These legends are familiar to us all; yet it is impossible, in describing the fate and fall of the manor, to revert to them without regret. Such associations, combined with the recollection of Chaucer, who resided in an old house at Woodstock, and who, in his “Dream,” has described the Bower, must be called up with pleasurable though melancholy sensations. In later days, the manor formed an abiding place for those daring Roundheads, whose concealments, and the stratagems of which they made use to maintain their privacy, have been woven into a tale of such powerful interest, that it requires few other arguments to enhance regret for the old manor, than that it has been a subject for the pen of Walter Scott.
In 1709, the manor became the subject of correspondence between the Duchess of Marlborough and Vanburgh. The Duchess had, it seems, repeatedly visited Blenheim in company with Lord Godolphin, who represents her as “extremely prying,” and not only detecting many errors in that part of the building of the Castle which was finished in 1706, but as well mending such as could be rectified without waiting for the Duke’s opinion. “I am apt to think,” adds the Lord Treasurer, “that she has made Mr. Vanburgh a little +,[[371]] but you will find both pleasure and comfort from it.”[[372]]
It is worthy of remark, however, that the friendly Lord Treasurer dwells much upon the forward state of the garden and the grounds, but passes no opinion upon the building.
When the subject of taking down or leaving the old manor came to be debated, Sir John Vanburgh temperately, and to his credit, explained his reasons for wishing to retain so beautiful an object within view of Blenheim. The arguments which he advanced were excellent and such as would readily present themselves to any intelligent mind. But he addressed himself to one who had far more pleasure in adding up a sum of compound addition in her own curious, but infallible way, than in gazing upon any beautiful ruins. To her the recollection of fair Rosamond was a vain fancy; the notion of Sir John’s keeping the old manor in preservation, a whim; and besides, there was a yet more cogent reason for sacrificing, than for preserving the ruins. Already had an attempt made by Vanburgh, to convert the manor into an habitation, caused an expenditure, according to the Duchess, of three thousand pounds; from the acknowledgment of Vanburgh, eleven hundred pounds; and the shrewd Sarah began to suspect, when the architect became anxious upon the subject, that he designed the manor as an habitation for himself, and had some sinister motive for the perseverance which he showed on the subject. After many discussions, in the course of which Godolphin, on being applied to for his opinion, said “that he might as well hesitate about removing a wen from his face, as delay taking down so unsightly an object from the brow of the hill,” the old manor was demolished; and the work of devastation was finished with the chapel, which Vanburgh made one final struggle to save, but which was condemned.[[373]] Several curious relics were found when the ground was levelled, for the hill behind it was of a rugged, intractable shape, as Vanburgh described it. Amongst other things, a ring, with the words inscribed on it, “Remember the Covenant,” was given by the masons to Lady Diana Spencer.
The main work at Blenheim proceeded very slowly. In 1710, it was very abruptly, and as Vanburgh thought, very unceremoniously, stopped by the Duchess, who sent directions to the workmen that the orders of the architect were to be wholly disregarded. The Duchess’s disgrace at court had possibly, however, some share in this unexpected proceeding. During that year Vanburgh’s estimate of the expenses of the house was, that they would not exceed two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. In October, 1710, he had received two hundred thousand pounds from the Treasury. Letters between him and the Duchess, the one remonstrating, the other justifying the enormous sums which were laid out, are to be found in the Manuscript Correspondence. By a warrant from Godolphin, Sir John Vanburgh was authorised to make contracts, &c., and to lay them before the Lord Treasurer.[[374]] Every expectation might reasonably be formed, that the government would complete the building at its own cost. In October and November, 1710, it appears that Vanburgh received, in addition to the assistance of eight thousand pounds, the sum of one thousand pounds weekly to pay the workmen.[[375]] In 1712, the building expenses were put a stop to by the Queen, who alleged, among other reasons, the puerile excuse that the Duchess of Marlborough having taken away slabs and locks from her rooms at St. James’s, she would not build her a house. The fact was, the Queen, as well as the Duke’s enemies, were startled at the immense sums which had been spent, without the interminable structure being nearly completed.
In 1714, a statement being sent in by Sir John Vanburgh, two hundred and twenty thousand pounds were found to have been received from the Treasury, and the debts due by the crown for the building amounted to sixty thousand pounds.[[376]] After this crisis in the affairs of Blenheim, the Duke of Marlborough took the completion of the work into his own hands, and desired that an estimate of the expense might be given by Vanburgh. At this time even the shell of the building could not, it was calculated, be completed without many thousand pounds more. It was also necessary to get an act of parliament passed, devolving the responsibility of the debts already incurred, on the crown; a measure which was, happily for the Duke and his heirs, carried in the first year of George the First. Affairs now seemed to be placed on a safe footing; but Blenheim was never, at that period, likely to be finished for Marlborough to inhabit. “Besides,” adds the Duchess, writing to her friend Mrs. Clayton, “all without doors, where there is nothing done, is a chaos that turns one’s brains but to think of it; and it will cost an immense sum to complete the causeway, and that ridiculous bridge in which I counted thirty-three rooms. Four houses are to be at each corner of the bridge; but that which makes it so much prettier than London Bridge is, that you may sit in six rooms, and look out at window into the high arch, while the coaches are driving over your head.”[[377]]
The Duchess, as it may be perceived by this satirical description, was not very well pleased with Vanburgh. In fact, upon a previous examination of the accounts, many charges grossly extravagant were detected; as well as abundant errors of design.
In the course of the fabrication of the palace, nervous fears seem to have assailed the Duke and Duchess, concerning the immense income requisite to maintain an establishment in such an overgrown palace. It is amusing to find Sir John Vanburgh thus consoling the Duchess by his parallel of Castle Howard, respecting the size of which the noble owners had had the same fears. After discussing some other matters, he writes, in 1713, thus:—[[378]]
“He (Lord Carlisle) likewise finds that all his rooms, with moderate fires, are ovens, and that this great house does not require above one pound of wax and two of tallow candles a night to light it more than his house at London did; nor, in short, is he at any expense more whatsoever than he was in the remnant of an old house; but three housemaids and one man to keep the whole house and offices in perfect cleanliness, which is done to such a degree, that the kitchen, and all the offices and passages under the principal floor, are as dry as the drawing-room; and yet there is a great deal of company, and very good housekeeping. So that, upon the whole, (except the keeping of the new gardens,) the expense of living in this great fine house does not amount to above a hundred pounds a year more than was spent in the old one.
“If you think the knowledge of this may be of any satisfaction to my Lady Marlborough, pray tell her what you hear; and (if you think it proper) as from yourself, I could wish you to say what you know to be true, that whether I am quite convinced or not of my having been so much in the wrong in my behaviour to her as she is pleased to think me, yet, while she does think me so, I can’t but set the greatest value upon her generosity in urging my Lord Marlborough in my favour. I must own to you, at the same time, that her notion, that I had not done what I did, but upon her declining at court, has been no small inducement to me to expose myself so frankly as I have done in my Lord Duke’s and her particular cause; for though I could have borne she should have thought me a brute, I could not endure she should think me a rascal.”