The only adverse event during the remaining portion of William’s reign, which particularly affected Lord and Lady Marlborough, was the conspiracy of Sir John Fenwick, one of the most active Jacobites of the day. With this party, though not personally with Fenwick, Marlborough, it cannot be denied, had been deeply and culpably implicated. No considerations can excuse the dishonourable intercourse which Marlborough, in conjunction with Godolphin and others, had carried on with the exiled monarch. It resulted from a temporising and mean policy, which sought to secure an indemnity from James in case of his restoration, or of the accession of the Prince of Wales. If the reasons which engaged Marlborough to aid the accession of William were valid, and sprang from a pure source, those reasons were still in force to promote the peaceable rule of the reigning monarch, and to support him on his throne.
The rash encouragement which Godolphin and Marlborough had given to James’s emissaries, now involved them in a serious dilemma. Fenwick, convicted, upon the evidence of an intercepted letter to his wife, of being concerned in the plot formed at this time to assassinate William, sought to avert the justly merited sentence from which he afterwards suffered, by a disclosure of the names of those whom he declared to have been concerned in the conspiracy. He was instructed in the details of his pretended confessions, by Lord Monmouth, afterwards the noted and eccentric Earl of Peterborough. He accused the Duke of Shrewsbury, the Earl of Marlborough, Godolphin, and Russell, of treasonable practices; and of having, in particular, accepted pardons from the late King.
These noblemen were, however, fully cleared of the charges made against them by Fenwick; and Marlborough, standing up in his place in the House of Lords, solemnly denied ever having had any conversation whatsoever with Sir John Fenwick during the reign of the present King. Lord Godolphin vindicated himself in the same manner. Fenwick was executed, and Monmouth stripped of all his offices, and sent to the Tower; but was saved from further punishment by the mediation of Bishop Burnet.[[307]] Cleared, therefore, from this atrocious accusation, Marlborough, who, with his wife, had suffered much uneasiness whilst the proceedings against Fenwick were pending, experienced, in the end, the security which a subject derives from the dominion of a rightly thinking and high-minded prince, and the superior strength and wisdom of such a government to the uncertain rule of passion and despotism. It was William’s policy to make large allowance for the transient defection of his subjects; to endeavour to bring them back to duty by mildness and forgiveness; and to show no petty spleen, nor undue displeasure at the lingering fondness which they might cherish for their absent and justly-deposed monarch. Some time, however, elapsed before Marlborough received any outward proof of his sovereign’s restored confidence. William, indeed, openly regretted that he could not employ a nobleman who was great both in military affairs and as a cabinet minister, and “one who never made a difficulty.”[[308]] But, at length, either the King’s scruples were overcome: or, as he allowed, in any enterprise, choosing to act upon the principle of converting an enemy into a friend, he appointed Marlborough to a situation of the highest trust.
CHAPTER IX.
1697, 1698.
Circumstances attending the Peace of Ryswick—Appointment of Marlborough to the office of preceptor to the Duke of Gloucester—Bishop Burnet—His appointment and character.
The peace of Ryswick, in 1697, was accompanied by two acts, intended, on the part of William the Third, to relieve and indemnify his predecessor for some of his disappointments and afflictions. On the one hand, the King bound himself to pay fifty thousand pounds a year to Mary of Modena, the wife of James; a sum which would have been her jointure had she continued Queen of England. By another act William consented that the son of James the Second, afterwards known as the Pretender, should be educated in England in the Protestant faith, and should inherit the crown after his own death.[[309]] Such were his just intentions; but, in consequence of the distinct refusal of James on both these points, the Pretender lost his crown, and his mother her jointure; and the hopes of the country, and the kindly feelings of the King, were henceforth centered in William, the young Duke of Gloucester, the only surviving child of the Prince and Princess of Denmark.
The Duke was now entering his tenth year; and it was thought advisable to withdraw him from the care of female instructresses, and to place him under the guidance of the learned and the valiant. He was a child of singular promise, and of a precocious capacity, foreboding weakness of body and premature decay. The King long hesitated before he could resolve to comply with the wishes of the Princess Anne, who earnestly desired that Marlborough might be appointed her son’s governor. The situation was first offered to the Duke of Shrewsbury, but was declined by that nobleman, whose infirm health rendered him, at that time, desirous of retiring from public life. There was a considerable struggle in the mind of William before he could decide to place, in so responsible an office as that of governor, the man upon whom all the most enlightened of his advisers had fixed, as the proper tutor for the Prince. At length, the persuasions of the Earl of Sunderland, and of Lord Albemarle, who had succeeded Lord Portland in the royal favour, induced the monarch to bestow the honour upon Marlborough. It was conferred with these remarkable words: “Teach the Duke of Gloucester, my lord, to be like yourself, and my nephew cannot want accomplishments.”[[310]] On the evening of this appointment, June 19th, 1698, Lord Marlborough was sworn one of the privy council.
This sudden restoration to good fortune and to the King’s confidence acted doubtless beneficially upon the disposition of Lord Marlborough, who, like all superior natures, received benefits with the kindly spirit with which they were proffered. But no conciliation could mollify the implacable spirit of Lady Marlborough, nor reconcile her to the monarch who had once consented to the indignity offered to her, of forbidding her the court. Instead, therefore, of softening her tone when she discusses the events of this period, or of acknowledging the distinction conferred on Lord Marlborough, she refers to the arrangements respecting the household of the young Duke, as plainly proving that the Princess judged rightly, when she refused, on a former occasion, to leave her settlement to the generosity of the King.
William, as the Duchess affirms, obtained from Parliament a grant of fifty thousand pounds a year for the settlement of the young Duke, but allowed the young Prince five thousand pounds only of that sum, refusing even to advance one quarter for plate and furniture, which the Princess Anne was therefore obliged to supply out of her own funds.[[311]] The Princess received, also, a promise from his Majesty that she should have the appointment of all the household, excepting to the offices of the deputy-governor and gentlemen of the bedchamber. The message which brought Anne this assurance was, what the Duchess calls, “so humane,” and had so different an air from anything the Princess had been used to, that it gave her “extreme pleasure;” and she instantly set about to fill up the appointments, making various promises to her own, and undoubtedly to her favourite’s, friends. What then were the consternation of the Princess, and the fury of the Countess of Marlborough, when, after a long delay in confirming these appointments, they were apprised that the King, who was going abroad, would send a list of those persons whom he had selected for the Duke’s household.
The cogitations of two ladies, on such an occasion, may be imagined. The disappointment of various friends, the affronts sustained by others—the loss of patronage—the sure gain of contempt and ridicule—all the awkwardness of the affair must have ruffled even the placid Anne, who was probably, however, not half sufficiently incensed to satisfy the far more irritable and indignant Countess.