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MEMOIRS
OF
SARAH
DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH,
AND OF THE
COURT OF QUEEN ANNE

BY MRS. A. T. THOMSON,

AUTHORESS OF “MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF HENRY THE EIGHTH,” “LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH,” &c.

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. II.

LONDON:

HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,

GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

MDCCCXXXIX.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY IBOTSON AND PALMER,

SAVOY STREET.

CONTENTS
OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

MEMOIRS

OF THE

DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.

CHAPTER I.
1703–4.

Character of Lord Peterborough—Of Lord Montague—Marriage of the Lady Mary Churchill with Lord Monthermer—Character and success of her husband—The violence of party spirit at this era—Conduct of the Duchess in politics—Her dislike to Lord Rochester—His character Preferment of Harley to the secretaryship—Views originally entertained by Marlborough and Lord Godolphin—Anecdote of Lord Wharton at Bath—A proof of political rancour.

Amongst those friends who hastened to pour forth their condolences to the Duchess of Marlborough on the loss of her son, the celebrated Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, was one of the first, and amongst the most eager to testify his concern. This nobleman, whose enmity towards Marlborough became afterwards conspicuous, was at this time one of the numerous votaries of the arrogant Duchess. Lord Peterborough’s extravagances gave a meteor-like celebrity to his general character. Among many of the celebrated individuals who illumined the age, he would, nevertheless, have been eminent, even had his course been less peculiar, and his deportment like that of ordinary men.

The eventful public life of this nobleman began in the reign of Charles the Second; at the early age of eighteen, he had distinguished himself in the cause of patriotism by attending Algernon Sidney to the scaffold, an act of kindness and of courage, which was the commencement of his singular career. “He lived,” says Horace Walpole, “a romance, and was capable of making it a history.”[^[1]] At this period of his life, nature and fortune alike combined to favour the brilliancy of that career, which, in its eccentricities, and in the rapid succession of events by which it was marked, had not a parallel in the times of which we treat. Lord Peterborough owed much to circumstances. Of high ancestry, an earl by birth, and afterwards by creation, being the first Earl of Monmouth, he graced his favoured station by the charm of his manners, by his varied accomplishments, and by the union of a daring courage with the highest cultivation of the intellectual powers. Celebrated for the wit which he delighted to display, his enterprising character was enhanced in the estimation of all who admired valour, by those personal advantages which the imagination is disposed to combine with heroism and with eloquence. In both, he exceeded most other men of his time. Without being worthy of challenging a comparison with Marlborough, he dazzled, he interested, he astonished the world. He “was a man,” as Pope truly describes him, “resolved neither to live nor to die like other men.”[^[2]] In those days, when a constellation of bright stars threw a lustre over the annals of our country, Lord Peterborough shone conspicuous, even whilst Marlborough lived to pursue successive triumphs.

The varied scenes through which Lord Peterborough passed, contributed to form “the strange compound” which so much amused society. He began his warlike exploits in the naval service; and even whilst he cultivated the Muses, “appeared emulous to mix only with the rough and then untutored tars of ocean.”[^[3]] Disgusted with a maritime life, he became a land officer; yet alternately assisted in the council, or dazzled the senate with his oratory. His brilliant exploits in Spain were the result of consummate skill, aided by a romantic daring, which converted even the gallantries into which the profligacy of the age and his own laxity of principle betrayed him, into sources of assistance to his designs. It has been said that he employed the illusions of perspective, which he well understood, to impose on the enemy with respect to the number of troops under his command. Whatever were his arts, the results of his wonderful energy and bravery were so effective as very nearly to transfer the crown of Spain from the Bourbon to the Austrian family.

The abilities of this nobleman as a negociator were equally remarkable; nor was the celerity of his movements a circumstance to be overlooked, in times when such exertions as those which Peterborough made to compass sea and land, appeared almost miraculous. Ever on the wing, he excelled even Lord Sunderland in the rapidity of his migrations, and is said “to have seen more kings and postilions than any man in Europe.”

So singular a course could not be maintained, nor such unparalleled dexterity acquired, without the strong, impelling power of vanity. Lord Peterborough, with all his attainments, after long experience, with some admirable qualities of the heart, was the slave of that pervading impulse, the love of admiration. The friend of Pope and Swift, the associate of Marlborough, delighted to declaim in a coffee-house, and to be the centre of any admiring circle, no matter whom or what. The vanity of Peterborough is, however, matter of little surprise: it was the besetting sin of those wild yet gifted companions of the days of his early youth, Rochester, Sedley, Buckingham, and Wharton, who competed to attain the highest pitch of profligacy, characterised by the most extravagant degree of absurdity and reckless eccentricity. To be pre-eminent in demoralisation was not, in such times, a matter of easy attainment; therefore it became necessary for the aspirant for that species of fame to garnish deeds of guilt which might be deemed common-place, with such accompaniments of fancy as men utterly lost to shame, without a sense of decency, without time for remorse, without fear of hell, or belief in heaven, could, in the depths of their infamy, contrive and devise.

Lord Peterborough and Lord Wharton, disregarding all moral obligations, gave birth to sons, who, reared under their baneful influence, carried the precepts of their parental tempters into an extremity far exceeding what even those exemplary parents could have anticipated. In Philip, Duke of Wharton, the world beheld, happily, almost the last of that series of rich, profligate, bold, and desperate men, who, like the second Buckingham, gilded a few fair points of character by the aid of resplendent talents. It was the destiny of Lord Peterborough to reap disappointment and chagrin from the seed which he had sown in the mind of his eldest son and heir, John Lord Mordaunt, whom he survived.[^[4]]

The regard of Lord Peterborough at this period for the Duchess of Marlborough was as assiduous as his enmity towards her and the Duke became afterwards remarkable. In a letter written soon after their common loss, he urged upon the bereaved father the necessity of seeking in society the solace to his mournful reflections. In other effusions of friendship, addressed to the Duchess, the Earl is profuse in the language of gallantry; and, if we might believe in professions, felt an ardour of admiration which led him to declare, “that he feared no other uneasiness than not being able to meet those opportunities which might contribute to what he most desired, the continuation of the Duchess’s good opinion.”[^[5]]

These expressions had a deeper meaning than compliment; and Lord Peterborough sought also a closer connexion than friendship with the exalted house of Marlborough. The Lady Mary Churchill, the youngest daughter of the Duke and Duchess, and, at the time of her brother’s death, the only unmarried daughter, was one of the most distinguished of her family for beauty, as well as for the higher qualities of the mind and heart. Twenty-two years afterwards, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, speaking of this lovely woman, described her as still so pre-eminent in her hereditary charms, that she might then (in 1725) “be the reigning beauty, if she pleased.”[^[6]] Lady Mary, afterwards the object of her mother’s aversion, was, in her early days, the pride and darling of both parents, and the frequent subject of mention in her father’s letters. Even in her sixteenth year there were many suitors who aspired to her hand, and amongst others the son of Lord Peterborough, the young Lord Mordaunt, whose suit was urged by his father, but rejected by the Duke of Marlborough, on account of the dissolute character of the young nobleman. It was probably this disappointment which first chilled the friendship of Lord Peterborough, and turned it into rancour.

Proposals of marriage from the Earl of Huntingdon, son of Lord Cromarty, were also made to Lady Mary, but in vain;[^[7]] the character of his father, Lord Cromarty, who was, according to Cunningham, “long looked upon as a state mountebank,” probably operating against the young man’s addresses; for the Duchess sought to extend and strengthen her connexions, and not to endanger the stability of her fortune by an alliance with the weak or the disreputable. Political reasons, it has been said by historians, decided the destiny of the fair victim, than whom “there was not in England,” says Cunningham, “a more acceptable sacrifice to be offered up for appeasing the rage of parties,” and caused her finally to become the wife of Lord Monthermer, eldest son of the Earl of Montague. Marlborough, as Cunningham relates, before setting out on his latest campaign, “fearing lest Whigs and Tories should combine together to ruin him, recommended to his wife to propose a marriage of one of his daughters to the Earl of Montague’s son, as a means of their reconciliation, and the establishment of his own power.”[^[8]]

The projected alliance, in most important respects, appeared to be highly advantageous. The House of Montague, anciently Montacute, was already connected with some of the wealthiest and most powerful among the nobility. Resembling, in one respect, the Churchill family, the progenitors of the young man on whom Lady Mary’s hand was ultimately bestowed, had been devoted to the service of the Stuarts. There is a tradition that one of the race, Edward Montague, who held the office of Master of the Horse to Queen Katharine, wife of Charles the Second, was removed from his post, for venturing to press the hand of his royal mistress,—an offence not likely to be of frequent occurrence, if historians have not done great injustice to the amiable but ungainly Katharine of Braganza.

The father of John Duke of Montague, who married Lady Mary Churchill, was a singular instance of something more than prudence,—even cupidity,—combined with liberality and a great mind. This nobleman enjoyed a fortunate, if not a happy life. He was appointed ambassador at the Court of France, by the especial favour of Charles the Second; and conferred on his station, as such, as much honour as he received from so distinguished a mission. During his residence at Paris, he secured the hand of the Countess of Northumberland, a rich widow, who had quitted England to escape the disgraceful addresses of Charles the Second. By this union he secured an income of six thousand a year; which was farther increased, upon his return to England, by his purchase of the place of Master of the King’s Wardrobe, for which he paid six thousand pounds. The prosperity of the family was, however, checked during the reign of James the Second, who, in consequence of Lord Montague’s known enmity to the Roman Catholics, took from him the post which he had obtained. This disgust prepared the offended nobleman for the Revolution, towards which he contributed by his influence and exertions. Honours and fortune then became abundant. The titles of Earl of Montague and Viscount Monthermer succeeded to that of a simple baron. A second marriage added to his wealth; for his first wife having died in giving birth to his only surviving son, he resolved to acquire, by an union with the Duchess of Albemarle, a revenue of six thousand pounds additional to his wealth, and, moreover, to unite his family with the house of Newcastle. The Duchess of Albemarle, whom he for these interested motives addressed, was the heiress of Henry Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, and relict of Christopher March, Duke of Albemarle. There was only one slight blot upon her perfections as a wife—she was insane. In her delusion she had resolved to marry no one but a monarch; but her suitor soon compassed this difficulty, for he is said, with what truth it is not easy to determine, to have wooed and married her, in 1690, as Emperor of China, and to have cherished the delusion, which appears to have lasted nearly forty years; for the Duchess, during her residence at Newcastle-house in Clerkenwell, where she lived until her death, in 1734, would never suffer any person to serve her, save on the bended knee.[^[9]] A later acquisition of wealth to the family took place, also, on the death of the celebrated Sir Ralph Winwood, Secretary of State to James the Second.

The vast fortune which had been thus from various sources accumulated, was spent by the Earl of Montague in a manner peculiarly befitting his lofty station. He could sustain his rank with splendour and dignity, and yet think his table honoured, not encumbered, by the presence of learned men, of no rank, but whose talents shed upon their well-judging patron a reflected lustre which wealth could not give. At his magnificent residence in Bloomsbury-house, now the British Museum, the ingenious St. Evremond, and other eminent foreigners, were seen mingling with the wits and artists of the time, in saloons and halls, to garnish which the arts of painting and sculpture had been called into requisition, and liberally remunerated. The taste of this excellent and high-minded nobleman for architecture, for gardening, as well as for the other arts which embellish, was displayed both in his abode in London and his estate in Northamptonshire. His style of living corresponded with his lofty ideas, and equalled, if it did not excel, that of the most princely of his contemporaries.

From this noble stock sprang John Montague, Viscount Monthermer, who became the son-in-law of Marlborough. An intimacy had for some time subsisted between the Earl his father, and the Duchess, his future mother-in-law.[^[10]] But the Lady Mary Churchill, his destined bride, when the match was proposed to her, proved averse from complying with the wishes of her parents, having already, as report alleged, “set her eyes and her heart upon another young gentleman, a very handsome youth.” “Yet she must,” adds Cunningham, “have obeyed her mother’s commands immediately, had not an accident happened, which proved very lamentable to the Marlborough family.” The event to which he alludes was the death of Lord Blandford; and the marriage of the reluctant young lady was suspended until the period of mourning had been duly observed. It then, however, took place; for it was not the custom of the day to take into account the affections, in the calculations which were made in matrimonial contracts. Nor were the family of the young bridegroom likely to relax in their efforts to promote a favourable issue. Such is the mutability of human affections, and the folly of our most ardent desires, that Marlborough appears afterwards to have disliked, and the Duchess to have despised, though without adequate reason, the man whom she at this time preferred for her son-in-law. “All his talents,” thus she wrote of his lordship thirty-seven years afterwards, “lie in things natural in boys of fifteen years old, and he is about two-and-fifty—to get people into his garden and wet them with squirts, and to invite people to his country-houses, and put things into their beds to make them itch, and twenty such pretty fancies like these.”[^[11]] Such was her opinion of this son-in-law; how far it was guided by prejudice will be seen presently.

The union, when once completed, seems to have afforded many means of happiness to the beautiful Lady Mary. As far as worldly advantages were to be considered, she encountered no disappointment. Soon after her marriage, the father of her husband was created a duke through the interest of her parents, and the reversion of the post of master of the wardrobe settled on his son through the influence of the Duchess of Marlborough, and, as she herself alleges, as part of her daughter’s portion.[^[12]]

An unbroken course of prosperity attended the long life of Lord Monthermer, who had not many years to wait before he attained a higher title, on the death of his father, the Duke of Montague.[^[13]] The disposition and character of the Lord Monthermer, those most important points of all, were, notwithstanding the character given of him by the Duchess, said, by a keen-sighted judge, to have been truly amiable. “He was,” says Horace Walpole, writing to his friend Sir Horace Mann, “with some foibles, a most amiable man, and one of the most feeling I ever knew.” “He had,” says Lord Hailes, in reference to the Duchess’s description of the Duke’s childish propensities, “other pretty fancies, not mentioned in the memoranda of his mother-in-law; he did good without ostentation. His vast benevolence of soul is not recorded by Pope; but it will be remembered while there is any tradition of human kindness or charity in England.” The defects of this nobleman appear to have been a thirst for gain, producing an inveterate place-hunting, which detracted from his better qualities. “He was,” says Walpole, “incessantly obtaining new, and making the most of all: he had quartered on the great wardrobe no less than thirty nominal tailors and arras workers,”—employments which were dropped at his death. This corrupt proceeding he redeemed, in some measure, by great liberality, paying out of his own property no less than two thousand a year in private pensions. The Duke of Montague’s talents fitted him indeed for better things than the grovelling love of gain. Sir Robert Walpole entertained so high an opinion of his abilities, that he was very desirous that the Duke should command the forces,—a charge which his grace, fearful of his own experience, declined.[^[14]] He received, with his bride, an addition to her portion of ten thousand pounds, presented on the occasion by the Queen, who had conferred a similar gift on Lady Bridgewater. What was of still more importance, the favour of Anne was continued to him when the Marlborough family was disgraced, and the high offices which he held under George the First and Second attested the continuance of royal regard.

1703. The Duke of Marlborough passed the summer of this year in fruitless attempts to stimulate the timid spirit of the Dutch generals with whom, as commander-in-chief, he was destined to co-operate, and to unite the discordant opinions by which his operations against the French were weakened, and his plans wholly frustrated. So harassed and dispirited was the great commander at this time, when all his persuasions could not avail to induce the allied armies to attack the French lines, that he looked forward with something like pleasure to the projected siege of Limburg, as to a sort of episode to his weary existence amongst his friendly, but obstinate coadjutors. One painful and inconvenient effect of mental anxiety continually attacked the Duke, in the cruel form of continual and severe headache. To this, and to the harassed frame and dejected spirits of which it was a concomitant, he refers, when writing to the Duchess, in terms which ought to have made an affectionate wife careful lest she should increase his uneasiness by any line of conduct which she could possibly avoid.

“When[^[15]] I last writ to you, I was so much disordered, that I writ in very great pain. I cannot say I am yet well, for my head aches violently, and I am afraid you will think me lightheaded, when I tell you that I go to-morrow to the siege of Limburg, in hopes to recover my health. But it is certainly true that I shall have more quiet there than I have here; for I have been these last six days in a perpetual dispute, and there I shall have nobody but such as will willingly obey me.”

The Duchess was too much absorbed in her own schemes, to regard the unkindness and impropriety of adding to her husband’s perplexities, which were already sufficiently overpowering, and which demanded an undisturbed attention. She was carried along, as it were, by a torrent. Her hopes, her endeavours, centered all in one point; the abasement of the high church party, and the establishment of the Whigs at the head of affairs, were the objects of her political existence. To accomplish this purpose, she now employed all the force of her arguments, not only to convert the Duke, but by correspondence, and in conversation, to sway the mind of her sovereign, and bend it to her purpose.

The marriage between the two great families of Churchill and Montague was intended to propitiate the favour both of Whigs and Tories, by adding connexions among each of those parties to the interests of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. Never was there a period in which party spirit manifested itself with greater virulence than at the present juncture, and the contentions in parliament were so vehement, that a dreadful storm seemed impending over the country. The popularity of the Whigs was increased, and strong suspicions were entertained that even the Queen’s inclinations began to be favourable to that party. “But what was matter of hope to the Whigs,” observes Cunningham, “seemed to the Tories to be only a dangerous tempest ready to break upon the church; and the furious clergy began to prophesy and report about the country great dangers of—the Lord knows what! So that it was now easy to perceive what influence there is in England in the mere cry of religion.”[^[16]]

The Duchess of Marlborough was not inactive in the midst of this tempest of parties. Her dislike to Lord Rochester, and her abhorrence of the pretensions to superiority in spiritual affairs assumed, according to her notions, by that nobleman and his partisans, were the main sources of her adoption of Whig principles. Lord Rochester had, in the former reign, offended her pride by urging upon the King her removal from the service of the Princess Anne. The wound was inflamed continually, and, at last, the enmity rose to open hostilities. Lord Rochester was as averse to a reconciliation with his haughty foe as the Duchess herself; their influence bore the semblance of rival-ship; their advice drew the compliant Queen different ways; Lord Rochester guided the prejudices, the Duchess governed the affections of her royal slave. Finally, female influence prevailed: for when have men adequately opposed its sway? Yet it is certain, first, that Anne long resisted the arguments of her friend, and, secondly, that the Duchess would never have been completely successful, had not the violence and arrogance of her foes blazed out, and proved the most opportune and effectual aid that ever plotting woman received. To “the mad conduct of the tacking Tories,” as the Duchess termed the ill-judged manœuvres of that party, she owed, as she acknowledged, the temporary abatement, for it could not be called a change, that was effected in the Queen’s high church fervour, and obstinate, yet honest Toryism.[^[17]]

Lord Rochester, who, as long as he remained in existence, was the chief object of the Duchess’s political displeasure—the thorn which, in the midst of her greatness, rankled in her side—was a man highly esteemed, not only by the party whose tenets he zealously and powerfully supported, but by the country in general. Far from being entirely indebted for the consideration which he enjoyed, to “the accident,” as the Duchess termed it, which made him uncle to the Queen, his earnestness and steadiness, during a long political life, had insured him universal respect, heightened, in the minds of those of the old school of English politics, by his relationship to the great historian and advocate of their party. There is a sort of reputation, a description of influence, which consistency, whether it be to the most approved or the most unpopular opinions of the time, can alone purchase. From the time that Lord Rochester, when Mr. Hyde, had pleaded for his father before the House of Commons, reconciling his filial love with his public duty, he had held an even, and, as far as the great changes in affairs would permit, an unequivocal line of conduct. After the bill against occasional Conformity was rejected, Lord Rochester first began to evince that “deep discontent with the Queen and her administration,”[^[18]] which secret jealousies, and a real difference of sentiment had long been fostering in his mind. In the previous year, he had, in anger, declined the lieutenancy of Ireland, upon the Queen’s urging him to go to that country, the affairs of which required his presence. His resignation was followed, in 1704, by that of Lord Nottingham, who resigned the secretaryship upon the Queen’s refusal to dismiss the Dukes of Devonshire and Somerset from the council. This step on the part of Lord Nottingham was far more important in its consequences to the future fortunes of the Marlborough family, than they could, at that moment, possibly have foretold. After a month’s delay his place was filled up, and Harley, the prudent, the conciliating, and moderate, but aspiring Harley, succeeded to it; holding, at the same time, the office of Speaker of the House of Commons and that of Secretary of State—two appointments that had hitherto never been assigned to the same person.[^[19]]

This preferment Harley owed chiefly to the favour of Marlborough and Godolphin, who considered him as a very proper person to manage the House of Commons.[^[20]] They knew his talents, but they were not acquainted with the extent of his ambition, nor with his actual sentiments. Towards Marlborough, this able and celebrated minister expressed, at this time, an ardent attachment, and a lively concern in the recent loss which the great general had sustained in the death of Lord Blandford. “I will not,” he says, in a letter to the Duke on that topic, “call it your grace’s loss, but our common misfortune. I do feel it, that a limb is torn off; therefore I think, for the preservation of the residue, grief should be moderated: time, I know, is the best physician in this case; but our necessities require a quicker remedy.”[^[21]]The Duchess, who must be regarded as the mainspring of all political changes at this period, had now inadvertently planted an enemy in the heart of the citadel. Whilst her husband was in Holland, distracted by contending factions and corroding jealousies, which, to use his own phrase, “made his life a burthen,” she had been diligently exerting the faculties of her ingenious mind to displace Nottingham, Seymour, and Lord Jersey, and to effect an union between her husband and the Whigs. Her efforts, like female interference generally, embarrassed rather than aided the Whigs, to whom she extended her gracious aid. They rendered, also, the path of her husband through the political mazes which surrounded him, more perplexing. Although the Whig party had encouraged Marlborough’s favourite schemes for the subversion of the power of France, neither he nor Godolphin desired to throw themselves into the hands of a party to whose measures they were from education averse. It was the wish and intention of these able men to act independently of party, and to promote the introduction of statesmen of sound morals and of moderate views into the cabinet, without regarding the political distinctions which proved so inconvenient to those who solely desired the advancement of the public good, and the benefit, at home and abroad, of her Majesty’s interests.

The violence of the Tories, and their determination to obtain a complete ascendency, frustrated this well-considered line of conduct on the part of Marlborough and his friend. Lord Rochester had been supported by Nottingham, in his opposition to that line of foreign policy which Marlborough had most at heart. Lord Godolphin had even, at one time, purposed to send in his resignation; for he found that he and his friend were losing the support of the Tories, without gaining that of the Whigs. The Queen overwhelmed the Lord Treasurer with reproaches whenever he hinted at the necessity of conciliating the Whigs. Godolphin, in despair, despatched letters to the Hague, filled with complaints to his friend. Marlborough, though by no means in an enviable situation himself, regarded that of Godolphin as still more pitiable. “I have very little rest here,” he remarks, writing from the camp; “but I should have less quiet of mind, if I were obliged to be in your station.” “I do from my heart pity you,” he says, in another place, “and everybody that has to do with unreasonable people; for certainly (and who will not join in the reflection?) it is much better to row in the galleys than to have to do with such as are very selfish, and misled by everybody that speaks to them, which I believe is the case of the author of your two letters.”

The Duchess was not a person to conciliate differences, nor to soothe the irritated passions of the two great men over whom she had an ascendency. She delighted to show her controul over the Queen, and vexed the weak spirit of Anne by reading extracts from Marlborough’s letters, complaining of the Tories. In particular, she failed not to transmit to her Majesty certain hints which Marlborough and Godolphin had thrown out of their projected resignations. Good Queen Anne then hastened to dispel such notions, and to reassure her beloved Mr. and Mrs. Freeman, and their friend and confidante Godolphin, who figured in her familiar letters under the name of “Montgomery,” of her unabated regard. Thus the aim of the arrogant Duchess was answered.

The Earl of Jersey, who was suspected of a close correspondence with the court of St. Germains, of course seconded the opposition of Rochester and Nottingham. The Duke of Buckingham, Lord Privy Seal, was equally devoted to what was termed the high church party, though not so reputed a partisan of the exiled family as the weak, but dangerous, Lord Jersey. These noblemen all united in controverting, by every possible endeavour, the designs and propositions of Marlborough.[^[22]]

Whilst the fervour of politics was at its height, the Queen was advised by her physicians to go to Bath. It was singular that Lord Wharton and Lord Somers were at the same time ordered to go to that fashionable resort for the recovery of their health. Lord Wharton, exhausted by his parliamentary exertions, and Lord Somers, frequently an invalid, were probably not unwilling to avail themselves of this opportunity of combining business with pleasure. The public, indeed, regarded the whole as a scheme among the physicians, and considered the Queen’s illness as only a pretext for meeting these two great Whig partisans on the neutral ground which a place like Bath affords. Many of the Tories who were in that city, insulted the Whigs in public meetings and assemblies. The Whigs returned the insult, nor did the Queen wholly escape some annoyances, when it was understood that she was willing to see Lord Somers. But the placid Anne looked on these demonstrations of party spirit with a smiling countenance, and “hoped to extinguish all their party flames in the waters of the Bath.” Those praises of her frugality, her constancy, her “English heart,”[^[23]] which she had been in the habit of hearing from her subjects, were now no longer expressed; and the Queen returned to London from Bath, in all the miseries of unpopularity.

Lord Wharton, the veteran promoter of Whig principles, and father of the eccentric and infamous Duke of Wharton, had no sooner reached Bath than he was challenged, upon the pretence of affront, by a Mr. Dashwood, a hot young Tory, who was desirous of stepping forward to signalise himself in behalf of his party. Lord Wharton in vain offered the young man such satisfaction as a man of honour might give, without fighting; but neither his age nor his infirmities appeased the ardour of Dashwood, who insisted on a duel. The parties met, fought, as was the custom, with swords, and Dashwood was disarmed by the old lord, who, in consideration of the youth and zeal of his opponent, spared his life, and even gave him the honour of his acquaintance. But Mr. Dashwood, unable to sustain the reproaches of the world for his cowardice and rude fury in challenging so old a man, died soon afterwards, it is said, through shame and vexation.[^[24]]

Such were some of the effects of that political rancour for which this free country has been, and probably ever will be, remarkable. The ladies of the time, it appears, were as zealous in those days as they often prove in this more enlightened age.

CHAPTER II.

Conduct of Lord Sunderland—Influence of the Duchess understood at foreign courts—Anecdote of Charles the Third of Spain.—1703–4.

Lord Sunderland, at this time on terms of confidence with his mother-in-law, the Duchess of Marlborough, was one of the most active agents of the Whig party, in making overtures to Marlborough and Godolphin. Of powerful talents, although taunted by Swift with the imputation “of knowing a book better by the back than by the face,”[^[25]] and of multiplying them on his book-shelves without caring to read them, Sunderland, or his politics, were never wholly acceptable to Marlborough. Yet the Earl, though a violent party politician, knew how, in circumstances sufficiently trying, to prove his sincerity, and evince a real elevation of mind, by refusing from the Queen, upon his office of secretary being taken from him, a pension by way of compensation. His celebrated answer, “that if he could not have the honour to serve his country, he would not plunder it,”[^[26]] must have startled less scrupulous politicians; and, possibly, it might even sound strangely in our own days of boasted disinterestedness and enlightenment.

The Duke of Marlborough, in reply to advances made in behalf of the Whig party by Lord Sunderland, made this memorable answer: “that he hoped always to continue in the humour that he was then in, that is, to be governed by neither party, but to do what he should think best for England, by which he should disoblige both parties.”[^[27]] Thus ended, for the present, the negociation on the part of the Whigs.

The cabinet, therefore, continued to be composed of mixed ingredients. The Duke persevered steadily in that course which he deemed necessary, as far as foreign policy was concerned, to crush the reviving influence of the Pretender, whose subsequent attempts to recover the throne of his ancestors he plainly foresaw. From this conviction, he regarded a continued good understanding with the Dutch to be of paramount importance.[^[28]]

“May God,” he says, writing to the Duchess, “preserve me and my dearest love from seeing this come to pass;” alluding to a reconciliation with the French, and consequently with the Pretender and his family, through the medium of that nation; “but if we quarrel with the Dutch,” he adds, “I fear it may happen.”[^[29]]

The influence of the Duchess of Marlborough at the court of Anne was now well understood by the continental powers of Europe. When England, this year, received a foreign potentate as her guest, the Duchess was, of all her subjects, the object peculiarly selected for distinction. Charles, the second son of the Emperor of Austria, having recently been proclaimed, at Vienna, King of Spain, in opposition to the Duke of Anjou, completed his visits to sundry courts in Germany, whither he had repaired to seek a wife, by paying his respects to Anne of England. He landed in this country about Christmas, and immediately despatched one of his attendants, Count Coloredo, to Windsor, to inform the Queen of his arrival. He soon, conducted by Marlborough, followed his messenger to Windsor, where Anne received her royal ally with great courtesy, and entertained him with a truly royal magnificence. All ranks of people crowded to see the young monarch dine with the Queen in public, and his deportment and appearance were greatly admired by the multitude, more especially by the fair sex, whose national beauty was, on the other hand, highly extolled by Charles. The Duchess of Marlborough, though no longer young, still graced the court which she controlled. It was her office to hold the basin of water after dinner to the Queen, for the royal hands to be dipped, after the ancient fashion of the laver and ewer. Charles took the basin from the fair Duchess’s hand, and, with the gallantry of a young and well-bred man, held it to the Queen; and in returning it to the Duchess, he drew from his own finger a valuable ring, and placed it on that of the stately Sarah. On taking leave of the Queen, he received, as might be expected, assurances of favour and support—a promise that was not “made to the ear, and broken to the hope,” but was fulfilled by supplies of troops and money afterwards in Spain. During the time of the King’s visit, open house was kept by the Queen for his reception and that of his retinue; and the nobility were not deficient in their wonted hospitality, and the Duke of Marlborough was twice honoured by receiving the King as his guest.[^[30]]

It was two years after this visit that Charles sent a letter of thanks for the assistance granted him by the Queen against the French, which he addressed to the Duchess of Marlborough, as “the person most agreeable to her Majesty.” The King might have added, as a partisan most favourable to the aid afforded him, and most inimical to the sway of France, which, by the will of the late King of Spain, Charles the Second, had been unjustly extended over the Spanish monarchy.

Hitherto the achievements of Marlborough, however admirable, and compassed as they were with the loss of health and the destruction of happiness, had not contributed to effect the main objects of the war, in the manner which he had anticipated. At home, the Tory, or, as some historians of the day term it, the French faction, disseminated the notion that Marlborough and his party were squandering away the resources of the kingdom, in fruitless attempts against the wealthy and powerful sovereign of France. To combat his political foes, an union was effected between Lord Somers and Mr. Harley; and Godolphin, by the directions of Marlborough, endeavoured by every possible means to strengthen the moderate party in both Houses of Parliament.[^[31]] The Duchess attacked the Queen with never-ending counsels and arguments; but all these exertions would possibly have been fruitless, had it not pleased Providence to bless the arms of Marlborough with signal success during the ensuing year.

“The Whigs,” as the Duchess observed, “did indeed begin to be favoured, and with good reason.[^[32]] For when they saw that the Duke of Marlborough prosecuted the common cause against the French with so much diligence and sincerity, they forgot their resentments for the partiality previously shown by him to their opponents, and extolled his feats with as much fervour as the Tories decried his efforts.”

Marlborough, in the spring of the year 1704, embarked for Holland, with designs kept rigidly secret, embracing schemes of a greater magnitude than he had hitherto hoped to execute, and sanguine anticipations which were more than realised. The Duchess was left to combat at home the prepossessions of her royal mistress, as well as to repel the frequent projects which Marlborough, dispirited and home-sick, formed of retiring. He had, after the last campaign, quitted the continent with that intention; but, on reflection, a sincere and earnest desire to complete the great work which he had begun, and, possibly, the counsels of Godolphin and of the Duchess, who were both averse from his relinquishing his command, had prevailed over feelings of disappointment and chagrin.

Whilst affairs were in this position, the Tories made one expiring effort for power, by reviving the bill against occasional conformity. Until this time, the hopes of this ever vigorous and sanguine party had been maintained by the preference of the sovereign, plainly manifested in the creation of four Tory peers, after the last prorogation of Parliament.[^[33]] This had proved the more alarming, since it had been hinted that an exercise of prerogative in the Upper House was the only means of subverting the opposition of the Lords to the bill.

The discovery of what was called the Scotch plot, however, checked materially the triumph of those who secretly favoured the claims of the Pretender. This famous conspiracy, which had for its object the interests of the Jacobite faction, produced a more effectual change in the sentiments of the Queen, and made her more distrustful of her favourite partisans, than all the services of Marlborough, or the laborious and steady duty of Godolphin, or even the able arguments of the Duchess, could possibly have rendered her. Yet, still Anne secretly favoured the high church party; and it was with reluctance that she abstained from giving to the last effort for passing the bill against occasional conformity, her decided countenance.

The measure was introduced by a manœuvre, and it was further designed to carry it by a stratagem. By the contrivance of Lord Nottingham, it was announced in the Gazette, without Lord Godolphin’s knowledge or concurrence.[^[34]] “It was resolved,” says the Duchess, “to tack the occasional conformity bill to the money bill, a resolution which showed the spirit of the party in its true light.”[^[35]] The Queen, notwithstanding that the Prince of Denmark had been prevailed upon not to vote on the question, still had her predilections in favour of the measure, greatly to the irritation of the proud spirit which could not overcome those deeply-seated notions.

“I must own to you,” observes Anne, writing to the Duchess, “that I never cared to mention anything on this subject to you, because I knew you would not be of my mind; but since you have given me this occasion, I can’t forbear saying, that I see nothing like persecution in this bill.”

“I am in hopes,” she adds, “I shall have one look of you before you go to St. Albans, and therefore will say no more now, but will answer your letter more at large some other time; and only promise my dear Mrs. Freeman, faithfully, I will read the book she sent me, and never let difference of opinion hinder us from living together as we used to do. Nothing shall ever alter your poor, unfortunate, faithful Morley, who will live and die, with all truth and tenderness, yours.”[^[36]]

There is every reason to suppose that the opinions of the Duchess upon the subject of nonconformity coincided with those of Bishop Burnet, who was the most energetic champion of the Whigs on this occasion. Dr. Burnet considered that measure as infringing on the principles of toleration which he upheld; he represented it as a design of the Jacobites, to raise such dissensions as might impede the progress of the war. He has declared, in a lively passage of his celebrated history, that it was his resolution never to be silent when the subject should be debated; “for I have looked,” he adds, “on liberty of conscience as one of the rights of human nature, antecedent to society, which no man can give up, because it was not in his own power: and our Saviour’s rule, of doing as we would be done by, seemed to be a very express decision to all men who would lay the matter home to their own conscience, and judge as they would willingly be judged by others.”[^[37]]

It would be agreeable to conclude that the Duchess of Marlborough acted on principles as high as those which the bishop here maintains. But it must be allowed that her general conduct would not induce the supposition. The cherished satisfaction of triumphing over her political adversaries, and of exhibiting the Queen enchained under her influence, if not convinced by her arguments, must be regarded as the source of the steady warfare which she maintained against the predilections of her sovereign.

Anne wrote in a strain of humility, which proceeded from the politeness natural to her, and which impelled her to support the assumed character of an equal, even when the prejudices of the two friends came into collision, had ignited, and caused an explosion.

“I am sure,” she writes, “nobody shall endeavour more to promote it (union) than your poor, unfortunate, faithful Morley, who doth not at all doubt of your truth and sincerity to her, and hopes her not agreeing in everything you say will not be imputed to want of value, esteem, or tender kindness for my dear Mrs. Freeman, it being impossible for anybody to be more sincerely another’s than I am yours.

“I am very sorry you should forbear writing upon the apprehension of your letters being troublesome, since you know very well they are not, nor ever can be so, but the contrary, to your poor, unfortunate, faithful Morley. Upon what my dear Mrs. Freeman says again concerning the address, I have looked it over again, and cannot for my life see one can put any other interpretation upon that word pressures, than what I have done already. As to my saying the church was in some danger in the late reign, I cannot alter my opinion; for though there was no violent thing done, everybody that will speak impartially must own that everything was leaning towards the Whigs, and whenever that is, I shall think the church beginning to be in danger.”[^[38]]

The bill was again, by a large majority, rejected, and the Queen and Prince George became, in consequence, extremely unpopular with the high church party, for the coolness with which they had abstained from using their influence on this second occasion.[^[39]]

But the triumph of the Whig party was now fast approaching. Marlborough, after passing the winter in military preparations proportioned to the public danger, had, as we have seen, embarked for Holland; “but few,” says Cunningham, “perceived that England was about to unite her forces to those of Germany.”

The progress of the great general through the territories of Cologne to Colburg, where he left a camp; his march up the Rhine, on which he carried his sick and wearied in boats between the two armies, marching on either side of the “abounding river;” his encampment on a vast plain, beyond Andernach, and his rapid progress to the Danube, are events which demand almost a separate and distinct history, to relate them as they merit. It was in this campaign that the gallant Eugene passed high compliments on the spirit and deportment of the British army, and requested to serve under the illustrious Marlborough as a volunteer. It was here that the mutual partiality of these two brave men began, and that a friendship was contracted between them, which proved no less delightful to themselves than important to the interests of the war.

The march of the allied troops to Schellenberg, and the encampment around its church, on a hill, commanding a plain, bounded by the Danube, followed this memorable meeting. The battle of Blenheim, which annihilated the ascendency of France, was the glorious climax of a series of less important, yet brilliant engagements. It destroyed, at the same time, the influence of that party in our own country, who had prophesied, not many weeks before the important victory, that all would end fatally for Holland and for England. Sir Edward Seymour, the leader of the opposition in the House of Commons, inveighed against Marlborough, before the decisive action, and whilst he lay before Schellenberg, in the bitterest terms, and even threatened the Duke with a severe censure of Parliament for marching his army to the Danube.

Nor was the arrogant but able Seymour a solitary railer against the great deliverer of his country. There was a host of malcontents who accused Marlborough of exceeding his commission, and of consulting his private interests in the steps which he had taken; and a clamour was raised, that the British army was led away to slaughter, in order to serve the purposes of a single individual.

The Duchess, in her narrative, refers to the battle of Blenheim in one short paragraph only, and that in reference to its effect upon the state of politics in England.

“The church, in the meanwhile, it must be confessed,” she writes, “was in a deplorable condition,—the Earls of Rochester, Jersey, and Nottingham, and the Whigs, coming into favour.” Great were the exertions used to reanimate the party, and also to resume the great measure against non-conformists. “But it happened,” says the Duchess, “that my Lord Marlborough, in the summer before the Parliament met, gained the battle of Blenheim. This was an unfortunate accident; and, by the visible dissatisfaction of some people on the news of it, one would have imagined that, instead of beating the French, he had beat the church.”

It might be supposed that, from this cool and almost flippant mention of an event in which her warmest affections ought to have been interested, the Duchess was an indifferent witness of those stirring and important scenes in which John Duke of Marlborough played a conspicuous part, and in which all Europe, figuratively speaking, participated. But, whatever were her failings, the unpardonable fault of not appreciating him; of not sharing in his lofty hopes nor suffering in his anxieties; of not prizing his safety, of not being elevated with an honest pride at his success,—so great a deficiency in all that is healthy in moral or intellectual condition, could not be imputed to this haughty and capricious, but not heartless, woman. Yet, notwithstanding this vindication of the Duchess’s character, she had parted from her husband (will it be believed?) in anger. Amid the dangers and difficulties to which Marlborough was exposed, he carried with him the remembrance of other annoyances, which, whilst it neither abated his ardour nor weakened his exertions for the great cause, added to the pressure of a mind overcharged, and of faculties overtasked, a sense of chagrin which must have aggravated every other care.

The stings which domestic quarrels always inflict, and which sometimes can never, by any gentle arts, be removed, were still poignant when the Duke quitted England for the Hague. Repentance in violent but generous tempers quickly succeeds the indulgence of the angry taunt, or bitter sarcasm; and when absence had cooled down those ebullitions of irritability, which wanted, perhaps, the accustomed object to vent themselves upon, the Duchess appears to have suffered her better feelings to prevail, and to have experienced sincere regret that she had parted unkindly, and perhaps for ever, from him whose life was now exposed to every possible risk, whilst she sat at home in safety. Her restless, but not callous mind began to be possessed with nobler resolutions than, as it seems from his reply, the Duke ever anticipated from his wife. Soon after his departure, she wrote to offer to join him, to share in the anxieties, and even in the dangers, to which he was exposed. To accede to the request was impracticable; but it gratified the warm and generous heart of Marlborough to know that the Duchess, of whose affection he seems never to have been fully assured, should wish to resign for him the attractions of ease and safety, and the luxuries of home. His letter to her, in reply to this offer, is too beautiful to be abridged.[^[40]]

“Hague, April 24–May 5.

“Your letter of the 15th came to me but this minute. My Lord Treasurer’s letter, in which it was enclosed, by some mistake was sent to Amsterdam. I would not for anything in my power it had been lost; for it is so very kind, that I would in return lose a thousand lives, if I had them, to make you happy. Before I sat down to write this letter, I took yours that you wrote at Harwich out of my strong box, and have burnt it; but, if you will give me leave, it will be a great pleasure to me to have it in my power to read this dear, dear letter often, and that it may be found in my strong box when I am dead. I do this minute love you better than I ever did in my life before. This letter of yours has made me so happy, that I do from my soul wish we could retire, and not be blamed. What you propose as to coming over, I should be extremely pleased with; for your letter has so transported me, that I think you would be happier in being here than where you are; although I should not be able to see you often. But you will see, by my last letter as well as this, that what you desire is impossible, for I am going up into Germany, where it would be impossible for you to follow me; but love me as you do now, and no hurt can follow me. You have by this kindness preserved my quiet, and I believe my life; for, till I had this letter, I have been very indifferent of what should become of myself. I have pressed this business of carrying an army into Germany, in order to leave a good name behind me, wishing for nothing else but good success. I shall now add that of having a long life, that I may be happy with you.”

Upon the entreaty being renewed in the summer, Marlborough again refused;[^[41]] for he was at that time on his march to the Danube, and, in case of an unfortunate issue to his projects, he had no place, as he assured the Duchess, to which he could send her for safety.

“I take it extremely kind,” he writes, “that you persist in desiring to come to me; but I am sure, when you consider that three days hence will be a month, and that we shall be a fortnight longer before we shall get to the Danube, so that you could hardly get to me, and back again to Holland, before it would be time to return to England. Besides, my dear soul, how could I be at ease? for if we should not have good success, I could not put you in any place where you could be safe.”[^[42]]

The courageous character of the Duchess was fully requisite to sustain her during the events of the ensuing months of this memorable summer. August drew on, and the crisis of the war approached. We know not how she was supported through anxieties multiplied by rumour, and embittered by the slanderous accusations of the envious; but the Duke her husband had one resource, which never failed—he trusted in Providence. Whilst weaker minds vainly confide in their own strength, or in the effect of circumstances, which are as reeds driven to and fro by a mighty wind, the great Marlborough, humbling himself before his supreme Creator, had recourse to prayer. Previous to the engagement which crowned his fame, he received the holy sacrament, and “devoted himself to the Almighty Ruler, and Lord of Hosts,” whom it might please to sustain him in the hour of battle, or to receive him into everlasting peace if he fell.[^[43]] There are those who will justly think that the pious ordinances of our religion were profaned by the cause of bloodshed; and that an all-merciful Father would look down with displeasure upon the deliberate destruction of thousands, even when projected with the purest and most patriotic motives. The better sense of our own peaceful times has brought us to a due conviction of the wickedness of all war not defensive: that in which Marlborough was engaged may, nevertheless, be considered to have borne that character.

When the great victory was won, Marlborough’s first thoughts were of the Queen, of the people, of his wife. After a battle which lasted five hours, having been himself sixteen hours on horseback, and whilst still in pursuit of the enemy, Marlborough tore a leaf from his pocket-book, and with a black-lead pencil wrote these hasty lines:

“August 13, 1704.

“I have not time to say more, but to beg you will give my duty to the Queen, and let her know that her army has had a glorious victory. M. Tallard and the other generals are in my coach,[^[44]] and I am following the rest. The bearer, my aide-de-camp, will give her an account of what has passed. I shall do it in a day or two by another more at large.

“Marlborough.”

The battle of Blenheim silenced everything but acclamations of joy and gratitude. The Duke, after various other successes, returned to England on the fourteenth of December, 1704, worn out with hardships, rather than elated with success. Throughout the whole of the campaign, his coolness had been combined with an ardent courage, which never lost sight, for an instant, of the interests of humanity, in so far as the great lessons of forbearance handed down to us can be united with the profession of arms. His modesty, as he returned, bringing with him as a prisoner the famous Marshal Tallard, was no less remarkable. Abroad, he was treated as a prince, and he consented to wear the character for the benefit of that cause which he espoused, and for the honour of those allies whom he represented; but, on returning home, Marlborough became again the subject, the least obtrusive of men; and, “in point of courtesy,” on an equal footing with the lowest in England.[^[45]]

This note was written on a slip of paper torn from a memorandum-book; it had probably been taken from some commissary’s bill, as it was written, along with the important intelligence, on a list of tavern expenses, and an entry of bread furnished to the troops. The precious despatch is preserved in the archives of Blenheim. Colonel Parker, who carried it to the Queen, requested, instead of the usual donation of five hundred pounds, to be honoured by the gift of her Majesty’s picture. The Queen granted the permission, and presented him with her miniature; and the gallant officer chose to be represented himself, by the pencil of Kneller, as wearing the miniature, with the despatch in his hand, and the battle in the back-ground.[^[46]]

After innumerable honours paid to the victorious general, and, among others, a combat of wild beasts for his entertainment at Berlin,[^[47]] the Duke was able to return to his home, where all his real happiness was centered. He had owned, in one of his letters from Weissemberg, that his heart ached at the anticipation of a journey of eight hundred miles, before he could reach the Hague: and innumerable obstacles delayed his return until the fourth of December, when the wearied general sailed up the Thames in one of the royal yachts, landed at Whitehall stairs, and proceeded the same afternoon to St. James’s, where he was graciously received by the Queen and Prince George.[^[48]] The French prisoners, whom he was said by his political enemies to have brought for the purpose of adorning his triumph, were sent to Nottingham, for the ministry did not venture to trust these foreigners at Oxford this year; a singular, and as some persons thought, an indecorous respect and attention having been shown two years before, by the Oxonians, to some French prisoners of war who were quartered in their city.[^[49]]

This was a proud era in the life of the Duchess of Marlborough. The year 1705 began with splendid processions, in which she and her husband acted a conspicuous part. On the third of January the trophies reaped in the battle of Blenheim were removed from their first place of deposit, the Tower, to Westminster Hall. Companies of horse and foot-guards led the way; persons of rank were intermixed with the troops, and a hundred and twenty-eight pikemen, each bearing a standard, closed the triumphal procession. The Queen viewed the whole from the windows of the Lord Fitzharding’s lodgings in the palace, attended by her favourite, who heard, in the triumphant acclamations of the excited multitude, signals of destruction, ominous not only to our foreign foes, but presaging the downfal of political party opposed to her at home.

A grand entertainment at the city, in the Goldsmiths’-hall, succeeded this interesting display. Marlborough was conveyed to the banquet in one of the royal carriages, and gazed upon with curiosity and enthusiasm by the multitude. At Templebar he was received by the city marshals with the usual ceremonies.[^[50]]

On the eleventh of the same month, the House of Commons unanimously agreed to send up an address to the Queen, humbly desiring that she would graciously be pleased to consider of some proper means to perpetuate the memory of those services which had been performed by the Duke of Marlborough.[^[51]]

The Queen, having returned an answer that she would give the subject her consideration, on the seventeenth sent a message to the House, acquainting the members that she did incline to grant the interest of the crown in the honour and manor of Woodstock, and hundred of Wootton, to the Duke of Marlborough and his heirs; and desired the assistance of the House on this extraordinary occasion.

The lieutenancy and rangerships of the Park of Woodstock and Wootton, with the rent and profits of the manor and hundreds, having been already granted for two lives, her Majesty thought proper that the encumbrance should be cleared.

In compliance with her Majesty’s wishes, a bill was immediately brought in and passed, enabling her to carry into effect both these propositions; and the ancient royal domain of Woodstock, under the illustrious name of Blenheim, became the possession of the Duke of Marlborough and his heirs, upon the tribute of “a standard, or colours, with three flowers-de-luce painted on them, for all manner of rent, services,” &c., to be presented annually, on the second of August, to the Queen, her heirs and successors.[^[52]]

This munificent reward was increased soon afterwards by an order from the Queen to the Board of Works, to build, at the royal expense, a palace, which was to be entitled the Castle of Blenheim. A model of this edifice was framed for the approbation of the Queen, and the work begun under the superintendence of the celebrated John Vanburgh, then considered to be one of the most able architects of his time.

The important results of the battle of Blenheim could not be disputed, even by the bitterest enemies of Marlborough. The French, on their part, attached such direful effects on their country to this victory, that a proclamation was published in France, making it unlawful to speak of it;[^[53]] nor could its consequences be concealed from those who would have been most desirous not to perceive them. “The power of France was,” says the Duchess, “broken by it to a great degree, and the liberties and peace of Europe were in a fair way to be established on firm and lasting foundations.”[^[54]] Yet scandalous reports were, nevertheless, circulated respecting Marlborough, and the ungrateful world scrupled not still to say that he carried on the war for his own private advantage, more especially for the accumulation of wealth, to which he was generally supposed to be addicted. But the Duke, although invited by his friends to spend more freely the vast fortune which he was yearly accumulating, adhered to those habits of frugality for which he had been remarkable even in his youth, and which, evincing an orderly mind, may be supposed to have conduced to the success of his plans through life.

CHAPTER III.

Complete triumph of the Whigs—Attempts made to bring Lord Sunderland into the Cabinet—Scheme for insuring the Hanoverian succession—The Queen’s resentment at that measure.—1705.

The gradual removal of the Tory party from the offices of state followed the brilliant successes of the Duke’s arms. The privy seal was taken from the Duke of Buckingham; and the Duchess also prevailed on the Queen to remove from his office Sir Nathan Wright, Lord Chancellor, a man who was obnoxious to all parties, and of “no use to the Crown.” The celebrated Lord Cowper, distinguished for his abilities and integrity, was appointed his successor.

Lord Somers, “seeing,” says Cunningham, “that the Whigs were now united to the court, and fearing lest the principles of our ancestors should be subverted,” retired from all public employments; yet still his powerful mind swayed one of a less solid character. Lord Sunderland, an able, but violent, and unpopular man, who would listen to no arguments but to those of Somers, being in the prime of life, and a man of great vigilance and activity,[^[55]] was considered by the more determined Whigs, and by the Duchess of Marlborough in particular, as qualified to play a leading part in the royal councils. His opinions were no less objectionable to the nation in general than to the Queen in particular; and she long resisted the persuasions of her favourite, as well as of the ministry, now wholly Whig, to appoint this nobleman one of her secretaries of state in the room of Sir Charles Hedges. The point was yet undecided, when a measure was adopted by the Tory faction, which drove her Majesty to the resolution of throwing herself entirely into the hands of the Whigs.

After the bill against occasional conformity had repeatedly failed, a new scheme was, as it were in desperation, suggested. The parliament, which met in 1705, proved to be chiefly composed of Whigs, or of those moderate and skilful politicians, to whom it was convenient to appear to belong to that party. It was now that a plan was formed for inviting into England the Princess Sophia, Electress Dowager of Hanover, on whom the succession of the crown had been already settled.

Different motives have been ascribed for the origin of this proceeding. The Queen’s private feelings were vehemently opposed to such a measure. Nothing could offend her more than any great degree of respect offered to her successor; and her good wishes were with sufficient reason supposed really to centre in another quarter. The kindly-tempered Anne had never forgotten that she had involuntarily injured her brother. The Hanoverian succession could not, therefore, be secured with any hope of pleasing her; and it was supposed rather to be a snare to her ministry, who, if they promoted it, would incur for ever the royal displeasure. The Duchess of Marlborough, observing in which direction her mistress’s affections lay, nevertheless had repeatedly urged her to invite over the Electress, or, at any rate, the young Prince of Hanover, afterwards George the First, in order that he might live in this country as her son; but to this proposal her Majesty never would listen for an instant.[^[56]]

The party who brought this measure into parliament, headed by Lord Rochester and Lord Nottingham, neither expected, nor even wished, it was said, to carry their motion, but either to embroil the Whigs with the Queen, or to draw the enmity of the bulk of the nation upon that party for opposing the scheme; for the Electress, although a Lutheran, was regarded as the protectress of the Protestant church; and the safety of the church was at that time dearer to the populace of England than any other political consideration whatsoever.

The stratagem, for such it must be considered, failed entirely. It did more, it raised the Whigs to a height, which, but for the infatuation of their enemies, they would never, during the reign of Anne, have attained. Notwithstanding that, in voting against the invitation to the Electress, they departed from their principles, the Whigs, upon the plea that the measure was “neither safe nor reasonable,” contrived to keep their credit with the nation. They were split, nevertheless, into factions, upon this delicate subject; but those who were termed “Court Whigs” were zealous in their opposition to the proposed invitation.[^[57]]

“I know, indeed,” says the Duchess, “that my Lord Godolphin, and other great men, were much reflected upon by some well-disposed persons, for not laying hold of this opportunity, which the Tories put into their hands, of more effectually securing the succession to the crown in the House of Hanover. But those of the Whigs whose anger against the minister was raised on this account, little knew how impracticable the project of invitation was, and that the attempt would have only served to make the Queen discard her ministry, to the ruin of the common cause of these kingdoms, and of all Europe. I had often tried her Majesty upon this subject; and when I found that she would not hear of the immediate successor coming over, had pressed her that she would at least invite hither the young Prince of Hanover, who was not to be her immediate successor, and that she would let him live here as her son; but her Majesty would listen to no proposal of this kind in any shape whatever.”

The Queen, upon this occasion, gave the first indications of anything like a real reconciliation to the Whig party.[^[58]] Those in the houses of parliament, and there were many, who were zealously attached to the Pretender, and abjured him only in order better to serve him,[^[59]] were infinitely less obnoxious to her than the politicians who dared to propose planting her extolled successor perpetually before her eyes. Stronger minds than that which Anne possessed would have shrunk from such a trial of temper. She was childless, and no longer young; and perhaps the determination manifested by this proposal to ruin the hopes of her nephew aggravated her resentment. Her self-love was deeply wounded. For though she was not, even then, as the Duchess expressed it, inwardly converted to the Whigs, neither by all that her favourite had been able to say, nor even “by the mad conduct of the tacking Tories,” to repeat language which must be readily appropriated by those who know the Duchess’s style,—yet their conduct in the invitation occasioned a change in her sentiments, which an insult from one whom she had formerly regarded with kindly prepossessions completed.

“She had been present,” says the Duchess, “at the debates in the House of Lords upon that subject, and had heard the Duke of Buckingham treat her with great disrespect, urging, as an argument for inviting over the Princess Sophia, that the Queen might live till she did not know what she did, and be like a child in the hands of others; and a great deal to the same effect. Such rude treatment from the Tories, and the zeal and success of the Whigs in opposing a motion so extremely disagreeable to her, occasioned her to write to me in the following terms.”

“I believe dear Mrs. Freeman and I shall not disagree as we have formerly done; for I am sensible of the services those people have done me, that you have a good opinion of, and will countenance them, and am thoroughly convinced of the malice and insolence of them you have always been speaking against.”

The insolent remark of Buckingham was armed with a sting which few females could endure with composure. The Electress Sophia, who was to be the safeguard of the people in Anne’s dotage, was seventy-six years of age. The Queen had gone to the gallery of the house with a far different expectation than that of hearing; observations so calculated to wound her nicest feelings. She had hoped by her presence to restrain the violence of language, which she had on a former occasion checked by her royal presence; but she had not expected that the heat of argument would be mingled up with insinuations so audacious, which, though pointed at the Duchess of Marlborough, were most insulting to herself. She had indulged a desire to hear this celebrated argument, and to judge in person who were most her friends on this occasion; and she was painfully chastised for her curiosity.[^[60]] This, and other circumstances, produced that acknowledgment which the “dear Mrs. Freeman,” to whom it was addressed, treasured up and reported.[^[61]]

The Whigs lost both character and consistency, whilst they gained court favour, by their opposition to the “invitation” projected. The appointment of Lord Sunderland, so earnestly desired by the Duchess in opposition to her husband, was not calculated to recover their popularity. When it did take place, the event justified the predictions of his enemies, and the apprehensions of his friends. It was not long before he began to dictate to the poor Queen, who was tolerably inured to that sort of treatment, but who did not expect it from his lordship. He raised contentions among the nobility, and disgraced himself and his station by an indifference to moral character in those whom he took to be his associates. The old Whigs, Lord Somers among them, predicted that grievous confusion would accrue in consequence of the boldness and inexperience of this rash and scheming politician.[^[62]]

There was another young satellite of the Lord Treasurer’s, whom the old-fashioned Whigs dreaded and detested. This was Mr. James Craggs, an early favourite of the Duke of Marlborough, and now a rising star on the political hemisphere. But Harley stood on a more firm footing than any of the courtiers who dreaded, or who flattered, the still powerful Duchess of Marlborough. Her influence and her arrogance were now at their climax. It is said that, with one glance of her eye, she banished from the royal presence a Scottish gentleman, Mr. James Johnson, who came to Hampton Court to treat with the Queen on the affairs of his country.[^[63]] And, indeed, Harley in vain endeavoured to ingratiate himself in her favour. He dreaded the violent temper and influence of that “busy woman,” as she was called; he knew that it had been exercised to the ruin of others, and that it might affect his prospects.

Few persons understood the art of adapting his conversation to certain ends so well as the discerning, artful, and accomplished Harley; few persons better understood the value of appearances. Although educated in the Presbyterian faith, he carefully avoided an exclusive preference to sectarianism, as a barrier to political advancement; and, piqued at the indifference of the liberal party which he had originally espoused, he adhered to that which was most likely to insure lasting popularity—the high church party. Essentially a worldly man, Harley, nevertheless, failed not to have a clergyman at his dinner-table every Sunday, and, with characteristic temporising, selected his weekly clerical visitants alternately from the Episcopalian and Presbyterian faith,[^[64]]—his family generally following the latter persuasion. It was Harley’s unsuccessful aim, at this time, to ingratiate himself with the Duchess of Marlborough, and to gain her over to his interests. Deeply versed in literature, and a patron of learning, it might have been supposed that the lettered, the polite, the liberal Harley, could have found means to gain the good-will of one who knew well how to estimate his talents, and to prize the deference which he paid to her ascendant star. The Duchess, however, was not to be blinded or misled by flattery, which she expected as her due, and which she did not think entitled to any degree of gratitude on her part. To all Harley’s civilities she could scarcely be prevailed upon to return a civil answer.[^[65]] The “diverting stories of the town,” with which he afterwards solaced the Queen’s retirement, when Mrs. Masham had superseded the lofty Sarah,[^[66]] were condemned to remain untold, whilst the Duchess frowned on all he said. “She had an aversion to him,” says a contemporary historian, “and with a haughty air despised all that gentleman’s civilities, though he had never discontinued his endeavours, by the most obliging efforts, and all the good offices in his power, to gain her friendship; but she, without any concern, rode all about the town triumphant; sometimes to one lady, sometimes to another; and sometimes she would visit Lord Halifax, who, in compliance with the humour of the times, was wont to appease that lady’s spirit with concerts of music, and poems, and private suppers, and entertainments, for all of which he was well qualified by the natural ease and politeness of his manners.”[^[67]]

The causes of the Duchess’s aversion to Harley are fully disclosed in her “Vindication.” The minister who afterwards effected her downfal had been promoted by Marlborough and Godolphin, who often saw with different eyes to those with which the Duchess viewed the map which lay before her, and on which she traced her future course. Her penetrating glance detected the deep art, the well-digested designs which lay beneath the moderation and civility of Harley. But she had a more particular source of enmity towards Harley, which was that minister’s patronage of Sir Charles Hedges, into whose post it was her design, or rather determination, to introduce her son-in-law Sunderland. The Queen had a reluctance to part with Sir Charles Hedges, and was assisted by Harley in raising obstacles to the change in the cabinet which the Duchess desired. The predominating Whig party aided the Duchess, and, as she relates, “after the services they had done, and the assurances the Queen had given them, thought it reasonable to expect that one of the secretaries at least should be such a man as they could place a confidence in. They believed,” adds the Duchess, “they might trust my Lord Sunderland; and though they did not think him the properest man for the post, yet, being my Lord Marlborough’s son-in-law, they chose to recommend him to her Majesty, because, as they expressed themselves to me, they imagined it was driving the nail that would go.”[^[68]]

Marlborough and Godolphin, notwithstanding the near connexion of both with Lord Sunderland, were adverse, nevertheless, to his appointment. Sunderland was not only conceited and headstrong, but he was unpopular from a rash and unbecoming practice of running down Britain, its customs and institutions, laws and rights, and maintaining the superiority of other countries. The manners of this young nobleman were harsh, and his temper ungovernable. He was little adapted to conciliate the favour of a female sovereign; more especially when he came forward in direct contrast with the bland and accessible Harley, who did not consider it beneath him to promote courtly gossip for the Queen’s amusement. The Duchess, however, with less judgment than might have been expected, urged strongly and incessantly the appointment of her son-in-law; and was astonished that the Queen should be reluctant to promote the son-in-law of Marlborough, the hero not only of Blenheim, but of Ramilies, where a victory was gained whilst yet this matter was in suspense.[^[69]] She urged her Majesty by letter not to think that she could continue to carry on the government with so much partiality to “one sort of men, and so much discouragement to others.”

The Queen, it seems, had taken some offence at the freedom of a former letter, for the Duchess thus expostulated with her Majesty in reference to that epistle.[^[70]]

“By the letter I had from your Majesty this morning, and the great weight you put upon the difference betwixt the word notion and nation in my letter, I am only made sensible (as by many other things) that you were in a great disposition to complain of me, since to this moment I cannot for my life see any essential difference betwixt those two words as to the sense of my letter, the true meaning of which was only to let your Majesty know, with that faithfulness and concern which I ever had for your service, that it was not possible for you to carry on your government much longer with so much partiality to one sort of men, though they lose no occasion of disserving you, and of showing the greatest inveteracy against my Lord Marlborough and my Lord Treasurer; and so much discouragement to others, who, even after great disobligations, have taken several opportunities to show their firmness to your Majesty’s interest, and their zeal to support you.”

She proceeded to point out to the Queen, that if the Lord Treasurer and Marlborough found it impossible to carry on the government, and were to retire from it, her Majesty would find herself in the hands of a very violent party, who, she declared, would have “very little mercy,” or “even humanity,” for her Majesty.

The result proved the truth of this prediction; and when, some years afterwards, the Queen, harassed and intimidated by turns, sank under the pressure, not of public business, but of party rancour, the value and good sense of the Duchess’s warnings became manifest.

“Whereas,” adds the plain-spoken favourite, “you might prevent all these misfortunes by giving my Lord Treasurer and my Lord Marlborough (whom you may so safely trust) leave to propose those things to you which they know and can judge to be absolutely necessary for your service, which will put it in their power to influence those who have given you proofs both of their being able to serve you, and of their desiring to make you great and happy. But rather than your Majesty will employ a party-man, as you are pleased to call Lord Sunderland, you will put all things in confusion; and at the same time that you say this, you employ Sir C. Hedges, who is against you, only that he has voted in remarkable things, that he might keep his place; and he did so in the last King’s time, till at last, when everybody saw that he was dying, and he could lose nothing by differing with that court; but formerly he voted with those men, the enemies to the government, called Whigs; and if he had not been a party-man, how could he have been a secretary of state, when all your councils were influenced by my Lord Rochester, Lord Nott, Sir Edward Seymour, and about six or seven just such men, that call themselves the heroes of the church?”

The anathemas of the Duchess were not without effect. Sir Charles Hedges, dismayed at the vigorous opposition set up against him, deemed it, eventually, more prudent to retire, than to be turned out of his post; and, in the winter of 1706, Lord Sunderland was appointed to succeed him.[^[71]]

Queen Anne had now thrown herself, to all appearance, wholly into the hands of the Whig party, who, from her childhood, had appeared to her to be her natural enemies. Yet still she cherished a secret partiality to her early counsellors, and exhibited a reluctance to consult with her ministers on any promotions in the church.

“The first artifice of those counsellors was,” says the Duchess,[^[72]] “to instil into the Queen notions of the high prerogative of acting without her ministers, and, as they expressed it, of being Queen indeed. And the nomination of persons to bishoprics, against the judgment and remonstrances of her ministers, being what they knew her genius would fall in with more readily than with anything else they could propose, they began with that; and they took care that those remonstrances should be interpreted by the world, and presented by herself, as hard usage, a denial of common civility, and even the making her no Queen.” Such is the account given by this violent partisan of the secret power by which her friends were finally vanquished.

To operate on her Majesty’s fears, and to gain popularity among a numerous portion of the people who deemed the Whigs inimical to the church establishment, an outcry was raised that the church was in danger. Marlborough and Godolphin were regarded as deserters from the great cause, and the press was employed in attacking the low church party, in terms both unscrupulous and indelicate.

That celebrated libel, entitled, “The Memorial of the Church of England,” the author of which has been already specified, was published at this critical juncture; “a doleful piece,” as the Duchess calls it, “penned by some of the zealots of the party.” This was among the first and most scurrilous efforts of those who hoped by invective and slander to produce a deep impression on the public mind. It was dedicated to the Duke of Marlborough, as being considered still the strength of a party which he had not explicitly renounced: and was forwarded to him in the midst of his campaign on the Ische. To his great mind the aspersions of the anonymous party were too contemptible to merit a moment’s serious indignation. The vehemence of passionate indignation is, on such occasions, the ebullition of minds of an inferior stamp. The injustice and invective which scarcely drew forth an angry exclamation from Marlborough, produced a feverish heat in the warm temperament of the Duchess.

“In this camp,” writes the Duke to Lord Godolphin, his bosom friend and confidant,[^[73]] “I have had time to read the pamphlet called ‘The Memorial of the Church of England.’ I think it the most impudent and scurrilous thing I ever read. If the author can be found, I do not doubt but he will be punished; for if such liberties may be taken, of writing scandalous lies without being punished, no government can stand long. Notwithstanding what I have said, I cannot forbear laughing when I think they would have you and I pass for fanatics, and the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Jersey for pillars of the church; the one being a Roman Catholic in King James’s reign, and the other would have been a Quaker, or any other religion that would have pleased the late King.”

To the Duchess he calmly writes:—

“Tirlemont, Sept. 7.

“I received last night a letter from you without date, by which I see there is another scurrilous pamphlet come out. The best way of putting an end to that villany is not to appear concerned. The best of men and women, in all ages, have been ill used. If we can be so happy as to behave ourselves so as to have no reason to reproach ourselves, we may then despise what rage and faction do.”

This wise and dignified mode of receiving attacks to which eminent individuals have in every age been exposed, was succeeded by the exposure and punishment of the scurrilous writer.

Of that event, with its painful circumstances, a detailed account has already been given in the preceding volume.

CHAPTER IV.

Decline of the Duchess’s influence—Her attempt in favour of Lord Cowper—Singular Letter from Anne in explanation—Intrigues of the Tories—Harley’s endeavours to stimulate the Queen to independence.—1706.

Until the period on which we are now entering, the influence of the Duchess of Marlborough over the mind of her sovereign was not visibly impaired, by her own indiscretion, or by the arts of her opponents. Yet those differences of opinion which disturbed the singular friendship of Mrs. Freeman and Mrs. Morley, and of which advantage was finally taken by the enemies of the Duchess to effect a total alienation between her Majesty and her former favourite, continued, and were, according to her fashion, stoutly contested by the Duchess.

On one important point the Duchess addressed her Majesty with considerable earnestness. Lord Cowper, whose friendship was an honour which the Duchess fully appreciated, was at this time Lord Keeper;[^[74]] and it was the endeavour of the Duchess to throw into his hands that patronage in the church which, she rightly deemed, he would exercise conscientiously and judiciously. But it was in vain that she urged the Queen to allow Lord Cowper to fill up various livings belonging to the crown, which had now for some time been vacant, and of which Anne delayed to dispose. She addressed a remonstrance to her Majesty, representing how safely she might place power in the hands of Lord Cowper. The Queen returned a kind but unsatisfactory reply; and the tone in which it was conveyed betrayed plainly the incipient coolness which had commenced between Anne and her viceroy.

After apologising for the interval which had elapsed before she had answered the Duchess’s letter,—a delay for which Anne accounted by the frivolous reason, that not having time to answer it “before supper,” it was not very “easy to her to do so after supper,”—the Queen, whilst assuring Mrs. Freeman that she had a firm reliance on the equity and judgment of Lord Cowper, observes, “that in her opinion the crown can never have too many livings at its own disposal; and, therefore,” she adds, “though there may be some trouble in it, it is a power I can never think it reasonable to part with, and I hope those that come after me will think the same.”

“You wrong me much,” continues Anne, “in thinking I am influenced by some you mention in disposing of church preferments. Ask those whom I am sure you will believe, though you won’t me, and they can tell you I never disposed of any without advising with them, and that I have preferred more people upon other recommendations than I have upon his that you fancy to have so much power with me.” With the assurance that there would soon be “more changes,” and with the further declaration, to use the Queen’s own words, “that in a little time Mr. Morley and me shall redeem our credit with Mrs. Freeman,” the Queen, under the humble signature not yet abandoned, of “your poor, unfortunate, faithful Morley,”[^[75]] closes this explanation:—a singular reply, manifesting that the royal composer of the letter was now weary of that subjection from which she emancipated herself only to fall into other snares; but that she wanted courage, though not inclination, to throw off the yoke.

The scheme projected by the Tories, of bringing over the Electress Sophia into this country, had not only failed, as we have seen, but had thrown the game entirely into the hands of their opponents. The Queen, irritated beyond her usual custom, wrote, in the hurry of the moment, in such terms to her favourite as to authorise the expectation that her resentment against the Tories would not quickly subside.

The reasons for Anne’s displeasure continued in force until they were superseded by others, equally feminine, arising in the royal mind of the timid, prejudiced, and ill-judging Anne, which renewed her innate dislike towards the opposite faction. The decline of the Whig party was arrested this year by the victory of Ramilies, on which occasion the Queen wrote to Marlborough, assuring him “that she wanted words to express the true sense she had of the great service he had done his country and her in that great and glorious victory, and hoped it would be a means to confirm all good and honest people in their principles, and frighten others from being troublesome;”—“and then spoke,” adds the Duchess of Marlborough, “of the alloy it was to all her satisfaction, to consider what hazards he was exposed to, and repeated an obliging request she had often made, that he would be careful of himself.”[^[76]] “I cannot doubt,” adds the narrator of this gracious message, “of the Queen’s kind disposition to my Lord Marlborough at this time, or of her willingness to oblige him.”

The recent introduction of Lord Sunderland to office soon gave rise, however, to a division in the cabinet. Harley, who was offended at the dismissal of Sir Charles Hedges, was practising upon the Queen’s weak mind, and endeavouring to persuade her Majesty to “go alone,”—a notion which had been sedulously kept down by the reigning influence, for many years past; or, as the Duchess expresses it, “to instil into the Queen notions of the high prerogative of acting without her ministers—(as she expressed it,) of being Queen indeed.”[^[77]]

The first proof that Anne gave of her profiting by these doctrines, was her appointing certain high church divines to fill two bishoprics. This led several of the Whigs to think themselves betrayed by the ministry; whereas the truth was, that the Queen was secretly under the influence of the Tories, and found it irksome to consult with her ministers on any promotions. The Duke of Marlborough, who, it appears, never lost the respect of his sovereign, represented to the Queen the impropriety of thus acting, and “wrote a very moving letter to her, complaining of the visible loss of his interest with her,” and recommending her Majesty, “as the only way to make her government easy, to prefer none of those that appeared to be against her service and the nation’s interest.”

Notwithstanding the great general’s services, it was, however, manifest that his influence, and that of the Duchess, were now, from some cause or other, deeply undermined. The Duke, as well as the Duchess, suffered great vexation from this new and unforeseen apprehension; for it is easy to be happy without tasting power, but difficult indeed to part with it after long possession. It was in the answer to some communications from the Duchess that Marlborough wrote these touching words, betraying all the weariness of worldly anxieties.

“When I writ my last, I was very full of the spleen, and I think with too much reason. My whole time, to the best of my understanding, has been employed for the public good, as I do assure you I do in the presence of God, neglecting no opportunity to let the Queen see what I take to be her true interest. It is terrible to go through so much uneasiness.”[^[78]]

The state of parties was indeed such, that “every service done to the sovereign, however just and reasonable in its own nature,” was, as an author justly observed, “made a job by the minister and his tools.”[^[79]]

The understream of faction was flowing unseen, but deep; and the Duchess was for a time insensible to the sure course which it had taken. She was intoxicated with power. Her enemies, indeed, alleged that she “considered her vicegerency as well established as the royal prerogative; that she might not only recommend a point or person, but insist on either as understood in her grant—as a perquisite of her high office; and that she was privileged to exclude everybody from the royal presence, who had not the happiness of being in her good graces.”[^[80]]

It is apparent, however, from the letters which passed between Queen Anne and the Duchess, that it was not without continual arguments and remonstrances that the favourite had raised her chosen party to royal favour; and thus maintained, that it was accomplished only by earnest endeavours, and with difficulty. The Duchess, it was more than probable, expected, and sometimes extorted, too much for her friends and adherents. Marlborough truly said, that “both parties were in the wrong.”[^[81]] To his sense of justice, his moderation, and calm observation, the interested views of those who alike professed the highest motives, only affixing different names to their boasted objects, were laid bare by a long experience of courts, and by a deep insight into the minds of men. “The Whigs,” it was said, and not without justice, “acted on Swiss principles, and expected to be paid the top price of the market, for coming plump into the measures of the court, at the expense of their former professions.”[^[82]]

The Queen, the nervous Queen, was considered as a mere property, “which was to be engrossed, divided, or transferred, as suited best with the mercenary views of those state-brokers who had the privilege of dividing the spoil.”[^[83]]

It was not, however, until Harley despaired of achieving the Duchess’s favour, that he became her determined, though secret foe. Even after his enmity was in operation, the Duchess might have retrieved her fortune by prudent attention to her royal mistress. She came, however, seldom to court, a line of conduct which was considered ill judged on her part; and, when she attended on the Queen, performed her offices of duty, such as holding her Majesty’s gloves, with a haughty and contemptuous air, which Anne, who had sunk her own dignity in a degrading familiarity, was constrained to endure, but could not be obliged to forgive.

The court suffered no diminution of gaiety on account of the haughty favourite’s absence; for she is said to have long before ceased to look upon any but her own family with respect. Lord Godolphin rejoiced at her remissness on his own account; “for when she was at court, she was always teasing him with womanish quarrels and altercations, or continually troubling him with interruptions in the business of the state; whereas, now the sole direction of the thing was in his own hands.”[^[84]]

Mr. Harley, on the other hand, lost no opportunity of ingratiating himself into the favour of the Queen. Under pretence of business, he obtained access to her Majesty in the evening, and, disclosing matters which had been concealed from the royal ear, he discovered her real sentiments, and, with infinite address, generally contrived to bring her opinions round to his own views. But all his efforts would have been unsuccessful without the aid of female ingenuity. Well did Harley know the temper and peculiarities of the woman whom he desired to supplant. Well could he judge the more common-place character of the homely Anne, whose gentle nature could dispense with respect, but could not exist without a friend; and a friend to supply the void in the Queen’s heart was soon discovered.

Before the schemes of Harley were ripened, the Duke of Marlborough had returned from the victory of Ramillies, laden with honours. He had received addresses from both Houses of Parliament, who also petitioned the Queen to allow a bill to be brought in to settle the Duke’s honours on the male and female issue of his daughters. This favour was obtained; and the manor of Woodstock and Blenheim-house were, after the decease of the Duchess, upon whom they were settled in jointure, entailed in the same manner with the honours. The annuity of five thousand a year from the Post-office, formerly proposed by the Queen, was now granted; and the palace of Blenheim was ordered to be built at the public charge. Harley and St. John, to a profusion of flattery and of good offices, added their advice to the Duke that he would erect this great monument of his glory in a style of transcendent magnificence; but with what motives these counsels were given, afterwards appeared.[^[85]]

The Queen had not only received Marlborough graciously, and ordered a triumphal procession for his trophies, but, to please her successful general, or his wife, had appointed a Whig professor, Dr. Potter, to the chair of divinity at Oxford. But this was an expedient, by yielding one small point, to cover a much greater design.[^[86]]

To aid his schemes, Harley acquired an associate, humble, pliant, needy, and in every way adapted to perform that small work to which an intriguing politician is constrained sometimes to devote a mind professedly and solely embued with the spirit of patriotism, and racked with anxiety for his country’s welfare.[^[87]]

Abigail Hill, a name rendered famous from the momentous changes which succeeded its introduction to the political world, was the appropriate designation of the lowly, supple, and artful being on whose secret offices Harley relied for the accomplishment of his plans. Mistress Hill at this time held the post of dresser and chamber-woman to her Majesty, an appointment which had been procured for her by the influence of the Duchess of Marlborough, to whom she was related. The world assigned certain causes for the pains which that proud favourite had manifested, to place her kinswoman in a post where she might have easy access to the Queen’s ear, and obtain her confidence. The Duchess, it was said, was weary of her arduous attendance upon a mistress whom she secretly despised. She had become too proud to perform the subordinate duties of her office, and proposed to relieve herself of some of her cares, by placing one on whom she could entirely depend, as an occasional substitute in the performance of those duties which even habit had not taught her to endure with patience. Since, after the elevation of the Duke, in consequence of the battle of Blenheim, she had become a princess of the empire,[^[88]] she was supposed to consider herself too elevated to continue those services to which she had been enured, first in the court of the amiable Anne Hyde, then in that of the unhappy Mary of Modena, and since, near her too gracious sovereign, the meek, but dissembling Anne.

According to the Duchess herself, her inauspicious patronage of Mistress Abigail Hill, afterwards the noted Lady Masham, had a more amiable source than that which was ascribed to it by the writers of the day. Lord Bolingbroke says truly, that there are no materials for history that require to be more scrupulously and severely examined, “than those of the time when the events to be spoken of were in transaction.” “In matters of history,” he remarks, “we prefer very justly cotemporary authority; and yet cotemporary authors are the most liable to be warped from the straight line of truth, in writing on subjects which have affected them strongly.” “Criticism,” as he admirably observes, “separates the ore from the dross, and extracts from various authors a series of true history, which could not have been found entire in any one of them, and will command our assent, when it is formed with judgment, and represented with candour.”[^[89]]

In following this rule, we must not only take into account the rumours of the day, but give due weight to those reasons which were assigned by the Duchess, for her endeavours to promote the interests of the humbled and unfortunate Abigail Hill.

The ungrateful kinswoman had been early acquainted with adversity, which was the remote cause of her ultimate greatness. She was the daughter of an eminent Turkey merchant, who became a bankrupt, with the encumbrance of a numerous and unprovided family. Abigail was at one time so reduced, as to enter into the service of Lady Rivers, wife of Sir John Rivers, Bart., of Chafford; and was rescued from her lowly situation by the charitable offices of the Duchess of Marlborough, to whom she had the good fortune to be related.

The Duchess has left a succinct account of the degree of kindred in which her rival stood to her, and of the manner in which she became acquainted with her destitute condition. It would be impossible to alter the Duchess’s narrative into any better language than her own. The unvarnished and uncontradicted statement which she put forth, years after the clamour against her had subsided, is prefaced with the following observations.[^[90]]

“The story of this lady, as well as of that gentleman who was her great adviser and director, is worth the knowledge of posterity, as it will lead them into a sense of the instability of court favour, and of the incurable baseness which some minds are capable of contracting.

“Mrs. Masham,” she continues, “was the daughter of one Hill, a merchant in the city, by a sister of my father. Our grandfather, Sir John Jenyns, had two-and-twenty children, by which means the estate of the family, which was reputed to be about four thousand pounds a year, came to be divided into small parcels. Mrs. Hill had only five hundred pounds to her fortune.[^[91]] Her husband lived very well for many years, as I have been told, until, turning projector, he brought ruin upon himself and family. But as this was long before I was born, I never knew there were such people in the world till after the Princess Anne was married, and when she lived at the Cockpit; at which time an acquaintance of mine came to me and said, she believed I did not know that I had relations who were in want, and she gave me an account of them. When she had finished her story, I answered, that indeed I had never heard before of any such relations, and immediately gave her out of my purse ten guineas for their present relief, saying, I would do what I could for them. Afterwards I sent Mrs. Hill more money, and saw her. She told me that her husband was the same relation to Mr. Harley as she was to me, but that he had never done anything for her. I think Mrs. Masham’s father and mother did not live long after this. They left four children, two sons and two daughters. The elder daughter (afterwards Mrs. Masham) was a grown woman. I took her to St. Albans, where she lived with me and my children, and I treated her with as great kindness as if she had been my sister.”

It appears from this statement, that Mrs. Hill must have enjoyed considerable opportunities of studying the character of her patroness; nor were her means of learning Anne’s peculiarities and defects less frequent and advantageous.

“After some time,” adds the Duchess, “a bedchamber woman of the Princess of Denmark’s died; and as in that reign (after the Princesses were grown up) rockers, though not gentlewomen, had been advanced to be bedchamber women, I thought I might ask the Princess to give the vacant place to Mrs. Hill. At first, indeed, I had some scruple about it; but this being removed by persons I thought wiser, with whom I consulted, I made the request to the Princess, and it was granted.

“As for the younger daughter, (who is still living,) I engaged my Lord Marlborough, when the Duke of Gloucester’s family was settled, to make her laundress to him, which was a good provision for her; and when the Duke of Gloucester died, I obtained for her a pension of 200l. a year, which I paid her out of the privy purse. And some time after I asked the Queen’s leave to buy her an annuity out of some of the funds; representing to her Majesty, that as the privy purse money produced no interest, it would be the same thing to her if, instead of the pension to Mrs. Hill, she gave her at once a sum sufficient to produce an annuity, and that by this means, her Majesty would make a certain provision for one who had served the Duke of Gloucester. The Queen was pleased to allow the money for that purchase, and it is very probable that Mrs. Hill has the annuity to this day, and perhaps nothing else, unless she saved money after her sister had made her deputy to the privy purse, which she did, as soon as she had supplanted me.”

Not contented with conferring these important benefits, the Duchess, it appears, resolved to provide for the whole family.

“The elder son was,” she says, “at my request, put by my Lord Godolphin into a place in the Custom-house; and when, in order to his advancement to a better, it was necessary to give security for his good behaviour, I got a relation of the Duke of Marlborough’s to be bound for him in two thousand pounds. His brother (whom the bottle-men afterwards called honest Jack Hill) was a tall boy, whom I clothed (for he was all in rags) and put to school at St. Albans to one Mr. James, who had been an usher under Dr. Busby of Westminster; and whenever I went to St. Alban’s I sent for him, and was as kind to him as if he had been my own child. After he had learned what he could there, a vacancy happening of page of honour to the Prince of Denmark, his highness was pleased, at my request, to take him. I afterwards got my Lord Marlborough to make him groom of the bedchamber to the Duke of Gloucester. And though my lord always said that Jack Hill was good for nothing, yet, to oblige me, he made him his aide-de-camp, and afterwards gave him a regiment. But it was his sister’s interest that raised him to be a general, and to command in that ever-memorable expedition to Quebec; I had no share in doing him the honours. To finish what I have to say on this subject; when Mr. Harley thought it useful to attack the Duke of Marlborough in parliament, this Quebec general, this honest Jack Hill, this once ragged boy, whom I clothed, happening to be sick in bed, was nevertheless persuaded by his sister to get up, wrap himself in warmer clothes than those I had given him, and go to the House to vote against the Duke. I may here add, that even the husband of Mrs. Masham had several obligations to me: it was at my instance that he was first made a page, then an equerry, and afterwards groom of the bedchamber to the Prince; for all which he himself thanked me, as for favours procured by my means. As for Mrs. Masham herself, I had so much kindness for her, and had done so much to oblige her, without having ever done anything to offend her, that it was too long before I could bring myself to think her other than a true friend, or forbear rejoicing at any instance of favour shown her by the Queen. I observed, indeed, at length, that she was grown more shy of coming to me, and more reserved than usual when she was with me; but I imputed this to her peculiar moroseness of temper, and for some time made no other reflection upon it.”[^[92]]

The moroseness of temper, which might be a constitutional infirmity incident to the family stock, was accompanied, however, with a suppleness of deportment, a servility, and a talent for artifice, which are not incompatible with a deep-seated pride, and with a contumacious turn of mind, subdued to superiors, but venting itself with redoubled virulence on those on whom it can with impunity be spent. Towards the Queen, Mrs. Hill displayed, as might be expected, a humility and sweetness of manner which proved, doubtless, highly acceptable to one accustomed to receive only a lofty condescension, not to speak of frequent exhibitions of passion, in her earlier and haughtier friend. Mrs. Hill’s real sentiments on religion and politics happened to be, fortunately for herself, in accordance with those of the Queen. Anne, accustomed to opposition and remonstrance, nay, sometimes, rebukes, upon certain points which she had at heart, delighted in the enthusiasm of her lowly attendant concerning matters hitherto forbidden her to dwell upon. Mrs. Hill was an enemy to the Hanoverian succession, if not a partisan of the exiled Stuarts,—subjects on which the Queen and the Duchess were known to have frequent controversies, which sometimes degenerated into angry disputes.

These bickerings had, in the sedate and guarded Abigail, a watchful and subtle observer. It may easily be credited that she turned them skilfully to account. Not that she was so imprudent as to hoist a banner on the side of Anne whilst the redoubtable Sarah was present; but her sympathy, her acquiescence, her responsive condolences, when, after the storm subsided, the Queen poured forth into her friendly ear confidential complaints of the absent Duchess, were ever ready, and effected their purpose. The flattering gratitude and humility with which she listened and soothed the Queen; their cordial concurrence on topics which then divided the female world, whilst they employed masculine minds; gradually worked a way for the lady-dresser into the affections of the Queen, and gradually, also, ejected, by a subterranean process, the only obstacle to her undivided ascendency which Mrs. Hill, in her powerful kinswoman, might have to encounter.

The Duchess was the last of all the court to perceive the dangerous influence of Abigail, and to acknowledge the extent of the new favourite’s power. She depended on Mrs. Hill’s fidelity to her; she depended on that weakest of all bonds, a sense of obligation; she considered her cousin as, for her sake, a vigilant observer of the Queen’s actions, and as a lowly partisan, an attached and useful friend.

From the time that she had known of the distress of her humble relatives, she had, as she alleges in her letter to Bishop Burnet, “helped them in every way, without any motive but charity and relation, having never known their father:”[^[93]] nor did the peculiar manner of the humble bedchamber woman rouse the pride or the suspicions of the mistress of the robes. “She had,” writes the Duchess, recalling circumstances, possibly, at the moment unobserved, “a shy, reserved behaviour towards me, always avoided entering into free conversation with me, and made excuses when I wanted her to go abroad with me. And what I thought ill-breeding, or surly honesty, has since proved to be a design deeply laid, as she had always the artifice to hide very carefully the power which she had over the Queen.”[^[94]]

Affairs were in this state when a rumour reached the Duchess, of her cousin’s marriage with a gentleman named Masham, whom the Duchess had likewise promoted to a place in the Queen’s household. This took place in the summer of 1707, when the battle of Ramillies had propped up the declining favour of Marlborough, and consequently repaired, in some degree, the breaches of confidence between the Queen and the Duchess. The Duchess, although naturally startled at the intelligence, acted in the direct and candid manner which strong minds can alone adopt on such occasions. She went to her cousin, and asked if the report were true. Mrs. Masham acknowledged the fact, and begged to be forgiven for having concealed it.[^[95]]

It was not in the power of her artful relative, nor of her tool, the Queen, much longer to blind the woman whom they had, with true vulgarity of mind, gloried in deceiving.[^[96]] The Duchess, in an unpublished manuscript explanation of her conduct, addressed to Mr. Hutchinson, describes her incredulity upon the subject of the baseness of one, to whom she had acted in “the capacity of a mother;” whom she had preserved from starving; and who repaid her bounty by seizing every opportunity of undermining her benefactress.[^[97]]

Mrs. Masham could not assign any adequate reason for the concealment of the marriage, for it was at once suitable in point of rank, and prudent in respect to circumstances. Mr. Samuel Masham was the eighth son of Sir Francis Masham, a Baronet, and was reputed to be a gentleman of honour, and of worth. Already had he risen from the post of page to that of equerry in Prince George’s household, and from the office of equerry had been promoted to that of groom of the bedchamber. The Duchess had herself, as it has been stated, assisted in his elevation; for it was at that time understood that no person who was not agreeable to the Marlborough family, or supposed to be, in particular, acceptable to the Duchess, could be raised to any office of importance.[^[98]] Hence Mr. Masham could not be objectionable to the Duchess as a match for her cousin, except on one ground—he was a relation of Mr. Harley.

The Duchess, notwithstanding that she felt she had reason to be offended with Mrs. Masham’s conduct, was willing to impute it to “want of breeding and bashfulness,” rather than to that deceptive and petty spirit which rejoices in mystery. She forgave and embraced her cousin, and wished her joy; and then, entering into conversation with her on other subjects, began in the most friendly manner to contrive how the bride might be accommodated with lodgings, by removing her sister into some apartments occupied by the Duchess. After this point was arranged, the Duchess, still deceived, inquired whether the Queen were informed of the marriage, and “very innocently” offered her services to acquaint her Majesty with the affair. Mrs. Masham, who had, says the Duchess, by this time learned the art of dissimulation pretty well, answered, with an untroubled mien, that the bedchamber women had already apprised the Queen of it,—hoping by that reply to prevent any further examination of the matter. The Duchess, all astonishment, and probably, though she does not acknowledge it, all fury, went directly to the Queen, and inquired why her Majesty had not been so kind as to tell her of her cousin’s marriage; putting her in mind of a favourite quotation from Montaigne, adopted by Anne, namely, that it was no breach of secrecy “to tell an intimate friend anything, because it was only like telling it to oneself.”[^[99]]

“This,” to speak in the Duchess’s own words, “I said, I thought she herself ought to have told me of; but the only thing I was concerned at was, that this plainly showed a change in her Majesty towards me, as I had once before observed to her; when she was pleased to say, that it was not she that was changed, but me; and that if I was the same to her, she was sure she was so to me.” Upon this the Queen answered, with a great deal of earnestness, and without thinking to be upon her guard, “I believe I have spoken to her a hundred times to tell you of it, and she would not.”

This answer startled the Duchess very much; and she began to reflect on the incongruity of her Majesty’s two answers; the first asserting that she believed the bedchamber women had told her of Mrs. Masham’s marriage; the second, implying that Mrs. Masham and her Majesty had repeatedly held consultations upon the subject.

This reserve, and the evident collusion between the parties, roused the suspicions of the Duchess, and she instantly resolved to commence a strict examination into the relative position, and the ultimate end and object of the parties thus implicated in what she deemed a conspiracy against her power and peace. Fortunately for her biographers, she has left ample explanations, carefully preserved, of all those passages of her life which relate to her ultimate dismissal from the Queen’s service. In a letter which many years afterwards she is said to have addressed to Bishop Burnet, she gives a clear statement, which she corroborates by copies of all the correspondence which passed between herself and the Queen relative to the great affair of her life.

It was not long before the Duchess, on instituting an inquiry among her friends, discovered that the Queen had even gone herself secretly to her new favourite’s marriage in the “Scotch doctor’s chamber,” a circumstance which was discovered by a boy, who belonged to one of the under servants, and who saw her Majesty go thither alone.[^[100]] The marriage had also been confided to several persons of distinction.

It was easy to be informed of that which every body but herself knew; and, in less than a week, the indignant Duchess discovered that her cousin was an “absolute favourite,” and that when the marriage was solemnised at Dr. Arbuthnott’s lodging, her Majesty had called for a round sum out of the privy purse. To this intelligence was added the still more startling information, that hours of confidential communication were daily passed by Mrs. Masham in the Queen’s apartments, whilst Prince George, who was now a confirmed invalid, was asleep; but who, in spite of the advantage taken of his slumbers, had been one of the illustrious confidants on this occasion.

The Duchess could now trace the whole system of deception which had been carried on to her injury for a considerable time; her relative and former dependent being the chief agent—her sovereign the accomplice. She could account for the interest which Harley had now acquired at court by means of this new instrument. She could explain to her astonished and irritated mind certain incidents, which had seemed of little moment when they occurred, but which afforded a mortifying confirmation of all that she had learned. “My reflection,” she says, “brought to my mind many passages, which had seemed odd and unaccountable, but had left no impression of suspicion or jealousy.[^[101]] Particularly I remembered that a long while before this, being with the Queen, (to whom I had gone very privately from my lodgings to the bedchamber,) on a sudden this woman, not knowing I was there, came in with the boldest and gayest air possible; but upon sight of me stopped, and immediately changing her manner, and making a most solemn courtesy, ‘Did your Majesty ring?’ and then went out again.”

This behaviour needed now no further explanation. The Duchess perceived too late that she was supplanted; and she was resolved that Mrs. Masham should quickly know that her injured benefactress was undeceived. She wrote, therefore, with her usual promptitude and sincerity, the following candid, but at the same time moderate letter to her rival. Godolphin, whom she consulted upon all occasions, probably pruned it into the following careful form.

“Since the conversation I had with you at your lodgings, several things have happened to confirm me in what I was hard to believe—that you have made me returns very unsuitable to what I might have expected. I always speak my mind so plainly, that I should have told you so myself, if I had had the opportunity which I wished for; but being now so near parting, think this way of letting you know it, is like to be the least uneasy to you, as well as to

“Your humble servant,

“S. Marlborough.”

To this letter no immediate reply was returned; for, doubtless, Mrs. Masham had, on the other hand, her advisers. The Duchess in vain waited all the day at Windsor, after sending her letter, in expectation of a reply. Mrs. Masham was, however, obliged to consult with her great director, before she could frame an answer on so “nice a matter.” It was, indeed, no easy point to explain, that a poor relation, only a dresser, as the Duchess remarked, and she a groom of the stole, should conceal from a relation to whom she owed everything, that affair which most concerned her; whilst the Queen, who, for thirty years had never disguised one circumstance from her faithful Freeman, should be led into the plot.

The primary origin of her disgrace she imputed, when time had cooled her resentments, to her efforts to establish the Whigs in the Queen’s favour. The immediate source of the quarrel was the successful endeavour of Mrs. Hill to supplant the cousin, to whom she professed to owe great obligations. For, as the Duchess affirms, even when every word she spoke had become distasteful to Anne, and when every step she took was canvassed in the Queen’s closet, still the Queen declared she was not in the least altered, whilst Mrs. Masham professed the deepest gratitude.[^[102]]

At length an answer was sent, the whole construction and style of which proved it, in the opinion of the Duchess, to be the production of an artful man, who knew perfectly well how to manage the affair. To Harley she imputed a deceptive and plotting character of mind, which by others was termed prudence. “His practices,” as the Duchess called them, “which were deemed fair in a politician,” were now fully understood by the two great men, Marlborough and Godolphin, who were their object. To him, therefore, the Duchess attributed the cautious, polite, and submissive letter, in which, expressing her grief at her Grace’s displeasure, and her unconsciousness of its precise cause, the careful Abigail sought to draw forth an explicit declaration of the cause of the Duchess’s chagrin, by inquiring who had been her enemy upon this occasion. But she addressed one whose prudence was, in this instance, stronger than her passions. The Duchess assured her cousin that her resentment did not proceed from any representations of others, but from her own observation, which made the impression the stronger; and she declined entering further into the subject by letter.[^[103]]

The Duchess of Marlborough was now, therefore, at open variance with her cousin. Towards her Majesty she stood in a predicament the most curious and unprecedented that perhaps ever existed between sovereign and subject. The amused and astonished court beheld Anne cautiously creeping out of that subjection in which the Duchess had, according to her enemies, long held the timid sovereign.

“The grand inference,” says the authoress of the ‘Other Side of the Question,’ addressing the Duchess in her days of almost bed-ridden sickness, after the publication of the ‘Conduct,’ “that your grace draws from all this is, that you are betrayed. But those of the world are rather such as these,—that the Queen was captive, and you her gaoler; that she was neither mistress of her power, nor free to express her own inclinations; that she was so far overawed by a length of oppression, as to dread the very approach of her tormentress; that she was forced to unbosom herself by stealth; and that she durst not venture upon a contest with your grace, even to set herself free from your insupportable tyranny.”[^[104]]

There was, doubtless, considerable justice in these bitter and insulting reproaches, heaped upon the Duchess when, by a late vindication of her life, she had drawn her enemies from their long repose. That all the real affection which the friendship of Morley and Freeman could boast, existed on the side of the Queen, is probable. Such was the opinion of their contemporaries. It was in the decline of her influence that the Duchess began to be querulous upon the subject of those little omissions of attention which pride and habit, not real, hearty attachment, rendered necessary to her happiness. It sounds strange to find a monarch excusing herself to a subject for not inquiring after her health directly upon the arrival of that lady from a sea-bathing place; yet such apologies as it neither became Anne to make, nor the Duchess to exact, are to be found in their published correspondence.[^[105]]

The Duchess, according to the opinion of one of her confidential friends, Mr. Mainwaring, was totally deficient in that “part of craft which Mr. Hobbes very prettily calls crooked wisdom.”[^[106]] “Apt,” as she herself expresses it, “to tumble out her mind,”[^[107]] her openness and honesty were appreciated, when at an advanced age, and after she had run the career of five courts,—by that experienced judge, the Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who often presumed upon the venerable Duchess’s candour in telling her unpalatable truths, which none but the honest could have borne to hear.[^[108]] It was this uprightness and singleness of mind which rendered the Duchess unwilling to believe in the duplicity and the influence of her cousin. Warned of it by Mr. Mainwaring, it was not until she found in the Queen a defender of Mrs. Masham’s secret marriage, that the Duchess was roused into suspicion. It was then that she communicated her conviction to Lord Godolphin and to Marlborough, and besought their assistance and advice.

Marlborough, acquainted as he had for years been with every cabal in every court in Europe, was singularly ignorant, in this instance, of that which was passing at home. Godolphin, better informed, had bestowed but little attention to it, and had placed but little importance on its consequences. Towards the middle of this year he received, whilst at Meldert, complaints from the Duchess, which drew from him this laconic and stern reply:—

“The wisest thing is to have to do with as few people as possible. If you are sure that Mrs. Masham speaks of business to the Queen, I should think you might, with some caution, tell her of it, which would do good; for she certainly must be grateful, and mind what you say.”[^[109]]

To soothe irritations was, on other occasions besides this, the arduous office of the Duke; and he was induced, from prior impressions, to write in a conciliatory strain to his often offended Duchess. When, in March, he had prepared measures for carrying on the war, and had completed every arrangement for his voyage into Holland, the only thing which detained him in England was, says Cunningham, “the quarrel among the women about the court.” He desired his Duchess “to put an end to those controversies, and to avoid all occasions of suspicion and disgust; and not to suffer herself to grow insolent upon the favour of fortune; otherwise,” said he, “I shall hardly be able hereafter to excuse your fault, or to justify my own actions, however meritorious.” To which the Duchess replied, “I will take care of those things, so that you need not be in any fear about me; but whoever shall think to remove me out of the Queen’s favour, let them take care lest they remove themselves.”

“Such things as these,” remarks Cunningham, “must be borne with among women; for few persons have drawn such rash conclusions concerning uncertain events but fortune has deceived them.”[^[110]] It was not long, however, before Marlborough perceived that the Duchess was not mistaken in her apprehensions; nor before he became painfully aware of the fact, that services of the greatest magnitude are often not to be weighed against slights, and petty provocations.

CHAPTER V.

State of parties—Friendship of Marlborough and Godolphin—Discovery of Mr. Harley’s practices—Intrigues of the Court.

The Duke of Marlborough possessed at this time the confidence and amity of the most eminent of the Whig leaders. Notwithstanding the efforts which, in conjunction with Godolphin, he made to preserve a dignified, and, as he deemed it, a salutary neutrality between the two great parties, the Whigs had, during many sessions, regarded him as their own; and the jealousy which they are said to have entertained of his proceedings, guided by a more moderate spirit than their own, was not manifested when their appreciation of his public character came to be put to the proof.

In Godolphin, his dearest friend, his whole confidence was reposed. These two great men had but one heart, one mind. On all important subjects they saw, they felt, in the same manner and degree. Their correspondence breathes the sentiments of a perfect union, and of the most unreserved communication. Their friendship was the handmaid to Marlborough’s glory; it was his rock of defence, when from the camp he turned his longing gaze to England; it was his sure resource, when buffeted by cabals abroad. To Godolphin, Marlborough owed much; and it may be said that his glory was reflected upon the honest and experienced Lord Treasurer. But Godolphin was indebted to his union with the Marlborough family for some obloquy, and for much jealousy, both at court and among the people. His close alliance with them was looked upon ungraciously; and, by some, even the constitution was thought to be endangered by the overweening influence of Marlborough, and by the fact that the army, the treasury, and the ascendency at foreign courts, were all centered in one family.[^[111]]

Godolphin, however, seems to have been content to share the downfal of his friends the Duke and Duchess. Hitherto he had supported the continuance of the war, by every argument which he could suggest to the Queen, and had thus incurred her displeasure.[^[112]] He had listened to the faction, whilst consolidating the Union with Scotland, in opposition to the counsels of Somers, and of Chancellor Cowper, and had thus forfeited their esteem. To this measure his ruin has been imputed. “Though that man,” says Cunningham, “had nothing in him that was abject, nothing mean, nothing low, except the lowliness of his mind, which was naturally disposed to be humble, yet he had not spirit and magnanimity equal to the settlement of the kingdoms; and, with regard to posthumous fame, he was indifferent to all posterity but his own.”[^[113]]

Yet, perhaps, the instrument which most effectually lowered the influence of Godolphin was the hatred and consequent ill offices of Harley. Between these two ministers disunion had long since widened into entire aversion; and it was the aim of each to disparage and almost to ruin the other.[^[114]] This disgust added a fresh incentive to the thirst for power to which Harley’s ambitious nature made him prone; whilst it was confirmed by his dislike and dread of that Duchess who had ever recourse to Godolphin’s counsels in times of difficulty.

The party which supported Marlborough was still, however, unbroken, and still pre-eminent. Lord Cowper, the distinguished chancellor, who was the greatest orator of his time, owed his elevation to the great men with whom Marlborough was allied. Lord Somers, infirm in health, and almost incapacitated from taking any part in public affairs, still gave the Whigs the benefits of his wisdom and experience.

Lord Halifax was in the vigour of his physical strength, and of his judgment; whilst Wharton, by his activity and industry, was ready to probe the strength and weakness of those who opposed his party, and generally succeeded in obtaining a knowledge of their intrigues. These powerful-minded men were aided by Lord Sunderland and Mr. Boyle, the two Secretaries of State—men in the prime of life, who with ease fulfilled the laborious duties imposed on them by their offices.[^[115]]

These distinguished politicians were now, according to the Duchess of Marlborough, the objects of Harley’s intrigues. About the same time that Mrs. Masham’s secret influence over the Queen was discovered, Lord Godolphin obtained information of Mr. Harley’s practices, both within and without. His design, according to this partial authority, was “to ruin the Whigs by disuniting them from the ministry, and so to pave the way for the Tories to rise again; whom he thought to unite in himself, as their head, after he had made it impossible for them to think of a reconciliation with the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Godolphin.”[^[116]]

The Duchess lost no time in acquainting the Duke, who was still on the continent, with this discovery. His answer to her communication bespeaks a mind weary with the contentions of the court, and indifferent, so far as his personal dealings were concerned, to the ascendency of his own, or the opposing party.

“If you have good reason,” he replies, “for what you write of the kindness and esteem the Queen has for Mrs. Masham and Mr. Harley, my opinion should be, that my Lord Treasurer and I should tell her Majesty what is good for herself; and if that will not prevail, to be quiet, and to let Mr. Harley and Mrs. Masham do what they please; for I own I am quite tired, and if the Queen can be safe, I shall be glad. I hope the Lord Treasurer will be of my mind; and then we shall be much happier than by being in a perpetual struggle.”

At a later time he remarks—

“What you write concerning the Queen, Mr. Harley, and Mrs. Masham, is of that consequence, that I think no time is to be lost in putting a stop to that management, or else let them have it entirely in their own hands.”

This, however, was an easier task for the Duke to advise, than for the Duchess to adopt. The Queen had still so great a portion of regard left for her early playmate and friend, that she might yet have relented, if the Duchess would at least have remained passively in the shade, or sustained her reverse of favour with dignified equanimity. Such a part would have been politic, and it might have been successful; for in most quarrels it is the petty provocations which embitter enmities, whilst the first grave cause is comparatively but little felt.

It is evident that Queen Anne had neither the inclination nor the courage to undertake an open quarrel with her ministry, nor with her early, and still dreaded, perhaps still beloved, friend. Upon hearing from Lord Godolphin his suspicions of the mischief that Harley intended to the party to which he and Marlborough were attached, her Majesty was at first incredulous; but when assured by the Lord Treasurer that if Harley remained in the royal favour, he and Lord Marlborough must quit her Majesty’s service, she became alarmed, and immediately wrote a letter full of affection, and indeed of submission, to her “dear Mrs. Freeman.” These extraordinary productions, such as were never perhaps addressed before, nor since, by a sovereign to a subject, were either the effect of artful advice, or of pusillanimous caution; since they were followed by no amendment in respect to certain matters complained of, nor by any returning kindness for the discarded friend whom she addressed.[^[117]]

Lord Godolphin also touched upon private matters, and endeavoured to enlighten the mind of her Majesty upon the ever-recurring feuds of Mrs. Masham and the Duchess. “I remember,” relates the latter in her manuscript Vindication, “he told me he had convinced the Queen indeed that Mrs. Masham was in the wrong, but that she showed she was very desirous to think her in the right.”[^[118]]

This disposition in her Majesty rendered any hopes of a final reconciliation visionary. But the explanation brought some symptoms of relenting, from the haughty and elated Abigail.

The Duchess remained some time at St. James’s, in anxious expectation of hearing from Mrs. Masham, who, she now supposed, would endeavour to clear up all uneasiness that had arisen between her and her noble relative. But, to her surprise, day after day passed, and not even a message arrived, although the wrathful Sarah and her rival slept twelve days under the same roof. “At length,” relates the Duchess, “she having passed by her window one night on my return home, sent one of her maids to my woman, to ask her how I did, and to let me know she was gone to Kensington.”

This behaviour appeared so ridiculous, and probably so absurdly condescending to the Duchess, that she could not forbear speaking of it to the Queen, the next time she saw her Majesty. To her surprise and consternation, the Queen defended Mrs. Masham; she looked grave, and answered that Mrs. Masham was “mightily in the right not to go near her grace.” Upon this reply, a sharp altercation ensued. The Duchess returned with spirit, “that she did not understand that, since a clearing up of a mutual misunderstanding had been left until a meeting took place between her and her cousin.” To this Anne, who had gained an unwonted supply of resolution, returned, that “it was very natural that Mrs. Masham should be afraid of going near the Duchess, when she saw that she was angry with her.” The Duchess retaliated by saying, “that her cousin could have no reason to be afraid, unless she knew herself guilty of some crime.” But she could elicit no further explanation from the Queen; for Anne was not fertile in argument, and had besides a practice, when she was obstinately bent upon any point, of repeating over and over again the same words. This provoking custom of substituting repetition instead of argument, which, according to the Duke of Marlborough, the Queen inherited from King James, she now called into requisition, to repel the fierce interrogatories of her exasperated and awful friend. “So she continued,” relates the Duchess, “to say it was very natural, and she was very much in the right.” And all that her mortified but unsubdued listener could glean from this conversation was, that the new favourite was deeply rooted in her Majesty’s heart, and that it would be more advisable to come to open hostilities with her ungrateful cousin, than to take any measures to mend the breach between them. It was on one of these occasions that the Duchess closed the door of the closet in which she and the Queen sat, with such violence, that the noise echoed through the whole apartment.[^[119]]

Incensed as she was, a visit from Mrs. Masham, two days afterwards, failed to soothe the offended Duchess. She was abroad when the lowly Abigail called; but she took care, on her return, to give a general order to her servants, to say, whenever Mrs. Masham came, that she “was not at home.” But, after some time, an interview took place by mutual appointment. The scene was such as might have been expected. The conversation began by the Duchess reproaching Mrs. Masham with the change in the Queen’s sentiments towards her, which she could not fail to attribute entirely to Mrs. Masham’s secret influence over her Majesty. She upbraided her cousin for her concealment of that intimacy and confidence with which the Queen honoured her; and told her that she considered such artifice as a very bad sign of the motives which dictated such conduct. “It was certain,” the Duchess added, “that no good intentions towards herself could influence her actions.”

Mrs. Masham was, as it seems, prepared with a reply full of condescension and insult. “To this,” says the Duchess, “she very gravely answered, that she was sure the Queen, who had always loved me extremely, would always be very kind to me. It was some minutes before I could recover from the surprise with which so extraordinary an answer struck me. To see a woman whom I have raised out of the dust, put on such a superior air, and to hear her assure me, by way of consolation, that the Queen would always be very kind to me!” Yet restraining the impetuous burst of passion which might have been expected, she remained silent; “for I was stunned,” she observes, “to hear her say so strange a thing.”[^[120]]

The Duchess then taunted Mrs. Masham with carrying to the Queen tales against some, and petitions in favour of other members of her Majesty’s household. Mrs. Masham, on the other hand, defended herself by saying that she only took to her royal mistress certain petitions which came to the back-stairs, and with which she knew that the Duchess did not care to be troubled. This perversion of facts did not blind the Duchess to the actual state of affairs, and the conversation ended in a long and ominous silence, broken by Mrs. Masham’s rising, and saying she hoped that the Duchess would sometimes give her leave to inquire after her health. Notwithstanding this condescending speech, the lady in power never once deigned, nor dared, to visit the dejected and deserted favourite.

Partly from policy, and, probably, partly from curiosity to see how matters stood, the Duchess thought proper, when her cousin’s marriage was publicly announced, to visit her with Lady Sunderland, purely, however, as she alleged, out of respect to the Queen, and to avoid any noise or disagreeable discourse which her refusing that ordinary act of civility might occasion. Fortunately, however, for the peace of St. James’s, the ungrateful bride was not at home when this undeserved honour was paid to her, by one from whom she had merited nothing but neglect.

The breach, however certain, and however sure the process by which it was widened, was not, as yet, perceptible to the court. Possibly all were reluctant to open a battery of anecdote and scandal against the redoubtable Sarah, who might be restored to her long-asserted ascendency. The Duchess was not without hopes of resuming her influence. During the Christmas holidays, she went to pay her respects to the Queen; but had the misery of learning from the page, before she went in, that Mrs. Masham had just been sent for. The last interview in which the least traces of friendly regard might be observed, must be told in the Duchess’s own words. It is evident that she had some lingering expectations that all differences might yet be healed, and that the Queen’s regard could be revived.

“The moment I saw her Majesty, I plainly perceived she was uneasy. She stood all the while I was with her, and looked as coldly on me as if her intention was that I should no longer doubt of my loss of her affections. Upon observing what reception I had, I said ‘I was sorry I had happened to come so unseasonably.’ I was making my courtesy to go away, when the Queen, with a great deal of disorder in her face, and without speaking one word, took me by the hand. And when, thereupon, I stooped to kiss hers, she took me up with a very cold embrace, and then, without one kind word, let me go. So strange a treatment of me, after my long and faithful services, and after such repeated assurances from her Majesty of an unalterable affection, made me think that I ought, in justice to myself, as well as in regard to my mistress’s interest, to write to her in the plainest and sincerest manner possible, and expostulate with her upon her change to me, and upon the new counsels by which she seemed to be wholly governed.”

The letter addressed on this occasion by the Duchess to the Queen was truly characteristic of the honest mind by which it was framed. There is neither flattery nor violence, in the simple declaration of wounded feeling, expressed in the Duchess’s forcible language; and Queen Anne appears to have been touched by the direct appeal to her best dispositions, which it contains.[^[121]] For some days, indeed, no notice was taken of this remarkable epistle; but after a short time had elapsed, an answer was presented to the Duchess, who found in it symptoms of a relenting spirit in her altered sovereign; and, anxious on account of others, as well as for her own comfort, to avoid an open rupture, “she endeavoured once more to put on as easy an appearance as she could.”[^[122]]

Upon a review of the circumstances which attended this notable quarrel, the character of the Duchess appears in a much more favourable light than, from the many defects of her ill-governed mind, could reasonably have been expected. In the first instance, she was generous to her kinswoman, confiding, and lenient. Slow in being aroused to suspicion, her conduct was straightforward and judicious when the truth was forced upon her unwilling conviction. She acted with sincerity, but not with address; and feelings too natural for a courtier to indulge were betrayed in the course of those altercations in which the character of Abigail is displayed in the worst colours. Artful and plausible, yet daring and insolent, according to circumstances—shameless in her ingratitude, the mean and despicable tool of others, with few advantages of education,—that abject but able woman acquired an ascendency over the mind of Anne that was truly astonishing.

The poor Queen is to be pitied—we dare not say despised—for her subserviency, her little artifices, her manœuvres in closets and the back stairs, her degrading connivance at duplicity, her thirst for flattery, or for what she termed friendship. Her confidence and affection, thus extended towards an unworthy object, henceforth weakened rather than adorned her character.

It is remarkable, that when she learned to dispense with the friendship of the Marlborough family, the Queen ceased to be great abroad and respected at home.

CHAPTER VI.

Vexations and disappointments which harassed the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough—Vacillations of Anne—Her appointment of Tory bishops.

The ensuing five or six years of the life of the Duchess of Marlborough present little else than annals of party rivalries and of court dissensions. Those who once envied her had now their revenge. To thirst still for power, and to be bowed down ever and anon by a secret but all-pervading influence; to witness one day the altered countenance of her royal mistress, and to experience, the next, relentings of her sovereign’s weak mind; to suffer the sneers of her adversaries, and to encounter the still more grating pity of her friends; to be blamed by all parties, and even reviled by almost all the Whig leaders, save the devoted and moderate Marlborough, or the faithful Godolphin,—these were the trials of the Duchess’s middle age.

That her temper was soured by these vicissitudes of hope and fear, and by the excitement of all those angry passions which disappointment kindles, cannot be doubted. From the great age which she attained, and from the clearness of her intellect until the close of her existence, there is no reason to suppose that her health, or even her spirits, were eventually impaired by the everlasting contentions of which she was the centre.

For a while, after her explanatory letter to the Queen, and her Majesty’s reply, “the great breach,” as the Duchess calls it, was not made public.[^[123]] It was some time before Marlborough and Godolphin could be convinced of the secret influence which Harley exercised, or that the former, especially, could be induced to take the matter seriously to heart. The Duchess in vain importuned him to revenge her wrongs, and harassed him until he was heart-sick with the details of all that her enemies performed and projected. “You may be sure,” writes the Duke to her from Helchin, on Sept. 19, 1707, “I shall never mention Mrs. Masham, either in letter or discourse. I am so weary of all this sort of management, that I think it is the greatest folly in the world to think any struggling can do good when both sides have a mind to be angry.”[^[124]]

Yet, in spite of this simple philosophy, the poor Duke was constrained to acknowledge himself “not the same man,” after vexatious and embarrassing letters had reached him from England. It was not, however, long before the Queen’s dispositions were completely manifest. It was said that Prince George was brought into the scheme to co-operate with Harley against the Whigs, and that his mind was worked on by representations that he had not his due share in the government, and that he was excluded from it by the great power which the Duke of Marlborough and the Lord Treasurer exercised. The Queen, it was alleged by the new favourites, was a mere cipher in the Duchess’s hands, whilst the Duke controlled her affairs; and it was moreover declared to her that there was not now a single Jacobite in the kingdom;[^[125]] an assertion made to dissipate her fears of the high church ascendency—with what foundation, the succeeding years fully evinced.

There were now three bishopricks vacant; and the Queen quickly marked the course which she meant to pursue, by appointing Dr. Blackhall to the see of Exeter, and Dr. William James to that of Chester. These divines were, indeed, men of excellent character, and so far the Queen was able to justify herself to her ministry that she would have none but such men appointed to bishoprics. But they were likewise strong Tories, who had submitted to the Revolution, yet condemned it, and had objected to all the measures by which that great event had been followed. To qualify this proceeding, the Queen made other translations more acceptable to the Whigs; and before the meeting of parliament, in a conference of the leading members of that party, they were assured that her heart was wholly with them; yet Harley’s industrious endeavours to convince the Tories that such was not the case, and that the Queen was weary of their adversaries, and knew her friends, were calculated to counteract that impression.

Marlborough lost no time, when news of these nominations reached him from England, of expostulating with the Queen upon her choice of the two bishops. A letter, addressed by him to Lord Godolphin, being shown to the Queen, drew from her Majesty a vehement defence of Harley, with an explicit denial, at the same time, of her having been influenced by him in her late conduct.[^[126]] “Mr. Harley,” she assured her great general, “knew nothing of her Tory appointments, until it was the talk of the town.” She disclaimed my Lady Marlborough’s imputation, as she deemed it, that she had an entire confidence in Harley; and wondered “how Lady Marlborough could say such a thing, when she had been so often assured from her that she relied on none but Mr. Freeman and Mr. Montgomery.”

The Duke, after an earnest expostulation in reply to this letter, suspended his remonstrances, calmly awaiting the current of events by which we are carried along in life, often independent of our free wills. He remained abroad all the summer, endeavouring to draw his affairs in Holland to a close, and solacing his wearied and vexed spirit with the hopes of one day enjoying in tranquillity the shades of Woodstock. Much of his time and thoughts was devoted to the completion and decoration of that magnificent palace, destined for two as gifted beings and stately inhabitants as ever trod its banquet-hall. In the midst of war, and, what harassed him far more, of politics, he turned with almost youthful delight to the minutiæ of those preparations for his luxurious home, which had in his mind an association with a deep-felt sentiment.

“My glasses,” he writes from Meldert, “are come, and I have bespoke the hangings; for one of my greatest pleasures is in doing all that in me lies, that we may as soon as possible enjoy that happy time of being quietly together, which I think of with pleasure, as often as I have my thoughts free to myself.”[^[127]]

And when the Duchess, in her letters, responded to these sentiments, his pleasure was blended with affectionate gratitude.

“I am obliged to you for your kind expression concerning Woodstock; it is certainly a pleasure to me when I hear the work goes on, for it is there I must be happy with you. The greatest pleasure I have, when I am alone, is the thinking of this, and flattering myself that we may then live so as to anger neither God nor men, if the latter be reasonable; but if they are otherways, I shall not much care, if you are pleased, and that I do my duty to God; for ambition and business is what after this war shall be abandoned by me.”[^[128]]

The Duke wrote habitually in this strain; but of late, the hollowness of those whose personal advancement constitutes the sole business of their lives, had been painfully manifested to him. Since the knowledge of the Duchess’s downfal had become general, her failings, and the defects of the whole “Marlburghian faction,” as it has been called by a contemporary writer, constituted the subject of general conversation; “being,” says the caustic, but not dispassionate Cunningham, “bandied about the town by gossiping women, and by them greedily sucked in; whilst the inexperienced multitude, who, for the most part, look with envy on the grandeur and good fortune of their superiors, rejoiced at the Duchess of Marlborough’s disgrace, and began to carry themselves with great insolence, as if any one of themselves were to have succeeded her in the Queen’s favour.”[^[129]]

The Duchess, meantime, retired to Windsor; and, according to the same authority, “lived in quiet, nor did she take any pains to appease the anger of the incensed Queen;” although repeatedly advised by her friend Mr. Mainwaryng, not to absent herself wholly from the court,—a line of conduct which he urged, not solely on her own account, but for the good of her friends. But the Duchess disregarded his admonitions; and by this indifference the artful Mrs. Masham gained ground, skilfully availing herself of her rival’s absence to ingratiate herself more and more in the Queen’s favour. Prince George, it appears, was unfavourable to the Masham faction. As a spectator, comparatively but little concerned in all that passed, he probably dreaded the intrigues, the petty commotions, among the female hierarchy, which disturbed his conjugal repose. The Queen, at this time, fell into the inconvenient habit of holding nocturnal conferences with the Harley and Masham confederacy, and her health suffered in consequence. A humour in her eyes was the subject of public concern; and Prince George remarked in public, that it was no wonder she should suffer, but rather that she should not be otherwise indisposed, from late hours. This remark is said not to have fallen from him unawares. It was evident, in the sequel, that the Prince deemed the removal of Harley from the confidence of her Majesty indispensable.

The Duchess now aroused herself from her apathy; but it was too late. She employed spies about the Queen, and gained intelligence of all that happened. She worked upon the minds of Marlborough and Godolphin, and besought, if she did not command, their interference in the matter.

Serious thoughts of quitting her employments, and of resigning her offices in favour of her daughters, having received from the Queen a sort of vague promise that her employments should be made over to them, now occupied her mind. For some time, the advice of friends, and more especially of her confidential correspondent, Mr. Mainwaring, delayed the performance of her intention. Yet, before finally giving up the game, she was anxious to make one more effort against the adverse party.

Before affairs came to a crisis, the discovery of a treasonable correspondence between a man named Gregg, and the Queen’s enemies abroad, arrested the downfal of the Marlborough family, and delayed the elevation of Harley. Gregg was a clerk in the office of the Secretary of State, and much in his confidence; and there were many who hesitated not to consider the secretary as implicated in the delinquencies of his clerk. Yet it was by Harley that the affair was first brought to light.[^[130]] More especially, Lord Sunderland charged Harley with being privy to the crime of Gregg; nor could the asseverations of the culprit, who was drawn in a sledge to the place of execution, and hanged, wholly silence the bitter accusations and unworthy suspicions of Sunderland.

The Queen, when urged to investigate the conduct of Harley, showed considerable reluctance to act in the matter. She was “moved,” to use an old-fashioned expression, when Marlborough and Godolphin spoke to her on the subject.[^[131]] When, irritated by her determined though meek opposition, they told her plainly that it was impossible for them to do her Majesty any service whilst Mr. Harley remained in the council, she was still firm; and to the expressed resolution of Godolphin to leave her, she seemed insensible. But when Marlborough proffered his resignation, her royal heart was touched, and she studied by arguments and compliments to change his determination; but both her Treasurer and her General quitted her presence in disgust.

Anne repaired on the same day to the council, where Harley opened some matters relating to foreign affairs. The whole board seemed to be infected with sullenness; and, upon the Duke of Somerset remarking that it was impossible to transact any business whilst the General and the Treasurer were away, a deeper gloom overspread the faces of those who were present. The Queen then perceived that she must yield—a conviction which she received with feminine wrath and perverseness. She sent the next day for Marlborough, and told him that Mr. Harley should in two days be dismissed; but she gave her concurrence to this desired measure with a deep resentment, which her tenacity of impressions rendered indelible.

It might now be expected that the Duchess’s restoration to favour would ensue; but those who looked for such a termination of the political broil knew nothing of human nature. Anne never forgave being compelled to part with Harley. Her ministers perceived that they had lost her confidence; and Harley, through the favour of Mrs. Masham, still enjoyed opportunities of “practising upon the passions and credulity of the Queen,” as Lady Marlborough expresses it.

Among those members of the ministry who went out of office in consequence of Harley’s dismissal, was the celebrated Henry St. John, who immortalised the name of Bolingbroke.[^[132]] He at that time held the office of Secretary at War; but his rise to political influence had begun in the earliest years of the Queen’s reign.

Of a most powerful natural capacity, to which were added splendid attainments, the result of a careful education acting upon an ardent and grasping mind,—of great but misdirected ambition,—Lord Bolingbroke was one of those men by whom Fate dealt unkindly, in subjecting them to the temptations of a political career. There is, indeed, no reason to conclude that Bolingbroke, untempted by that ambition to which he sacrificed so much, would have adorned private life by purity and temperance,—which were not the fashionable virtues of the day. When even the high-minded and reflecting Somers could tarnish his great qualities by licentious habits, there can be little cause to wonder that one who, like Bolingbroke, lived in a whirlwind, could be profane without a blush, and grossly immoral without contrition. Born not only with strong passions, but more especially with the most perilous of all, the passion for notoriety, Bolingbroke had not the protecting influence of a religious faith to temper his extravagances, nor to chasten his erring spirit when the dark hour had passed away, and had left his mind free to admire and worship the beauty of virtue; and to draw the comparison between his own conduct, and that rule which should have been his guide. The cable by which he was connected with that anchor which alone can keep the frail bark firm, was cut away. The infidelity of Bolingbroke, and his endeavours to impress his opinions upon others, are too well known to require further comment.

It may be well, from his intimate connexion with the political affairs of the day, as well as from the regard which the Duke of Marlborough once entertained for him, to trace the progress of that extraordinary mind, and of that inconsistent yet lofty character, of which Bolingbroke, both in his works and in the history of his life, has left us ample records.

It may seem unfair to say, that his early scepticism and his youthful thirst for distinction may be attributed, in some measure, to his education among individuals of the Presbyterian persuasion. Not that we mean, by such an assertion, to cast the slightest reflection upon the pious and generally conscientious body of non-conformists. But Bolingbroke, like many other young persons whose friends are opposed on matters of controversy, was the object of persuasion—the innocent cause of polemical discussion—the victim of well-meant efforts which drew in contrary ways.

This gifted descendant of a long line of eminent and ennobled warriors and statesmen was born at Battersea, in Surrey, in the year 1672, at the house of his paternal grandfather, Sir Walter St. John. The civil commotions, in which his grandfather had taken a prominent part, were then, in those later days of Charles the Second, hushed, not quelled; and the effects of political and polemical differences not only still existed, but were cherished as sacred recollections by the elder branches of the St. John family, of whom Lady St. John, the grandmother of Bolingbroke, was an influential member. This excellent and zealous lady, although a charitable benefactress to the orthodox institutions of her village, was a steady adherent to the Puritans, and an earnest promoter of their principles in the mind of her youthful grandson. Unluckily she adopted that course of instruction which has been found to be peculiarly unsuccessful in training the minds of youth to certain religious impressions. It is universally remarked how little we respect what we have been forced to commit to memory,—however valuable may be the subject, however attractive the form of what we are thus compelled to receive into our rebellious imaginations. The spiritual adviser of Lady St. John, and the instructor of Bolingbroke, was Daniel Burgess, one of those singular compounds of fanaticism, shrewdness, humour, and obstinacy, who often obtain so remarkable an influence over the strongest intellects, as well as the most devout hearts. This zealous man acted with the usual blindness to the inclinations of youth, and with the ignorance of human nature which such persons display. “I was obliged,” says Lord Bolingbroke, writing almost with loathing of his earlier days, “while yet a boy, to read over the Commentaries of Dr. Manton, whose pride it was to have made an hundred and nineteen sermons on the hundred and nineteenth Psalm.”

These spiritual exercises were, it is more than probable, counteracted, or at least discouraged, by his grandfather, who, after the Restoration, conformed to the national church, and received into his family, as chaplain, the learned Dr. Patrick, afterwards Bishop of Chichester and Ely, who remained many years in his family.

Henry, the object of these well-intended cares, claimed, on his mother’s side, an alliance with the ancient and noble family of Rich, Earl of Warwick; from which loyal house he probably received those predilections for the Tory party which a mother could so easily implant; an influence which no non-conformist divine could readily counteract. But whilst thus he grew up, culling from different sources contrary opinions, it is probable that from his Presbyterian tutor he acquired that ardour for singular distinction, which is the characteristic mark of sectarianism of every description, and by which, indeed, in conjunction often with higher motives, its ramifications are extended and maintained.

It was not until after Bolingbroke had passed the period of early youth, that this love of display, not to dignify it with the name of ambition, took a higher aim than the desire of being the most lavish, the most fearless, the most eccentric, and the most profane profligate of his age. At Oxford, his powerful comprehension, his ready wit, the subtility of his reasoning, the extent of his memory, raised expectations of his career, which were soon dissipated by his mad and outrageous, rather than sensual course of pleasures. When he moved into the sphere of fashion to which his birth entitled him, it became his degrading boast that his mistress was the most expensive of her class; and that he could drink a greater quantity of wine, without intoxication, than any of his companions. Yet, in the midst of such associates as envied or extolled his supremacy, St. John never wholly lost that desire for better things, that love of knowledge, and value of intellectual excellence, which afterwards raised him from debasement, and which still ennoble his name, in spite of his unprincipled political career, and of the obliquity of his moral conduct.

It was not until the latter end of the reign of William, and after his first marriage, that Henry St. John applied himself to politics. He was then twenty-eight years of age. Unhappily for him, he consulted what he deemed expediency (his guide through life) in the first respectable connexion that he formed. He married the daughter and co-heiress of Sir Henry Winchescomb, a descendant from the famous clothier, Jack of Newbury, who entertained Henry the Eighth and his suite. The union which St. John thought proper to form might have been considered prudent by his friends, but it proved adverse to all improvement in his domestic conduct. His wife, though commended for her personal and mental accomplishments, yet failed in fixing the gay, inconstant Bolingbroke. A separation ensued; and though much of the lady’s fortune, which amounted to forty thousand pounds, became the portion of her husband, it was subsequently, with the exception of some estates, given back to her family after his attainder.

So far his worldly interests were concerned; but it was Bolingbroke’s fate, in after life, to attach himself strongly to the wife of the Marquis de Villette, the niece of Madam de Maintenon, and to be truly, passionately, and long hopelessly attached. His jealousies, his uncertainties, the sickness of hope deferred, were a retribution to his former indulgence of what are too lightly termed the pleasant vices; in which his vanity, perhaps his passions were concerned, but in which the heart participated not.

Bolingbroke entered parliament in 1700, as member for Wotton-Basset, on the Whig interest. His wife’s connexions, as well as his own, had considerable influence in the political world. But the natural and acquired attributes of the young politician were far more potent than family influence, which can place a man in the national assembly, as one may plant a tree, but cannot make it grow, nor enable it to stand the wintry blast.

It was, perhaps, not among the least of Bolingbroke’s advantages, that he was one of the handsomest men of his time. Notwithstanding the dissolute life which he had led up to the period of manhood’s prime, when he became a noted politician, St. John retained a sweetness of countenance which usually belongs to innocence alone, combined with a dignity, the outward token of a high quality of mind, and perhaps the hereditary mark of ancient blood. His manner was eminently fascinating; and the awe which his acknowledged abilities might have inspired, was dispelled by a vivacity which, strange as it may appear, has been almost invariably the accompaniment of the most profound thinkers, and of the most energetic actors on the stage of public life.

To these personal advantages, Bolingbroke, in the maturity of his intellect, added an astonishing penetration into the motives and dispositions of men. Perhaps he trusted too greatly to this faculty, for he was often deceived, where duller spirits might have perceived the truth. He possessed the art of acquiring an ascendency over all with whom he conversed. If he could not convince, he was contented to waive contention, and to gain his point by entertaining. His powers of eloquence, even in that age, when the art of rhetoric was sedulously cultivated, were supereminent. Perhaps the greatest merit of eloquence is perspicuity; and this Bolingbroke displayed in a very uncommon degree. A prodigious memory, the handmaid of oratory, did not ensnare him into the fault of pedantry, common to men so endowed. How admirably he has avoided this defect in his Letters on the Study of History, must be remembered with gratitude by those who have perhaps sat down to peruse the work with dread, but have arisen from it, not wearied, but delighted and informed.

His eloquence possessed the charm of a noble simplicity. Yet his language, although apparently only such as would be suggested to any person speaking familiarly on similar subjects, was selected with a skill the more refined that it could not be detected. Sometimes he would pause for a moment’s reflection, when in the midst of an harangue; but the pause was succeeded by a full, clear, impassioned burst of eloquence, to which all the stores of his memory, the depth of his logic, and the elegance of a mind never debased, whatever might be his immoralities, contributed, like pellucid streams flowing into the one mighty torrent.[^[133]]

It was in the dawn of his political career that St. John gained the approbation, almost the affection, of Marlborough.[^[134]] Until after the defection of Harley from the ministry, Marlborough and Bolingbroke were more than political allies. The great general admired the talents of the young debater, and loved his society; as men who have lived long enough to appreciate all the various sorts of excellence, love the promise of the young, and hail its progress with almost prophetic accuracy. Bolingbroke, on the other hand, whatever were the differences of after life, whatever the wrongs sustained by Marlborough, whatever his own tergiversation, reverenced, almost affectionately, the hero of Ramillies,—a victory achieved whilst he himself was in office. His eloquent tribute to the great hero’s memory is well known.[^[135]]

It has been supposed, and not without reason, that St. John was indebted both to the Duke of Marlborough and to Harley for his introduction to office, in 1704, as Secretary at War and of the Marine. That he considered himself chiefly bound in honour and gratitude to Harley, is evident from his resigning his post, upon the dismissal of that minister. A friendship of some years had, indeed, at the time of that event, subsisted between Harley and St. John. But it was a friendship such as worldly men could alone avow and endure; hollow, interested, and already verging into rivalry,—as the closest intimacies are found to be sometimes nearest to the deadliest hatred. Never was there an alliance, bearing the name of friendship, so ill assorted. Harley was a man of industry, research, method; a statesman of no extended views, yet an adept in the craft. His morals were, for his time, more than respectable, his integrity unimpeachable, although it was not of a description suited to the nicer notions of our modern days. It was his aim to conciliate both Whigs and Tories; to maintain the Protestant succession, yet to conciliate the adverse courts of St. Germains. To effect his ends, he scrupled not to employ any means which appeared to him expedient. If not actually deceptive, he was, at any rate, constantly treading on the brink of that moral precipice, falsehood: versed in all Parliamentary forms and records, he was at once an able leader of the House of Commons, as well as a consummate manager of courts.

Bolingbroke, on the other hand, with a less share of principle than Harley, displayed a decision and courage which bore the aspect of consistency and disinterestedness. His devotion to the Tories, which proved his ruin, caused him to disapprove the half measures of his friend and subsequent rival. Yet he was not wholly devoid of a deep, designing spirit; for Bolingbroke, though in this instance he misunderstood the general sentiments of the nation, yet was not deceived in the real, heartfelt secret wishes of his royal mistress, on which he relied.

At the period when the “great breach,” as the Duchess of Marlborough called it, took place, Bolingbroke was, however, the warm adherent of Harley; and in compliance with their mutual bond, he quitted office, after three years’ enjoyment of its dignity and emoluments.[^[136]]

CHAPTER VII.

1708—Vacillation of Anne—Invasion of the Pretender—Results of that event—Secret intrigues with Mrs. Masham—The death of Prince George—The Duchess of Marlborough’s affectionate attentions to the Queen on that occasion—Her disappointment.

Not many days after the dismissal of Harley and the resignation of St. John, and whilst the world of politics was still occupied in discussing Gregg’s ignominious life and courageous death, it was announced that a French fleet, with troops, had sailed from Dunkirk to invade Scotland.

James Stuart, or, as Queen Anne, for the first time after this attempt upon her kingdom, permitted him to be designated, the Pretender, was, however, luckily for himself, prevented from embarking with the squadron, just at the critical time, by an ague;[^[137]] and the fleet was put back by contrary winds. When too late to do any good, James set sail. The fleet, being chiefly filled with landsmen, was greatly distressed for want of water; and, after being tossed about for nearly a month in a tempestuous sea, was obliged to return to Dunkirk. Thus was this vast project, contrived by Louis with the design of drawing off the troops in Flanders, frustrated; nor would the French monarch have been inconsolable, had the Pretender fallen into the hands of the English, of which he ran an imminent risk; for Louis was not particularly anxious to see the unfortunate Prince again in France; and he would have been reconciled to the loss of his fleet, if he could have at the same time been relieved of his guest.[^[138]] The attempt, however, proved nearly fatal to the Tory party in England: for it was believed that Louis would not have risked so small a fleet, and forces so incompetent as those which he sent over, had he not been well assured of assistance in England and Scotland.

On the other hand, the Queen, who was alarmed, and, according to her capability, indignant, on account of her brother’s invasion, perceived the duplicity of those who had so recently assured her that there was not a single Jacobite in the nation. Never before this occurrence had her royal lips been known to mention the Revolution. Her courtiers had universally endeavoured to separate her title to the throne from any connexion with that event; although she had no other claim to the crown than that which was given her by the Act of Settlement. The Queen now, as Parliament was sitting, addressed the Houses; she named the Revolution twice; she received addresses in which the word ‘Pretender’ was applied to her brother: she thus approved that designation, and from this period he is so called in the generality of histories.[^[139]] She declared publicly that she considered those who had brought about the Revolution to be her best friends; and the Whigs as most to be depended upon for the support of her government. She looked to Marlborough for assistance, and, for the first time, cordially agreed with her general, that it was neither for her honour, nor interest, to make the first steps towards a peace,[^[140]] She wrote to him in the most confidential and affectionate terms, signing herself his “humble servant;”[^[141]] and she received from him a respectful and manly answer, assuring her Majesty that the Duke desired to serve his royal mistress “in the army, but not as a minister.”[^[142]]

For a while this good understanding lasted, and the Whigs were sanguine of their entire restoration to royal favour; but, as the Queen’s fears subsided, her inclinations returned to their old channel, and her mind yielded again to the influence of Harley.

That able and persevering courtier continued, during the whole summer after his dismissal, to entertain a secret correspondence with the Queen. Anne, whose nature was quite on a level with that of the most humble of her household, descended so far as to encourage these stolen conferences. The lessons which she had learned during her depression in the court of William and Mary were retained, when the same inducement to those small manœuvres no longer justified the stratagems which nothing but the dread of tyranny can excuse. To enjoy in privacy the gossip, for it could not be called society, of Mrs. Masham, and the flattery of Harley, “she staid,” says the indignant Duchess, “all the sultry season, even when the Prince was panting for breath, in that small house she had formerly purchased at Windsor; which, though hot as an oven, was then said to be cool, because, from the park, such persons as Mrs. Masham had a mind to bring to her Majesty could be let in privately from the garden.”[^[143]]

The Duchess could not long endure this; and, upon the occasion of a thanksgiving for the victory of Oudenarde, and after the memorable siege of Brussels, her wrath broke forth. She still, in spite of her threats, held the office of groom of the stole, which brought her into frequent, unfortunate collision with the Queen. The efforts to please, which the haughty Duchess now condescended to make, were constantly counteracted by her rival. The following letter is truly characteristic. Pique, pride, effrontery, are curiously manifested in its expression.[^[144]]

“I cannot help sending your Majesty this letter, to show how exactly Lord Marlborough agrees with me in my opinion, that he has now no interest with you; though, when I said so in the church on Thursday,[^[145]] you were pleased to say it was untrue: and yet I think that he will be surprised to hear that, when I had taken so much pains to put your jewels in a way that I thought you would like, Mrs. Masham could make you refuse to wear them, in so unkind a manner; because that was a power she had not thought fit to exercise before. I will make no reflection upon it; only that I must needs observe that your Majesty chose a very wrong day to mortify me, when you were just going to return thanks for a victory obtained by Lord Marlborough.”

The Queen thought proper to answer this epistle in the following words. The contest had now arrived at its climax.

“Sunday.

“After the commands you gave me on the thanksgiving-day of not answering you, I should not have troubled you with these lines, but to return the Duke of Marlborough’s letter safe into your hands, and for the same reason do not say anything to that, nor to yours enclosed with it.”

It was impossible for the Duchess, on receiving so extraordinary a letter, to remain silent; and, in truth, she was one of those whom rebuke could not abash, nor argument silence, nor invective intimidate. She again took up the pen, not, as she assured her Majesty, with any view of answering the Queen’s letter, but of explaining what she had said at church. This explanation, like most others, tended to make the matter considerably worse. “I desired you,” says the Duchess, continuing to address the Queen in the character of an equal, “I desired you not to answer me there, for fear of being overheard; and this you interpret as if I had desired you not to answer me at all, which was far from my intention. For the whole end of my writing to you so often, was to get your answer to several things in which we differed, that if I was in the wrong you might convince me of it, and I should very readily have owned my mistakes.”

The Duchess proceeds to say, that she hopes that, some time or other, the Queen may find time to reflect upon the unanswerable arguments which the Duchess had laid before her, and that her Majesty would also occasionally listen to the advice of my Lord Marlborough, and then she would never more be troubled with disagreeable letters from her. “The word command,” adds the Duchess, “which you use at the beginning of your letter, is very unfitly supposed to come from me. For though I have always writ to you as a friend, and lived with you as such for so many years, with all the truth, and honesty, and zeal for your service that was possible, yet I shall never forget that I am your subject, nor cease to be a faithful one.”[^[146]]

This correspondence appears to have had the effect only of widening the breach. It is one peculiarity of our sex, or, at any rate, of the least reflective portion, that the affections once alienated, cannot, by reasoning, by persuasion, even by concession, be restored to their accustomed channel. At Anne’s side there stood a whisperer ever ready to pour into the royal ear the antidote to all the medicine of too wholesome truth, which the Duchess, in her hardihood, dared to administer. It was indeed her boast, that when, without prejudice or passion, she knew the Queen to be wrong, she should think herself wanting in her duty not to tell her Majesty her opinion, “and the rather, because no one else dares to speak out upon so ungrateful a subject.”

The poor Queen went on, therefore, much in the same state of indecision and mystery as that in which her life had been passed for years; closeted every night with Mrs. Masham and Harley, and watched at every avenue by the Duchess and her emissaries. When the ministry suspected that the Queen was under the influence of the discarded but dreaded Harley, the Duchess despatched a letter full of remonstrances and reproaches, written with her “usual plainness and zeal.” But finding that by this mode she could make no impression upon her Majesty, the Duchess sought an interview, and begged to know what her crime was that had produced so great an alteration in the Queen. This inquiry drew from Anne a charge of inveteracy and of persecution against “poor Masham,” and a declaration that the Queen would henceforth treat the Duchess as it became her to treat the Duke of Marlborough’s wife, and the groom of the stole; but she forbore specifying any distinct charge against the discarded favourite.

On receiving this letter, the Duchess began a work which it seems she had some time contemplated; namely, a careful review of all the faithful services which, for about twenty-six years, she had performed towards the Queen; of the favour with which she had been honoured, and of the use which she had made of that favour; and of the manner in which she had now lost it, by means of one whom she had raised out of the dust.[^[147]] To savour her apology with some sacred associations, the Duchess prefixed to it the directions given by the author of “The Whole Duty of Man,” with regard to friendship; and the directions in the Common Prayer before the Communion with regard to reconciliation, together with the rules laid down by Bishop Taylor on the same head; and in offering this memorial, the subdued, but not humiliated Duchess, gave her word to her Majesty, that if, after reading these compilations, she would please to answer in two words that she was still of her former opinion, she, the Duchess, would never more trouble her on that head as long as she lived, but would perform her offices with respect and decorum, remember always that Anne was her mistress and her Queen, and resolve to pay her the respect due from a faithful subject to a Queen.

This despatch was sent from St. Albans, and the Queen promised that she would read and answer it. But ten days afterwards the paper was unread, and the only consolation which the Duchess received for this negligence was a kind look and a gracious smile from her Majesty, as she passed to receive the communion; “but the smile and the look,” adds the Duchess, “were, I had reason afterwards to think, given to Bishop Taylor and the Common Prayer Book, and not to me.”

Meantime the Queen, after more than twenty-five years of matrimony, became a widow. Prince George, in October, sank under the effects of a long-continued asthma, which, during the last few years of his life, had kept him hovering on the brink of the grave. The Queen, who had been throughout the whole of her married life a pattern of domestic affection, had never, during the last trying years of his life, left the Prince either night or day. She attended him with assiduity, and proffered to her sick consort those patient services which are generally supposed only to be the meed of females in the humbler walks of life.

The Prince merited her affection; his manners were amiable, and his conduct respectable; and he had not embarrassed the Queen by taking a conspicuous share in politics. The “Monsieur est il possible” of King James was neither deficient in sense nor in information; but his powers of expression were inferior to his capacity for gaining knowledge.[^[148]]

The Queen, unsentimental though well intentioned, plunged deeper and deeper into petty political intrigues, after the respectable occupation of tending her invalid husband was at an end. Her grief was as edifying as her conjugal affection had been exemplary; yet the parliament, not thinking it too late for such addresses, petitioned her Majesty that she would not allow her grief for the Prince’s death to prevent her from contemplating a second marriage. But Anne continued to be, or, as some said, to seem inconsolable. She avoided the light of day, and could not endure the conversation of her dearest friends, but seemed, as in affliction it is natural so to do, to revert to those companions of her earlier years who had witnessed the felicity of her married life.

Several weeks had elapsed since the Queen and the Duchess had met, when the latter was apprised that the existence of the Prince of Denmark was drawing to a close. The Duchess, warm in her temper, warm in her feelings, wrote on this occasion to her royal mistress to express her determination to pay her duty, in inquiring after her Majesty’s health, and to declare that she could not hear of so great a misfortune and affliction as the condition in which the Prince was, without offering her services, if acceptable to her Majesty.

This letter was scarcely penned, before further tidings of the Prince’s danger arrived; and the Duchess, setting off for Kensington, carried her letter with her, and sent it to the Queen, with a message that she waited her Majesty’s commands. Anne could scarcely be much flattered by a tribute of respect, which was prefaced by the Duchess with these offensive words:—“Though, the last time I had the honour to wait upon your Majesty, your usage of me was such as was scarce possible for me to imagine, or for any one to believe,” &c. &c. She received her haughty subject “coolly, and as a stranger.” The Duchess, however, touched by her royal mistress’s impending calamity, persevered. It was her lot, after witnessing the nuptials of the Queen with the Prince of Denmark, and after participating for years in their sober privacy, to be present at his last moments. It was her office to lead the Queen from the chamber of death into her closet, where, kneeling down, the Duchess endeavoured affectionately to console the widowed sovereign, remaining for some time before her in that posture of humiliation.

The Queen’s conduct in this peculiar situation, and at this critical moment, was singularly characteristic of her feeble, vacillating character, on which no strong impression could be made. Whilst the Duchess knelt before her, imploring her Majesty not to cherish sorrow, by remaining where the remembrance of the recent solemn scene would haunt her, but to retire to St. James’s; whilst the arrogant but warm-hearted Duchess forgot all past grievances in her attempts to solace a mistress from whom she had received many favours; the poor Queen’s fluttered spirits were affrighted by the recollection of Mrs. Masham, and of the party who would resent this long and private interview. She yielded, however, to the Duchess’s remonstrances, and promised to accompany her to St. James’s; and, placing her watch in the Duchess’s hand, bade her retire until the finger of that monitor had reached a certain point, and to send Mrs. Masham in the interval. A crowd was collected before the antechamber, and the Duchess, emerging from the royal closet, determined, though the game was lost, at least not to betray her defeat. She behaved on this occasion with the address, and dignity, and self command, which a knowledge of her own well-meant intentions, and her long experience in the world, imparted. She ordered her own coach to be prepared for the reception of the Queen, and desired the assembled courtiers to retire, whilst her Majesty, amidst her complicated feelings of grief and embarrassment, should pass through the gallery. The Queen, moved like a puppet to the last by the spirited and intellectual woman who was formed to command, came forth, leaning on the arm of the Duchess. “Your Majesty,” said the lofty Sarah, “must excuse my not delivering your message to Mrs. Masham; your Majesty can send for her at St. James’s, how and when you please.”

The Queen, apparently insensible to the spirit of this reply, or preoccupied by fears as to what “poor Masham” would think, moved along the gallery, whispering some commission to Mrs. Hill, the sister of Mrs. Masham, as she went along, and casting upon Mrs. Masham, who appeared in the gallery with Dr. Arbuthnot, a look of kindness, though without speaking. She was sufficiently composed, on entering the carriage, to intimate to Godolphin that she wished the royal vaults at Westminster to be inspected previous to the interment of the Prince, in order to ascertain whether there would be room for her body also,—if not, to choose another place of interment; and in these topics the drive from Kensington to St. James’s was occupied. It was not thought by the Queen incompatible with the deep feeling which she professed, to busy herself with those minutiæ to which minds of a common stamp affix so much importance, connected with the disposition of the dead.—The Duchess has commented upon the Queen’s particularities, with the freedom natural to her. After a conference with Lord Godolphin at St. James’s, during which the Duchess retired, the Queen, to use her own expression, “scratched twice at dear Mrs. Freeman’s door,” in hopes of finding the Lord Treasurer within the Duchess’s apartments, in order to bid him, when he sent his orders to Kensington, order a great number of yeomen of the guard to be in attendance to carry the “dear Prince’s body” down the great stairs, which were very steep and slippery, so that it might “not be let fall.”

The transient reconciliation which thus took place between the Queen and the Duchess was not of long duration. Mrs. Masham, indeed, retired that same evening from the supper-room, where the Duchess appeared to attend upon her Majesty; and Anne cautiously forbore to mention “poor Masham’s” hateful name. But when in private, Anne was almost continually attended by the insidious Abigail, and the Duchess rarely entered the royal presence without finding her rival there, or, what was worse, retiring furtively at her approach; and she soon ascertained that the very closet where she had knelt in sorrow and compassion before her sovereign—where she had striven to act the part of consolation—was the scene of Mrs. Masham’s influence. It seemed, indeed, strange that Anne should select for her daily sitting-room the closet which her deceased consort had used as his place of retirement and prayer, and the prying Duchess soon penetrated behind the screen of widowed proprieties. She has laid bare the occupations of the royal mourner, whilst closeted for many hours of the day in Prince George’s apartments. The Duchess, indeed, suspected that some peculiar motive could alone induce Anne to disregard the mournful associations with that retreat; and resolving to ascertain the cause, she had the mortification to discover the true reason of Anne’s choice: this was, that the “back-stairs belonging to it came from Mrs. Masham’s lodgings, who, by that means, could bring to her whom she pleased.”[^[149]]

CHAPTER VIII.

Trial of Dr. Sacheverell—His solemn protestation of innocence—Scene behind the curtain where the Queen sat—Fresh offence given by the Duchess to Anne.—1709–1710.

The year 1709, which witnessed the almost final alienation of the Queen from her early favourite, was disgraced by the strange spectacle of Dr. Henry Sacheverell’s trial, his punishment, and triumph.

A celebrated female historian has well observed, that it is difficult to say “which is most worthy of ridicule,—the ministry, in arming all the powers of government in their attack upon an obscure individual, or the public, in supporting a culprit whose doctrine was more odious than his insolence, and his principles yet more contemptible than his parts.”[^[150]]

This “trumpeter of sedition,” as Cunningham calls him, or, according to the ladies and other zealous partisans of his day, this persecuted saint, was a preacher of little merit, but of great pretensions; who, in a discourse delivered on the fifth of November, 1709, at St. Paul’s cathedral, attacked Queen Elizabeth, decried the authors of the Revolution, abused the ministers of the reigning sovereign, and upheld the doctrines of divine right, in one “incoherent jumble,” at once passionate, ill constructed, and, one would have supposed, innocuous.

The subsequent trial and conviction of this agitator of the unsettled times in which he lived, have been copiously detailed in history. There has doubtless been many a more solemn, but there assuredly never was a more singular scene than that which was exhibited in Westminster Hall on the day of his trial. A court was prepared exactly in the form of a tribunal in the House of Lords, and seats were placed for the peers. The Queen herself attended, as a private individual, in a box placed near the throne, with a curtain drawn between her and the assembly. The hero of the piece, Dr. Sacheverell, came forward to the bar with Dr. Atterbury and Dr. Smalridge, two Tory prelates, and made his obeisance to the court, with all the effrontery and indifference which marked his whole career.

The court was thronged without by an infuriated mob, ready to wreak, in deeds of vengeance, the excitement which they called religious zeal, on the opposing party, should Sacheverell suffer the penalties of the misdemeanors with which he was charged. Within, the enclosure of the stately pile was lined with ladies of rank, who dreaded, says Cunningham, lest the “Observer” or the “Tatler” should satirise their dress and conduct; yet none who could enter, absented themselves from a scene so full of interest and diversion. The known inclination of the Queen to favour the doctrines advanced by Sacheverell, however preposterous and derogatory to her own right, induced many fair politicians, who went to see and to be seen, to harass their minds with discussions upon those knotty points, the fallaciousness of which it is far better to leave to practical experience to prove, than to seek to expose by arguments which only inflame the passions.

All listened with interest to the numerous charges, amongst which was the grave accusation of having plainly called the Lord High Treasurer of this kingdom “Volpone;” but, after the elaborate and learned speeches made in this famous cause by the managers of the House of Commons; when the lawyers and judges had been duly listened to,—after the doctor’s own counsel had spoken, he himself replied to the charges in an able oration, stated not to be his own. After expatiating upon the dignity of the holy order to which he belonged, he called solemnly upon the Searcher of hearts to witness that he entertained no seditious designs, and was wholly innocent of the crimes alleged against him. When he had concluded, a general sentiment of indignation pervaded the assembly. The Countess of Sunderland, pious, sincere, young in the ways of a corrupt court, was so affected by this appeal to God, that she could not help shedding tears at what she believed to be falsehood and blasphemy.[^[151]]

Sacheverell, however, returned in triumph to his lodgings in the Temple; and his sentence, which was suspension from preaching for three years, though not so severe as had been contemplated, was followed by riots, both in London and in the country, similar in spirit and outrage to the famous disturbances which Lord George Gordon, a fanatic less reprehensible, and of less political importance, contrived many years afterwards to excite.

But the Whigs, unhappily, had failed in this trial of their power, and had foolishly betrayed their weakness. The Duke of Marlborough, who had recommended the prosecution of Sacheverell, “lest he should preach him and his party out of the kingdom,” must have repented, when it was too late, the adoption of counsels which hastened on the crisis that approached. Happily for the common sense of the nation, Sacheverell, intoxicated by the applause of the multitude, soon showed his motives and character in their true light. He paraded the country, intermeddling with the affairs of others, and assuming a sort of spiritual authority wherever he went. He performed a tour to congratulate his party on his and their common safety; and, as is usual, alas for womankind! his proselytes, his confidantes, the compassionate consolers for the contumacy which he received from men worthy of the name, were all misled, devoted, prejudiced women.

The Duke of Argyll, who had opposed his sentence, hearing that Sacheverell was going to call upon him to return him thanks, refused to receive him or his acknowledgments. “Tell him,” said the Duke, “that what I did in parliament was not done for his sake.”[^[152]]