The Duchess, in the meantime, resided chiefly at Windsor; the works were, nevertheless, still going on actively at Blenheim; and the Duke, in his letters of this period, earnestly entreats her to hasten the completion of the great court leading to the offices, and of the north side of the house, that he and the Duchess might have one side of the house “quiet;” “for, one way or other,” adds the wearied and broken-spirited Marlborough, “I hope to be there next summer.”[[176]]
Early in June, however, the Duchess, it appears, was prevailed upon to come to London, not entirely with the Duke’s approbation, for he was fearful that her coming to town, and not waiting upon the Queen, might have an awkward appearance. He commended her letter to the Queen, yet, in a subsequent despatch, begged her to write no more, since the behaviour of her Majesty did not warrant nor encourage other addresses.
The summer passed in anxious surmises on the part of the Duchess, whose sanguine spirit was sometimes buoyed with hope, though checked by the experienced Marlborough’s more rational fears of utter ruin to their cause. At length, in the beginning of August, the dismissal of Godolphin destroyed every prospect of recovering the favour that had been so long actually withdrawn. Even Marlborough was not, it appears, prepared for this last blow, although sufficiently expecting mortifications.[[177]] The event was unexpected even by Godolphin, to whom the Queen had, only the day previously, as has been already stated, expressed her wish that he should continue in office.
Mr. Harley was made one of the first of the seven lords commissioners of the Treasury;[[178]] and, in September, Lord Somers was dismissed, and the Earl of Rochester appointed president of the council in his place. Various other changes were made, which sufficiently proved to the country that henceforward a total change of measures would be adopted; and from this time the glory of Anne’s reign may be said to have departed.
Whilst these occurrences were passing in London, Sacheverell was parading the country after the manner of a royal progress, and great violences were committed by the mob who followed him. Yet government took no notice whatsoever of these outrageous and scandalous proceedings, so derogatory to the cause of religion, which was made a pretext for these insults to her sacred name.
The Duchess, meantime, received the condolences and counsels of her two friends, Mr. Maynwaring and Dr. Hare, afterwards Bishop of Chichester. She also still assembled about her a little party of friends, and received without displeasure the compliments of a certain nobleman, Lord Lindsey, whom her friends called “her lover,” and on whose devotion many jests were passed by her familiar associates. The joke was too freely used to infer any foundation for it, even in the most scandalous chronicles of that scandalous day; yet was the Duchess still beautiful; still did she surpass the four most noted toasts of the times, her lovely daughters; still, and even to a late age, did she retain the freshness and vigour of youth—hair unchanged, complexion, spirits, activity, and a sparkling wit, to which the utmost candour gave an indescribable charm.[[179]]
CHAPTER X.
Anecdotes of Swift and Addison—Publication of the Examiner—Charge brought in the Examiner against the Duchess.
It augured ill for the Whig party when men of letters, who were not attached to any faction, took up their position, at this juncture, under the Tory banners. Amongst these, the most obnoxious was the Dean of St. Patrick’s, whose intimacy with the leaders of both parties rendered the choice which he meant to take still a problem. In one of his letters, he declared, that the best intelligence he got of public affairs was from the ladies; Mr. Addison, his friend, being nine times more secret to him than to anybody else, because he had the happiness of being thought his friend.
Addison was right: for Swift’s friendship, at this period more especially, conferred no credit on any public man. Like that changeable reptile, the chameleon, he appeared of one colour in the morning, of another in the afternoon. Disappointed in the preceding year by Lord Halifax, who had written to him that he and Addison had entered into a confederacy never to “give over the pursuit, nor to cease reminding those who could serve him,” till his worth was placed in that light in which it ought to shine, Swift was now seriously undertaking to devote his great powers to that cause which prospered best, retaining still the friendship of Addison, and enjoying a free admittance into the houses of Halifax and Somers.