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

by Mrs. A. T. Thomson

Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

MEMOIRS
OF
SARAH
DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH,
AND OF THE
COURT OF QUEEN ANNE

BY MRS. A. T. THOMSON,

AUTHORESS OF “MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF HENRY THE EIGHTH,” “LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH,” &c.

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. II.

LONDON:

HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,

GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

MDCCCXXXIX.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY IBOTSON AND PALMER,

SAVOY STREET.

CONTENTS
OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

CHAPTER I.
Character of Lord Peterborough—Of Lord Montague—Marriage of the Lady Mary Churchill with Lord Monthermer—Character and success of her husband—The violence of party spirit at this era—Conduct of the Duchess in politics—Her dislike to Lord Rochester—His character—Preferment of Harley to the secretaryship—Views originally entertained by Marlborough and Lord Godolphin—Anecdote of Lord Wharton at Bath—A proof of political rancour	Page [1]
CHAPTER II.
Conduct of Lord Sunderland—Influence of the Duchess understood at foreign courts—Anecdote of Charles the Third of Spain	[29]
CHAPTER III.
Complete triumph of the Whigs—Attempts made to bring Lord Sunderland into the Cabinet—Scheme for insuring the Hanoverian succession—The Queen’s resentment at that measure	[55]
CHAPTER IV.
Decline of the Duchess’s influence—Her attempt in favour of Lord Cowper—Singular Letter from Anne in explanation—Intrigues of the Tories—Harley’s endeavours to stimulate the Queen to independence	[74]
CHAPTER V.
State of parties—Friendship of Marlborough and Godolphin—Discovery of Mr. Harley’s practices—Intrigues of the Court	[109]
CHAPTER VI.
Vexations and disappointments which harassed the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough—Vacillations of Anne—Her appointment of Tory bishops	[124]
CHAPTER VII.
1708—Vacillation of Anne—Invasion of the Pretender—Results of that event—Secret intrigues with Mrs. Masham—The death of Prince George—The Duchess of Marlborough’s affectionate attentions to the Queen on that occasion—Her disappointment	[147]
CHAPTER VIII.
Trial of Dr. Sacheverell—His solemn protestation of innocence—Scene behind the curtain where the Queen sat—Fresh offence given by the Duchess to Anne	[164]
CHAPTER IX.
Final separation between the Queen and the Duchess—Some anecdotes of Dr. and Mrs. Burnet—Dr. Burnet remonstrates with the Queen—The Queen’s obstinacy—Dismissal of Lord Godolphin—Letter from the Duchess to the Queen	[193]
CHAPTER X.
Anecdotes of Swift and Addison—Publication of the Examiner—Charge brought in the Examiner against the Duchess	[212]
CHAPTER XI.
Return of the Duke and Duchess—Their reception—The Duchess’s advice to her husband—Political changes in which the Duke and Duchess were partly concerned	[256]
CHAPTER XII.
Third Marriage of Lord Sunderland—Calumnies against the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough—Interview between the Duchess and George the First—The result—Her differences with Lord Sunderland—Illness, death, and character of the Duke of Marlborough	[320]
CHAPTER XIII.
Funeral of the Duke of Marlborough—His bequests to the Duchess—Immediate proposals of marriage made for her in her widowhood—Character and letters of Lord Coningsby—Character of the Duke of Somerset—His Grace’s offer of marriage to the Duchess	[352]
CHAPTER XIV.
Anecdotes of the Duchess of Marlborough and the Duchess of Buckingham—Pope’s “Atossa”—Sir Robert Walpole—The Duchess’s enmity towards that minister—Singular scene between them—The Duchess’s causes of complaint enumerated	[376]
CHAPTER XV.
State of the Duchess of Marlborough with respect to her family—Henrietta Duchess of Marlborough—Lord Godolphin—Pelham Holles Duke of Newcastle—The Spencer family—Charles Duke of Marlborough—His extravagance—John Spencer—Anecdote of the Misses Trevor—Letter to Mr. Scrope—Lawsuit	[397]
CHAPTER XVI.
The Duchess of Marlborough’s friends and contemporaries—Arthur Maynwaring—Dr. Hare—Sir Samuel Garth—Pope—Lady Mary Wortley Montague—Colley Cibber—Anecdote of Mrs. Oldfield; of Sir Richard Steele	[417]
CHAPTER XVII.
The different places of residence which belonged to the Duchess—Holywell-house, Wimbledon, Blenheim—Account of the old mansion of Woodstock—Its projected destruction—Efforts of Sir John Vanburgh to save it—Attack upon the Duchess, relative to Blenheim, in the Examiner	[436]
CHAPTER XVIII.
Old age and decline of the Duchess—Her incessant wrangling with Sir Robert Walpole—Her occupations—The compilation of her Memoirs—Her death, and character	[460]
Appendix	[507]

MEMOIRS

OF THE

DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.

CHAPTER I.
1703–4.

Character of Lord Peterborough—Of Lord Montague—Marriage of the Lady Mary Churchill with Lord Monthermer—Character and success of her husband—The violence of party spirit at this era—Conduct of the Duchess in politics—Her dislike to Lord Rochester—His character Preferment of Harley to the secretaryship—Views originally entertained by Marlborough and Lord Godolphin—Anecdote of Lord Wharton at Bath—A proof of political rancour.

Amongst those friends who hastened to pour forth their condolences to the Duchess of Marlborough on the loss of her son, the celebrated Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, was one of the first, and amongst the most eager to testify his concern. This nobleman, whose enmity towards Marlborough became afterwards conspicuous, was at this time one of the numerous votaries of the arrogant Duchess. Lord Peterborough’s extravagances gave a meteor-like celebrity to his general character. Among many of the celebrated individuals who illumined the age, he would, nevertheless, have been eminent, even had his course been less peculiar, and his deportment like that of ordinary men.

The eventful public life of this nobleman began in the reign of Charles the Second; at the early age of eighteen, he had distinguished himself in the cause of patriotism by attending Algernon Sidney to the scaffold, an act of kindness and of courage, which was the commencement of his singular career. “He lived,” says Horace Walpole, “a romance, and was capable of making it a history.”[^[1]] At this period of his life, nature and fortune alike combined to favour the brilliancy of that career, which, in its eccentricities, and in the rapid succession of events by which it was marked, had not a parallel in the times of which we treat. Lord Peterborough owed much to circumstances. Of high ancestry, an earl by birth, and afterwards by creation, being the first Earl of Monmouth, he graced his favoured station by the charm of his manners, by his varied accomplishments, and by the union of a daring courage with the highest cultivation of the intellectual powers. Celebrated for the wit which he delighted to display, his enterprising character was enhanced in the estimation of all who admired valour, by those personal advantages which the imagination is disposed to combine with heroism and with eloquence. In both, he exceeded most other men of his time. Without being worthy of challenging a comparison with Marlborough, he dazzled, he interested, he astonished the world. He “was a man,” as Pope truly describes him, “resolved neither to live nor to die like other men.”[^[2]] In those days, when a constellation of bright stars threw a lustre over the annals of our country, Lord Peterborough shone conspicuous, even whilst Marlborough lived to pursue successive triumphs.

The varied scenes through which Lord Peterborough passed, contributed to form “the strange compound” which so much amused society. He began his warlike exploits in the naval service; and even whilst he cultivated the Muses, “appeared emulous to mix only with the rough and then untutored tars of ocean.”[^[3]] Disgusted with a maritime life, he became a land officer; yet alternately assisted in the council, or dazzled the senate with his oratory. His brilliant exploits in Spain were the result of consummate skill, aided by a romantic daring, which converted even the gallantries into which the profligacy of the age and his own laxity of principle betrayed him, into sources of assistance to his designs. It has been said that he employed the illusions of perspective, which he well understood, to impose on the enemy with respect to the number of troops under his command. Whatever were his arts, the results of his wonderful energy and bravery were so effective as very nearly to transfer the crown of Spain from the Bourbon to the Austrian family.

The abilities of this nobleman as a negociator were equally remarkable; nor was the celerity of his movements a circumstance to be overlooked, in times when such exertions as those which Peterborough made to compass sea and land, appeared almost miraculous. Ever on the wing, he excelled even Lord Sunderland in the rapidity of his migrations, and is said “to have seen more kings and postilions than any man in Europe.”

So singular a course could not be maintained, nor such unparalleled dexterity acquired, without the strong, impelling power of vanity. Lord Peterborough, with all his attainments, after long experience, with some admirable qualities of the heart, was the slave of that pervading impulse, the love of admiration. The friend of Pope and Swift, the associate of Marlborough, delighted to declaim in a coffee-house, and to be the centre of any admiring circle, no matter whom or what. The vanity of Peterborough is, however, matter of little surprise: it was the besetting sin of those wild yet gifted companions of the days of his early youth, Rochester, Sedley, Buckingham, and Wharton, who competed to attain the highest pitch of profligacy, characterised by the most extravagant degree of absurdity and reckless eccentricity. To be pre-eminent in demoralisation was not, in such times, a matter of easy attainment; therefore it became necessary for the aspirant for that species of fame to garnish deeds of guilt which might be deemed common-place, with such accompaniments of fancy as men utterly lost to shame, without a sense of decency, without time for remorse, without fear of hell, or belief in heaven, could, in the depths of their infamy, contrive and devise.

Lord Peterborough and Lord Wharton, disregarding all moral obligations, gave birth to sons, who, reared under their baneful influence, carried the precepts of their parental tempters into an extremity far exceeding what even those exemplary parents could have anticipated. In Philip, Duke of Wharton, the world beheld, happily, almost the last of that series of rich, profligate, bold, and desperate men, who, like the second Buckingham, gilded a few fair points of character by the aid of resplendent talents. It was the destiny of Lord Peterborough to reap disappointment and chagrin from the seed which he had sown in the mind of his eldest son and heir, John Lord Mordaunt, whom he survived.[^[4]]

The regard of Lord Peterborough at this period for the Duchess of Marlborough was as assiduous as his enmity towards her and the Duke became afterwards remarkable. In a letter written soon after their common loss, he urged upon the bereaved father the necessity of seeking in society the solace to his mournful reflections. In other effusions of friendship, addressed to the Duchess, the Earl is profuse in the language of gallantry; and, if we might believe in professions, felt an ardour of admiration which led him to declare, “that he feared no other uneasiness than not being able to meet those opportunities which might contribute to what he most desired, the continuation of the Duchess’s good opinion.”[^[5]]

These expressions had a deeper meaning than compliment; and Lord Peterborough sought also a closer connexion than friendship with the exalted house of Marlborough. The Lady Mary Churchill, the youngest daughter of the Duke and Duchess, and, at the time of her brother’s death, the only unmarried daughter, was one of the most distinguished of her family for beauty, as well as for the higher qualities of the mind and heart. Twenty-two years afterwards, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, speaking of this lovely woman, described her as still so pre-eminent in her hereditary charms, that she might then (in 1725) “be the reigning beauty, if she pleased.”[^[6]] Lady Mary, afterwards the object of her mother’s aversion, was, in her early days, the pride and darling of both parents, and the frequent subject of mention in her father’s letters. Even in her sixteenth year there were many suitors who aspired to her hand, and amongst others the son of Lord Peterborough, the young Lord Mordaunt, whose suit was urged by his father, but rejected by the Duke of Marlborough, on account of the dissolute character of the young nobleman. It was probably this disappointment which first chilled the friendship of Lord Peterborough, and turned it into rancour.

Proposals of marriage from the Earl of Huntingdon, son of Lord Cromarty, were also made to Lady Mary, but in vain;[^[7]] the character of his father, Lord Cromarty, who was, according to Cunningham, “long looked upon as a state mountebank,” probably operating against the young man’s addresses; for the Duchess sought to extend and strengthen her connexions, and not to endanger the stability of her fortune by an alliance with the weak or the disreputable. Political reasons, it has been said by historians, decided the destiny of the fair victim, than whom “there was not in England,” says Cunningham, “a more acceptable sacrifice to be offered up for appeasing the rage of parties,” and caused her finally to become the wife of Lord Monthermer, eldest son of the Earl of Montague. Marlborough, as Cunningham relates, before setting out on his latest campaign, “fearing lest Whigs and Tories should combine together to ruin him, recommended to his wife to propose a marriage of one of his daughters to the Earl of Montague’s son, as a means of their reconciliation, and the establishment of his own power.”[^[8]]

The projected alliance, in most important respects, appeared to be highly advantageous. The House of Montague, anciently Montacute, was already connected with some of the wealthiest and most powerful among the nobility. Resembling, in one respect, the Churchill family, the progenitors of the young man on whom Lady Mary’s hand was ultimately bestowed, had been devoted to the service of the Stuarts. There is a tradition that one of the race, Edward Montague, who held the office of Master of the Horse to Queen Katharine, wife of Charles the Second, was removed from his post, for venturing to press the hand of his royal mistress,—an offence not likely to be of frequent occurrence, if historians have not done great injustice to the amiable but ungainly Katharine of Braganza.

The father of John Duke of Montague, who married Lady Mary Churchill, was a singular instance of something more than prudence,—even cupidity,—combined with liberality and a great mind. This nobleman enjoyed a fortunate, if not a happy life. He was appointed ambassador at the Court of France, by the especial favour of Charles the Second; and conferred on his station, as such, as much honour as he received from so distinguished a mission. During his residence at Paris, he secured the hand of the Countess of Northumberland, a rich widow, who had quitted England to escape the disgraceful addresses of Charles the Second. By this union he secured an income of six thousand a year; which was farther increased, upon his return to England, by his purchase of the place of Master of the King’s Wardrobe, for which he paid six thousand pounds. The prosperity of the family was, however, checked during the reign of James the Second, who, in consequence of Lord Montague’s known enmity to the Roman Catholics, took from him the post which he had obtained. This disgust prepared the offended nobleman for the Revolution, towards which he contributed by his influence and exertions. Honours and fortune then became abundant. The titles of Earl of Montague and Viscount Monthermer succeeded to that of a simple baron. A second marriage added to his wealth; for his first wife having died in giving birth to his only surviving son, he resolved to acquire, by an union with the Duchess of Albemarle, a revenue of six thousand pounds additional to his wealth, and, moreover, to unite his family with the house of Newcastle. The Duchess of Albemarle, whom he for these interested motives addressed, was the heiress of Henry Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, and relict of Christopher March, Duke of Albemarle. There was only one slight blot upon her perfections as a wife—she was insane. In her delusion she had resolved to marry no one but a monarch; but her suitor soon compassed this difficulty, for he is said, with what truth it is not easy to determine, to have wooed and married her, in 1690, as Emperor of China, and to have cherished the delusion, which appears to have lasted nearly forty years; for the Duchess, during her residence at Newcastle-house in Clerkenwell, where she lived until her death, in 1734, would never suffer any person to serve her, save on the bended knee.[^[9]] A later acquisition of wealth to the family took place, also, on the death of the celebrated Sir Ralph Winwood, Secretary of State to James the Second.

The vast fortune which had been thus from various sources accumulated, was spent by the Earl of Montague in a manner peculiarly befitting his lofty station. He could sustain his rank with splendour and dignity, and yet think his table honoured, not encumbered, by the presence of learned men, of no rank, but whose talents shed upon their well-judging patron a reflected lustre which wealth could not give. At his magnificent residence in Bloomsbury-house, now the British Museum, the ingenious St. Evremond, and other eminent foreigners, were seen mingling with the wits and artists of the time, in saloons and halls, to garnish which the arts of painting and sculpture had been called into requisition, and liberally remunerated. The taste of this excellent and high-minded nobleman for architecture, for gardening, as well as for the other arts which embellish, was displayed both in his abode in London and his estate in Northamptonshire. His style of living corresponded with his lofty ideas, and equalled, if it did not excel, that of the most princely of his contemporaries.

From this noble stock sprang John Montague, Viscount Monthermer, who became the son-in-law of Marlborough. An intimacy had for some time subsisted between the Earl his father, and the Duchess, his future mother-in-law.[^[10]] But the Lady Mary Churchill, his destined bride, when the match was proposed to her, proved averse from complying with the wishes of her parents, having already, as report alleged, “set her eyes and her heart upon another young gentleman, a very handsome youth.” “Yet she must,” adds Cunningham, “have obeyed her mother’s commands immediately, had not an accident happened, which proved very lamentable to the Marlborough family.” The event to which he alludes was the death of Lord Blandford; and the marriage of the reluctant young lady was suspended until the period of mourning had been duly observed. It then, however, took place; for it was not the custom of the day to take into account the affections, in the calculations which were made in matrimonial contracts. Nor were the family of the young bridegroom likely to relax in their efforts to promote a favourable issue. Such is the mutability of human affections, and the folly of our most ardent desires, that Marlborough appears afterwards to have disliked, and the Duchess to have despised, though without adequate reason, the man whom she at this time preferred for her son-in-law. “All his talents,” thus she wrote of his lordship thirty-seven years afterwards, “lie in things natural in boys of fifteen years old, and he is about two-and-fifty—to get people into his garden and wet them with squirts, and to invite people to his country-houses, and put things into their beds to make them itch, and twenty such pretty fancies like these.”[^[11]] Such was her opinion of this son-in-law; how far it was guided by prejudice will be seen presently.

The union, when once completed, seems to have afforded many means of happiness to the beautiful Lady Mary. As far as worldly advantages were to be considered, she encountered no disappointment. Soon after her marriage, the father of her husband was created a duke through the interest of her parents, and the reversion of the post of master of the wardrobe settled on his son through the influence of the Duchess of Marlborough, and, as she herself alleges, as part of her daughter’s portion.[^[12]]

An unbroken course of prosperity attended the long life of Lord Monthermer, who had not many years to wait before he attained a higher title, on the death of his father, the Duke of Montague.[^[13]] The disposition and character of the Lord Monthermer, those most important points of all, were, notwithstanding the character given of him by the Duchess, said, by a keen-sighted judge, to have been truly amiable. “He was,” says Horace Walpole, writing to his friend Sir Horace Mann, “with some foibles, a most amiable man, and one of the most feeling I ever knew.” “He had,” says Lord Hailes, in reference to the Duchess’s description of the Duke’s childish propensities, “other pretty fancies, not mentioned in the memoranda of his mother-in-law; he did good without ostentation. His vast benevolence of soul is not recorded by Pope; but it will be remembered while there is any tradition of human kindness or charity in England.” The defects of this nobleman appear to have been a thirst for gain, producing an inveterate place-hunting, which detracted from his better qualities. “He was,” says Walpole, “incessantly obtaining new, and making the most of all: he had quartered on the great wardrobe no less than thirty nominal tailors and arras workers,”—employments which were dropped at his death. This corrupt proceeding he redeemed, in some measure, by great liberality, paying out of his own property no less than two thousand a year in private pensions. The Duke of Montague’s talents fitted him indeed for better things than the grovelling love of gain. Sir Robert Walpole entertained so high an opinion of his abilities, that he was very desirous that the Duke should command the forces,—a charge which his grace, fearful of his own experience, declined.[^[14]] He received, with his bride, an addition to her portion of ten thousand pounds, presented on the occasion by the Queen, who had conferred a similar gift on Lady Bridgewater. What was of still more importance, the favour of Anne was continued to him when the Marlborough family was disgraced, and the high offices which he held under George the First and Second attested the continuance of royal regard.

1703. The Duke of Marlborough passed the summer of this year in fruitless attempts to stimulate the timid spirit of the Dutch generals with whom, as commander-in-chief, he was destined to co-operate, and to unite the discordant opinions by which his operations against the French were weakened, and his plans wholly frustrated. So harassed and dispirited was the great commander at this time, when all his persuasions could not avail to induce the allied armies to attack the French lines, that he looked forward with something like pleasure to the projected siege of Limburg, as to a sort of episode to his weary existence amongst his friendly, but obstinate coadjutors. One painful and inconvenient effect of mental anxiety continually attacked the Duke, in the cruel form of continual and severe headache. To this, and to the harassed frame and dejected spirits of which it was a concomitant, he refers, when writing to the Duchess, in terms which ought to have made an affectionate wife careful lest she should increase his uneasiness by any line of conduct which she could possibly avoid.

“When[^[15]] I last writ to you, I was so much disordered, that I writ in very great pain. I cannot say I am yet well, for my head aches violently, and I am afraid you will think me lightheaded, when I tell you that I go to-morrow to the siege of Limburg, in hopes to recover my health. But it is certainly true that I shall have more quiet there than I have here; for I have been these last six days in a perpetual dispute, and there I shall have nobody but such as will willingly obey me.”

The Duchess was too much absorbed in her own schemes, to regard the unkindness and impropriety of adding to her husband’s perplexities, which were already sufficiently overpowering, and which demanded an undisturbed attention. She was carried along, as it were, by a torrent. Her hopes, her endeavours, centered all in one point; the abasement of the high church party, and the establishment of the Whigs at the head of affairs, were the objects of her political existence. To accomplish this purpose, she now employed all the force of her arguments, not only to convert the Duke, but by correspondence, and in conversation, to sway the mind of her sovereign, and bend it to her purpose.

The marriage between the two great families of Churchill and Montague was intended to propitiate the favour both of Whigs and Tories, by adding connexions among each of those parties to the interests of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. Never was there a period in which party spirit manifested itself with greater virulence than at the present juncture, and the contentions in parliament were so vehement, that a dreadful storm seemed impending over the country. The popularity of the Whigs was increased, and strong suspicions were entertained that even the Queen’s inclinations began to be favourable to that party. “But what was matter of hope to the Whigs,” observes Cunningham, “seemed to the Tories to be only a dangerous tempest ready to break upon the church; and the furious clergy began to prophesy and report about the country great dangers of—the Lord knows what! So that it was now easy to perceive what influence there is in England in the mere cry of religion.”[^[16]]

The Duchess of Marlborough was not inactive in the midst of this tempest of parties. Her dislike to Lord Rochester, and her abhorrence of the pretensions to superiority in spiritual affairs assumed, according to her notions, by that nobleman and his partisans, were the main sources of her adoption of Whig principles. Lord Rochester had, in the former reign, offended her pride by urging upon the King her removal from the service of the Princess Anne. The wound was inflamed continually, and, at last, the enmity rose to open hostilities. Lord Rochester was as averse to a reconciliation with his haughty foe as the Duchess herself; their influence bore the semblance of rival-ship; their advice drew the compliant Queen different ways; Lord Rochester guided the prejudices, the Duchess governed the affections of her royal slave. Finally, female influence prevailed: for when have men adequately opposed its sway? Yet it is certain, first, that Anne long resisted the arguments of her friend, and, secondly, that the Duchess would never have been completely successful, had not the violence and arrogance of her foes blazed out, and proved the most opportune and effectual aid that ever plotting woman received. To “the mad conduct of the tacking Tories,” as the Duchess termed the ill-judged manœuvres of that party, she owed, as she acknowledged, the temporary abatement, for it could not be called a change, that was effected in the Queen’s high church fervour, and obstinate, yet honest Toryism.[^[17]]

Lord Rochester, who, as long as he remained in existence, was the chief object of the Duchess’s political displeasure—the thorn which, in the midst of her greatness, rankled in her side—was a man highly esteemed, not only by the party whose tenets he zealously and powerfully supported, but by the country in general. Far from being entirely indebted for the consideration which he enjoyed, to “the accident,” as the Duchess termed it, which made him uncle to the Queen, his earnestness and steadiness, during a long political life, had insured him universal respect, heightened, in the minds of those of the old school of English politics, by his relationship to the great historian and advocate of their party. There is a sort of reputation, a description of influence, which consistency, whether it be to the most approved or the most unpopular opinions of the time, can alone purchase. From the time that Lord Rochester, when Mr. Hyde, had pleaded for his father before the House of Commons, reconciling his filial love with his public duty, he had held an even, and, as far as the great changes in affairs would permit, an unequivocal line of conduct. After the bill against occasional Conformity was rejected, Lord Rochester first began to evince that “deep discontent with the Queen and her administration,”[^[18]] which secret jealousies, and a real difference of sentiment had long been fostering in his mind. In the previous year, he had, in anger, declined the lieutenancy of Ireland, upon the Queen’s urging him to go to that country, the affairs of which required his presence. His resignation was followed, in 1704, by that of Lord Nottingham, who resigned the secretaryship upon the Queen’s refusal to dismiss the Dukes of Devonshire and Somerset from the council. This step on the part of Lord Nottingham was far more important in its consequences to the future fortunes of the Marlborough family, than they could, at that moment, possibly have foretold. After a month’s delay his place was filled up, and Harley, the prudent, the conciliating, and moderate, but aspiring Harley, succeeded to it; holding, at the same time, the office of Speaker of the House of Commons and that of Secretary of State—two appointments that had hitherto never been assigned to the same person.[^[19]]

This preferment Harley owed chiefly to the favour of Marlborough and Godolphin, who considered him as a very proper person to manage the House of Commons.[^[20]] They knew his talents, but they were not acquainted with the extent of his ambition, nor with his actual sentiments. Towards Marlborough, this able and celebrated minister expressed, at this time, an ardent attachment, and a lively concern in the recent loss which the great general had sustained in the death of Lord Blandford. “I will not,” he says, in a letter to the Duke on that topic, “call it your grace’s loss, but our common misfortune. I do feel it, that a limb is torn off; therefore I think, for the preservation of the residue, grief should be moderated: time, I know, is the best physician in this case; but our necessities require a quicker remedy.”[^[21]]The Duchess, who must be regarded as the mainspring of all political changes at this period, had now inadvertently planted an enemy in the heart of the citadel. Whilst her husband was in Holland, distracted by contending factions and corroding jealousies, which, to use his own phrase, “made his life a burthen,” she had been diligently exerting the faculties of her ingenious mind to displace Nottingham, Seymour, and Lord Jersey, and to effect an union between her husband and the Whigs. Her efforts, like female interference generally, embarrassed rather than aided the Whigs, to whom she extended her gracious aid. They rendered, also, the path of her husband through the political mazes which surrounded him, more perplexing. Although the Whig party had encouraged Marlborough’s favourite schemes for the subversion of the power of France, neither he nor Godolphin desired to throw themselves into the hands of a party to whose measures they were from education averse. It was the wish and intention of these able men to act independently of party, and to promote the introduction of statesmen of sound morals and of moderate views into the cabinet, without regarding the political distinctions which proved so inconvenient to those who solely desired the advancement of the public good, and the benefit, at home and abroad, of her Majesty’s interests.

The violence of the Tories, and their determination to obtain a complete ascendency, frustrated this well-considered line of conduct on the part of Marlborough and his friend. Lord Rochester had been supported by Nottingham, in his opposition to that line of foreign policy which Marlborough had most at heart. Lord Godolphin had even, at one time, purposed to send in his resignation; for he found that he and his friend were losing the support of the Tories, without gaining that of the Whigs. The Queen overwhelmed the Lord Treasurer with reproaches whenever he hinted at the necessity of conciliating the Whigs. Godolphin, in despair, despatched letters to the Hague, filled with complaints to his friend. Marlborough, though by no means in an enviable situation himself, regarded that of Godolphin as still more pitiable. “I have very little rest here,” he remarks, writing from the camp; “but I should have less quiet of mind, if I were obliged to be in your station.” “I do from my heart pity you,” he says, in another place, “and everybody that has to do with unreasonable people; for certainly (and who will not join in the reflection?) it is much better to row in the galleys than to have to do with such as are very selfish, and misled by everybody that speaks to them, which I believe is the case of the author of your two letters.”

The Duchess was not a person to conciliate differences, nor to soothe the irritated passions of the two great men over whom she had an ascendency. She delighted to show her controul over the Queen, and vexed the weak spirit of Anne by reading extracts from Marlborough’s letters, complaining of the Tories. In particular, she failed not to transmit to her Majesty certain hints which Marlborough and Godolphin had thrown out of their projected resignations. Good Queen Anne then hastened to dispel such notions, and to reassure her beloved Mr. and Mrs. Freeman, and their friend and confidante Godolphin, who figured in her familiar letters under the name of “Montgomery,” of her unabated regard. Thus the aim of the arrogant Duchess was answered.

The Earl of Jersey, who was suspected of a close correspondence with the court of St. Germains, of course seconded the opposition of Rochester and Nottingham. The Duke of Buckingham, Lord Privy Seal, was equally devoted to what was termed the high church party, though not so reputed a partisan of the exiled family as the weak, but dangerous, Lord Jersey. These noblemen all united in controverting, by every possible endeavour, the designs and propositions of Marlborough.[^[22]]

Whilst the fervour of politics was at its height, the Queen was advised by her physicians to go to Bath. It was singular that Lord Wharton and Lord Somers were at the same time ordered to go to that fashionable resort for the recovery of their health. Lord Wharton, exhausted by his parliamentary exertions, and Lord Somers, frequently an invalid, were probably not unwilling to avail themselves of this opportunity of combining business with pleasure. The public, indeed, regarded the whole as a scheme among the physicians, and considered the Queen’s illness as only a pretext for meeting these two great Whig partisans on the neutral ground which a place like Bath affords. Many of the Tories who were in that city, insulted the Whigs in public meetings and assemblies. The Whigs returned the insult, nor did the Queen wholly escape some annoyances, when it was understood that she was willing to see Lord Somers. But the placid Anne looked on these demonstrations of party spirit with a smiling countenance, and “hoped to extinguish all their party flames in the waters of the Bath.” Those praises of her frugality, her constancy, her “English heart,”[^[23]] which she had been in the habit of hearing from her subjects, were now no longer expressed; and the Queen returned to London from Bath, in all the miseries of unpopularity.

Lord Wharton, the veteran promoter of Whig principles, and father of the eccentric and infamous Duke of Wharton, had no sooner reached Bath than he was challenged, upon the pretence of affront, by a Mr. Dashwood, a hot young Tory, who was desirous of stepping forward to signalise himself in behalf of his party. Lord Wharton in vain offered the young man such satisfaction as a man of honour might give, without fighting; but neither his age nor his infirmities appeased the ardour of Dashwood, who insisted on a duel. The parties met, fought, as was the custom, with swords, and Dashwood was disarmed by the old lord, who, in consideration of the youth and zeal of his opponent, spared his life, and even gave him the honour of his acquaintance. But Mr. Dashwood, unable to sustain the reproaches of the world for his cowardice and rude fury in challenging so old a man, died soon afterwards, it is said, through shame and vexation.[^[24]]

Such were some of the effects of that political rancour for which this free country has been, and probably ever will be, remarkable. The ladies of the time, it appears, were as zealous in those days as they often prove in this more enlightened age.