Of course, innumerable causes for this unlooked for occurrence were started by the public, always curious on such occasions. By some it was said that a letter had been intercepted, which gave rise to suspicions unfavourable to the Earl. By others the disgrace of Marlborough was ascribed to the resentment of Lord Portland, whom Marlborough was in the habit of designating “un homme de bois;”[[213]] by many, the interference of Marlborough and the Countess in the matter of the settlement was referred to as the cause of his loss of favour and office, without taking into account that it was then two years since that affair, and that Marlborough had been in the mean time so employed and distinguished by the King as to have obtained from the Marquis of Carmarthen the invidious appellation of the “General of favour.” But, whilst it has been allowed that these various causes, severally and conjointly, might have, in some degree, effected the result so painful to the Earl and so aggravating to the Countess, the recent boldness of Marlborough, in representing to his Majesty the detrimental effects of his undue partiality to the Dutch, was the immediate source of the King’s marked displeasure.
“It was said,” relates Lediard, “that all the resentment was, for the liberty he had taken to tell the King, that though himself had no reason to complain, yet many of his good subjects were sorry to see his royal munificence confined to one or two foreign lords.” French historians make no scruple to name the Earl of Portland and Rochford, both Dutchmen, to be the lords here hinted at; and add that the King turned his back upon the Earl without making any answer, and soon afterwards sent him a dismissal from his employments, and forbade him the court. Those who considered the jealousy or envy of foreign officers a reason for his lordship’s disgrace, assert it to be a confirmation of their opinion that the Earl was not employed again, nor recalled to council, until this motive ceased, and an end was put to the war by the peace of Ryswick.[[214]]
The Countess of Marlborough, however, makes no allusion to this ungrateful and petulant behaviour of the King.[[215]] “This event may be accounted for,” she says, speaking of the dismissal of his lordship, “by saying that Lord Portland had ever a great prejudice to my Lord Marlborough, and that my Lady Orkney, (then Mrs. Villiers,) though I had never done her any injury, except not making my court to her, was my implacable enemy. But I think it is not to be doubted that the principal cause of the King’s message was the court’s dislike that anybody should have so much interest with the Princess as I had, who would not obey implicitly every command of the King and Queen. The disgrace of my Lord Marlborough, therefore, was designed as a step towards removing me from about her.”[[216]]
Lord Rochester, the Countess proceeds to say, was also her foe, having warmly opposed her coming into the Princess’s family in the first instance, and wishing at that time greatly for her removal; believing that if he could compass it, he should infallibly have the government of both the sisters, his nieces, although he had never done anything to merit the confidence of the Princess.
There was, however, still another reason assigned for the event which caused so much speculation. The beautiful Frances Jennings, the “glass and model” of her fair countrywomen in the days of Charles the Second, had twice changed her condition since she had officiated, in the bloom of youth, at the court of the Duchess of York. The first affections of Frances were bestowed on the noted Jermyn, for whose unworthy sake she rejected the brave Talbot, marrying, in a temper of mind betwixt pique and ambition, Sir George Hamilton, a maréchal-de-camp in the French service, and grandson of the Earl of Aberdeen.
In 1667, Lady Hamilton becoming a widow, and the attachment of Talbot being unchanged by time, she became his wife; a marriage unfortunate, as far as ambitious views were concerned, as the high rank which Talbot afterwards obtained as Duke of Tyrconnel was not acknowledged at the court of William.
Between the Duchess of Tyrconnel and her sister Lady Marlborough, there never subsisted any very cordial intercourse,[[217]] nor was the connexion likely to prove anything but a source of suspicion towards the Earl and Countess. The Duchess of Tyrconnel, on the part of William, exercising the ingenuity with which nature had endowed her, in tormenting those admirers who were too importunate, or, when she ceased to attract those who were too cold, turned her lively talents to political intrigue, in which she played a deep game: but her cabals were often detrimental to the cause which she espoused, and terminated finally in her becoming one of those needy Jacobites about the court of St. Germains, whom the beset and unfortunate exiled monarch—as unfortunate in his friends as in his enemies—was obliged to satisfy with some portion of his own pension.[[218]]
The Duke of Tyrconnel, united as he was to this busy spirit, had qualities which would have adorned a better cause than that for which, with zeal and address, he long combated in the sister country. “He was,” says Clarendon, “a very handsome man, wore good clothes, and was, without doubt, of a clear, ready courage, which was virtue enough to recommend a man to the Duke’s good opinion; which, with more expedition than could be expected, he got, to that degree, that he was made of his bedchamber.”
To this qualified praise must be added the undoubted stigma attached to the conduct of Tyrconnel, having in his youth been one of those “men of honour,” so termed by Grammont, who acted as counsel to James the Second, when Duke of York, in order to facilitate his nullifying the marriage contract between his Highness and Miss Hyde. If such were the arts by which he recommended himself to James, and obtained, added to various other means, a fortune, as we are told, of forty thousand a year, they are not much to his credit.
The first object of Tyrconnel’s admiration was Miss Hamilton, to whom he offered his hand and fortune; and further proffered as many sacrifices as she could desire of the letters, hair, and pictures of a former flame, the Countess of Shrewsbury; and although these articles had no intrinsic value, they testify strongly—such, at least, is the opinion of that competent judge, Count Grammont, of a lover’s “sincerity and merit.”