appointment to lucrative civil offices.

Whatever might be the motives of Marlborough’s culpable correspondence with the exiled King, the fact itself was not long concealed from William, who was cruelly compelled to employ many to whose dissimulation he was not a stranger; whilst James was equally unable to rely on the assurances of those whose perfidy to another did not augur the most perfect fidelity to his own cause.[^[242]] All classes in society were now, however, more or less infected with Jacobitism. Those who were dissatisfied with the treatment of the British court were secretly addressed by the agents of James, whilst the lower classes were stimulated by means of the press, which formerly had published many libels against the Duke of York, but which were now loud in his favour.[^[243]] It was not long before this conspiracy, the first of the many ineffectual attempts which were made to restore James, began to assume the distinct and fearful form of a threatened invasion.

In the latter end of the year 1690, James despatched into England Colonel Bulkley, whose daughter was afterwards married to the Duke of Berwick,[^[244]] and Colonel Sackville, with instructions to probe the sentiments of the people, and to attach to him the disaffected. Bulkley first addressed himself to Lord Godolphin[^[245]] by allurements and promises. At their interview he inquired, in a tone of despondency, but kindly, respecting the court of St. Germains; but, on being asked by Bulkley what he would sacrifice in order to serve the cause of the deposed monarch, Godolphin started from his chair, and exclaimed that he would leave the office in which he had lately been replaced, that of first lord of the Treasury,[^[246]] in order that he might be free to promote the restoration of James.

Lord Halifax was the next of William’s ministers who received Bulkley with open arms; and his ready profession of loyalty to James encouraged the more wary measures of Godolphin and Marlborough. Bulkley, however, meeting these two noblemen in the park, solicited them to return with him home to dine at his lodgings: the invitation was accepted, and Colonel Sackville was summoned to join the conference, and to receive the declaration of Marlborough’s penitence. The Earl could neither eat, nor drink, nor sleep, as he assured Colonel Sackville, from the pangs of conscience; and he protested that he would risk the ruin of all his fortunes to redeem his apostasy. But, in fact, Marlborough, although employed by William in situations of high trust, had never entirely broken off all correspondence with James’s adherents. When he, in conjunction with other great men, had invited William Prince of Orange to England, he had, perhaps, in common with many others, no expectation that William would become king. His connexion with the Duke of Berwick, his nephew, and with Earl Tyrconnel, had enabled him to maintain a secret but continued correspondence with those active agents of the exiled King. Marlborough had long since made his peace with James. He had been the first to give intelligence to the Jacobite party of William’s intention to visit Ireland, and was the chief person to despatch timely notice to any of that faction who were threatened with warrants of the privy council, of which he was a member. Yet the services which he had performed in the taking of Cork and Kingsale somewhat abated those hopes of his defection from William, which James had never entirely abandoned.

The conference with Bulkley was not the first step of Marlborough’s treason;—for such, in fact, after the settlement of the crown by the voice of Parliament, oaths of allegiance taken, and offices of military trust exercised, it must be deemed.

In January, 1689, the year preceding the visit of Bulkley, Marlborough had addressed James by letter. He had petitioned for the forgiveness of the exiled King, and for that of the Queen. He had promised that the influence of Lady Marlborough to bring back the Princess Anne to her duty should be exerted. Upon this assurance pardon had been granted;[^[247]] and in consequence of this reconciliation further measures were resorted to by Marlborough.

The Duke of Shrewsbury was next brought into the plot; yet both the Duke and Godolphin were urged by Marlborough, the one to continue in office, the other to endeavour to regain it, that they might more effectually serve their liege lord and sovereign. Lord Carmarthen also was willing to be reconciled, though cautiously neither giving nor refusing promises; whilst Marlborough went so far as to proffer his exertions to induce a revolt of the army in England, and to urge an invasion of twenty thousand men from France with James at their head, acknowledging that all schemes for his restoration must be visionary, unless they were seconded by the King of France.[^[248]]

At length an arrangement for striking this decisive blow was completed. The two admirals, Russell and Carter, were drawn into the scheme, and Louis the Fourteenth was assured that the army would be conducted by Marlborough, the fleet by Russell,[^[249]] and informed that the management of the church was to be left to the judgment and responsibility of the Princess Anne. That Princess, instigated by her friends, had already sought a reconciliation with her father; her motives, it is to be feared, being of a very mixed nature, resentment towards William and Mary actuating her far more than a late return of filial duty.

The admirable energy and sound judgment of Queen Mary, it is well known, saved the country from the threatened invasion, and defeated the designs of the conspirators. In the absence of William, whilst her mind was saddened with anxiety for the King’s safety, not knowing whom to trust, she summoned the Parliament by proclamation; she issued warrants against the disaffected, amongst whom were many persons of high rank; and, collecting the militia of Westminster, and the trained bands of London, in Hyde Park, she appeared amongst them at two days’ review, and commended their readiness and loyalty. By a master-stroke of policy she prevented the defection of the navy, and is acknowledged to have contributed greatly to strengthen the tottering adherence of her naval commanders. Being apprised, in the absence of the King, that several of the English officers were disaffected, she desired Lord Nottingham to write to Admiral Russell, informing him that she would change none of the officers, and that she imputed the reports which had been raised against them to the contrivance of his enemies and of theirs. The officers returned an assurance, that they were ready to die in her cause and that of their country; and her generous and wise confidence was justified in the event.

The battle of La Hogue, in which Russell retrieved the credit of the navy, and proved his valour and his restored sense of loyalty, saved our country.[^[250]]

The same high policy adopted by Mary, magnanimous, it must be acknowledged, as well as prudent, was pursued by William. Upon his return from Holland, after the battle of La Hogue, he reproached Godolphin with the correspondence he had carried on. The minister denied the fact; but William, placing a letter in his hand, which had been stolen from the cabinet of the exiled Prince, desired him “to reflect on the treachery of those whom he was trusting, and the mercy that was shown him.” The generous mind of Godolphin was touched, and he remained ever after a faithful servant to William.[^[251]] The Duke of Shrewsbury was won over by a similar line of conduct. With the Earl of Marlborough a more severe policy was adopted.

1692. On the 5th of May, a fortnight before the engagement of La Hogue, Marlborough was suddenly arrested, along with two other noblemen, and Dr. Spratt, Bishop of Rochester, on a charge of high treason. The Duchess thus scornfully mentions the occurrence:—

“Soon after the Princess’s going to Sion, a dreadful plot broke out, which was said to be hid somewhere, I don’t know where, in a flowerpot, and my Lord Marlborough was sent to the Tower.”[^[252]]

“To commit a peer of the realm to prison, it was necessary there should be an affidavit of the treason. My Lord Romney, therefore, Secretary of State, had sent to one Young, who was then in gaol for perjury and forgery, and paid his fine, in order to make him what they call a legal evidence; for, as the court lawyers said, Young, not having lost his ears, was an irreproachable witness. I shall not dwell on the story of this fellow’s villany, the Bishop of Rochester having given a full account of it in print.”[^[253]]

The miscreant named Young, whose negative virtue Lady Marlborough thus describes, was at that time imprisoned in Newgate for the nonpayment of a fine. This man, being an adept at counterfeiting hands, drew up an association in favour of James the Second, annexing to it the signatures of Marlborough, the Bishop of Rochester, and others. He also forged several letters from Marlborough; and, after secreting the pretended document of association in the palace of the Bishop of Rochester, at Bromley in Kent, he gave information of its being lodged there. Measures were instantly taken to secure the supposed delinquents.

In this season of adversity, new to Marlborough, some tried and faithful friends proved their respect for his honour, by rejecting the infamous accusation with contempt. Lady Marlborough thus describes the conduct of friends and of relatives. Her testimony adds one to the many bitter convictions which the narrative of life presents, that the ties of blood are sometimes found inferior in strength to the close bonds of friendship, in those on whom we have no other claim.[^[254]]

“And though these considerations had no weight with the King, they had so much with my Lord Devonshire, my Lord Bradford, and the late Duke of Montagu, that they thought it infamous to send my Lord Marlborough to prison on such evidence; and therefore, when the warrant for his commitment came to be signed at the council table, they refused to put their hands to it, though at that time they had no particular friendship for him. My Lord Bradford’s behaviour was very remarkable, for he made my Lord Marlborough a visit in the Tower; while some of our friends, who had lived in our family like near relations for many years, were so fearful of doing themselves hurt at court, that in the whole time of his confinement they never made him or me a visit, nor sent to inquire how we did, for fear it should be known.”

The affectionate heart of the Princess of Denmark produced a prompt letter of condolence upon the arrest of the Earl; an event, which it appears, from one passage, was to be succeeded by a less abrupt, though equally strict, mode of imprisonment of Anne and her husband. But William was probably fearful of the consequences of such a step as that to which Anne alludes; and the degradation of the Princess into a private station, with the loss of all public honours usually paid to one of her rank, seems to have been the only penalty imposed upon his sister-in-law.

“I am just told by pretty good hands,”[^[255]] the Princess writes, “that as soon as the wind turns westerly, there will be a guard set upon the Prince and me. If you hear there is any such thing designed, and that ’tis easy to you, pray let me see you before the wind changes; for afterwards one does not know whether they will let one have opportunities of speaking to one another. But let them do what they please, nothing shall ever vex me, so long as I can have the satisfaction of seeing dear Mrs. Freeman; and I swear I would live on bread and water, between four walls, with her, without repining: for as long as you continue kind, nothing can ever be a real mortification to your faithful Mrs. Morley, who wishes she may never enjoy a moment’s happiness in this world, or in the next, if ever she proves false to you.”

These expressions of affection are reiterated in various forms, in several other letters which the Countess of Marlborough at this time received from her royal mistress.[^[256]] These epistles speak well for the generosity of feeling and good-breeding of Anne. The utmost delicacy towards the inferior, the warmest sentiments for the friend, prevail; and those obstacles, which gave the character of heroism to their mutual regard, were doubtless highly favourable to the Countess’s influence. A little love of opposition reigns in all female bosoms; to oppose their wishes, is to strengthen those wishes until they become ardent passions. This, indeed, seems to have been exemplified in the warm intercourse of Mrs. Morley and Mrs. Freeman, and in the midst of state intrigues, dangers, invasions, and treasons, to have thrown a character of romance over their difficulties and their separations, which must have proved consolatory at least to the disinterested party in a friendly alliance which has met with undeserved ridicule.

The anxieties of the Countess probably produced an indisposition to which her friend, in one of these letters, refers. After telling her friend, “for God’s sake, to have a care of her dear self, and give way as little to melancholy thoughts as she can,” she suggests a trial of ass’s milk, and regrets the necessity of her dear Mrs. Freeman’s being “let blood.”[^[257]]

The proud, imperious Countess writhed under the disgrace of her lord; and the world might also assign another reason for her distress, and for the passionate expression of her dislike towards his enemies, and towards those of the Lord Treasurer, which even in her latter days dictated the pages of her personal narrative. Amongst the political enemies of Lady Marlborough, the most celebrated, and the least scrupulous, was the celebrated Dean of St. Patrick. Swift, who patronised the authoress of the “Atalantis,” the infamous Mrs. Manley, and who procured that most abandoned woman remuneration from the Tories, for the imprisonment which she sustained for some of her lampoons,[^[258]] has adopted one of her falsehoods gravely, and as a matter of acknowledged fact, into his “Remarks upon the four last years of Queen Anne’s reign.” In his character of Lord Godolphin, he says: “His alliance with the Marlborough family, and his passion for the Duchess, were the cords which dragged him into a party which he naturally disliked, whose leaders he personally hated, as they did him.”

This assertion, in which the reputations of two persons are sacrificed by a side-blow, alludes to a report prevalent during the prosperous years of Lady Marlborough’s life, and called into being by that very prosperity. It originated with Swift’s tool, Mrs. Manley, or, as she chose to call herself, Rivella, who was subsequently employed by the Tory party in their periodical, “The Examiner,” after Swift had relinquished his part in it: but he has not blushed to acknowledge that he supplied this disgrace to her sex with much of the venom poured out upon the Whigs, in that noted publication.[^[259]]

By the agency of Mrs. Manley, a rumour was spread abroad reflecting on the nature of that friendly connexion between the Marlborough family and Godolphin, which a closer tie afterwards cemented. An intrigue of the grossest character was described, by the pen of that wretched woman, as having taken place between the Lord Treasurer and the Countess of Marlborough; whilst even her devoted husband was alleged to have been acquainted with it, and to have connived at it for purposes of his own interest, and from party motives.[^[260]]

These calumnies, which, says the anonymous author of the Duchess’s Life, “however improbable it seems, we remember the time when many people believed more firmly than they did their creed,”[^[261]] originated in the intimacy, both personally and in correspondence, not only between the Earl of Marlborough and the Lord Treasurer, but between Godolphin and the able and influential woman whose intellectual sway asserted an enduring power over both these good and distinguished men. In all the difficulties and anxieties of the Earl and Countess, Godolphin participated. Their opinions, their feelings, were in unison with those of the Lord Treasurer. Like him, nurtured in high church and Tory principles, they had abandoned with reluctance those doctrines when the spirit of the age no longer went with them. Like him, their early prepossessions, their maturer affections, leaned to the Jacobite cause. The Countess, indeed, being younger when the mischievous tendencies of those bygone notions of prerogative and divine right were disclosed to her, had more thoroughly imbibed sentiments of the Whig party than Lord Marlborough and Godolphin; but in essential points this celebrated triumvirate accorded.

It was easy for the opposite faction to raise conjectures, and to disseminate calumnies, upon the basis of a friendship so closely cemented, that neither the Earl nor the Countess ever acted without first consulting him whom they regarded as their best friend. It is easy to demolish, by the blast of malignity, every fair fabric which the best affections of our nature raise up; it is easy to put the worst construction upon intimacies, the sources of which the innocent mind would gladly lay bare to the whole world. Endowed with beauty, with wit, fearless in her temper, unbending in her opinions, Lady Marlborough was not, nevertheless, one of those individuals whom the infections of slander could eventually taint. She was of too independent a nature to be readily susceptible of the tender passions. Her domestic character, as a mother, acknowledged to be exemplary even by those who commended her not,[^[262]] afforded the best refutation to the corrupt passions of which she was accused. The neglect of daily duties is generally the first signal of a woman’s ruin—the first indication that her mind is unsettled, her inclinations gone astray, her peace and composure destroyed. The virtuous, blameless character of the Princess, who gave the Countess of Marlborough her favour and countenance, was, in a minor degree, a refutation of the malignant charge, raised doubtless in the hope of rending asunder the unanimity of three powerful persons, by awakening the gnawing pangs of suspicion, and the dread of an endangered reputation, to disturb their repose.

The uniform confidence of the most devoted, if not the best beloved of husbands; the pride, the virtuous pride, which he felt in her great qualities; the undying love which he bore her through the toils of campaigns and the turmoil of politics, triumphantly assert the innocence of that woman, of whose misdeeds there would have been abundant willing witnesses, eager to offer their testimony to the absent and injured husband. But the Earl left her, as it appears, without a misgiving with respect to her moral conduct; and trusted her to the honour, as he often commended her to the advice, of that friend whom he loved to his dying hour, and whom he bitterly regretted after his death.[^[263]]

It is impossible to unveil the secrets of the human heart; but to those who believe in the existence of virtue, honour, friendship, all the probabilities are in favour of Lady Marlborough’s innocence of this hideous charge. From this period of her life, however, when Godolphin became her acknowledged ally, must be dated the influence which that firm and notable friendship began to exercise over her opinions and conduct, as well as the ascendency of her own political influence.

Godolphin, who, according to the Duchess herself, “conducted the Queen, with the care and tenderness of a father or a guardian, through a state of helpless ignorance, and who faithfully served her in all her difficulties,”[^[264]] now shared the counsels, as he had participated in the scheme of Marlborough to restore James. According to his female friend, he was admirably calculated for an adviser; being, as she describes him, “a man of few words, but of a remarkable thoughtfulness and sedateness of temper; of great application to business, and of such despatch in it, as to give pleasure to those who attended him in any affair.”[^[265]] Thus provided with an able and efficient counsellor, less bigoted, perhaps, to her virtues than her still enamoured husband, and, by the equability of his temper, well adapted to calm what Dr. Burnet terms her “impetuous speech,”[^[266]] Lady Marlborough succeeded in steering through the rest of this reign in far more tranquillity than could possibly have been anticipated from its commencement.