The tenderness of Marlborough towards the lowest in degree; his piety, which led him never to omit the duty of prayer before and after a battle; the sinking health which rendered his later campaigns severe trials to his harassed frame; his pining for home, and for her whom he regarded as the day-star of his existence; all tend to encourage the opinion, that concerning the much-contested question of the war, he was, if in error, a sincere believer in the necessity of its continuance, and a sanguine expectant of much good to be derived from its ultimate success.
In moral conduct, the Duke of Marlborough, after the early period of his youth, gave to the world an edifying and an uncommon example. Numerous as his enemies were, they could not, even with the assistance of Mrs. Manley, bring home one accusation of gross immorality to his charge, after his early, and it must be allowed for many years, happy marriage. His foes, at a loss for subjects of invective, passed on to another theme, regarding which one would gladly be silent: the charge of avarice. This is one of his failings, respecting which we would gladly say with Lord Bolingbroke, when checking a parasite who sought to please him by ridiculing the penuriousness of the Duke of Marlborough; “He was so very great a man, that I forget he had that vice.”[[293]] His enemies, indeed, took care that it should not be forgotten. It became proverbial in their mouths. “I take it,” says Swift, in one of his letters, “that the same grain of caution which disposeth a man to fill his coffers, will teach him how to preserve them at all events; and I dare hold a wager, that the Duke of Marlborough, in all his campaigns, was never known to lose his baggage.”[[294]] The story of the Duke’s chiding his servant for his extravagance in lighting four candles in his tent when Prince Eugene came to confer with him,[[295]] is of that species of anecdote to which no one can attach either credit or importance.
That anecdote, so generally in circulation, which describes Marlborough creeping out of a public room at Bath, with sixpence that he had gained at cards, and walking home to save the expense of a chair, we would willingly, with Lord Bolingbroke, forget. His taste, and the good sense which characterised his mind, led him, in an age of extravagance, to avoid ostentation. His table was in the old English style, which by many persons was considered too plain for his rank.[[296]] His attendants were few; and his dread of increasing the necessary evils of a numerous retinue appears, from some portion of the correspondence between him and Sir John Vanburgh, to have been very great. His dress was habitually simple, except on state occasions, when its magnificence is referred to by his contemporary, Evelyn.
With those habits of care, not to say penuriousness, which have been universally ascribed to the Duke, he joined a willingness to relieve the destitute, for whose sake he forgot, when occasion required it, the objects which would have been dearest to a selfish man.[[297]]
“This great man,” John Duke of Marlborough, say the newspapers of the day, “was completely under the management of his wife, as the following story, well known in the family, evinces. The Duke had noticed the behaviour of a young officer in some engagement in Flanders, and sent him over to England with some despatches, and with a letter to the Duchess, commending him to her to procure some superior commission in the army for him. The Duchess read the letter and approved of it, but asked him where the thousand pounds were, for his increase of rank. The young man blushed and said, that really he was master of no such sum. ‘Well, then,’ said she, ‘you may return to the Duke.’ This he did very soon afterwards, and told him how he had been received by the Duchess. The Duke laughingly said, he thought it would be so; but he should, however, do better another time; and presenting him with a thousand pounds, sent him over to England. This last expedition proved successful.”
We may be assured that the petty penuriousness which was ascribed to Marlborough has at all events been greatly exaggerated,—as such errors are always magnified by report. His early narrowness of fortune produced notions of exactness, into which men of business-like habits are prone to fall; and when wealth flows in, it is not easy to discard the small practices which have crept in upon us, step by step, imperceptibly, and which originated in a virtuous principle. Marlborough, however, had one great attribute, possessing which, no man ought to be severely deprecated for penuriousness. He was just. If, unlike Turenne, he had not the greatness and disinterestedness to neglect, in his campaigns, opportunities of amassing wealth, he encroached not upon others in private life; he economised, when economy was needful to preserve him from debt; he spent freely on a large scale. It was in trifles that his “regina pecunia,” as Prince Eugene called it, was his household deity. He maintained many noble establishments, and expended upon Blenheim sums which the nation refused to pay. And finally, immense as it was, he left his wealth in the right channel. No disgraceful connexions, no propensities to gaming, nor to destructive speculations, impaired his fortune, or entailed disgrace upon his name.
CHAPTER XIII.
Funeral of the Duke of Marlborough—His bequests to the Duchess—Immediate proposals of marriage made for her in her widowhood—Character and letters of Lord Coningsby—Character of the Duke of Somerset—His Grace’s offer of marriage to the Duchess.—1722.
All that funereal honours could add of splendour to the great hero’s memory, was duly executed. His Majesty George the First, and the nation in general, how divided soever in their tributes to his name when living, were unanimous in paying such honours to it as the vulgar prize. The King himself offered to defray the expenses of the funeral, but the Duchess, with the Duke’s executors and relations, declined accepting this gracious proposal.
We spare the reader the entire enumeration of those revolting details which accompany the barbarous custom of a body lying in state; the bed of black velvet, as Collins describes it with true heraldic pleasure, “properly adorned;” the coffin, with its water-gilt nails; the suit of armour placed upon that mournful symbol, decorated with all the honours of the great defunct; a general’s truncheon in the hand; the garter, the collar, the pendant George, and the now useless sword, in a rich scabbard fastened to the side. These, with the ducal coronet, the cap of a prince of the empire, the banner, the crest, were all duly examined and appreciated by the nobility and others who thronged to Marlborough-house, where this sad and absurd pageant was performed. Suites of rooms were likewise opened, and adorned with escutcheons, with ciphers and badges interspersed, all lighted by silver sconces and candlesticks, with wax tapers, prepared for the crowds who were obliged to wait, previous to penetrating into the room of death.