One daughter of the Godolphin branch of the Marlborough family remained. This was Harriott, married, as we have seen, in 1717, to the extolled and favourite minister, Pelham Holles, Duke of Newcastle, one of the most liberal statesmen of those venal days. To his grace the Duchess had, as we have already seen, addressed her complaints of the Duke of St. Albans, and his siege in Windsor Park; and she could not have bespoken the interest of any one more able to promote her wishes. The Duke had been a steady promoter of the Hanoverian interests. Consistency in those days was uncommon, and he was rewarded with honours and places innumerable; yet, far from enriching himself by his public services, or by no services at all, according to the mode then in fashion, the Duke retired from his posts, according to Lord Chesterfield, at least four hundred thousand pounds poorer than when he began life; at any rate, with an income greatly reduced.[[337]]
The character of this amiable, and, in some respects, high-minded nobleman, which gained, it may be presumed, upon her grace’s affections, after she had with much pains and anxiety achieved that connexion which has been alluded to,—has been ably, but perhaps unfairly, drawn by his relation and contemporary, Lord Chesterfield. Satire was not only the natural propensity of Lord Chesterfield’s mind, but the delight and practice of the day. The pungent remarks of Horace Walpole, as well as those of Chesterfield, must be taken with reservation. Neither friend nor foe was to be spared, when a sentence could be better turned, or a witticism improved, by a little delicate chastisement, all done in perfect good humour, and with unspeakable good-breeding, by these not dissimilar characters.
Lord Chesterfield depicts in the Duke of Newcastle an obsequious, industrious, and timorous man, whom the public put below his level, in not allowing him even mediocre talents, which Chesterfield graciously assigns to him; a minister who delighted in the insignia of office; in the hurry, and in the importance which that hurry gives, of business; as one jealous of power, and eager for display. “His levées,” says the Earl, “were his pleasure and his triumph;” and, after keeping people waiting for hours, when he came into his levée-room, “he accosted, hugged, embraced, and promised everybody with a seeming cordiality, but at the same time with an illiberal and degrading familiarity.”[[338]] The world, however, forgot these weaknesses, in the generosity, the romantic sense of honour, and the private virtues of this respectable nobleman.
Anne Countess of Sunderland, the second daughter of the Duchess, left four sons and one daughter, with a paternal estate greatly impoverished. It was, amongst all his faults, a redeeming point in Lord Sunderland’s character, that his patriotism aimed not at gain. We have already referred to a fact not to be forgotten: when, on being dismissed from the ministry in Queen’s Anne’s reign, he was offered a pension, he nobly refused it, with the reply, that “since he was no longer allowed to serve his country, he was resolved not to pillage it.”[[339]] His children were, however, amply provided for by the will of their grandfather. The eldest son, Robert Earl of Sunderland, the object of his mother’s peculiar solicitude on her deathbed, perhaps from being more able to comprehend the characters of both of these distinguished parents before he lost them, displayed symptoms of the same aspiring mind that his father possessed. The aversion which George the Second had imbibed towards his father, prevented the spirited youth from obtaining any employment. At last, in despair, and wishing to bring himself before the notice of men in power, the Earl entreated Sir Robert Walpole to give him an ensigncy in the guards. The minister was astonished at this humble request from the grandson of Marlborough, and inquired the reason. “It is because,” answered the young man, “I wish to ascertain whether it is determined that I shall never have anything.”[[340]] He died early in 1729,[[341]] and the Duchess appears, from a letter addressed to Lady Mary Wortley Montague, to have very deeply lamented the loss of this scion of the only branch she could “ever receive any comfort from in her own family.” On this occasion the poor Duchess remarks, “that she believes, having gone through so many misfortunes with unimpaired health, nothing now but distempers and physicians could kill her.”[[342]] She is said to have, indeed, loved Lord Sunderland above every other tie spared to her by death.
Two sons and a daughter now remained of this beloved stock. Charles, who succeeded his brother Robert, and became afterwards Duke of Marlborough, was never, according to Horace Walpole, a favourite of his grandmother, although he possessed many good qualities. He was not, however, endowed with the family attribute of economy; neither could he brook the control of one, who expected, probably, far more obedience from her grandchildren than young persons are generally disposed to yield from any motive but affection. Unhappily, the Duke’s sister, Lady Anne Bateman, whom the Duchess had, in compliance with her mother’s wishes, brought up, was but ill disposed to soothe those differences which often arose between her grandmother and the young Duke. She introduced her brother, unhappily for his morals, to Henry Fox, first Lord Holland, one of those unprincipled, but agreeable men, whose conversation soon banishes all thirst for honour, and sense of shame. By Fox, a Jacobite at heart, but an interested partisan of Sir Robert Walpole, the young Duke was won over to the court party; upon which occasion was uttered the Duchess’s sarcasm, “that is the Fox that has won over my goose;” a remark which, like every thing that she said, was industriously circulated. Fox considered public virtue in the light of a pretext in some, as an infatuation in others: self-interest was, in him, the all-prevailing principle;[[343]] Sir Robert Walpole being, in that respect, his model.
Lady Anne Bateman, intriguing and high-spirited, exercised over her brother an ascendency which was shared by the “Fox.” Influenced by dislike to her grandmother, she introduced the Duke into the family of Lord Trevor, one of whose daughters he married. The Duchess had a peculiar antipathy to Lord Trevor, who had been an enemy of her husband, and with her usual violence she banished the Duke from Windsor Lodge, and then, in derision of the new Duchess, who had, she alleged, stripped the house and garden, she set up eight figures, to personate the eight Misses Trevor, cousins of the young Duchess, representing them, in a puppet-show, as tearing up the shrubs, whilst the Duchess was portrayed carrying away a hen-coop under her arm. This anecdote originates with Horace Walpole, and, from its source, it must be regarded with caution: there are other exhibitions of passion in this extraordinary woman, which rest upon better authority.
The Duchess never forgave Lady Anne Bateman; and whilst we acknowledge the wickedness of that vindictive spirit, it must be owned that the Duchess had much provocation from this grandchild. In addition to the ingratitude of Lady Anne, she had the vexation, when Lord Charles succeeded to the Marlborough estates, to see him and his younger brother, Lord John, squander away their patrimonial property, and vie with each other in every wild and mad frolic. At length their complicated quarrels ended in what was professedly an amicable lawsuit between the heir and his grandmother, for the settlement of some disputed portion of the property. To the amusement of the world, and certainly not to the annoyance of those of her relatives who rejoiced in exposing her eccentricities, the Duchess, who was capable of any act of effrontery, appeared in court to plead her own cause. The diamond-hilted sword, given by the Emperor Charles to the great Marlborough, was claimed by Lord Sunderland. “What!” exclaimed the Duchess, indignantly, “shall I suffer that sword, which my lord would have carried to the gates of Paris, to be sent to a pawnbroker’s, to have the diamonds picked out one by one?”[[344]] Harsh and revolting as this exhibition of passion was, her prognostic was somewhat verified in the career of Charles Duke of Marlborough. His life presents a history of embarrassments, which, as the Duchess truly asserted, nothing but prudence on his own part could have prevented. To her correspondent, Mr. Scrope, for whom she appears to have imbibed a sincere regard, she unfolds all her troubles respecting her grandson in the subjoined paragraph. The tenor of the letter from which this passage is taken, places the Duchess’s character, as a grandmother, in a very different light from that in which the popular writers of her day have chosen to place it. The world, judging, as it often does, most erroneously when it takes up family quarrels, had condemned the Duchess as hard-hearted and relentless. The following simple statement of facts is calculated to mitigate that sentence.[[345]]
“When I saw you (Mr. Scrope) last, you said something concerning the Duke of Marlborough, which occasions you this trouble, for you seemed to have a good opinion of him, and to wish that I would make him easy. This is to show you, that as to the good qualities you imagine he has, you are mistaken, and that it is impossible to make him easy. I will now give you the account of what has happened not long since.
“When he quitted all his employments, he wrote me a very good letter, saying that he had heard I liked he had done it; there are expressions in this letter full as strong and obliging to me as those in this, dated from Althorpe, October 26th, 1733. I answered this civilly, saying, that as his behaviour to me had been so extraordinary for many years, I thought it necessary to have a year or two’s experience how he would perform his great promises, and that I wished him very well. This was giving him hopes, though with the caution of a lawyer. Soon after this he treated with a Jew to take up a great sum of money. He wanted my assistance to help in the security, for Lamb has secured all in his power, and would not lessen his own securities on any account. To this letter I gave him a grandmother’s advice, telling him the vast sums he had taken up at more than twenty per cent. were as well secured as when the people lent the money; that I thought he would make a much better figure if he lived upon as little as he possibly could, than ever he had done in throwing away so much money, and let his creditors have all that was left out of his estate as far as it would go, and pay what more was due to them, when accidents of death increased his revenue, for I could not join in anything that would injure myself, or the settlement of his grandfather. I should have told you this before, but in this last professing letter to me, he tells me that he would rather starve than take up money that I did not approve of: notwithstanding which, in a very few days after my letter, I am assured that Lamb has found a way to help him to a great sum of money; and without saying one word to me, the Duke has mortgaged my jointure as soon as I die, which he certainly may do for his own life; and if he lives till his son is twenty-one, he may starve him into joining with him, and destroy his grandfather’s settlement upon the whole family; for when the settlement was made, there were so many before him, that the lawyers did not think of giving his son any allowance in his father’s lifetime; and I can think of but one way to prevent all this mischief, which I have a mind to do, and that is, when he is of a proper age, to settle out of my own estate such a sum to be paid yearly by my trustees which will hinder him from being forced by his father, upon condition that if he does join with him to sell any of the estate, that which I gave him shall return back to John Spencer, who I make my heir. Whether this will succeed or not, as I wish it, I cannot be sure, but it is doing all I can to secure what the late Duke of Marlborough so passionately desired. He has a great deal in him like his father, but I cannot say he has any guilt, because he really does not know what is right and what is wrong, and will always change every three days what he designed, from the influence and flatteries of wretches who think of nothing but of getting something for themselves; and if I should give him my whole estate he would throw it away as he has done his grandfather’s, and he would come at last to the Treasury for a pension for his vote. But I believe you have seen, as well as I, that pensions and promises at court are not ready money.”
The Duke died in 1758, having, according to Horace Walpole, greatly impoverished his estate; so that his death, before his son came of age, was considered to be an advantage to the property, since the young man might have been induced to join his father in the last mournful resource, according to the same writer, “to sell and pay.”[[346]]