The Duchess of Marlborough was supplanted by her own protégée, Mrs. Masham, and peremptorily dismissed, in spite of prayers, rages and “scenes.” Voltaire says: “Quelques paires de gants qu’elle refusa à la Reine, un verre d’eau qu’elle laissa tomber par une méprise! sur la robe de Madame Masham, changèrent la face de l’Europe,” alluding to the political changes, which ensued on the downfall of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. In her latter days, her temper, embittered by these untoward circumstances, became ungovernable; she quarrelled with her husband, her son-in-law, her grandchildren, and gave way to the most violent outbursts of passion. The Duke of Marlborough was a constant, and affectionate husband, and it is related that on one occasion, when he strove to pacify her rage by a compliment to the beauty of her luxuriant hair, she seized the scissors, cut it off, and flung it in his face. When the Duke died, the long fair tresses, were found carefully preserved in a drawer.
Sarah was a widow for twenty-two years; in spite of her age, perhaps on account of her immense fortune, the Duke of Somerset, and Lord Coningsby were both suitors, for her hand. To the latter, she replied, after reminding him that she was sixty-three, “but were I only thirty, and could you lay the world at my feet, I would never bestow on you, the heart and hand, which belonged exclusively to John, Duke of Marlborough.”
John, Second Duke of Montagu:
By PHILLIPS.
Full-Length.
(Right Hand on a Table, Left on the Back of a Chair, on which a Greyhound is standing. Court Suit, Star, Garter, and Ribbon of the Order.)
Born, 1682. Died, 1749.—The only surviving son of Ralph, first Duke of Montagu, by his first wife, the Countess of Northumberland. In 1705, he married Lady Mary Churchill, youngest daughter, and co-heiress of the Duke of Marlborough, by Sarah Jennings, his wife, by whom he had several sons, who all died in their childhood, as did one of his daughters; but two survived him, Lady Isabella, married to the Duke of Manchester, and Lady Mary, to the Earl of Cardigan. He was Lord High Constable of England, at the coronation of George I., Knight of the Garter, and one of the first Knights of the Bath, as well as Great Master of that new Order, with several other honours. Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, in her unpublished volume of remarks and axioms, (which does her little honour) is very hard upon her son-in-law. She declares he had no just claim for place, or favour on the Government, on account of services, by sea, or land; but this statement is emphatically contradicted, in a marginal note, stating that Montagu had served under the great Duke of Marlborough himself. He seems by all accounts, to have been a kind hearted, and benevolent man, but undoubtedly whimsical, and eccentric; witness an anecdote told of him in one of the periodicals of the day. In his walks in St. James’s Park, he was attracted by the daily sight of an old gentleman, of military aspect, but shabby, and poverty stricken in his dress, who usually sat, and sunned himself, on one of the benches in the avenue. The Duke sent his servant, one day to the old soldier, and asked him, to come and visit him. Nothing loth, but much bewildered, the stranger followed the lacquey, through the corridors, and well furnished rooms, to the ducal presence. Here he was asked, and had to tell, his sorrowful tale. He had served his country, but had no pension; he had married a wife without a dowry, and she and her children were half starving, down in Wales, while he had come to London on the sad, and hopeless errand, of getting something, to live upon. He had a wretched room, where he slept, and spent most of his time, on a bench, in the Park. The Duke listened, and fed him, gave him a trifling sum, and said he hoped to see him again, ere very long. Accordingly, some time afterwards, the old man received a letter from the Duke, begging him to come to dinner, telling him that he had a most mysterious, and confidential communication, to make. The soldier, to whom his whole acquaintance with Montagu appeared like a fairy tale, brushed up his thread-bare suit, and presented himself to the Duke, who in a most private, and mysterious manner, assured him, that there was a certain lady, who admired him very much, and who had earnestly desired an interview with him; indeed, the Duke went on to say, so entirely was her heart set on the meeting, that he had consented to be the go-between. More bewildered than ever, the soldier pleaded his wrinkled face, his scanty grey hairs, and, above all, his allegiance to the poor wife, far away among the Welsh mountains. The Duke was jocose, treated the matter with levity, and gave his arm to lead the astonished guest to the hospitable board, where the lady would be seated; and there indeed, smiling amid her tears, sate his wife, and her children, and after a sumptuous repast, the happy couple left the ducal roof, with their pockets sufficiently well lined (with the addition of a small pension also promised by their noble friend), to keep the wolf from their humble door. Such whimsical fancies as these, would not have suited the stern and economical Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough.
John, Duke of Montagu, died at Montagu House, Whitehall, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, when his title became extinct.