MORNING ROOM.
Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough:
By SIR GODFREY KNELLER.
Half-Length: Oval.
(Light Coloured Dress. Blue Scarf.)
Born, 1658. Died, 1744.—The youngest daughter of Richard Jennings, Esq., of Sundridge, near St. Albans, by the daughter and heiress, of Sir Gifford Thornhurst. She was presented when quite young at Court, where her sister Frances, (afterwards Lady Tyrconnel) had already distinguished herself by her laxity of conduct, as well as her beauty. Sarah’s features may not have rivalled her sister’s in regularity, but her countenance was full of expression, her complexion delicate, and the profusion of her fair hair, formed a most attractive combination. She became the centre of a host of adorers, amongst whom she preferred, in spite of his poverty, “the young, handsome, graceful, insinuating, and eloquent Churchill.” On his side, the young Colonel who, even in early days, had established a character for avarice, was so enamoured of the portionless girl, as to refuse a rich heiress with a plain face, who had been proposed to him. But in her beauty, her ambition, her indomitable will, and the close friendship which united her to the Princess (afterwards Queen) Anne, the bride brought her husband, a dowry which made him “a Duke, a sovereign Prince of the Empire, the Captain General of a great coalition, the arbiter between mighty Princes, and the wealthiest subject in Europe.” The friendship between Lady Churchill, and Anne, the tyranny which the high-spirited, hot-tempered and wilful Lady of the Bedchamber, exercised over her royal mistress, for many years, are matters too well known, to be here recapitulated. The romantic friendship of Mrs. Morley, and Mrs. Freeman, the manner in which Anne as Princess, and Queen, even after her marriage to the Prince of Denmark, gave herself up to the dominion of her favourite, until the self-imposed yoke became unbearable, and was suddenly and completely discarded, are historical facts, bound up with public events.