The Duchess was likewise entrusted with a bequest of much importance, as matters then stood. This was the sum of fifty thousand pounds to be expended in equal instalments, in five years, for the purpose of completing the palace and other works at Blenheim, under the sole control of the Duchess. Wealthy, independent, and still agreeable in her person, the Duchess had not been many months a widow before endeavours were made to induce her to change that state, and to enter once more into matrimonial life. Those who thus sought to ensnare her, were, however, but little acquainted with the Duchess’s real sentiments.
The earliest, and not the least ardent suitor to her grace, was Thomas Earl of Coningsby, whose admiration of the Duchess appears to have commenced even before Marlborough was committed to the tomb. Lord Coningsby was a politician of a sort peculiarly acceptable to the Duchess; and, as was her habit with other friends, she had maintained an occasional correspondence with this active Whig peer, who had always expressed the most sincere devotion to her husband. This attachment appears to have been returned by Marlborough, who professed, in writing of Lord Coningsby, to place considerable reliance upon his judgment; whilst Coningsby, on occasion of the Duke’s leaving the kingdom in 1712, went so far as to say, that “he had now not a friend in the country.”
Such were the terms on which the subsequent suitor stood with the husband of his “dearest, dearest Lady Marlborough,” for so he repeatedly calls her in his letters.
Lord Coningsby, when he offered his hand and fortunes to the Duchess, did not degrade her by the addresses of a man unknown to distinction. Not only their old friendship, and a correspondence bordering all along upon the line which separates friendship from love,[[302]] but a high reputation for courage and abilities, might authorise his lordship not, at least, to expect a contumacious rejection. Early in life he had signalised himself at the battles of Aughrim and the Boyne; and, upon the latter occasion, had the honour to be near his Majesty King William the Third, when slightly wounded in the shoulder, and the good fortune to be the first to apply a handkerchief to his Majesty’s hurt.[[303]]
For his services on this occasion, Coningsby was elevated by William to the peerage of Ireland; and in 1715 the honour was extended by George the First, and he was created Earl of Coningsby, with his title in remainder to his eldest daughter Margaret.
Lord Coningsby having thus graced an ancient name by well-merited distinction, acquired the confidence and good-will of his political friends by his consistency as an advocate for the Protestant succession, and by the solidity of his judgment upon all parliamentary affairs. It appears to have been the desire of Godolphin and Marlborough, frequently, to consult one who had taken an active share in the settlement of the great national question at the time of the Revolution. “Upon all parliamentary affairs,” says Godolphin, writing to Marlborough in 1708, “I value very much Lord Coningsby’s judgment and experience.”
Lord Coningsby, at the time of Marlborough’s death, having been twice married, his eldest daughter by his second marriage[[304]] was created, in her father’s lifetime, Baroness and Viscountess Coningsby of Hampton Court, in the county of Hereford. Besides this favoured daughter, Lord Coningsby had four others, two of whom appear still to have been unmarried, and residing under his parental care, at the time of his lordship’s singular correspondence with the Duchess of Marlborough.
Scarcely four months after the death of the Duke,[[305]] we find, by a letter preserved among the Coxe Papers in the British Museum, that the Earl of Coningsby had begun his invasion upon the Duchess’s new state of independence, and had commenced his siege like a skilful pioneer. He begins by expressing the most poignant apprehensions on account of her grace’s health. The letter is dated London, Oct. 8, 1722.[[306]]
“When I had the honour to wait on your grace at Blenheim, it struck me to the heart to find you, the best, the worthiest, and the wisest of women, with regard to your health, and consequently your precious life, in the worst of ways.
“Servants are, at the best, very sorry trustees for anything so valuable; and that which terrified me, and which has ever since lain dreadfully heavy on my thoughts, was the coolness I imagine I observed in yours, when you lay, to my apprehension, in that dangerous condition which it was my unhappiness to see you in.