The correspondence between these celebrated lovers during the anxious days of courtship was preserved by the survivor, with a care that marked the honour which she felt she had received in being beloved by such a man as Marlborough. They are said, by Archdeacon Coxe, to have displayed the most ardent tenderness on the part of Churchill, with alternations of regard and petulance on that of the lady. Her haughtiness, and the sensibility of her future husband, fully appear in these letters. Yet, notwithstanding the defects of character which they betrayed in the one party, the attachment on the side of the other increased in ardour, and continued sufficiently strong to overcome all obstacles. Amongst these, the scanty portion of Sarah, no less than the still greater deficiency of means on the part of her lover, formed the principal impediment. In order to show the different circumstances of each of the families with which they were connected, it is necessary to give some account of their various members, and of the fortunes which they had at this time begun to share.
The adherence of the Churchill family to the royal House of Stuart, and the adverse effect of that adherence upon the fortunes of Sir Winston Churchill, have been already mentioned. Sir Winston, a man of considerable learning and of approved bravery, had indeed so far retrieved his circumstances, and relieved his estate of its heavy burdens, as to be able, in 1661, to stand for the borough of Weymouth, and to sit in the first parliament called by Charles the Second. He was afterwards appointed a commissioner of the Court of Claims in Ireland, and constituted, on his return from that country, one of the comptrollers of the Board of Green Cloth,—an office from which he was removed, but to which he was restored. But these appointments appear to have been the sole compensation which he received for his active services; and he seems to have devoted the latter portion of his days to pursuits of literature rather than of ambition, being one of the first fellows of the Royal Society, and the author of an able and elegant historical work on the Kings of England, which composition he dedicated to Charles the Second.[[28]]
Sir Winston’s means were encumbered, however, with seven sons and four daughters; and although seven of this numerous family died in infancy, yet still a sufficient number remained to entail anxiety upon the owner of an impoverished estate. George Churchill, the third surviving son, like his brother John, owed the first gleams of royal favour to family interest, but insured its continuance by his merit. He distinguished himself both by sea and land; was a faithful servant, for twenty years, as a gentleman of the bedchamber to George of Denmark, and attained, under King William, the post of one of the commissioners of the Admiralty.
Charles, the fourth son, was also bred to arms, and, at an early age, signalised himself at the time of the Revolution. To him the landed property of Sir Winston descended, on account of some pecuniary obligations which his father owed him, and which prove how circumscribed were still the means of the brave and estimable Sir Winston. Like his brothers, Charles held offices under the crown, and was appointed governor of the Tower of London by Queen Anne.[[29]] Thus, whilst, by merit and interest conjoined, the sons of Sir Winston Churchill attained independence, and perhaps wealth, it was natural for him to desire that his eldest surviving son should farther advance his fortunes by an advantageous marriage; nor was it inconsistent with the notions of the day, to look upon marriage solely as a negociation in which the affections were not even consulted, or were at least regarded as of secondary import.
That such were the sentiments of Sir Winston and Lady Churchill, appears from the strenuous opposition which they made to their son’s union with Miss Jennings: for at present her portion was inconsiderable, and her family interest not to be compared with that of the Churchills. It is true that the estate at Sandridge, to which the Duchess afterwards became co-heiress, was more productive than those lands which Sir Winston Churchill had saved from the grasp of the parliament; but still it was encumbered by a provision for her grandfather’s numerous issue; nor was it until the death of her brothers, without children, that Sarah and her sister Frances shared the patrimonial property. Thus circumstanced, and precluded on both sides from the expectation of parental aid, the young soldier was obliged to depend upon his own powers of exertion, to find means to form an establishment for the lady to whom he made his ardent suit.
The young Duchess of York was, at this juncture, the counsellor and confidante of Sarah, and she appears to have offered her and Colonel Churchill some pecuniary assistance in this emergency.[[30]] Nor was her bounty the only source from which a future provision for the lovers was derived.
It is always an ungracious task to touch upon the errors of those who, by a subsequent career of honour, have left, as the final testament to posterity, an example of domestic virtue. The income which Colonel Churchill possessed,[[31]] is said to have been derived from a dishonourable source.[[32]] Amongst the causes of his rapid rise in the army, as well as of his success at court, his relationship to the celebrated Barbara Villiers, afterwards Duchess of Cleveland, has been naturally regarded as one of the most powerful explanations of the favours which he received. This infamous woman, described by Bishop Burnet as “a woman of great beauty, but enormously vicious and ravenous, foolish, but imperious,”[[33]] governed Charles the Second, as it is well known, by the exhibition of the most tempestuous passions, which she ascribed in his presence to jealousy of him, whilst her intrigues with other men were notorious. She was second cousin to Churchill by his mother’s side, being the daughter of Villiers Lord Grandison, who was killed at the battle of Edge Hill. Whilst Churchill was a youth, she imbibed for him too strong a partiality, in such a mind as hers, to appear even innocent, if it really were so. Her passion for him was as sudden as it was disgusting; and however it may have procured him some temporary assistance, it drew upon him the displeasure of the King, who at one time forbade him the court.[[34]] The advocates of Churchill have endeavoured to attach little importance to this disgraceful connexion, for which his youth and the temptations of the court alone furnish an apology; yet they cannot, whilst they excuse, entirely deny a fact which undoubtedly sullies the fair fame of Churchill.
Lord Chesterfield, in holding up the Duke of Marlborough as a model of good breeding and irresistible elegance and suavity, thus touches upon the fact of his being under pecuniary obligations to the imperious Duchess of Cleveland. “He had,” says his lordship, “most undoubtedly an excellent, good, plain understanding, with sound judgment. But these alone would probably have raised him but something higher than they found him, which was page to King James the Second’s queen. There the graces protected and promoted him; for while he was an ensign in the Guards, the Duchess of Cleveland, then favourite mistress of the King, struck by those very graces, gave him five thousand pounds; with which he immediately bought an annuity of five hundred pounds a year, of my grandfather Halifax, which was the foundation of his subsequent fortune.”[[35]]
Upon this slender annuity, thus disreputably obtained, the hopes of Churchill and of the young object of his affections depended. Sarah appears to have been capricious and undecided in her conduct during the progress of their engagement, which lasted three years.[[36]] The cause of these variations of feeling has been assigned to the opposition made by Sir Winston and Lady Churchill to their son’s forming a union so far below their expectations; but it may be referred to various other sources. The high-minded Sarah must have been often offended and wounded, in the nicest feelings, by the past irregularities of Churchill’s life. Those irregularities were renounced, it is true, upon his engagement with her, and his honourable and well-toned mind was recalled to a sense of that beauty which attends purity of conduct, and its power to dignify characters even of a common stamp. But the effects of his past conduct were found in the bitterness and jealousy of those by whom he had been hitherto flattered,[[37]] and by whom doubtless the defects of his moral character may have been grossly exaggerated. Sarah may have intended to prove the constancy of her accomplished lover, when, hearing that his parents destined him to become the husband of a young lady of superior fortune to her own, though of less beauty, she petulantly entreated him “to renounce an attachment which militated against his worldly prospects;” and adding many reproaches, pungent as her pen could write,—and in the vituperative style she had few equals,—she declared that she would accompany her sister Frances, then Countess of Hamilton, to Paris, thus finally to end their engagement. Her address to the honour, to the heart of Churchill, was not made in vain; he answered her by an appeal to her affection, and by earnest remonstrances against her cruelty, and a reconciliation was the result.[[38]]
Whilst these sentiments secretly occupied the heart of Churchill, and of her who loved him, perhaps, less for his excellencies than for the effect which they produced upon others, several events took place at the court of Charles, in which Colonel Churchill, during the intervals of his military service, participated,—his office of master of the robes to the Duke of York, an appointment granted him in 1673, retaining him near the court; whilst Sarah, in the course of her attendance on the Princess Anne, must have taken a considerable interest in the events which immediately concerned the royal family.