Character of Lord Peterborough—Of Lord Montague—Marriage of the Lady Mary Churchill with Lord Monthermer—Character and success of her husband—The violence of party spirit at this era—Conduct of the Duchess in politics—Her dislike to Lord Rochester—His character Preferment of Harley to the secretaryship—Views originally entertained by Marlborough and Lord Godolphin—Anecdote of Lord Wharton at Bath—A proof of political rancour.
Amongst those friends who hastened to pour forth their condolences to the Duchess of Marlborough on the loss of her son, the celebrated Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, was one of the first, and amongst the most eager to testify his concern. This nobleman, whose enmity towards Marlborough became afterwards conspicuous, was at this time one of the numerous votaries of the arrogant Duchess. Lord Peterborough’s extravagances gave a meteor-like celebrity to his general character. Among many of the celebrated individuals who illumined the age, he would, nevertheless, have been eminent, even had his course been less peculiar, and his deportment like that of ordinary men.
The eventful public life of this nobleman began in the reign of Charles the Second; at the early age of eighteen, he had distinguished himself in the cause of patriotism by attending Algernon Sidney to the scaffold, an act of kindness and of courage, which was the commencement of his singular career. “He lived,” says Horace Walpole, “a romance, and was capable of making it a history.”[[1]] At this period of his life, nature and fortune alike combined to favour the brilliancy of that career, which, in its eccentricities, and in the rapid succession of events by which it was marked, had not a parallel in the times of which we treat. Lord Peterborough owed much to circumstances. Of high ancestry, an earl by birth, and afterwards by creation, being the first Earl of Monmouth, he graced his favoured station by the charm of his manners, by his varied accomplishments, and by the union of a daring courage with the highest cultivation of the intellectual powers. Celebrated for the wit which he delighted to display, his enterprising character was enhanced in the estimation of all who admired valour, by those personal advantages which the imagination is disposed to combine with heroism and with eloquence. In both, he exceeded most other men of his time. Without being worthy of challenging a comparison with Marlborough, he dazzled, he interested, he astonished the world. He “was a man,” as Pope truly describes him, “resolved neither to live nor to die like other men.”[[2]] In those days, when a constellation of bright stars threw a lustre over the annals of our country, Lord Peterborough shone conspicuous, even whilst Marlborough lived to pursue successive triumphs.
The varied scenes through which Lord Peterborough passed, contributed to form “the strange compound” which so much amused society. He began his warlike exploits in the naval service; and even whilst he cultivated the Muses, “appeared emulous to mix only with the rough and then untutored tars of ocean.”[[3]] Disgusted with a maritime life, he became a land officer; yet alternately assisted in the council, or dazzled the senate with his oratory. His brilliant exploits in Spain were the result of consummate skill, aided by a romantic daring, which converted even the gallantries into which the profligacy of the age and his own laxity of principle betrayed him, into sources of assistance to his designs. It has been said that he employed the illusions of perspective, which he well understood, to impose on the enemy with respect to the number of troops under his command. Whatever were his arts, the results of his wonderful energy and bravery were so effective as very nearly to transfer the crown of Spain from the Bourbon to the Austrian family.
The abilities of this nobleman as a negociator were equally remarkable; nor was the celerity of his movements a circumstance to be overlooked, in times when such exertions as those which Peterborough made to compass sea and land, appeared almost miraculous. Ever on the wing, he excelled even Lord Sunderland in the rapidity of his migrations, and is said “to have seen more kings and postilions than any man in Europe.”
So singular a course could not be maintained, nor such unparalleled dexterity acquired, without the strong, impelling power of vanity. Lord Peterborough, with all his attainments, after long experience, with some admirable qualities of the heart, was the slave of that pervading impulse, the love of admiration. The friend of Pope and Swift, the associate of Marlborough, delighted to declaim in a coffee-house, and to be the centre of any admiring circle, no matter whom or what. The vanity of Peterborough is, however, matter of little surprise: it was the besetting sin of those wild yet gifted companions of the days of his early youth, Rochester, Sedley, Buckingham, and Wharton, who competed to attain the highest pitch of profligacy, characterised by the most extravagant degree of absurdity and reckless eccentricity. To be pre-eminent in demoralisation was not, in such times, a matter of easy attainment; therefore it became necessary for the aspirant for that species of fame to garnish deeds of guilt which might be deemed common-place, with such accompaniments of fancy as men utterly lost to shame, without a sense of decency, without time for remorse, without fear of hell, or belief in heaven, could, in the depths of their infamy, contrive and devise.
Lord Peterborough and Lord Wharton, disregarding all moral obligations, gave birth to sons, who, reared under their baneful influence, carried the precepts of their parental tempters into an extremity far exceeding what even those exemplary parents could have anticipated. In Philip, Duke of Wharton, the world beheld, happily, almost the last of that series of rich, profligate, bold, and desperate men, who, like the second Buckingham, gilded a few fair points of character by the aid of resplendent talents. It was the destiny of Lord Peterborough to reap disappointment and chagrin from the seed which he had sown in the mind of his eldest son and heir, John Lord Mordaunt, whom he survived.[[4]]
The regard of Lord Peterborough at this period for the Duchess of Marlborough was as assiduous as his enmity towards her and the Duke became afterwards remarkable. In a letter written soon after their common loss, he urged upon the bereaved father the necessity of seeking in society the solace to his mournful reflections. In other effusions of friendship, addressed to the Duchess, the Earl is profuse in the language of gallantry; and, if we might believe in professions, felt an ardour of admiration which led him to declare, “that he feared no other uneasiness than not being able to meet those opportunities which might contribute to what he most desired, the continuation of the Duchess’s good opinion.”[[5]]
These expressions had a deeper meaning than compliment; and Lord Peterborough sought also a closer connexion than friendship with the exalted house of Marlborough. The Lady Mary Churchill, the youngest daughter of the Duke and Duchess, and, at the time of her brother’s death, the only unmarried daughter, was one of the most distinguished of her family for beauty, as well as for the higher qualities of the mind and heart. Twenty-two years afterwards, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, speaking of this lovely woman, described her as still so pre-eminent in her hereditary charms, that she might then (in 1725) “be the reigning beauty, if she pleased.”[[6]] Lady Mary, afterwards the object of her mother’s aversion, was, in her early days, the pride and darling of both parents, and the frequent subject of mention in her father’s letters. Even in her sixteenth year there were many suitors who aspired to her hand, and amongst others the son of Lord Peterborough, the young Lord Mordaunt, whose suit was urged by his father, but rejected by the Duke of Marlborough, on account of the dissolute character of the young nobleman. It was probably this disappointment which first chilled the friendship of Lord Peterborough, and turned it into rancour.
Proposals of marriage from the Earl of Huntingdon, son of Lord Cromarty, were also made to Lady Mary, but in vain;[[7]] the character of his father, Lord Cromarty, who was, according to Cunningham, “long looked upon as a state mountebank,” probably operating against the young man’s addresses; for the Duchess sought to extend and strengthen her connexions, and not to endanger the stability of her fortune by an alliance with the weak or the disreputable. Political reasons, it has been said by historians, decided the destiny of the fair victim, than whom “there was not in England,” says Cunningham, “a more acceptable sacrifice to be offered up for appeasing the rage of parties,” and caused her finally to become the wife of Lord Monthermer, eldest son of the Earl of Montague. Marlborough, as Cunningham relates, before setting out on his latest campaign, “fearing lest Whigs and Tories should combine together to ruin him, recommended to his wife to propose a marriage of one of his daughters to the Earl of Montague’s son, as a means of their reconciliation, and the establishment of his own power.”[[8]]