The Duke and the Duchess proceeded to Whitehall, where no very cordial welcome awaited their arrival. The Duchess was refused the use of the private chapel, which had been stipulated by the marriage articles, and the Duke was advised by his friends to withdraw from the country.[[15]]

Such was the reception of Maria D’Esté, the mother of the Pretender, and, as such, the innocent cause of many national disasters. In her service, and favoured by her kindness, Sarah Jennings passed many years; nor can the subsequent desertion of this lovely and unfortunate Princess, which the then influential Countess of Marlborough justified to herself, be viewed in any other light than as an act of the coldest ingratitude. During the twelve years that Mary enjoyed a comparatively private station as Duchess of York, she passed her time, and engaged those around her, in innocent amusements and revels, which have been always peculiarly agreeable in their rulers to the English people. Young and light-hearted as she then was, Mary was herself the fairest flower of the court, over which she presided with the gay grace of her country. “She was,” says Macpherson, “of exquisite beauty. Her complexion was very fair, her hair black, her eyes full of sweetness and fire. She was tall in her person, and admirably shaped; dignified in her manner, and graceful in her deportment.”[[16]]

By the sweetness and propriety of her conduct, she, in her hours of sunshine, made herself universally beloved, notwithstanding her religion; and amid the storms of her subsequent career she showed a spirit and heroism which deserved a better cause, and a clinging attachment to James which merited a worthier object.

There is no reason to conclude that at first Sarah Jennings lived constantly in the household of the Duchess. “I was often at court,” is an expression which occurs in a passage of her Vindication. She seems, indeed, to have remained in the proximity of the Duchess, chiefly for the purpose of being a sort of playmate, rather than attendant, of the Princess Anne, the step-daughter of her royal mistress, whose favour she ultimately succeeded in obtaining, and for whose dawning greatness she relinquished her adherence to the falling fortunes of the Duchess. It is probably to this intimacy with the juvenile branches of the court that Sarah, in part, owed that correctness of conduct, which not even the malice of her enemies could successfully impugn; and soon a sincere and well-founded attachment, the great safeguard to wandering affections, ended in an engagement which gave to the beautiful Miss Jennings an efficient and devoted protector.

In the year 1673, John Churchill, afterwards Duke of Marlborough, was appointed to be a gentleman of the bedchamber to the Duke of York,—probably on occasion of the Duke’s marriage. Churchill was at this time a colonel in the army, and already his fame stood high as an officer of enterprise; whilst, at the court, there were few of the young gallants of the day who could cope with this gifted man, in the dignity and symmetry of his person, in the graces of his manner, or in the charm which good-breeding, and a species of benevolence in small and every-day matters, confer upon the deportment.

The illustrious name of Churchill requires, however, some comment, before the disturbed course of his love-suit to his future wife, the solace and torment of his later days, can be unfolded.

Roger de Courselle, or Courcil, one of the Barons of Poitou, who followed William the Conqueror to England, and settled first in Somersetshire, and afterwards in Devonshire, under the anglicised name of Churchill, was the direct progenitor of Colonel Churchill. It is worthy of remark, that at different periods the ancestors of our great warrior have been noted for valour. In the reign of Stephen, Sir Bartholomew Churchill lost his life defending Bristol Castle, in the cause of the king; and in the disturbed times of Edward the Fourth, William, a lineal descendant of Sir Bartholomew, fought under the banners of the Courtenays in Devonshire, for his sovereign. Successive proofs of loyalty were given by the Churchill family; and Sir Winston, the father of the hero of Blenheim, left the University of Oxford, whilst a youth, to enlist in the army of Charles the First, in which he served with distinction, as a captain of horse, in several battles.[[17]]

It was the inevitable consequence of the political turmoils in which the family of Colonel Churchill bore a part, that his patrimony should have suffered. His youth was passed in privacy and restraint; and perhaps to that circumstance may be traced that love of order in his affairs, and that close regulation of his expenditure, which in his prosperous days procured for him the opprobrium of penuriousness. During the civil wars, his father had married a daughter of Sir John Drake, of Ashe in Dorsetshire, where Sir Winston was thankful, after the execution of Charles the First, to retire, his estates being sequestrated by Parliament, and a fine of upwards of four thousand pounds imposed upon him for his adherence to the Royal cause.

In the safe seclusion of Ashe, John Churchill was nurtured; and, although upon the restoration of Charles the Second the family estate was recovered, his father was honoured with knighthood, and employed by government, his valiant son never derived any pecuniary advantage from the paternal property.[[18]] Sir Winston ultimately was reduced to circumstances of difficulty, in which he died, bequeathing his estate to his widow, with a request that she would leave it to his third son, Charles. To his family connexion, not solely to fortune or to his own merits, was John indebted for his elevation to distinction. His condition therefore, in some respects, resembled that of his early and late affection, as far as worldly and external circumstances are concerned.

The family of Churchill, like that of Jennings, was ancient; and young Churchill possessed, in the power of referring to a long line of ancestry, an incentive, to an ardent mind peculiarly attractive, to aim at distinction, not only for self-gratification, but with the hope of restoring to former honour those whose fortunes and fame had been crushed, but not obliterated. Colonel Churchill, even from his childhood, had been connected with a court, and destined to share a courtier’s duties and rewards. From his boyhood he was honoured with the notice of Royalty, the Duke of York being his first patron.