“For my own part, I frankly confess to you, and to the world, that whatever vanity or weakness the ambition of a good name may be thought, either by philosophers or by ministers of state, to imply, I have ever felt some degree of that ambition from the moment I could distinguish between good and evil. My chief aim (if I have any acquaintance with my own heart) has been, both in public and private life, to deserve approbation: but I have never been without an earnest desire to have it, too, both living and dead, from the wise and virtuous.
“My lord, this passion has led me to take more pains than you would easily imagine. It has sometimes carried me beyond the sphere to which the men have thought proper, and, perhaps, generally speaking, with good reason, to confine our sex. I have been a kind of author. About forty years ago, having understood that the wife of the late Bishop Burnet, a lady whom I greatly esteemed, had received unfavourable impressions of me, on account of the unhappy differences between Queen Mary and her sister, I wrote a faithful narrative of that affair purely to satisfy that one person.
“And when, after my dismissal from Queen Anne’s service, I perceived how industriously malice was employed in inventing calumnies to load me with, I drew up an account of my conduct in the several offices I had filled under her Majesty. This piece I intended to publish immediately, but was dissuaded from it by a person (of great eminence at this day) whom I thought my friend. I have since imagined that he had, by instinct, an aversion to accounting. It was said, as a reason for deferring the publication of my Account, that prejudice and passion were grown too violent and stormy for the voice of reason to be heard, but that those would, after some time, subside, and that the truth then brought to light would unavoidably prevail. I followed the advice with the less reluctance, as being conscious of the power of an easy vindication, whenever my patience should be pushed to extremity.
“After this I set myself another task, to which I was partly urged by the injustice, and I may say ingratitude, of the Whigs. It was to give an account of my conduct with regard to parties, and of the successful artifice of Mr. Harley and Mrs. Masham, in taking advantage of the Queen’s passion for what she called the church, to undermine me in her affections. In this undertaking I had the assistance of a friend to whom I furnished materials. Some parts of the work were of my own composition, being such passages as nobody but myself could relate with exactness. This was not originally intended to be published until after my death.
“But, my lord, as I am now drawing near my end, and very soon there will remain nothing of me but a name, I am desirous, under the little capacity which age and infirmities have left me for other enjoyments, to have the satisfaction, before I die, of seeing that name (which, from the station I have held in the great world, must unavoidably survive me,) in possession of what was only designed it for a legacy. From this desire I have caused the several pieces above mentioned to be connected together, and thrown into the form into which I now venture to address them to your lordship. They may possibly be of some use towards correcting the folly and injustice of those who, in order to judge of the conduct of others, begin with forming to themselves characters of them, upon slight and idle reports, and then make such characters the rule by which they admit or reject whatever they afterwards hear concerning them. If any such happy effect as this might reasonably be hoped from the perusal of these papers, I should be far from making any apology for offering them to your lordship; I would not call it troubling your lordship with them. No, my lord, you will not esteem it a trouble to read them, even though you should judge them useless for the purpose I have mentioned. The friendship you favour me with will make you find a particular satisfaction in this justification of my injured character to the world. And I imagine that there is no honest mind, how much soever it may chance to be prejudiced against me, but will feel something of the same pleasure in being undeceived.
“The original letters, of which, either in whole or in part, the copies will be here found, I have directed to be preserved in my family as incontestable vouchers of the truth of what I am going to relate.”
The works which this “Account” very soon elicited, in reply to its able strictures upon persons and things, are enumerated in those chapters of this work which relate particularly to the scurrilous attacks from which the Duke and Duchess perpetually suffered. The latter, indeed, lived too short a period after her Account of her Conduct appeared, to refute the misstatements which were circulated in various pamphlets, and by other works of ephemeral celebrity. It was, perhaps, for the best, that an opportunity of acrimonious retaliation was not afforded to one who was apt, to use her own expression, to “tumble out her mind” in a manner not always either very decorous, nor very gratifying to her hearers. Those who recommended the Duchess to postpone her work were doubtless well acquainted with her peculiarities, and dreaded the violence of that explosion which must ensue. It was, probably, the wish of her friends and relations, as it is said to have been their expectation, that the Vindication should be posthumous.
The Duchess of Marlborough, in addition to her own powerful efforts, had the good fortune also to be defended by the pen of the celebrated Henry Fielding. It must, however, be acknowledged, that possibly the defence of the great novelist was not disinterested. Fielding wrote, as it is well known, many fugitive political tracts, for which he was accused of venality, and it was generally understood that they were remunerated by the party whom he espoused. It is extremely probable that a man disposed to make his talents profitable may not have been ashamed to vindicate the conduct of the wealthy and powerful Duchess, for a consideration; and there were circumstances in the family of Fielding which confirm the supposition. His father, Edward Fielding, served under the Duke of Marlborough; and his sister Sarah, the accomplished friend of Bishop Hoadly, had, through that medium, ample opportunities of introducing her brother to the Duchess. The work which Fielding published in 1742, was entitled “A Full Vindication of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough, both with regard to the Account lately published by her Grace, and to her Character in general; against the base and malicious invectives contained in a late scurrilous pamphlet, entitled ‘Remarks on the Account,’ &c. In a Letter to the noble Author of those Remarks.”
The Duchess had been dead nearly two years, when an anonymous biography, concise and meagre, entitled “The Life of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough,” was published in 1745. This small volume, for into one small volume in those days was the long life of the departed Duchess compressed, has every appearance of being written by a person amicable to the Duchess, although not in her confidence; no original letters are introduced, and the anecdotes of the Duchess, which are given, though favourable, are not so voluminous as those which one might glean in an hour, in the present day, from newspapers. The Life was, in all probability, according to the custom of the Duchess, ordered and paid for by her; perhaps the task was remunerated whilst she was alive; but, from the coldness with which it is written, it was probably completed after her death.
This little book has hitherto constituted the sole biography of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough. Her own Vindication commences and ends with her court life, and its title-page distinctly states it to be “An Account of the Conduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough, from her first coming to Court to the year 1710. In a letter from herself to my Lord ——.” The name of this favoured nobleman, Earl Cholmondeley, has been supplied by Sir John Dalrymple in his manuscript notes on the work entitled the “Opinions of the Duchess of Marlborough.”