“For God’s sake,” he writes, “let me know exactly how you are; and if you think my being with you can do you any good, you shall quickly see you are much dearer to me than fame, or whatever the world can say; for should you do otherwise than well, I were the unhappiest man living.”
Notwithstanding the offer of this noble sacrifice—noble in one who was not merely carried on by impulse, but who had laid plans of the greatest extent for the aggrandizement of his country—the Duchess, who appears to have been a domestic tyrant, could never be wholly satisfied without incessant expressions of regard and devotion. She could not forbear, even at this distance, adding to his many troubles by her exacting spirit. She scrutinized even the language of affection, with the fastidiousness of a spoiled child, loath to be contented.
From the following and other passages, we are led to conclude that the hopes of having a child to supply the loss of him from whom he had been severed, were, at one time, revived in the Duke’s mind. On a former occasion he wrote to his wife thus:—
“What troubles me in all this time is your telling me that you do not look well. Pray let me have, in one of your letters, an account how you do. If it should prove such a sickness as that I might pity you, yet not be sorry for it, it might make me yet have more ambition. But if your sickness be really want of health, it would render me the unhappiest man living.”
These hopes were further raised, only, unfortunately, to be frustrated. In all other respects the Duchess of Marlborough, pre-eminently blessed, was destined to that one cankering disappointment—that the children of the son-in-law whom she least loved, became the heirs of those honours so dearly purchased by Marlborough.
“I have just now,” says the Duke, in one of his letters, “received yours of the sixth. What you say to me of yourself gave me so much joy, that if any company had been by when I read the letter, they must have observed a great alteration in me.”[[485]]
Yet, with his usual delicacy and consideration, he writes in a consolatory strain, when it appeared to the Duchess that he thought more of his disappointed hopes, than of the ill health which caused them. He urged upon her the tranquillizing of her busy mind, by quiet, and cessation from business, and by looking to higher sources of comfort than the adulation of society, or the favours of a monarch. The chastening hand was not extended to Marlborough in vain, when he could think and write in terms such as these. After entreating his wife to think as little as possible of worldly business, and to be very regular in her diet, which he trusts, by the aid of a good constitution, may set her right in time, he addresses her in the following beautiful strain:—
“Op-heeren, Aug. 2.
“I have received yours of the twenty-third, which has given me, as you may easily believe, a good deal of trouble. I beg you will be so kind and just to me, as to believe the truth of my heart, that my greatest concern is for that of your own dear health. It was a great pleasure to me, when I thought we should be blessed with more children; but as all my happiness centres in living quietly with you, I do conjure you, by all the kindness which I have for you, which is as much as man ever had for woman, that you will take the best advice you can for your health, and then follow exactly what shall be prescribed for you; and I do hope that you will be so good as to let me have an exact account of it, and what the physicians’ opinions are. If I were with you, I would endeavour to persuade you to think as little as possible of worldly business, and to be very regular in your diet, which I should hope would set you right in a very little time, for you have naturally a very good constitution. You and I have great reason to bless God for all we have, so that we must not repine at his taking our poor child from us, but bless and praise him for what his goodness leaves us; and I do beseech him, with all my heart and soul, that he would comfort and strengthen both you and me, not only to bear this, but any correction that he should think fit to lay on us. The use, I think, we should make of his correction is, that our chiefest time should be spent in reconciling ourselves to him, and having in our minds always that we may not have long to live in this world. I do not mean by this that we should live retired from the world, for I am persuaded that by living in the world, one may do much more good than by being out of it; but, at the same time, to live so as that one should cheerfully die when it shall be his pleasure to call for us. I am very sensible of my own frailties; but if I can ever be so happy as to live with you always, and that you comfort me and assist me in these my thoughts, I am then persuaded I should be as happy and contented as it is possible to be in this world; for I know we should both agree, next to our duty to God, to do what we ought for the Queen’s service.”
Happy would it have been for the Duchess, had these higher principles of conduct guided her future path through life. But while the afflictions which bore down the spirit of her husband sank into a good soil, in the mind of this ambitious and restless woman, schemes for the aggrandizement of her family soon succeeded to the gloom of her son’s deathbed, and effaced all the solemn lessons which she had there learned.