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Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.
* * * * *
BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCCXXXVI. FEBRUARY, 1852. VOL. LXXI.
CONTENTS.
THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH, 135
MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. PART XVIII., 165
A CANTER TO CALIFORNIA, 187
STRUGGLES FOR FAME AND FORTUNE. PART II., 196
LONGFELLOW'S GOLDEN LEGEND, 212
BULL-FIGHTS, IN PICTURES AND PROSE, 225
CUPID IN THE CABINET.--AN ATTIC LEGEND, 231
THE OLD SOLDIER.--IN THREE CAMPAIGNS, 236
RESULTS OF REVOLUTION IN EUROPE, 242
EDINBURGH:
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET;
AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.
_To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed._
SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
NO. CCCCXXXVI. FEBRUARY, 1852. VOL. LXXI.
THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH.[1]
[1] _The Life of John Duke of Marlborough; with some Account of his
Contemporaries, and of the War of the Succession._ By ARCHIBALD
ALISON, LL.D. Second edition, greatly enlarged, 2 vols. 8vo. William
Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and London. 1852.
Mr Alison's _Life of the Duke of Marlborough_ is an enchaining
romance--the romance of a dazzling but stern reality; and
Marlborough is its equally stern and dazzling hero. It is, moreover,
a romance equally exciting and instructive to both soldier and
civilian; told, too, with the scrupulous truthfulness befitting
reality, and by one of sagacity sufficient to perceive that, by
so doing, he would preserve the ethereal essence of the romance,
rendering it intense to the reader for mere excitement, (whose name,
alas! is now legion,) while irradiating the path of the plodding
inquirer after mere matter of fact. We assert that in these volumes
are to be found many essential elements of the most enthralling
romance of actual life.[2] Hairbreadth personal 'scapes of the
hero, from captivity and death; glorious battles, but of long
doubtful issue; devouring and undying love; plots and counterplots
without end, now on a grand, then on a paltry scale, national and
individual; implacable animosities, deadly jealousies; enthusiastic
gratitude suddenly converted into execrable ingratitude; court
favour now blazing in its zenith, then suddenly and disastrously
eclipsed; stern fortitude, magnificent heroism amidst exquisite
trials and tremendous dangers; the wasting anxieties of the
stateman's cabinet and the warrior's tent; what would one have more?
And yet there is more, and much more, to be found in these volumes,
as we shall hereafter see.
[2] "How much do the events of real life outstrip all that romance
has figured or would venture to portray!" observes Mr Alison, (vol.
i. p. 403,) in describing the pious and enthusiastic greeting given
by Prince Eugene to his aged mother, whom he had not seen since his
youth, having been driven into exile by the haughty Louis XIV., on
whom he had since inflicted such crushing defeats, and at whose
expense he had become so great a hero! This interview took place at
Brussels, whither Eugene eagerly repaired, immediately after the
bloody victory of Oudenarde. "The fortnight I spent with her was the
happiest of my life," said her laurelled son.
Mr Alison's hero is he who was known as "the handsome Englishman;" a
title conferred upon him, not by sighing ladies fair, but by a man
who saw him in his blooming youth, in his twenty-second year--by
no less a personage than the great warrior Turenne, under whose
auspices he began playing, very eagerly, the brilliant game of
soldiering. This was _in the matter_ (as the lawyers say) of the
French against the Dutch, wherein he learned the art by which he
afterwards gave his teachers fearful evidence of the extent of his
obligation to them.--And he _was_ handsome. Of that fact Mr Alison
has enabled us to judge, by a fine portrait, after Sir Godfrey
Kneller, of Marlborough, when in the prime of manhood. We cannot
conceive a nobler countenance than here looks on the reader; it is
the perfection of manly beauty. There is a certain serene frankness,
a dignity, a subdued vivacity and power in those symmetrical
features which would have enchanted Phidias. The Englishman thinks,
and his pulse quickens the while, of that countenance, now so
tranquil, suddenly inflamed at Blenheim, Ramilies, Oudenarde,
Lille, Malplaquet; then excited by the anxieties of harassing
statesmanship, and the indignities inflicted by envy, malevolence,
and ingratitude; by and by relaxed with grief, by the loss of
an only son; and finally beaming with proud tenderness upon a
beautiful, gifted, idolised, and idolising wife--one who, after
his death, loftily spurned a ducal suitor for her widowed hand,
saying, "If you were the emperor of the world, I would not permit
you to succeed in that heart which has been devoted to John Duke
of Marlborough."[3] No man or woman can read these words without
a swelling heart, and a belief, which he would be loth to have
disturbed, that they indicated a noble nature. What must such a man,
he will say, have thought of such a woman? what must such a woman
have felt for such a man? Each bound to the other, through all the
vicissitudes of life, in adamantine bonds of love and admiration!
each, too, possessing great qualities, materially affecting those
of the other, as well for good as for evil. Nor was this remarkable
man possessed of a handsome countenance only. His person and gesture
were dignified, graceful, and commanding. He had indeed a signal
_presence_; he was a perfect master of manner, and his address was
so exquisitely fascinating as to dissolve fierce jealousies and
animosities, lull suspicion, and beguile the subtlest diplomacy
of its arts. His soothing smile and winning tongue, equally with
his bright sword, affecting the destinies of empires. Before the
bland, soft-spoken commander, "grim-visaged war" in the person of
Charles XII. of Sweden, "smoothed his wrinkled front," and the
rigid warrior-king, at his instance, bade adieu to the grand and
importunate suitor for his alliance, Louis XIV., whom it was the
great mission of Marlborough to defeat and humble. The consummate
diplomatist was never--no, not for an instant--thrown off his
guard: his watchfulness knew no relaxation; and his penetration
into the designs of the most astute was quick as profound. He was,
in fact, equally great in camp and cabinet--born for the conduct of
affairs, which he regulated with a sort of frigid masterliness: a
condition, however, which he maintained by rigorous self-command;
for, as we shall in due time see, he had powerful feelings and
quick sensibilities. Lord Bolingbroke said of him, that "he was
the greatest general and greatest minister that this country or
any other had produced--the perfection of genius, matured by
experience." If we may presume to say it, he appears to have been
one of those raised by Providence as a great instrument, for a great
exigency in the affairs of mankind. It is true that Marlborough had
his faults, and grave ones; but the genius of history is, in such a
case, equally outraged by an attempt at suppression or exaggeration.
"In estimating the character of the dead," justly observes Mr
Aytoun, in his able vindication of the memory of Claverhouse against
certain incautious allegations of Mr Macaulay, "some weight ought
surely to be given to the opinion of contemporaries;" and one of the
Duke of Marlborough's most eminent military rivals and political
opponents, the celebrated Earl of Peterborough, said of him, in a
noble spirit, "He was so great a man, _that I have forgotten his
faults_."[4] But can History? No: she abdicates her functions,
unless she records truthfully, for the guidance of mankind, both
the faults and the excellencies of the great characters whom she
has undertaken to delineate. Without scrupulous fidelity here,
history may degenerate into a libel, and a lie--a lie of unspeakable
baseness, for it is regarding the dead, who cannot burst indignant
from the tomb in which they were laid with honour, it may have been
amidst the tears and sighs of a proud and bereaved nation;--a lie
of unspeakable wickedness, for it is designed to live, and, living,
to lie to all future ages, in proportion to the strength of the pen
which writes it. These are truths to which the heart of mankind
instantly responds; and we enunciate them here, only by way of
making _continual claim_, to adopt the now exploded phraseology of
English law, upon the attention of all biographers and historians.
Not that we think this to have been rendered necessary by any recent
and glaring cases--for we know of none whatever among English men
of letters, in the departments just referred to, in which we have
detected any _intention_ to slander the dead, or misrepresent the
living. We indignantly repudiate the bare possibility; and only
desire to impress the necessity of a caution all but excessive, in
making derogatory imputations upon the dead, through placing too
great a reliance upon the tittle-tattle of days gone by, written
or spoken; upon the means of knowledge possessed by those who
gave currency to discreditable rumours; and the trustworthiness
of contemporaries, often eager rivals outwitted in the game, and
distanced in the race of life and distinction, by him whom they
thereupon revengefully resolve to blacken before the eyes of
posterity. We concur, in a word, cordially with Lord Mahon in saying
that which we are bound to add he has uniformly acted up to, in
his candid, luminous, and elegant _History_: "Unjustly to lower
the fame of a political adversary, or unjustly to raise the fame
of an ancestor--to state any fact without sufficient authority, or
draw any character without thorough conviction, implies not merely
literary failure, _but moral guilt_."[5]
[3] ALISON, vol. ii. p. 320.
[4] Mr Alison seems to attribute this speech, or a similar one, to
Lord Bolingbroke.
[5] _History of England, from the Peace of Utrecht to that of
Aix-la-Chapelle_, vol. i. p. 3.
That the Duke of Marlborough is one of the foremost figures in the
picture of England's glory, in that radiant quarter crowded by her
warriors and statesmen, is undeniable; and so is Lord Bacon, who
stands forth among her philosophers a very giant. But would any
biographer or historian deal justly, who failed to apprise us of the
real blot upon the character of each? Surely, however, he would not
dwell upon that blot with eagerness or exultation! but point it out
in the spirit of a benignant sadness--in the reluctant discharge
of a painful duty--and that only after having deliberately weighed
everything that a judicial mind would require, before arriving at a
conclusion so humiliating to humanity.
Four living writers--of high personal character, of great eminence
in the ranks of literature, and characterised almost equally by
painstaking industry in the collection of materials, but clothing
the results of their researches in very different styles of
composition--have respectively placed on record their deliberate
estimate of the moral and political character of the Duke of
Marlborough. These writers are--Mr Hallam, Lord Mahon, Mr Macaulay,
and Mr Alison. Mr Hallam's writings are already English classics.
He is a stern, straightforward, independent, learned man, of great
and exact knowledge. His style is pure, yet characterised chiefly
by a kind of rugged vigour. Thus has _he_, in his Constitutional
History, dealt with the Duke of Marlborough: "What, then, must
we think, if we find, in the whole of this great man's political
life, nothing but ambition and rapacity in his motives, nothing
but treachery and intrigue in his means? In short, his whole life
was such a picture of meanness and treachery that we must rate
military services very high indeed, to preserve any esteem for his
memory." "The extreme selfishness and treachery of his character
make it difficult to believe that he had any further view than
to secure himself in the event of a revolution, which he deemed
probable. His interest, which was always his deity, did not lie in
that direction; and his great sagacity must have perceived it."
These are blighting words, and they fall from a writer of great
authority, yet liable to the suspicion of occasionally labouring,
however unconsciously, under political bias. Lord Mahon, in his
_History of England_, speaks with the utmost temper, forbearance,
and unwillingness, but in unequivocal condemnation of one important
act of Marlborough. He states that "the extent of infidelity" to
the cause of the Revolution, among leading ministerial statesmen,
"which has more recently come to light from the publication of
original papers, is truly appalling. Above all, it is with shame
and sorrow that I write it, the Duke of Marlborough's conduct to
the Stuarts is, indeed, a foul blot on his illustrious name." After
reciting facts which seem, unfortunately, incontestable, he adds,
mournfully, "What defence can possibly be offered for such conduct?"
Mr Macaulay writes in a spirit of deadly detestation of Marlborough.
This gentleman, it need hardly be said, is a gifted disciple of the
same political school as Mr Hallam; and, without desiring to convey
erroneous inferences and impressions, he seems to us, nevertheless,
a glaring instance of one-sidedness. Mr Macaulay is a man of very
great ability; and his History promises to constitute a splendid
addition to the stock of enduring English literature. It will also
have a powerful and wide-spread influence, whether for good or for
evil, over the minds not only of literary and political students,
but of that huge class who are content to let others think for them;
for its tone is one very confident and peremptory; the knowledge
which it displays is obviously as extensive as minute; and he is
a consummate master of English, and writes with such alluring
brilliance as renders it nearly impossible to lay down his volumes
till the perusal of them has been finished, or to pause, as one goes
along, to reflect and weigh. Hence the great moral responsibility
which such a writer incurs; and all are interested in warning him,
as he proceeds with his great undertaking, to throw himself as
thoroughly as he may be able into the _judicial_ character. We wish
that such a writer had never cared a single straw for either Whig or
Tory! As for his style, it is one of ceaseless glitter, and lacks
the simplicity, _repose_, and dignity of history. What a contrast
to the immortal composition of Hume! to whom he stands in perilous
proximity, absolutely challenging comparison. Before parting with
this brilliant writer, we would, as one of the public which is
proud of him, offer him, in the most friendly spirit, an earnest
hint that he would, in continuing his labours, disengage the true
events of history from merely local and temporary details; and be
searchingly on his guard in dealing with characters and principles
which run counter to his own views and opinions. Let us now see in
what terms Mr Macaulay has ventured to speak of one of the greatest
men who ever figured in our history. He says that Marlborough was a
man "not less distinguished by avarice and baseness than by capacity
and energy--as one whose renown was strangely made up of infamy and
glory; thrifty in his very vices, levying ample contributions on
ladies enriched by the spoils of more liberal lovers." A "letter
written with a certain elevation, was a sure mark that he was going
to commit a baseness." Another is written "with that decorum which
he never failed to preserve in the midst of guilt and dishonour."
And finally, he _already_ thus stands before posterity in the pages
of Mr Macaulay:--
"So inconsistent is human nature, that there are tender spots
even in seared consciences. And thus this man, [!] who had
owed his rise in life to his sister's shame, who had been kept
by the most profuse, imperious, and shameless of harlots, and
whose public life, to those who can look steadily through the
dazzling blaze of genius and glory, will appear a prodigy of
turpitude, believed implicitly in the religion which he had
learned [!] as a boy, and shuddered at the thought of formally
abjuring it. A terrible alternative was before him. The earthly
evil which he most dreaded was poverty. The one crime from
which his heart recoiled was apostacy. And if the designs of the
Court succeeded, he could not doubt that, between poverty and
apostacy, he must soon make his choice. He therefore determined
to cross those designs; and it soon appeared that there was no
guilt and no disgrace which he was not ready to incur, in order
to escape from the necessity of parting either with his places
or with his religion."[6]
[6] MACAULAY'S _History of England, from the Accession of James
II._, p. 255.
Such was Marlborough, according to Mr Macaulay; and when we bear in
mind that he has yet to deal with thirty-four years' public life of
this illustrious personage, whom he may at this moment be painting
in, if possible, still darker colours than the above, we may feel
excused in feeling anxiety, not only on patriotic grounds, but on Mr
Macaulay's own account.
The last of our four living writers dealing with Marlborough is Mr
Alison--a gentleman who has conferred world-wide service, and earned
an enduring celebrity in English letters, by the fidelity and power
with which he has recorded the mightiest series of events which the
world has hitherto seen, and enforced their true teaching. That his
_History of Europe_ is not open to criticism, it were childishness
to deny; but the _maculæ_ totally disappear when set against his
uniform and even fastidious fidelity, his prodigious industry, his
dispassionate candour in dealing with men and events, his huge
accumulation of important, instructive, and deeply-interesting
facts--which, but for him, might have been irrecoverably scattered
abroad--and his vivid and picturesque eloquence. Few must they be
of his readers who have not hung breathless over his battle-scenes
on flood and field; hearing again the awful roar of the cannonade,
the deadly rattle of musketry, the thundering charge of cavalry, the
steady tramp of vast columns of infantry; beholding the glistening
of sabre and bayonet, and all the bloody scene, now fearfully
visible, and then, again, as fearfully invisible, for a while,
amid the sulphurous smoke! Again, Mr Alison always _places_ his
attentive reader well, before entering into the battle or siege;
giving him an admirable, idea of localities, without a knowledge
of which his picture would become like the cloudy but glistening
confusion of the later productions of Turner. All this, however, is
subordinate to the moral and political aspect of those turbulent
times and multitudinous transactions with which Mr Alison had to
deal--an aspect which he keeps steadily before his reader's eye,
and thus instructs while delighting him; making the past truly and
practically tributary to the future. He is ever watchful of the
effect produced on affairs, civil or military, by overmastering
personal character, which, with its workings, he develops patiently
and distinctly: and so with combinations of men and parties; with
systems of policy abruptly changed, or subtilely varied to suit
purposes, and gain objects, not at first sight visible or easily
suspected. Either by natural constitution or from long habit, there
may be observed in Mr Alison a disposition to take large views
of human affairs--to deal with mankind and their transactions in
masses, and on a grand scale--a tendency this, which, if accompanied
by accurate thinking, and due attention to details, proportionably
indicates the highest order of historical genius. But we must
repeat the remark, and with it close these general observations,
that Mr Alison's capital qualification as an author, especially
a biographical and historical author, appears to us to be his
unvarying love of truth, in comparison with which all other objects
which can be contemplated by an author are absolutely as nothing.
It was with no little interest that we saw the announcement of Mr
Alison's being engaged upon an elaborate Life of Marlborough, who
would now be depicted by the same brilliant and faithful pencil
which has delineated Wellington. These are two of the names which
glitter brightest in the rolls of fame, and Mr Alison is able
thoroughly to appreciate each. Let us ask, in passing, what if these
two heroes had changed times and places? Each was thrown on troubled
and terrible times; each possessed great intellect, and resplendent
military genius. Would Marlborough have played Wellington's, or he
Marlborough's part, on the scene of moral and political action? As
far as the illustrious living hero is concerned, the question admits
of an instant answer.
We have now, however, the character of Marlborough fairly delivered
into the hands of Mr Alison, to be dealt with according to truth
and honour. Will he concur with Mr Hallam and Mr Macaulay? If he
do, Marlborough must, we suppose, be henceforth regarded as a sort
of splendid fiend--revelling in his defiance of the precepts of
honour, morality, and religion; prostituting transcendent powers
for the basest purposes, and exhibiting the vices of our nature in
colossal proportions.--Can Mr Alison vindicate his hero against the
sorrowful censures of his noble brother historian? No: he does not
attempt it. On the contrary, he is even more emphatic in denouncing
the faithlessness of Marlborough than Lord Mahon, placing his
treachery to James II., "in a moral point of view," even deeper
in infamy than that of Marshal Ney. "And yet," says he, "such is
often the inequality of crimes and punishments in this world, that
Churchill was raised to the pinnacle of greatness by the very
treachery which consigned Ney, with justice, so far as his conduct
is concerned, to an ignominious death. History forgets its first and
noblest duty when it fails, by its distribution of praise and blame,
to counterbalance, as far as its verdict can, this inequality,
which, for inscrutable, but doubtless wise purposes, Providence has
permitted, in this transient scene. Charity forbids us to scrutinise
such conduct too closely."[7] This is conceived in a spirit at once
generous and just; and the acknowledgment thus early and pointedly,
of Marlborough's great fault, is marked by signal discretion, such
as is likely to carry the reader cheerfully along with his author,
and induce a hearty concurrence in his ultimate conclusion. We
rejoice, then, that Marlborough has fallen into such hands; and
shall proceed, as briefly as is consistent with our space, and
the importance of the subject--for it is of importance, and great
importance too, and Mr Alison's is a very _timely_ biography, as we
shall soon show--to give such an account of the contents of these
two volumes as will, unless we are mistaken, induce our readers to
become his.
[7] ALISON'S _Marlborough_, vol. i. p. 16, 17, 18.
There are four reasons why we regard Mr Alison's new work as
specially well-timed; and we believe that our readers will, without
difficulty, concur in these reasons. First, _a full_, _fair_, and
_popular_ biography, personal, political, and military, of the great
Duke of Marlborough, has recently become a matter of mere justice,
because of the blighting disparagement of his conduct and character
which Mr Macaulay has so recently exhibited in his widely-circulated
volumes, and is doubtless at this moment engaged, _totis viribus_,
in enhancing. Secondly, because a great store of invaluable
materials for such a biography is in existence, the principal
portion having only recently become so, continuing, however, in a
state which renders the whole but a sealed book to the public at
large. Thirdly, Mr Alison is peculiarly qualified to deal with this
state of things, by his unbiassed faithfulness, and the multifarious
qualifications which he has acquired in the preparation of his
_magnum opus_, the _History of Europe during the French Revolution_.
Lastly, because of the course of public events, now daily becoming
the source of greater anxiety to those who look beneath the surface,
and would apply effectually the experience of the past, in order
to comprehend our present position, and provide against our dark
and--as to some eyes it may well appear--blood-red future. Let us
recur for a moment to the second of these reasons, in order to give
the reader a just idea of his obligations to Mr Alison. He may be
said to have sunk shafts into five mines. First, the _Marlborough
Despatches_, which had lain buried in an unaccountable manner till
the month of October 1842, when they were accidentally discovered,
under a mass of old military accounts, and other waste paper, by
Mr Whately, the solicitor of the present Duke of Marlborough.
In the lumber-room of a house for a long series of years used as
the steward's residence, there lay, one upon another, three large
boxes; and it was in the undermost one that Mr Whately made the
fortunate discovery, with which his name will ever be deservedly
associated, of eighteen folio books, bound in vellum--inestimable
documents! "being," says that gentleman, "manuscript copies of
despatches and letters of John Duke of Marlborough, in English,
French, and some few in Latin,"--extending over the resplendent
_decennium_ from 1702-1712. These had been, to that moment, totally
unknown to any one living; and, what is exceedingly singular, had
also escaped the watchful and anxious eye of Archdeacon Coxe, the
author of the compendious, elaborate, and authentic "Life" of the
great Duke. These precious documents were placed in the hands of an
eminent and accomplished military authority, the late Sir George
Murray, who published at intervals, beginning in 1845, a selection
from the _Despatches_, in five large octavo volumes, most ably
edited, with copious historical and military notes. As Mr Alison
has remarked, Sir George's _Marlborough Despatches_ constitute a
work of inestimable importance to the historian, and also to the
military reader; but they will rarely, if ever, be opened by the
general reader. We ourselves have turned from its pages, more than
once, hopelessly, with yet a feeling that they contained matter
of great interest and importance to a competent and determined
military or historical reader. This is Mr Alison's first and richest
mine, sunk in his own country. In quest of another he crosses the
Channel, and there encounters the _Military Life of Marlborough_,
in three volumes, written in France in 1807, at the instance of
his mighty admirer, Napoleon:[8] "towards the composition of
which," says Sir George Murray, "every facility of information
was afforded which the power of the Emperor could command." This
Mr Alison pronounces "the best military narrative of the Duke's
exploits which has yet appeared." But Mr Alison is indebted to
France for another grand source of authentic information on "the
Continental side of the great wars waged by Marlborough"--General
_Pelot's_ Collection of original Memoirs and Despatches, published
in nine quarto volumes, and entitled, "_Mémoires Militaire Rélatifs
à la Succession d'Espagne_." Again, we have the _Dutch_ account
of this ever-memorable war, published at the Hague in 1721--the
"magnificent work" of _Rousset_, in three volumes folio. And yet
again, _Kausler's_ "admirable summary of great battles, collected
from the best authorities, and annexed to his splendid military
Atlas." To these must be added, Archdeacon Coxe's _Life_, in three
volumes quarto--"the most authentic and valuable which exists,"
founded on a close examination of all the correspondence known to be
in existence at the time; but liable to a serious drawback--that "it
is long and expensive, and too full of long documents, and letters,
_in the text_." What are all these works, exclaims the embarrassed
general reader, to _me_?--having neither time, nor inclination, nor
means for mastering them? You might as well place a man seeking
for a richly-chased golden goblet in the midst of the Californian
or Australian gold-fields, and point him with exultation to piles
of sacks filled with the auriferous dust! Now Mr Alison has, in
the two moderate-sized volumes before us, presented the impatient
applicant with his desired goblet, and entitled himself thereby to
due gratitude. He is scrupulous in owning his obligations, and also
in enabling his reader at once, if disposed, to verify facts, and
extend his inquiries, by placing at the end of every paragraph, as
in his _History of Europe_, the authorities on which that paragraph
is founded. To these are added a very carefully-prepared map of
France and the Netherlands, "so arranged as to show the positions of
every place, in strict accordance with the text;" and plans of the
battles, accurately reduced from the great German work of Kausler,
"so well known from the splendour of its finishing, and the accuracy
of its details." To all this we have yet to add, that Mr Alison
appears also to have consulted every other work hitherto published,
having reference to the personal or military life of his hero, and
to be familiarly acquainted with everything of importance that has
appeared, either contemporaneously or subsequently, concerning the
part which the Duke of Marlborough took, or is supposed to have
taken, in the momentous politics of the day.
[8] "Napoleon hummed the well-known air, _Malbrook s'en va-t-en
guerre_, when he crossed the Niemen to commence the Russian
campaign. The French nurses used to frighten their children with
stories of _Marlbrook_!--as the Orientals, when their horses start,
say they see the shadow of Richard Coeur-de-Lion crossing their
path."--_Pref._, iv. v.
We have taken the trouble of being thus particular, out of justice
to Mr Alison; for without this detail, neither the value nor the
extent of his labours could have been appreciated by the reader;
who, if he share our fate, will be carried evenly and rapidly
along, from the beginning to the end of these two eloquent volumes,
charmed with the result, but never adverting to the laborious and
praiseworthy _process_. And we repeat that all this is thoroughly
_tanti_--as a matter of even justice to the sedulously-slandered
illustrious dead, in this respect sharing the fate of a prophet,
who is not without honour, _save in his own country_, (for abroad,
Marlborough's memory is radiant with imperishable glory,) and also
because, as we have intimated, there is a portentous resemblance
between Marlborough's time and our own. He was the great champion
of Protestantism, in its tremendous encounter with Popery, of which
Louis XIV. was the worthy and formidable exponent. "The siege of
Lille," says Mr Alison, at the close of his first volume, "one of
the most memorable and glorious of which there is any mention in
history, like those of Troy and Carthage in ancient, and Malta and
Jerusalem in modern times, was not merely the theatre of contest
between rival powers, but of struggle between contending principles
and rival faiths. The great contest between the Romish Church and
the Reformation ultimately issued, as all such schisms in belief
must issue, in a terrible war. Louis was the head of the ancient,
Marlborough the champion of the new, faith. The circumstance of
the Spanish Succession was but an accident, which brought into
the field forces on either side, previously arranged under these
opposite banners. It was the great division of men's minds which
drew them forth, in such strength, into the field of war."[9] Now
let any _thinking_ person of 1852 survey the existing attitudes of
these fearful and implacable belligerents, as exhibited in their
relations, both in this country and on the Continent, and in certain
recently-developed political conditions, which they are rapidly
moulding, and arranging with a view to action on a scale such as the
world has perhaps never witnessed; and the "boldest may hold his
breath for a time." He will at length, probably, ask, not without
anxiety--Where are we to look for _our_ Marlborough by and by? and
perhaps he may add, with an indignant sigh, We would not treat him
as our fathers treated _theirs_!
[9] Vol. i. p. 447, 448.
The romance of the _Life of Marlborough_ begins with the very
beginning of that life. He bursts upon us a beautiful boy,
fascinating everybody by his charming manners--the little heir to
the all but ruined fortunes of an ancient and loyal family, which,
on the father's side, had come in with the Conqueror, while in his
mother's veins ran the blood of the illustrious Sir Francis Drake.
He had an only sister, who, a victim to the licentiousness of the
times, became mistress of the future James II., the great patron of
her brother, and to whom she bore a son: who, as Duke of Berwick,
was destined, almost single-handed, to uphold the tottering throne
of Louis XIV. against the terrible sword of her brother! That
son, commanding the forces of France and Spain during the War of
the Succession, almost counterbalanced, by his military genius,
his uncle's victories in Germany and Flanders! Lord Bolingbroke
said of the nephew, that "he was the _best_ great man that ever
existed"--and of the uncle, that "he was the perfection of genius,
matured by experience--the greatest general and greatest minister
that our country, or any other, has produced." These two great
personages were signalised by the same grand qualities of military
genius, of humanity in war, of virtuous conduct in private life:
would, however, we could say that the elder hero had no bar sinister
on his moral, as the younger had on his heraldic, 'scutcheon!
Forgetting, however, for a moment, that solitary blot--would we
could forget it for ever!--let us concur with Mr Alison in noting
so singular and interesting a coincidence, that "England has equal
cause to be proud of her victories, and her defeats, in that
warfare; for they both were owing to the military genius of the same
family, and that, one _of her own_."[10] There was a difference of
twenty years between them; and it is again singular, that each, at
the same early age, fifteen, showed a sudden irrepressible ardour
for arms, impelling them, at the same age, to quit the seductive
splendour of the court of Charles II. for foreign service--the
uncle, as a volunteer in the expedition to Tangiers, against the
Moors; the nephew, twenty years afterwards, against the Turks,
under Charles, duke of Lorraine, in Hungary. It is indeed a most
extraordinary fact, already adverted to, that, while the uncle all
but subverted the throne of France by his Flemish campaigns, and,
but for infamous domestic faction, would have done so, his nephew,
single-handed, preserved that of Spain for the house of Bourbon! If
this be the first step in this romance of reality, the next is one
profoundly suggestive to a contemplative mind. We have spoken of a
splendid _Decennium_ in the Duke of Marlborough's campaigns--that
from 1702 to 1712. But what a preceding _Quinquennium_--that
from 1672 to 1677--have we here, for a moment, before us! The
"handsome young Englishman"--an idol among the profligate beauties
of the court of Charles II.--had made at length a conquest of his
celebrated and favourite mistress, the Countess of Castlemaine,
afterwards Duchess of Cleveland. To remove so dangerous a rival
in her fickle affections,[11] Charles gave him a company in the
Guards, and then sent him to the Continent--_proh pudor_!--to _aid_
Louis XIV. in subduing the United Provinces. There he sedulously
learnt the art of war under Louis's consummate generals, Turenne,
Condé, and Vauban: thus acquiring, under Louis's own auspices,
that masterly knowledge of the science of war, which was destined
to be wielded so soon afterwards, with triumphant and destructive
energy, against himself! How little was such a contingency dreamed
of, when Louis XIV. publicly, at the head of his army, thanked the
handsome young hero for his services, and afterwards prevailed on
his brother sovereign, Charles, to promote him to high command!
And here is suggested the first of several deeply interesting and
instructive parallels to be found in this work, between our own
incomparable Wellington, and his illustrious predecessor: that
Wellington went through the same practical course of study, but
in inverse order--his first campaign being _against_ the French,
in Flanders, and his next against the bastions of Tippoo, and the
Mahratta horse, in Hindostan. Shortly after his return occurred
that event which is of great importance in the lives of all men
to whom it happens--marriage; but which to the young soldier was
pregnant, for both good and evil, with immense influence upon the
whole of his future career, and also upon his personal character.
He married the beautiful lady in attendance on the Princess
Anne--Miss Sarah Jennings, of spotless purity of character, and like
himself, of an ancient and ruined Royalist family. He was then in
his twenty-eighth, she in her eighteenth year: and, to anticipate
for a moment, after a fond union of forty-four years' duration, he
died in his seventy-second year; she, twenty-two years afterwards,
in her eighty-fourth! Want of fortune for some time delayed their
union, which, however, an enthusiastic declaration of his passion at
length accelerated. She married, in the young and already celebrated
general, a man of not only transcendent capacity, but gentle and
generous feelings, and a magnanimity which displayed itself on a
thousand trying occasions. Their hearts were passionately true to
each other, through every moment of their protracted union. Her
fair fame was never, even in those days of impunity, tarnished by
the momentary breath of slander. She possessed great talents, but
was also of a haughty ambitious temper, bent upon aggrandisement,
and grievously avaricious; and to the ascendency over her husband,
which she maintained unabated from first to last, may perhaps be
attributed the development of those features in his character which
have excited the grief of honourable posterity, and afforded scope
for the foulest misrepresentations of his conduct and motives to
contemporary and succeeding traducers, rabid with the virus of
political hostility. Though impatient to quit the topic, but only
for the present, we shall here advert to Marlborough's inexcusable
conduct towards James II., for the purpose of citing a passage
in the Duchess's own Vindication, on which Mr Macaulay relies,
as conclusively demonstrating the mercenary motives influencing
Marlborough. That passage, however, does not necessarily sustain the
imputation made by Mr Macaulay, though it may justify a suspicion
of the sort of motives which _she_ might have been in the habit of
urging on her confiding husband:--"It were evident to all the world
that, as things were carried on by King James II., everybody, sooner
or later, _must be ruined_ who would not become a Roman Catholic.
_This_ consideration made me very well pleased at the Prince of
Orange's undertaking to rescue me from such slavery."[12]
[10] Vol. ii. p. 298.
[11] It would seem that Charles II. would have surprised him, on
one occasion, in the company of the Countess; but, to save her
credit with the King, he leaped through the window at the risk
of his life; in return for which she presented him with £5000.
With reference to this latter part of the business may be noted a
diversity between two of Marlborough's biographers. Archdeacon Coxe
ludicrously attempts to explain this splendid present of £5000, on
the ground of Churchill's being in some way _distantly related_ to
the Duchess! "If the reverend Archdeacon," says Mr Alison--with a
quaint approach to sarcasm very rare with him--"had been as well
acquainted with _women_ as he was with _his books_, he would have
known that beautiful ladies do not, in general, bestow £5000 on
distant cousins, whatever they may do on favourite lovers!"
[12] MACAULAY, 256, note.
That Marlborough should be in high favour with William III. may
be easily conceived; for he not only essentially facilitated
the enterprise of William, but actively supported him in all
those critical measures necessary to consolidate his power and
strengthen his novel and splendid position. He acquitted himself
so admirably in the Netherlands in 1689, in Ireland in 1690, and
again in Flanders in 1691, where he served under William himself,
that he was on the way to almost unbounded power with William.
But behold! to the consternation of the whole country, almost
immediately after his return with William, early in 1692, he was
suddenly arrested and committed to the Tower, on a charge of _high
treason_, in having entered into an association for bringing about
the restoration of James II.! As the charge, however, could not be
legally substantiated--and was indeed proved to have been supported
by fabricated evidence[13]--he was liberated, but not restored for
a considerable time to his former position, there being good reason
for believing him, at all events, no stranger to a clandestine
correspondence with the exiled family. Well, indeed, may Lord
Mahon lament his "perseverance in these deplorable intrigues."[14]
We concur with Mr Alison in his remark, that, with all the light
subsequently thrown on Marlborough's history, upon this portion of
it there still rests a mystery: and moreover, within five years
afterwards he was completely reinstated in William's confidence; and
in June 1698 the King positively intrusted his recently-discarded
servant with the all-important function of tutor to the young
Duke of Gloucester, William's nephew, and heir-presumptive to the
throne!--saying, on apprising him of the appointment, "My lord,
_make my nephew to resemble yourself_, and he will be everything
which I can desire!" When William's stern and guarded character is
borne in mind, this transaction becomes exceedingly remarkable.
Marlborough continued ever after to rise higher and higher in the
confidence of his sovereign, who thrice named him one of the Lords
Justiciars, to whom the administration of affairs in this country
was intrusted, during William's absence in Holland; and also
appointed him, in 1701, ambassador-extraordinary at the Hague, and
commander-in-chief of the Allied forces in Flanders. This double
appointment, observes Mr Alison, in effect invested Marlborough
with the entire direction of affairs civil and military, so far
as England was concerned, on the Continent. And even yet further,
previously to his unexpected death shortly afterwards, William
enjoined on his successor, the Princess Anne, that she should
intrust Marlborough with the supreme direction of the affairs of the
kingdom, both civil and military! Three days after her accession,
accordingly, she made him a Knight of the Garter, Captain-general
of the English forces at home and abroad, Master-general of the
Ordnance, and Plenipotentiary at the Hague; Lady Marlborough,
Mistress of the Robes and Ranger of Windsor Forest; and her two
daughters Ladies of the Bedchamber. He instantly went over to the
Netherlands to assume the command of the Allied army, sixty thousand
strong, then lying before Nimeguen, threatened by a superior
French force; and, after displaying infinite skill, succeeded in
constructing that famous Alliance which was soon to work such
wonders in Europe. Here commences the lustrous _decennium_ of which
we have spoken; and, most fortunately, here also, as we have seen,
commence the Despatches so recently recovered. Here he became
invested with that unsullied and imperishable glory, which dazzled
all eyes but those of his rancorous and inveterate detractors; who
were probably influenced not only by venomous jealousy, the canker
of little minds, but also, in no slight degree, by his having
extinguished all their fond hopes of his co-operation in restoring
the discarded Stuarts.
[13] ALISON, i. 22.
[14] MAHON, i. 21, 22.
From this point Mr Alison starts brilliantly on his course of
chequered and exciting narrative, military and political; revelling
amidst marches, counter-marches, feints, surprises, stratagems,
sieges, battles; intercalating vivid glimpses of domestic
tenderness, grief, and joy; then the plots and counter-plots of
tortuous faction and intrigue, in the senate, in the cabinet, and
even in the palace. And with all this, the interest ever centres in
one object--
"In shape and gesture proudly eminent,"
John Duke of Marlborough: not because the author appears to wish
it, but because of his faithfulness; he has almost unconsciously
exhibited his hero, equally whether off his guard or on his guard,
manifesting the full power and intensity of a grand character
impressing its will upon men and affairs, irresistibly, and in
defiance of agencies capable of annihilating one only a single
degree inferior to the energy which in Marlborough mastered
everything, everybody. "To write the life of Marlborough," said the
late eloquent Professor Smyth of Cambridge,[15] "is to write the
history of the reign of Queen Anne;" let us add--and also, to write
it in light. Mr Alison makes a similar observation in the preface to
his present work. He intimates that Marlborough was so great that
his Life runs into general history: exactly as he who undertakes
to write the history of the French Revolution will soon find his
narrative turn into the biographies of Wellington and Napoleon, so
he who sets about the Life of Marlborough will ere long find that
he has insensibly become engaged in a general history of the War of
the Succession. Well, be it so, if only because that war it is of
infinite importance to have better known than in fact it is.
[15] Lectures in Modern History, delivered in the University of
Cambridge, (Lecture xxiii.)
If Mr Alison's object, in the work before us, were to produce a
_biography_, to delineate character, and so to group events as to
illustrate _individuality_--he has eminently succeeded; but his very
success renders it difficult for those in our position to allow
him to speak for himself, as copiously as doubtless he, and also
our readers, would wish. As he has mastered his subject, so have
we mastered his treatment of it, as, at least, we suppose; and as
he took his own course, so shall we; wishing that we could give
our readers the pleasure which his book has afforded ourselves.
In order, however, to attain that object, they must read the book
itself; and to induce them to do so, we proceed to indicate its
leading characteristics in our own words, using his own, as far as
is consistent with our space and our object.
To appreciate the mighty doings of Marlborough, let us glance for a
moment at the position in which he found, and the position in which
he left, the redoubtable Louis XIV.--him whose memory is for ever
rendered detestable by his revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and
his bloody exterminating persecution of the Protestants. Marlborough
found him the centre of a galaxy of glory of almost every
description of military, political, and intellectual distinction. He
was blazing in the zenith of his power and success: he was making
France the world, and installing the Roman Catholic religion in a
black and bloody predominance. "Unbroken good fortune," says Mr
Alison, "had attended all his enterprises, since he had launched
into the career of foreign aggrandisement." But how did Marlborough
leave him? Let the dying monarch speak for himself. When he felt
death approaching, he ordered his infant heir, afterwards Louis XV.,
to be brought to his bedside; and placing his lean and withered
hand[16] on the head of the child, said with a firm voice,--"My
child, you are about to become a great king; but your happiness
will depend on your submission to God, and on the care which you
take of your subjects. To attain that, you must avoid as much as
you can engaging in wars, which are the ruin of the people: do not
follow in that respect the bad example which I have given you. I
have often engaged in wars from levity, and continued in them from
vanity. Do not imitate me, but become a pacific prince." Thus he had
learned, at last, a great lesson through the tremendous teaching of
Marlborough![17]
[16] ALISON, ii. p. 300.
[17] "Even the great William," says Professor Smyth, "trained
up amid a life of difficulties and war, with an intrepid heart
and a sound understanding, was able only to stay the enterprises
of Louis; successfully to resist, but not to humble him. It was
for Marlborough to teach that unprincipled monarch the danger
of ambition, and the instability of human grandeur; it was for
Marlborough to disturb his dreams of pleasure and of pride, by
filling them with spectres of terror and images of desolation." The
lecture from which this is taken is well worthy of a careful perusal.
That great man seems to have fathomed the character and the purposes
of Louis, in all their depth and comprehensiveness, from the first,
with an intuitive sagacity; and the patient determination with which
he carried out, under circumstances of unparalleled difficulty,
his own great conceptions, exhibits perhaps the grandest spectacle
that history can point to, in the case of a single individual. The
reader of these volumes will frequently boil over with indignation
at the obstacles which were thrown in the way of Marlborough, by
envy, faction, selfishness, and stupidity interposing, with a fell
punctuality, at almost every great crisis during his career, and
blighting the most splendid prospects of success. One only a little
inferior in magnanimity to Marlborough would have broken down on
many different occasions, and fled from the scene of action in
disgust and despair. With him, however, it was not so; and yet
he was a man of keen sensibility, and has left on record various
traces of heart-wrung anguish. Here are one or two, among many
scattered over these volumes:--"The unreasonable opposition I have
met with has so heated my blood that I am almost mad."--"I am, at
this moment, _ten years_ older than I was four days ago!"--"My
spirits are so broke, that whenever I can get from this employment,
I must live quietly, or die."--"My crosses make my life a burthen to
me." All this while, nevertheless, the great warrior-statesman was
steadily, yet rapidly, demolishing the vast fabric of French power
and glory, and building up in massive proportions that of his own
country. "More, perhaps, than to any other man," justly observes Mr
Alison at the close of his work, "Marlborough was the architect of
England's greatness; for he at once established on a solid basis
the Protestant succession, which secured its religious freedom,
and vanquished the formidable enemy which threatened its national
independence. His mighty arm bequeathed to his country the honour
and the happiness of the eighteenth century--the happiest period,
by the admission of all historians, which has dawned upon the world
since that of the Antonines in ancient story."[18]
[18] ALISON, ii. p. 347.
Let us now take a very hasty view of his radiant career, remembering
the while that he ever bore about with him that which hung like a
millstone round his neck--his indefensible conduct towards James
II., the recollection of which must have galled and chafed the
sensitive spirit of a soldier infinitely more than was known to any
human being.
Mr Alison opens with a very imposing picture of the state of
public affairs, both in this country and on the Continent, when
Marlborough commenced his campaigns; and also delineates with truth
and force the characters of the leading actors, all remarkable
personages. Louis XIV. stands foremost, and is sketched with
freedom and power.[19] Then come James II., William III., Queen
Anne, Charles XII., Prince Eugene, and last of all Marlborough,
who, at the close of his first campaign, was regarded, both at home
and abroad, as "The _Man of Destiny_, raised up by Providence to
rescue the Protestant religion and the liberties of Europe from
the thraldom of France."[20] It is impossible to conceive any
conjuncture of circumstances more critical and perilous than those
of this country at the period in question. Not only our religion,
but our independence as a nation, and the very existence of social
order, were at stake. If one may use such an expression, the odds
were immensely against us--against all who were opposed to the
giant energy of Louis XIV. The first step to be taken was to form
an alliance against him--and it was undertaken by Marlborough with
consummate ability; then to induce the British Cabinet to take its
right place as "the very soul of the Grand Alliance"--in that,
also, he at length succeeded; and then came the trumpet-sound of
war against France, which was forthwith proclaimed at London, the
Hague, and Vienna. Yet still a practical difficulty remained--one
of peculiar delicacy--for the post of commander-in-chief of the
allied forces was greatly coveted by several powerful candidates.
Marlborough's own sovereign, Queen Anne, so strongly supported
one of them--Prince George of Denmark, her husband--that she even
protested she would not declare war unless he was appointed. The
Dutch government, however, were resolute on behalf of Marlborough,
as the only man equal to sustain the fearful responsibility; and
thus Marlborough became invested with the chief direction, both
civil and military, of the forces of the coalition. And it was not
difficult to foresee the interminable anxieties and vexations which
were in store for him, derived from the jealousies and jarring
interests of the various states, their ministers and generals, who
were under the guidance of Marlborough. The plan of operations on
the part of Marlborough and Louis XIV. was as follows:--
"A German army, under Louis, Margrave of Baden, was to be
collected on the Upper Rhine, to threaten France from the side
of Alsace; a second corps, 25,000 strong, composed of Prussian
troops from the Palatinate, and Dutch under the Prince of
Sarbruck, was to undertake the siege of Kaiserworth; the main
army, under the orders of the Earl of Athlone, 35,000 strong,
was destined to cover the frontier of Holland from the Rhine to
the Meuse, and at the same time cover the siege of Kaiserworth;
a fourth body of 10,000, under Cohorn, the celebrated engineer,
was collected near the mouth of the Scheldt, and threatened the
district of Bruges.
"The preparations on the part of the French were not less
vigorous; and from the more concentrated position of their
troops, and unity of action among their commanders, they, in the
first instance, were enabled to bring a preponderating force
into the field. On the Lower Rhine, a force, under the Marquis
Bedmar and the Count de la Motte, were stationed opposite to
Cohorn, to protect the western Netherlands from insult; Marshal
Tallard was detached from the Upper Rhine, with 13,000 men, to
interrupt the siege of Kaiserworth; while the main army, under
the command nominally of the Duke of Burgundy, really of Marshal
Boufflers, a veteran and experienced officer, was stationed
in the bishopric of Liege, resting on the strong fortresses
with which that district of Flanders abounded. Not only were
the forces under his command superior by a third to those that
Athlone had at his disposal, the latter being 45,000, the former
only 35,000 strong, but they had the immense advantage of
being in possession of the whole strong places of Brabant and
Flanders, which were all garrisoned by French or Spanish troops,
forming not only the best and most secure possible basis for
offensive operations, but an iron defensive barrier, requiring
to be cut through in successive campaigns, and at an enormous
expenditure of blood and treasure, before by any road the
frontiers of France could be reached."[21]
[19] In Sir James Stephen's _Lectures on the History of France_,
just published, there is an admirable and elaborate portraiture of
Louis XIV. If the rest of the work is equal to this portion, which
is all that we have as yet been able to examine, Cambridge has cause
to congratulate herself on the accession of so accomplished and able
a professor of modern history.
[20] ALISON, i. p. 108.
[21] ALISON, i. p. 92-3.
Such as it was, however, says Mr Alison, the barrier required to
be cut through; and Marlborough resolved to commence it with the
siege of Kaiserworth, a place of very great importance. He took
it--but at a cost of 5000 men; and then took Venloo, and finally
Liege--all places, of extreme importance, and desperately defended;
and with these feats he concluded the brief but brilliant, campaign
which laid the foundation of all his future victories. It stripped
the French of many of the chief advantages with which they had
opened the war. He had broken through their line, so formidable for
offensive and defensive war; he had "thrust his iron gauntlet," says
Mr Alison, "into the centre of their resources." And the entire
merit was his own, as Lord Athlone, his rival and second in command,
thus nobly testified:--"The success of the campaign is entirely
owing to its incomparable commander-in-chief; for I, the second in
command, was, on every occasion, _of an opposite opinion to that
which he adopted_!" His success was like a bright burst of sunshine
over a long-troubled land! But here an incident occurred which
might have ruined all. While dropping down the Meuse, on his return
to England at the conclusion of the campaign, he was positively
taken prisoner by a small French force,--whose commander, however,
ignorant of the prize which was within his reach, and skilfully
misled by a sagacious device of Marlborough's servant, suffered
him to depart! The peril in which he had been spread consternation
everywhere, equalled only by joy at his escape, which was powerfully
expressed to him by the Pensionary Heinsius. "Your captivity
was on the point of causing the slavery of these provinces, and
restoring to France the power of extending her uncontrollable
dominion over all Europe. No hope remained, if she had retained in
bondage the man whom we revere as the instrument of Providence to
restore independence to the greater part of the Christian world!"
On what apparently trivial incidents often depend the greatest
events that can happen to mankind! Marlborough was received with
transports in England, and raised to the dukedom of Marlborough.
The difficulties which the Dutch deputies had thrown in his way
during the first campaign, owing, says Mr Alison, to timidity,
ignorance of the military art, personal presumption, and the spirit
of party, on several great occasions thwarted the most decisive
measures of Marlborough,--but proved only a foretaste of what was
in store for the harassed commander. Mr Alison gives an interesting
letter which Marlborough wrote to his Countess, immediately on his
arrival at the Hague. It is full of the passionate fondness of a
lover to his mistress; yet was written by a man of fifty-two to
a wife to whom he had been married twenty-three years! There are
innumerable other instances, in these volumes, of the romantic
fervour of their attachment. Such was Marlborough's first campaign,
the herald of a long series of resplendent successes, many of them
marked by features similar to those of the first. "He never,"
indeed, "fought a battle which he did not gain, nor sat down before
a town which he did not take; and--alone of the great commanders
recorded in history--_never sustained a reverse_! On many occasions
throughout the war he was only prevented, by the timidity of the
Dutch deputies, or the feeble co-operation of the Allied powers,
from gaining early and decisive success; and as it was, he broke
the power of the Grand Monarque, and if his hands had not in the
end been tied up by an intrigue at home, he would have planted the
British standards on Montmartre, and anticipated the triumphs of
Blucher and Wellington." Here is the key to his position, from first
to last--an inkling of the tortures which wrung that great soul
throughout his career.
In this first campaign, Marlborough had laid the basis of great
operations--which, indeed, followed in such rapid succession, each
eclipsing its predecessor in magnitude of result and splendour
of achievement, as to throw its foregoer comparatively into the
shade. In order to appreciate the greatness of Marlborough, his
position--harassed daily by the jealousies and selfishnesses of the
Allied forces, which he commanded--should be compared with that
of Louis XIV., where all was an overwhelming _unity_ of will and
purpose, perfect subordination, accompanied by immense military
resources and consummate generalship. The war had, indeed, become
already one of awful magnitude; for Louis XIV. and his advisers
could not have failed to observe the settled determination of
purpose, and forecasting sagacity, which characterised their
great opponent. Louis brought all his power and resources to
bear upon the plan of a second and magnificent campaign; showing
that he felt the gravity of the situation, and the necessity of
making commensurate efforts. "The great genius of Louis XIV. in
strategy," says Mr Alison, "here shone forth in full lustre. Instead
of confining the war to one of forts and sieges in Flanders and
Italy, he resolved to throw the bulk of his forces at once into
Bavaria, and operate against Austria from the heart of Germany, by
pouring down the valley of the Danube."... "The genius of Louis,"
he adds, after a lucid explanation of the projected campaign,
which was indeed grandly conceived, "had outstripped the march of
time; and the year 1703 promised the triumphs which were realised
on the same ground, and by following the same plan, by Napoleon
in 1805."[22] It was all, however, in vain, though his plans were
carried into execution with infinite skill and energy. Marlborough
got intelligence of them; and instantly conceived a masterly
counter-plan, which, but for his being thwarted, as usual, by the
Dutch deputies, would have been completely successful in the first
instance. The resources which Marlborough's genius displayed in this
transcendent campaign were prodigious. His rapidity of perception,
his far-sighted sagacity, his watchful circumspection, his prompt
energy, at length triumphed over all obstacles, and eventuated in
the glorious battle of Blenheim--than which none more splendid
stands on record. The fearful consequences of failure were very
eagerly pressed upon him by his own officers. "I know the danger,"
said he calmly, "yet a battle is absolutely necessary; and I rely
on the bravery and discipline of the troops, which will make amends
for our disadvantages."[23] Mr Alison's description of this battle
is equally brilliant and impressive, and we wish we could transfer
it entire into our columns. It was a fearful day for Louis XIV.
The total loss of the French and Bavarians, including those who
deserted during the calamitous retreat through the Black Forest,
was 40,000--"a number greater than any subsequently lost by France
till the still more disastrous day of Waterloo." "The decisive
blow struck at Blenheim resounded through every part of Europe.
It at once destroyed the vast fabric of power which it had taken
Louis XIV., aided by the genius of Turenne and Vauban, so long to
construct. Instead of proudly descending the valley of the Danube,
and threatening Vienna, as did Napoleon in 1805 and 1809, the French
were driven in the utmost disorder across the Rhine. Thus, by the
operation of one single campaign, was Bavaria crushed, Austria
saved, and Germany delivered ... and the Empire, delivered from
invasion, was preparing to carry its victorious arms into the very
heart of France! Such achievements require no comment. They speak
for themselves, and deservedly place Marlborough in the very highest
rank of military commanders. The campaigns of Napoleon exhibit no
more decisive or important results."[24] His reception at the courts
of Berlin and Hanover was like that of a sovereign prince; and, on
his return home, the nation welcomed him with ecstasy. The Honour
and manor of Woodstock were settled upon him; and the erection of
the palace of Blenheim was commenced on a magnificent scale. Before
the opening of this campaign he lost his only surviving son, in his
seventeenth year--an event which occasioned him a week's paroxysm
of grief. Shortly before, two of his daughters, very beautiful
women, were married respectively to the Earl of Bridgewater and Lord
Monthermer, whose father was subsequently raised to the rank of Duke
of Montague. Another daughter had been married to Lord Sunderland,
who occasioned the Duke of Marlborough intense mortification, by
suddenly opposing his policy in the House of Lords. And, indeed,
he seems to have suffered exquisitely during this period, from the
animosities with which he was assailed at home by the Tories. He
sought permission from the Queen to resign, and retire into private
life; and it was only on her sending him a holograph letter, couched
in terms of unusual affection, that he was induced to abstain
from a step which would have been so fatal to the fortunes of his
country.[25] It was in this campaign that Marlborough and Prince
Eugene came together--the latter a man of great military genius,
and a chivalrously noble and generous character. The intimacy
and co-operation of such a man must have cheered the spirit of
Marlborough in many a dark hour of trial, difficulty, and danger.
They never had a difference during all the campaigns in which they
acted together. "The records of human achievements can present few,
if any, greater men; but beyond all question they can exhibit none
in whom so pure and generous a friendship existed, alike unbroken by
the selfishness consequent on adverse, and the jealousies springing
from prosperous, fortune."
[22] ALISON, i. p. 125.
[23] ALISON, i. p. 159.
[24] _Ibid._ p. 187.
[25] _Ibid._ p. 141.
From this period the affairs of perplexed and convulsed Europe
may be said to have rested upon the Atlantean shoulders of this
marvellous man. The impression left on one's mind, after reading
these volumes, is that of wonder how human faculties could sustain,
and for such a length of time, so vast and constantly increasing a
pressure, alike upon his heart and his intellect. Never, perhaps,
was greatness so perseveringly harassed by littleness. He may have
exclaimed on a thousand occasions--
"The times are out of joint! O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set them right!"
There is something at once exciting and oppressive in the following
vivid picture:--
"No adequate idea can be formed of the greatness of
Marlborough's capacity, or the overwhelming load of cares
with which he was oppressed, if the other contests which, in
addition to his own, he was obliged to carry on, are not taken
into consideration. It was not merely his own campaigns, often
of the most active kind, which he was called on to direct; he
was at the same time charged with the almost entire direction
of those in every other quarter, and constantly appealed to
whenever a difficulty occurred. At the very moment when his
blood was heated by combat, and he was obliged to be ten or
twelve hours a-day on horseback with his own troops, he was
compelled to steal half the night to carry on his multiplied
correspondence with the Allied generals or cabinets in every
part of Europe. Such was the weight of his authority, the
avidity for his direction, that not only was he intrusted with
the general design of every campaign, alike in Germany, Italy,
Spain, and Flanders, but the details of their execution were
constantly submitted to him; and, what was much more vexatious,
he was continually called on to adjust by his authority, or
heal by his urbanity, the quarrels of the generals, and discord
of the cabinets to whom their direction was intrusted. His
correspondence affords ample evidence of this. Appeals were
made to Marlborough at every time, and from every side: from
the Imperial ministers against the inactivity of the Margrave
of Baden; from the Margrave against the imbecility of the
Imperial cabinet; from Lord Peterborough against the jealousy
and tardiness of the Spaniards at the court of the Archduke
Charles; from them against the irritability and eccentricity
of the English general; from the Hungarian insurgents against
the exactions and cruelty of the Imperial government; from
them against the restless and rebellious spirit with which the
Magyars in every age have been animated.
"The confidence universally reposed, not only in his wisdom
and justice, but in his conciliatory manners and irresistible
address, was the cause of this extraordinary load of important
cares with which, in addition to the direction of his own army,
he was daily overwhelmed. From Eugene alone he was assailed by
no appeals, except for such addition to his forces as might
put him in a condition to measure his strength with the enemy.
Their ideas were so identical, their minds so entirely cast in
the same mould, their military knowledge and capacity so much
alike, that it invariably happened that, what the one of his own
accord _did_, was precisely what the other of his own accord
would _have recommended_. Nor was it enough that foreign affairs
of such overwhelming magnitude daily oppressed the English
general; he had in addition the divisions of the cabinet at
home to heal, and the deadly animosity of faction, increasing
with every triumph which he won, to appease. No warrior of
modern times, not even excepting Wellington, had such a mass of
affairs, both civil and military, to conduct at the same time,
and none ever got through them with such consummate ability. The
correspondence of the Emperor Napoleon alone, since the days
of Cæsar, will bear a comparison with it; but although nothing
could exceed the energy and capacity of the French emperor,
there was this difference, and it was a vital one, between his
position and that of Marlborough--Napoleon commanded, after
he attained to greatness, everywhere as a master: he directed
his generals with equal authority on the Danube and the Tagus,
and dictated to cabinets at Vienna or St Petersburg nearly as
effectively as at St Cloud; but Marlborough had not even the
uncontrolled direction of his own army, and beyond it had no
influence but what had been extorted by exploits or won by
condescension."
The great event of this third campaign was the battle of Ramilies,
where Marlborough was within a hair's-breadth of being taken
prisoner on the field, and had to fight his way out from his throng
of assailants, like the knights of old, sword in hand. No sooner
had he succeeded in this, than he had another escape--his horse
fell in leaping a ditch; and his equerry's head was carried off
by a cannon-ball while holding the Duke's stirrup as he mounted
another.[26] This was a very great battle, and attended by signal
results--the acquisition of _nearly all Austrian Flanders_! What
now was the position of Louis XIV.? After five years of continued
effort, he found himself stripped of all his conquests, shorn of
his external influence, and compelled to maintain at once on the
frontiers of Germany, Flanders, Spain, and Italy, a contest, from
his own resources, with the forces of all Europe.... His haughty
spirit, long accustomed to prosperity, supported with difficulty
the weight of adversity. The war, and all its concerns, was a
forbidden subject at court. A melancholy gloom pervaded the halls of
Versailles; and frequent bleedings of the monarch himself attested
both the violence of his internal agitation and the dread which his
physicians entertained of still greater dangers. Overcome by so
many calamities, the fierce spirit of Louis was at length shaken,
and he was prevailed on _to sue for peace_![27] After the battle of
Ramilies, Marlborough was offered the government of the Netherlands,
the emoluments of which were no less than £60,000 a-year; but he
magnanimously refused it, from a regard to the public good, and on
every subsequent offer of the same splendid and lucrative post,
did the same. On his return to England he met with a rapturous
reception--was thanked by Parliament--£5000 a-year was settled
on him and his duchess, and their descendants--and the dukedom
extended to _heirs female_, "in order," as it was finely expressed,
"that England might never be without a title which might recall
the remembrance of so much glory."[28] Equally indefatigable at
home as abroad, in peace as in war, he addressed himself at once
to his parliamentary duties, and took a leading part in the great
and beneficial measure for uniting Scotland with England. His vast
influence in the country, and at court, excited intense jealousy
among both Whigs and Tories.
[26] ALISON, i. 247.
[27] ALISON, i. 277, 278.
[28] _Ibid._ p. 287.
The ensuing campaign (A.D. 1707) found Louis XIV. "reduced on all
sides to his own resources," and thoroughly wakened from his dream
of foreign conquests--seeking only, and that with anxiety and alarm,
to defend his own frontier. Here, however, two new actors appear
on the chequered scene--the Duke of Marlborough's nephew, the Duke
of Berwick, who by his great victory of Almanza counteracted in
Spain his uncle's efforts--and Charles XII. of Sweden, a "new and
formidable actor on the theatre of affairs in Germany." Louis XIV.
made desperate efforts to win over Charles XII., but the exquisite
adroitness of Marlborough frustrated them altogether. But Louis,
encouraged by the gleams of success which had been visible in Spain
and elsewhere, made immense efforts to recover his lost ground.
Marlborough's energies were equally divided between delicate and
perilous negotiations with the various European potentates, and
another decisive campaign in the field. Both he and Louis made
prodigious exertions, and at length were on the point of fighting
another great battle; "and, by a most extraordinary coincidence,
the two armies were of the same strength, and occupied the same
ground, as did those of Napoleon and Wellington a hundred and
eight years afterwards!" Marlborough was eager for the fight,
confident of a great victory; but, at the eleventh hour, a panic
seized his old friends the Dutch deputies, and they compelled him
to retire to his former position, and decline the encounter, to
his unspeakable mortification. The enemy, showing no disposition
to encounter him, at length retreated, Marlborough advancing,
but finding it impossible to bring on a general action. Both
armies were led into winter-quarters, and Marlborough repaired to
England, "where his presence had become indispensably necessary
for arresting the progress of public discontent, fanned as it was
by court and parliamentary intrigues, and threatening to prove
immediately fatal to his own influence and ascendency, as well as
to the best interests of England."[29] Here we are plunged into the
vortex of political intrigues,--the principal actors being Harley
and St John and Mrs Masham on the one side, and on the other the
Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, whose ascendency over the Queen
and the country, and even their own party the Whigs, is evidently
beginning to give way, and rapidly. Mr Alison here shows his
dispassionate character to great advantage, holding the balance
evenly between all parties. His candid and luminous statement is
equally interesting and instructive; and one thing he brings out in
a very striking manner, though not in so many words: we mean the
retributive justice with which the duke's treachery to James II.
was brought home to himself, and also to the duchess--the latter
being utterly incredulous of the ingratitude and treachery of Mrs
Masham towards her, and the former equally so in the case of Harley
and St John. How often and how bitterly may such reflections have
occurred to the duke and duchess! Their position at court had
become exceedingly trying; but their treatment of the Queen was
highly imprudent, the Duke being doubtless greatly influenced by
his imperious and intractable duchess. Mr Alison regards her as the
"faithful representative of the whole Whig party," whose "arrogant
domination and grasping disposition were the real causes of their
fall from power, and the total change in the foreign policy of
England--results not attributable exclusively to female partiality,
or a bed-chamber intrigue, which were, nevertheless, the ultimate
_agents_ in the change, and apparently its immediate precursors.
The Whigs were haunted as incessantly by dread of a reaction as
the Jacobins of France of a counter-revolution, and apprehended
from a change of ministry not merely the usual subversion of their
party, but serious personal consequences, in respect of the part
which had been played to James II." Such is the general conclusion
arrived at by Mr Alison--indicative, undoubtedly, of his candour
and moderation. Early in 1708, and while Marlborough was placed in
these critical circumstances, occurred the attempt of Louis XIV.
to imitate, in some respect, the example of his Allied opponents,
by invading Great Britain, in order to place the Pretender on the
throne. Louis's terrible antagonist, however, Marlborough, was here
again to confront him. As commander-in-chief, the Duke crushed
the attempt, and the ambitious Chevalier was forced to creep back
to Dunkirk ridiculously--the result serving only suddenly to
reinstate Marlborough at the summit of popularity, and to silence
all slanderous imputations upon his fidelity to the cause of the
Revolution.
[29] _Ibid._ p. 330.
The precarious position of political matters in England, at this
crisis, was profoundly appreciated by Marlborough, who said that
any considerable reverse on the Continent, or even a campaign
as nugatory as the last, would, probably, not only dissolve the
Grand Alliance, and undo all that had been done, but place a new
administration in power, and possibly seat another dynasty on the
throne. He also surveyed, with unerring sagacity and accuracy, the
whole position of Louis XIV., and saw that he was preparing for
yet one more grand demonstration of force. Marlborough took his
plans accordingly; and on the 12th April 1708, in concert with the
incomparable Eugene, arranged the plan of operations. Marlborough
resolved to use the precious opportunity yet available, before
the accession of the Tory ministry, for the purpose of striking a
tremendous blow. And he did what he purposed; for this campaign was
signalised by most resplendent results, glorious to Marlborough
almost beyond parallel, and equally disastrous to Louis XIV. Bring
what forces the latter might into the field--array them under what
consummate generals he pleased, and let him select his site, and
mature his plan of operations as he chose--all was, as usual, in
vain! Vendôme was here the directing military genius of Louis;
and he succeeded in surprising Ghent and Bruges into a surrender,
greatly to the vexation of Marlborough. But the latter instantly
resolved on a scheme as masterly as it proved successful. He
resolved to throw himself on his opponent's communication, and,
by interposing between him and the French frontier, compel him
to fight with his face towards Paris, and his back to Antwerp.
This manoeuvre was executed with a rapidity commensurate with its
importance--and Vendôme's skilful plans were entirely disconcerted.
He moved of precipitately, followed by Marlborough, who resolved
to force him to a decisive action; and succeeded--adding OUDENARDE
to his other laurels. This was indeed a fearful affair. Both
parties fought with desperation--Vendôme with eighty-five thousand
men, Marlborough with eighty thousand. Nothing could resist his
generalship and valour; and Vendôme was defeated, with a loss,
including deserters, of fully twenty thousand men. "If I had had
two hours more of daylight," said Marlborough, "the French army
would have been irretrievably routed, great part of it killed or
taken, and the war terminated on that day." The results of this
sanguinary but glorious battle were immense, entirely altering
the character and fate of the campaign. By his admirable movement
in interposing between Vendôme and France, Marlborough had gained
the incalculable advantage of throwing his opponent, in the event
of defeat, into a corner of Flanders, and so leaving exposed the
French frontier, and all its great fortresses. Marlborough's eagle
eye, perceiving the capabilities of his new position, resolved
to discard all minor objects, pass the whole fortified towns on
the frontier, and advance direct on the capital. This daring but
prudent design, says Mr Alison, was precisely that of Wellington and
Blucher a century afterwards; but Marlborough was overruled--Eugene
for once concurring in regarding it as too hazardous; and it was
resolved to commence the invasion of the territories of the Grand
Monarque, by laying siege to the inestimably-important frontier
fortress of LILLE, the strongest place in French Flanders, and
which could give the Allies a solid footing, a commanding position,
in the territories of Louis. The undertaking, however, was most
formidable--"for not only was the place itself, the masterpiece of
Vauban, of great strength, but the citadel within its walls was
still stronger; and, moreover, it was garrisoned by the celebrated
Marshal Boufflers, with fifteen thousand choice troops, and every
requisite for a vigorous defence."[30] Besides all this, Vendôme and
the Duke of Berwick, at the head of more than a hundred thousand
men, lay in an impregnable camp, covered by the canal of Bruges,
completely fortified, between Ghent and Bruges, ready to interrupt
or raise the siege. But of what avail? Marlborough sate down before
Lille, and it fell. To avert that event, Vendôme and Berwick led
forth their magnificent army, a hundred and ten thousand men,
preceded by two hundred pieces of cannon, in the finest order, to
within a quarter of a league of Marlborough--"everybody expecting
the greatest battle, on the morrow, which Europe had ever seen."[31]
Thus grandly they advanced; but as ridiculously retired without
firing a shot! Marlborough, however, was of a different humour,
and resolved to follow and fight them; and the Duke of Berwick
himself has told us what the issue would have been--that Marlborough
would have utterly routed his enemy, and probably finished the
war that day." But--the Dutch deputies again! They interposed,
and Marlborough's heart nearly burst as he beheld the foe retire
unmolested. "If Cæsar or Alexander," said Eugene, "had had the
Dutch deputies by their side, their conquests would have been less
rapid.[32] The siege went on--a ball striking Eugene on the head,
and wounding him severely, whereby the whole burthen of directing
and sustaining the vast operations fell on Marlborough alone, till
Eugene's recovery. After sixty days' siege, Boufflers was compelled
to capitulate, being treated very nobly by his captors. Still the
citadel remained--but that also fell; and so fell the strongest
frontier fortress of France, under the eyes of its best generals
and most powerful army! A siege perhaps the most memorable, and
also one of the most bloody, in modern Europe,--standing forth,
as Mr Alison elsewhere remarks, in solitary and unapproachable
grandeur in European warfare. The Allies were now within reach of
the very heart of France; and Louis XIV. was trembling in his halls
at Versailles.[33] Before Marlborough could close his campaign,
however, he recovered Ghent and Bruges. Such was the campaign of
1708, one of the most glorious in the military annals of England,
and one in which the extraordinary capacity of the English general
shone forth with perhaps the brightest lustre. The strife of
opinion, the war of independence, was alike brought to an issue
in that memorable contest, and, as far as military success could
do it, to a glorious termination. "But at this moment," says Mr
Alison, with a sigh, "faction stepped in to thwart the efforts of
patriotism; and his subsequent life is but a record of the efforts
of selfish ambition to wrest from the hero the laurels, from the
nation the fruits, of victory."[34]
[30] ALISON, i. 406.
[31] _Ibid._ p. 419.
[32] _Ibid._ p. 423.
[33] _Ibid._ p. 448.
[34] ALISON, i. 448.
When the laurelled victor returned to England, he received no
favour from the Queen, and was treated with studied coldness at
court. Faction and intrigue had been and were then busy at their
foul work. This was doubtless hard to bear; but what was the
situation of the great Louis? His fortunes were desperate; his
exchequer was beggared; the land was filled with lamentation; and
the horrors of famine were superadded. Then Louis supplicated for
peace to those whom he had so long striven to crush and annihilate:
a bitter humiliation! And in his extremity he bethought himself of
bribing his great conqueror; offering him, directly, no less a sum
than nearly a quarter of a million sterling, as the price of his
influence for the purpose of obtaining terms advantageous to France.
It need not be said that the attempt was scornfully repulsed. The
triumphant Allies insisted on terms of compromise which Marlborough
himself, with noble disinterestedness, condemned, and Louis could
do nothing but repudiate. Once again, therefore, he took the field,
with an enormous army of 112,000 men, under his renowned marshal,
Villars; and all France was animated, at this momentous crisis, by
the conviction that then "it behoved every Frenchman to conquer or
die." Marlborough commenced the campaign with 110,000 men; and great
results were looked for, from "the contest of two armies of such
magnitude, headed by such leaders, and when the patriotic ardour of
the French nation, now raised to the uttermost, was matched against
the military strength of the Confederates, matured by a series of
victories so long and brilliant." So confident was Villars in the
strength of his army, and his intrenched position, that he sent
a trumpeter to the Allies' headquarters, to announce that "they
would find him behind his lines; or, if they were afraid to attack,
he would level them, to give entrance!" With consummate prudence
Marlborough declined the invitation, and besieged Tournay--which
he took, after a siege of almost unequalled horrors; but he
gained by it a fertile and valuable province in French Flanders.
Then he determined to take Mons, the next great fortress on the
direct road to Paris; but for this it would be necessary to break
through Villars' long lines of defence. By a dexterous movement,
he succeeded in turning these formidable lines, thirty leagues in
length, the results of two months' severe labour, and the subject
of such vainglorious boasting by their constructor. They were now
rendered utterly useless; and this great feat had been accomplished
easily, and without bloodshed. Then came another terrible
battle--that of MALPLAQUET, in which Marlborough, with 93,000 men,
after the most bloody and obstinately contested contest that had
occurred in the war, defeated an army of 95,000,--the noblest which
the French monarchy had ever sent forth--strongly posted between two
woods--trebly intrenched! "It was," says Mr Alison, "a desperate
duel between France and England, in which the whole strength of
each nation was put forth. Nothing like it had occurred since
Agincourt, nor afterwards occurred till Waterloo." Both Villars and
Boufflers performed prodigies of strategy and valour; but of what
avail against Marlborough? Then he laid siege to, and took Mons:
after which there remained only two more fortresses between the
Allies and Paris! These prodigious operations, however, formed the
subject of vexatious insults, paltry and presumptuous criticism,
to his malignant enemies in England, with a view to lower his
overwhelming influence at home. He was disgusted and disheartened,
and went so far as to say to the Queen, with natural but imprudent
indignation--"After all I have done, it has not been able to protect
me against the malice of a bed-chamber woman!"
The affairs of the Allies becoming exceedingly critical,
Marlborough, after strenuous but futile efforts at negotiation,
was forced again to take the field; and projected operations on a
grander scale than ever, with a view to promptly closing the war.
Again he succeeded in passing immensely strong lines of defence
without shot or bloodshed, and sat down before Douai, another
fortress of the utmost importance, in every way, to France.
Villars received imperative instructions, from the alarmed court
at Versailles, to raise the siege at all hazards; and, at the head
of a splendid army of upwards of 90,000 men, most ably generalled,
approached, "with all the pomp and circumstance of war," to within
musket-shot of Marlborough's position--around whose bayonets,
however, played the lustre of Blenheim and Ramilies. Villars
advanced--to retire without firing a shot, though his army greatly
outnumbered that of Marlborough! _Of course_, he took Douai,
after a bloody siege; and then Bethune, after thirty days of open
trenches; where, says the _French_ annalist, "Vauban beat the
_chamade_--the sad signal which terminated all the sieges undertaken
by Marlborough!"[35] It had to sound twice more in that campaign--on
the fall of St Venant, and of Aire, after severe sieges; and the
trembling Louis, disarrayed of four great frontier fortresses in one
campaign, now placed all his hopes on the result of base intrigues
in England against Marlborough and the war ministry. "What we lose
in Flanders," said his triumphant minister, Torcy, "we shall gain in
England!" And there, indeed, his enemies were doing their work with
the utmost skill and determination, in order to secure his speedy
downfall, and the advent of a ministry which should surrender all
that had been gained in the war, humble England before France, and
seal the fate of Protestantism and the Succession which upheld it.
Their scandalous doings almost wore out Marlborough, making him,
as he said, "every minute wish to be a hermit." He nobly resolved,
however, harassed and thwarted as he was, to retain his command, "as
affording the only security for a good power, and the Protestant
succession to the throne." His enemies in England were this time
successful--the Whig ministry fell; and thus ended Marlborough's
career as a statesman. And to such a deplorable depth could national
meanness sink, that attempts were, made to inveigle him into
_personal_ liability for the expense of prosecuting the works at
Blenheim, till then carried on by the Treasury! He was received
enthusiastically by the people; but neither the Queen nor the
Parliament thanked him for his services and sacrifices. Mr Alison at
this point presents us with a dazzling summary of these services:--
"This, therefore, is a convenient period for casting the eyes
back on what he had done during the ten years that he had
been the real head of the Alliance; and marvellous beyond all
example is the retrospect! He began the war on the Waal and the
Meuse, with the French standards waving in sight of the Dutch
frontier, and the government of the Hague trembling for the fate
of their frontier fortress, Nimeguen. He had now brought the
Allied ensigns to the Scarpe, conquered Flanders, subdued all
its fortresses, and nearly worked through the iron frontier of
France itself. Nothing was wanting but the subjugation of its
_last_ fortress, Arras, to enable the Allies to march to Paris,
and dictate a glorious peace in the halls of Versailles. He had
defeated the French in four pitched battles and as many combats;
he had taken every town to which he had laid siege; he had held
together, when often about to separate, the discordant elements
of the Grand Alliance. By his daring march to Bavaria, and
victory of Blenheim, he had delivered Germany when in the utmost
danger; by the succours he sent to Eugene, he had conquered
Italy at Turin; by his prudent dispositions he had saved Spain,
after the battle of Almanza. He had broken the power of Louis
XIV. when at the zenith of his fame; he had been only prevented
by faction at home from completing his overthrow by the capture
of his capital. He had never suffered a reverse; he had never
alienated a friend; he had conquered by his mildness many
enemies. Such deeds require no comment; they are without a
parallel in European history, and justly place Marlborough in
the place assigned him by Napoleon--at the head of European
captains."
[35] ALISON, ii. 125.
The overthrow of Marlborough effected an object quite unlooked for
by his eager and shortsighted enemies. The efforts of faction,
aided by a palace intrigue, showed what had been due to the
greatness of one man. Instantly, as if by enchantment, the fabric
of victory raised by his all-potent arm was dissolved. Spain was
lost, Flanders reconquered, Germany threatened! The arch of the
Grand Alliance fell to pieces. These show in brighter colours than
ever the greatness and patriotism of Marlborough. Again he took the
command of the Hague, though no longer possessing the confidence
of the government, and intrusted with no control over diplomatic
measures; and again dazzled Europe and petrified his enemies by
the splendour of his first achievement. Louis, in order to prevent
the irruption of his foes into France, now that almost all his
fortresses had been broken through, resolved on the construction of
a line of defence on a scale so stupendous as to attract universal
wonder--lines subsequently paralleled only by the prodigious lines
of Torres Vedras. They were supplied with abundance of cannon, and
manned by ninety thousand choice troops of infantry and cavalry
under the command of Villars, who at length seemed both impregnable
and unconquerable. Marlborough was then in his sixty-second year,
and almost worn out by long service, and intense anxieties, and
incessant mortifications. "I find myself decay so very fast," he
wrote to his Duchess, "that from my heart and soul I wish the
Queen and my country a peace, by which I might have the advantage
of having a little quiet, which is my greatest ambition."[36] But
his mighty powers addressed themselves once more to a commensurate
object--the devising an enterprise which should at a stroke
deprive his enemy of all his huge defences, and drive him to fight
a decisive battle or lose his last frontier fortress. Shortly
afterwards, he was confounded by Prince Eugene being withdrawn
from him, together with a large section of the army, to repair
disasters in a distant part of the Continent. This rendered Villars
suddenly anxious for an encounter; but Louis, his eyes intently
fixed on the progress of intrigues in London, had peremptorily
prohibited him from fighting. Villars vaingloriously styled his
lines "Marlborough's _ne plus ultra_," a subject on which he was
abundantly jocular. But Marlborough, having carefully studied them,
devised a plan which very soon banished his boasts, and plunged
him into consternation. We must refer our readers to Mr Alison's
exciting description of this feat of strategy, by which Marlborough
passed the imaginary "_ne plus ultra_" without having fired a shot,
without having lost one man--frustrating by a sudden march nine
months' labour, and suddenly exhibiting to Marshal Villars the
palsying spectacle of Marlborough's whole army drawn up in battle
array on the _inner_ side of the impregnable lines! All this was the
work of Marlborough alone. The military critics of the Continent
were at a loss for words adequately expressing their admiration of
this great exploit:--
"Marlborough's manoeuvre," says Rousset, "covered him with
glory: it was a duel in which the English beat the French
general; the armies on either side were present only to render
the spectacle more magnificent. In battles and sieges, fortune
and the valour of soldiers have often a great share in success;
but here everything was the work of the Duke of Marlborough. To
gain the lines, they would willingly have compounded for the
loss of several thousand lives: thanks to the Duke, they were
won without the loss of one; that bloodless victory was entirely
owing to his wisdom."[37]
[36] ALISON, vol. ii. p. 185, note.
[37] _Ibid._ vol. ii. p. 194.
Marlborough instantly besieged Bouchain, another great fortress,
having prevented Villars, by brilliant manoeuvring, from coming
to its assistance. "The works effecting that purpose," said a
Hanoverian officer engaged on the occasion, "were worthy of Julius
Cæsar or Alexander Farnese, and the siege one of the prodigies of
war. You could not fire a cannon-shot from the trenches without
Villars seeing its smoke. He omitted nothing which could suspend
or interrupt the works. Vain hope! Our general, invincible on
all sides, has foreseen and frustrated all his enterprises."[38]
Marlborough was then pressing on the siege of Quesnoy, the capture
of which would have completely broken through the French barrier,
when he suddenly found himself undermined by the intrigues secretly
carrying on between the Tories and Louis XIV.; preliminaries
of peace were signed between them, afterwards embodied in the
execrable Treaty of Utrecht--abandoning the main object of the
long, glorious, and successful war--the exclusion of the Bourbon
family from the throne of Spain. And what, thinks the reader, was
done by Marlborough's enemies, in order to anticipate and frustrate
his opposition to these base proceedings? He was ridiculed and
libelled everywhere in the bitterest terms; accused of avarice,
fraud, extortion; of indolence, cruelty, ambition, and misconduct:
even his courage was questioned; and he was denounced as the
lowest of mankind! His magnificent passage of the French lines was
ridiculed as "the crossing of the kennel;" and the siege of Bouchain
stigmatised as an inexorable sacrifice of sixteen thousand men for
"the capture of a dovecot!"[39] He was charged with having embezzled
£63,319 of the public money during the war in Flanders, and
Parliamentary commissioners were employed to investigate the charge,
which the indignant warrior in one moment blew into the air. Then
he was charged with having prolonged the war for his own pecuniary
interests; and finally, he was charged with other pecuniary
peculations to an immense amount; and the Queen, on the advice of
her infamous ministers, dismissed her illustrious servant from all
his employments, in order that the atrocious calumnies might be
investigated. The intelligence was received with transport by the
enemies of England abroad; and Louis XIV. exclaimed, rapturously,
"_The dismission of Marlborough will do all we can desire_."[40]
At that moment the fallen warrior-statesman's resplendent services
had reduced Louis to a state of desperation, and he, with his whole
kingdom, lay at the mercy of Marlborough. Louis had announced
his resolve to lead the last army he could muster in person, and
conquer or die; but the measures of the ministry averted the
alternative, and saved his throne at the instant of its having
become defenceless. The perfidious desertion of England from the
Grand Alliance paralysed it. England consummated her treachery and
dishonour by the peace of Utrecht, which Mr Pitt justly stigmatised
as "the indelible reproach of the age," and which has entailed on
her long-continuing disaster. As for Marlborough, almost every
conceivable kind of insult and provocation was heaped upon him;
scurrilous mercenaries haunted him with libel and ridicule; and to
complete the climax of national meanness, the Treasury payments for
the works at Blenheim were discontinued, and the contractors and
workmen stimulated to sue the Duke for the arrears due to them, to
the extent of £30,000; while a peer, in his place in Parliament,
actually charged the veteran hero--John Duke of Marlborough--in his
presence, with "having led his troops to certain destruction, in
order _to profit by the sale of the officers' commissions_!"[41] The
Duke deigned no reply, but on leaving the house sent his slanderer
a challenge, which the terrified peer communicated to the proper
quarter, and the Queen's interference saved him from standing at
twelve paces distance from John Duke of Marlborough. To escape
the torturing indignities and outrages to which he was exposed,
Marlborough obtained passports and went abroad.
[38] ALISON, ii. 199, 200.
[39] _Ibid._ p. 203.
[40] _Ibid._ p. 213.
[41] _Parl. Hist._ vi. p. 1137.
The Duke of Marlborough was received on the Continent with almost
the honours due to a crowned head. At Antwerp his arrival and
departure were signalised by triple discharges of artillery; the
governor received him outside the walls with obsequious respect;
deafening acclamations resounded from the multitude as he passed
through the streets, every one struggling to catch a glimpse of
dishonoured greatness. "All," says Mr Alison, "were struck with
his noble air and demeanour, softened, though not weakened, by
the approach of age. They declared that his appearance was not
less overpowering than his sword. Many burst into tears when they
recollected what he had been, and what he was, and how unaccountably
the great nation to which he belonged had fallen from the height of
glory to such degradation." What pangs must have wrung the heart of
the illustrious veteran at such a moment! "Yet was his manner so
courteous, and yet animated, his conversation so simple, and yet
cheerful, that it was commonly said at the time, 'that the only
things he had forgotten were his own deeds, and the only things he
remembered were the misfortunes of others!'"
During his absence, his shameless traducers redoubled their efforts
to secure his ruin. The terror of his name, the shadow of his
distant greatness, must, however, frequently have made themselves
felt, if only with the effect of blinding them to the folly of their
own machinations. Their calumnious charges were annihilated by him
from abroad the moment they reached him; and those who had prepared
such charges, ignominiously silenced by his clear and decisive
representations. But Blenheim was within the power of a magnanimous
people, and they caused the erection of it at the public cost to be
suspended! The principal creditors sued the Duke personally for what
was due to them; and ultimately Blenheim, "this noble pile, this
proud monument of a nation's gratitude," would have remained a ruin
to this day, but for the Duke's own private contribution of no less
a sum than £60,000! One's cheek tingles with shame at the recital;
but there is the humiliating fact--
"Pudet hæc opprobria nobis,
Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse repelli."
The Duke of Marlborough spent nearly two years on the Continent.
Having quitted England on the 30th October 1712, he returned on the
4th August 1714; but under what circumstances? In the full splendour
of the romance of history. In contact with Marlborough, every event
seems to swell into great porportions, as if owning the presence and
power of greatness.
While abroad, his commanding intellect engaged itself in the noblest
of causes--upholding the interests of civil and religious liberty,
which were bound up indissolubly with the Hanoverian succession.
He might have retired for ever from the world, in stern disgust at
the treatment which he had experienced; but his magnanimity would
not suffer him. He knew that civil despotism, and the triumph of
the Romish faith, were identified with the success of the Louis of
his day, as they appear to be with a Louis of our day--the Louis,
at this moment, of France. The restoration of the Stuart line was
the symbol of the triumph of Popery; and Marlborough continued
anxiously to watch the progress of public events, with reference to
that "consummation" so "devoutly" to be deprecated. The two years
referred to were those of an immeasurably momentous crisis, big with
the ultimate destinies of this country. Marlborough was, throughout
that crisis, as clear-sighted, resolute, energetic, and skilful
in securing the Protestant succession, as he had ever been in the
conduct of his wars, every one of which had direct reference to that
high and glorious object. He continued the very life and soul of the
good cause, which he advanced by incessant watchfulness and discreet
and energetic action, carrying on a constant correspondence with
his friends both at home and abroad. At length Bolingbroke reached
the summit of advancement, and became virtually prime minister.
Bent upon the restoration of the Stuarts, in two days' time he had
organised a thoroughly Jacobite cabinet, which would unquestionably
have proceeded to seat the Stuarts on the throne. But the awful
hand of God appeared suddenly in the ordering of events: "The angel
of death," to use Mr Alison's words, "defeated the whole objects
for which the ministers were labouring so anxiously, and for which
they had sacrificed the security and glory of their country." Civil
war was almost in the act of breaking out, when the Queen died;
having at the last moment taken a step, in nominating the Duke of
Shrewsbury to be Lord-Treasurer, which annihilated the guilty hopes
of Bolingbroke and his party. This was the last act of her life; and
on her death the Protestant party took prompt and vigorous measures.
George I. was instantly proclaimed king, and in three days' time
the great Marlborough reappeared on the scene, the very guardian
angel of the newly-proclaimed king. His enemies were struck with
consternation. "_We are all frightened out of our wits upon the
Duke of Marlborough's going to England_,"[42] wrote one of them to
Bolingbroke. The illustrious personage was welcomed with enthusiasm
similar to that with which he had been formerly familiar; an immense
concourse of citizens attended him into the city, shouting--"Long
live George I.! Long live the Duke of Marlborough!" He was at once
sworn in of the Privy Council, and visited by the foreign ministers
and all the nobility and gentry within reach, and in the evening
appeared in the House of Lords, and took the oaths of allegiance
and supremacy, his old companions in arms, the Grenadier Guards,
firing a _feu-de-joie_ on the auspicious occasion. "That day
effaced the traces of years of injustice. The death of a single
individual"--the weak, ungrateful, vacillating Anne--"had restored
the patriotic hero to the position in which he stood after the
battle of Blenheim!" Though he had resolved to take part no more in
the conduct of affairs, he was prevailed upon to resume his post
of commander-in-chief, in which great capacity his new sovereign
received him with extraordinary demonstrations of satisfaction,
"proud to do honour to the chief _under whom he himself had gained
his first honours on the field of Oudenarde_!"[43] The discomfited
Jacobites, Bolingbroke, Ormond, and Oxford, were impeached for
high treason, for their conduct in seeking to overturn the Act of
Settlement, and restore the Stuarts. The former two fled to France,
but Oxford remained, and was prosecuted, but acquitted. Here again
the character of Marlborough has been malefied, by the charge of
having done all in his power to thwart the prosecution, for fear
of Lord Oxford's revealing the correspondence of the Duke in early
life, after the Revolution. This slander, however, is decisively
refuted by two facts--that the Duke _voted in every stage of the
prosecution_! and by the still more decisive fact, that he was
found to have been specially exempted from the proffered amnesty
published by the Pretender when he landed in Scotland.[44] This
last event--the Rebellion in Scotland--must have been indeed, as
Mr Alison remarks, a sore trial to Marlborough--"more severe than
any he had experienced since James II. had been precipitated from
the throne; for here was the son of his early patron and benefactor
asserting, in arms, his right to the throne of his fathers!" But
the Duke was here true as steel to his principles; and his energy
and sagacity extinguished the formidable insurrection, and with it
the hopes of the Stuarts. The Pretender returned humbled and ruined
to the Continent, in time to witness the death of the monarch Louis
XIV., whose guilty ambition had lighted the terrible conflagration,
of which a spark had been thus kindled in this country, and which
he had lived to see extinguished by such torrents of blood. He
was then seventy-seven years of age, miserable in contemplating
the wide-spread misery and ruin which he had prostituted all his
greatness in order to effect, and shuddering at the recollection of
his share in the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. His death-bed
reflections and injunctions to his successor we have already laid
before the reader.[45]
[42] ALISON, ii. 263, note.
[43] _Ibid._ p. 266.
[44] _Ibid._ p. 303.
[45] _Ante_, p. 146.
Only a few months previously, Louis's great conqueror had received
two startling messages, telling him, in heart-breaking tones, of
the transient nothingness of life. His two lovely daughters, the
Countess of Bridgewater and the Countess of Sunderland, were cut
off in the flower of their beauty, by almost sudden deaths, within
a few days of each other. These events pierced him to the heart.
Two years afterwards, having, during the interval, experienced
various warnings, he was struck with palsy, which deprived him for
a time of both speech and resolution. He recovered sufficiently, in
a few months' time, to be capable of removal to the country, for
the benefit of change of air and of scene. He visited Blenheim;
and on going through such of the rooms as were finished, was shown
a picture of himself at the battle of Blenheim. He turned away
with a mournful air, saying only--but in memorable and significant
words--"Something _then_!--but _now_!"[46]
[46] ALISON, ii. p. 305.
He continued, on earnest solicitation, to hold his high military
office and discharge its duties for five years, living also in
the tranquil enjoyment of domestic happiness, superintending the
education of his grandchildren, and taking special delight in the
rising architectural grandeur of Blenheim, down even to the period
of his death. He made his last appearance in the House of Lords on
the 27th November 1721, but in June following had a severe and fatal
attack of paralysis. It at once prostrated his physical without
impairing his mental powers. To a question of his Duchess, whether
he heard the prayers which were being read as usual at night in
his apartment, he replied, "Yes; and I joined in them!" These were
the last words of this great man, who expired calmly a few hours
subsequently, in the seventy-second year of his age. He who thus
joined in prayers[47] on his deathbed had, with solemn reverence,
joined in them on the eves of Blenheim and of Malplaquet with his
whole army; and, amidst all the bloody horrors of war, had, in like
manner, remembered his God on every occasion, joining precept with
example in a noble spirit of piety. Let us hope that the prayers of
the dying warrior were heard and accepted by Him who heareth prayer,
and that he quitted life in a spirit different from that of Peter
the Great, who said on his death-bed, "I trust that, _in respect
of the good I have striven to do my people_, God will pardon my
sins!"[48] Mr Alison "charitably hopes that these words have been
realised"--he might have lamented the fallaciousness of Peter's
reliance.
[47] Marlborough had received the sacrament with great solemnity
at the midnight preceding the day of the battle of Blenheim; and
shortly before, divine service had been performed at the head of
every regiment and squadron in the Allied army. After the battle
he said, that "he had prayed to God more frequently during its
continuance than all the chaplains of both armies put together which
served under his orders."--_Ibid._ vol. i. p. 166.
[48] _Ibid._ ii. 100.
Marlborough's funeral obsequies were celebrated with extraordinary
magnificence, and all ranks and all parties joined in doing him
honour. On the sides of the car bearing the coffin, shields were
affixed containing emblematic representations of his battles
and sieges. Blenheim was there, and the Schellemberg, Ramilies,
Oudenarde, and Malplaquet; Ruremonde and Liege, Menin and
Dendermonde, Antwerp and Brussels, Ostend and Ghent, Tournay and
Lille, Mons and Bouchain, Bethune, St Venant, and Aire. "The number,
and the recollections with which they were fraught, made the English
ashamed of the manner in which they had used the hero who had filled
the world with his renown."[49]
[49] _Ibid._ p. 307.
Thus lived, and thus died, and thus was buried, John Duke of
Marlborough, of whom Lord Mahon[50] takes leave in a strain of
solemnity and dignity befitting the occasion:--
"England lost one of her noblest worthies in John Duke of
Marlborough. His achievements do not fall within my limits,
and his character seems rather to belong to the historians of
another period. Let them endeavour to delineate his vast and
various abilities--that genius which saw humbled before it the
proudest mareschals of France--that serenity of temper which
enabled him patiently to bear, and bearing to overcome, all the
obstinacy of the Dutch deputies, all the slowness of the German
generals--those powers of combination so provident of failure,
and so careful of details, that it might almost be said of him,
that before he gave any battle he had already won it! Let them
describe him in council as in arms, not always righteous in his
end, but ever mighty in his means!"
[50] _History of England_, ii. 41, 42.
There was grandeur in the words with which the Garter-King-at-Arms
closed the ceremonial at the tomb:--"Thus it has pleased Almighty
God to take out of this transitory world, into his mercy, the most
high, mighty, noble prince, John Duke of Marlborough." He has
passed to his great account, and must stand hereafter before the
Searcher of Hearts, to give an account of the deeds done in the
body, and be judged accordingly. It becomes us, shortsighted and
fallible as we are, to deal cautiously and tenderly with the memory
of the illustrious departed. There may have been many palliating
circumstances in the case of Marlborough's desertion of James which
have never yet been taken into account, and which now, probably,
never will. Could we hear his own explanation of his conduct towards
James, that explanation might greatly change our estimate of his
fault, and mitigate the asperity of our censures. No one can venture
to justify Marlborough's conduct towards James, in remaining in
his service, apparently devoted to his interests--then one of the
most confiding masters whom man ever had--after he had irrevocably
committed himself to that master's enemy, and effectually secured
the downfall and destruction of one who had actually saved the
life of his treacherous servant, and showered upon him every
possible mark of affection and distinction. That Marlborough was
conscientiously attached to the cause of Protestantism while he
thus acted, we have no doubt whatever; nor that he cherished that
attachment to the last moment of his life, and respected it as the
star by which he steered throughout his career. We must remember
that he had done everything in his power to divert James from his
purpose of re-establishing Popery. "My places, and the King's
favour," said he, in 1687, "I set at nought, in comparison of being
true to my religion. In all things but this the King may command me;
and I call God to witness that even with joy I should expose my life
in his service, so sensible am I of his favours--I being resolved,
though I cannot live the life of a saint, if there be occasion for
it, to live the life of a martyr." This he said to William, then
Prince of Orange. And during the same year he had thus sternly
addressed James himself, when remonstrating with him for "paving the
way for the introduction of Popery." He spoke with great warmth, and
thus--"What I spoke, sir, proceeded from my zeal for your Majesty's
service, which I prefer above all things, next to that of God; and
I humbly beseech your Majesty to believe that no subject in the
three kingdoms will venture farther than I will to purchase your
favour and good liking. But as I have been bred a Protestant, and
intend to live and die in that communion, and as above nine out
of ten in England are of that persuasion, I fear, from the genius
of the people, and their natural aversion to the Roman Catholic
worship, some consequences which I dare not so much as name, and
which I cannot contemplate without horror."[51] That he said this
to his infatuated master is indisputable; but it was his duty to
have at once quitted the service of that master, on finding that he
could not conscientiously continue in it. "Had he done so," says Mr
Alison, "and then either taken no part in the Revolution, or never
appeared in arms against him, the most scrupulous moralist could
have discovered nothing reprehensible in his conduct." That course
Marlborough did not take; and that which he did must have entailed
upon his sensitive mind unspeakable misery and mortification
throughout life. He must also have foreseen the blot which that
conduct would fix for ever on his fair fame--a reflection which
must have dimmed the splendour of his greatest triumphs, and wrung
his heart in its proudest moments of justifiable exultation. When
we reflect upon his long and illustrious course of public service,
the spotless purity of his private conduct in all the relations of
life, as husband, father, friend; his uniform piety, his humanity,
generosity, magnanimity, under the most trying circumstances in
which man can be placed, we are filled with as much wonder as
lamentation at this instance of treachery, this temporary oblivion
of all sense of honour and loyalty. But has it not been heavily
punished, and has it not been atoned for?
[51] ALISON, i. 14, 15, note.
The charge, however, of a far more damning character than that
of his conduct towards the Stuarts--that of having prolonged the
war for his own selfish ends--is annihilated, after having been
reiterated with almost fiendish malignity and perseverance. Mr
Alison has placed this matter in the clearest possible light, and
accumulated such an overwhelming mass of disproof that it seems
perfectly monstrous that any such charge should have been for a
moment entertained by even the most rancorous of his enemies. It now
appears, from his correspondence throughout the war, that he pined
and languished for its close, in order that he might cease to be
the butt of malevolence and calumny, and escape from the crushing
pressure of his thankless toils and responsibilities into the
repose of private life. Out of a great number of similar passages
which we had marked for quotation, here is one both eloquent and
affecting. He is writing to the Duchess from Flanders in 1705, and
alluding to the calumnies against himself, which were reported to
him from England. "This vile enormous faction of theirs vexes me so
much, that I hope the Queen will after this campaign _allow me to
retire_, and end my days in praying for her prosperity and making
my peace with God."[52] He repeatedly supplicated to be allowed to
resign his command, and only the command of the sovereign, and the
importunities of his friends and of the Allies, prevailed upon him
to persevere. He made the most desperate efforts to bring the war to
a speedy close, but also a _safe_ one; for he never lost sight for
a moment of the great objects with which it had been undertaken. He
saw distinctly, from first to last, that there was no real peace for
Europe, no guarantee for our own independence, and for our civil and
religious liberties, but the complete prostration of the ambition
and power of Louis XIV.; and if his own enlightened sagacity had not
been repeatedly thwarted by the stupidity or faction of those with
whom he had to deal, he would early have deprived his traducers of
even the faintest pretext for their imputations upon him. "I have
had to modify my opinion of Marlborough," said the late eloquent
Professor Smyth,[53] "since considering the lately published 'Life'
of Archdeacon Coxe. I can no longer consider him as so betrayed
by a spirit of personal ambition as I had once suspected, and I
have a still stronger impression of his amiable nature in domestic
life. The _great_ Duke of Marlborough has been always his proper
appellation, and he is only made greater by being made more known
by the publication of Mr Coxe; nor can it be doubted that he would
appear greater still, the more the difficulties with which he was
surrounded, on all occasions, could be appreciated." This is said
in a candid and honourable spirit, by a professor whose sacred duty
was to give true notions of history, and of the characters figuring
in it, to the students of a great university. "These difficulties,"
continues the professor, "may now be partly estimated; the impetuous
temper and consequent imprudence of a wife, whom for her beauty, her
talents, and her affection, he naturally idolised; the low narrow
mind and mulish nature of the Queen he served; the unreasonable
wishes and strange prejudices of the men of influence in his own
country; the discordant interests and passions of different states
and princes on the Continent; the pertinacity of the field-deputies
of Holland, whom he could not send over into the camp of the enemy,
their more proper station, and to whose absurdities it gave him the
headache to listen." This pithy paragraph well groups together the
leading "difficulties" with which this amazing man had to contend;
and in Mr Alison's volumes a flood of light is thrown upon them
all. None of his readers can fail to feel the profoundest sympathy
with harassed greatness. Without compromising his own sense of what
is right, or attempting to conceal or disguise the failings of his
hero, Mr Alison has painted a picture, at once noble and affecting,
of the Duke of Marlborough, in every aspect of his character, in
every position in which he was placed. In private and in public
life--as a friend, as a father, as a husband--as a diplomatist,
as a statesman, as a warrior--where is his equal to be found, and
how can we be too grateful to one who has placed him, in all these
characters, so vividly before us? "If the preceding pages," says Mr
Alison, modestly, at the close of his biography, "shall contribute
in any degree to the illustration of so great a character, and to
shed the light of historic truth on the actions of one of the most
illustrious men whom the world has ever produced, the author's
labours will not have been incurred in vain." They have not; and we
doubt not that these volumes will add greatly to the well-earned
reputation of the historian of the French Revolution. We repeat that
the knowledge gained by Mr Alison, in preparing that work, has given
him peculiar qualifications for writing the present. We had marked
a great number of instances in which the events in Marlborough's
campaigns, and those events which led to them and followed them,
are most plenteously and instructively compared and contrasted
with those of the great compaigns of Wellington and Napoleon. The
resemblance is sometimes startling; but the length to which this
article has run compels us to rest satisfied with referring the
reader to the present work. The last chapter consists of five
deeply-interesting portraits,--Marlborough, Eugene, Frederick the
Great, Napoleon, and Wellington--the five great generals of modern
times. The distinctive features of each are given with fidelity and
force. It is, however, in the full flow of his military narrative
that the peculiar excellence of Mr Alison is to be found. His
battles[54] are always dashed off boldly and brilliantly, as far
as effect is concerned, and at the same time with the most exact
attention to details.
[52] ALISON, i. 211, note.
[53] _Lectures_, i. 143.
[54] A very happy idea is embodied in a work recently published, and
which has quickly reached a second edition--Mr Creasy's _Fifteen
Decisive Battles of the World, from Marathon to Waterloo_. The idea
was suggested by a remark of Mr Hallam, placed on the title-page
by way of motto, "These few battles, of which a contrary event
would have essentially varied the drama of the world in all its
subsequent scenes." Mr Alison frequently puts such cases, in both
_The Life of Marlborough_ and his _History of Europe_. Mr Creasy, as
a distinguished scholar and a professor of history, has acquitted
himself very ably. His fifteen battles are well selected, as
radiating centres of enduring influence upon human affairs in their
greatest crises--as so many nuclei of historical knowledge.
We are not disposed to be critical with an author who has afforded
us such great gratification--
"Ubi plura nitent--uni ego paucis
Offendar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit,
Aut humana parum carit natura!"
There are, however, occasional traces of haste, involving
repetitions and confused expressions, which, doubtless, will
disappear in future editions. We doubt not that they will be called
for; and are happy to have had this opportunity of calling attention
to a new work proceeding from a gentleman standing so deservedly
high with the public, and which, moreover, as we have more than
once intimated, is very well timed. Let any one contemplate France
at the present moment, and observe the attitude of the Romish and
Protestant forms of faith throughout Europe, and in Great Britain,
and he will think with no little anxiety of the days of another
Louis, now on the scene of action; and perhaps inquire anxiously,
with reference to the future, where is _our_ Marlborough?
MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.
BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.
BOOK IX. CONTINUED--CHAPTER IX.
With a slow step and an abstracted air, Harley L'Estrange bent his
way towards Egerton's house, after his eventful interview with
Helen. He had just entered one of the streets leading into Grosvenor
Square, when a young man, walking quickly from the opposite
direction, came full against him, and drawing back with a brief
apology, recognised him, and exclaimed, "What! you in England, Lord
L'Estrange! Accept my congratulations on your return. But you seem
scarcely to remember me."
"I beg your pardon, Mr Leslie. I remember you now by your smile; but
you are of an age in which it is permitted me to say that you look
older than when I saw you last."
"And yet, Lord L'Estrange, it seems to me that you look younger."
Indeed, this reply was so far true that there appeared less
difference of years than before between Leslie and L'Estrange; for
the wrinkles in the schemer's mind were visible in his visage, while
Harley's dreamy worship of Truth and Beauty seemed to have preserved
to the votary the enduring youth of the divinities.
Harley received the compliment with a supreme indifference, which
might have been suitable to a Stoic, but which seemed scarcely
natural to a gentleman who had just proposed to a lady many years
younger than himself.
Leslie renewed--"Perhaps you are on your way to Mr Egerton's. If so,
you will not find him at home; he is at his office."
"Thank you. Then to his office I must re-direct my steps."
"I am going to him myself," said Randal hesitatingly.
L'Estrange had no prepossessions in favour of Leslie, from the
little he had seen of that young gentleman; but Randal's remark was
an appeal to his habitual urbanity, and he replied with well-bred
readiness, "Let us be companions so far."
Randal accepted the arm proffered to him; and Lord L'Estrange, as
is usual with one long absent from his native land, bore part as a
questioner in the dialogue that ensued.
"Egerton is always the same man, I suppose--too busy for illness,
and too firm for sorrow?"
"If he ever feel either, he will never stoop to complain. But
indeed, my dear lord, I should like much to know what you think of
his health."
"How? You alarm me!"
"Nay, I did not mean to do that; and, pray, do not let him know that
I went so far. But I have fancied that he looks a little worn, and
suffering."
"Poor Audley!" said L'Estrange in a tone of deep affection. "I will
sound him, and, be assured, without naming you; for I know well how
little he likes to be supposed capable of human infirmity. I am
obliged to you for your hint--obliged to you for your interest in
one so dear to me."
And Harley's voice was more cordial to Randal than it had ever
been before. He then began to inquire what Randal thought of the
rumours that had reached himself as to the probable defeat of
the government, and how far Audley's spirits were affected by
such risks. But Randal here, seeing that Harley could communicate
nothing, was reserved and guarded.
"Loss of office could not, I think, affect a man like
Audley," observed Lord L'Estrange. "He would be as great in
opposition--perhaps greater; and as to emoluments"----
"The emoluments are good," interposed Randal with a half sigh.
"Good enough, I suppose, to pay him back about a tenth of what his
place costs our magnificent friend--No, I will say one thing for
English statesmen, no man amongst them ever yet was the richer for
place."
"And Mr Egerton's private fortune must be large, I take for
granted," said Randal carelessly.
"It ought to be, if he has time to look to it."
Here they passed by the hotel in which lodged the Count di Peschiera.
Randal stopped. "Will you excuse me for an instant? As we are
passing this hotel, I will just leave my card here." So saying, he
gave his card to a waiter lounging by the door. "For the Count di
Peschiera," said he aloud.
L'Estrange started; and as Randal again took his arm, said--"So that
Italian lodges here? and you know him?"
"I know him but slightly, as one knows any foreigner who makes a
sensation."
"He makes a sensation?"
"Naturally; for he is handsome, witty, and said to be very
rich--that is, as long as he receives the revenues of his exiled
kinsman."
"I see you are well informed, Mr Leslie. And what is supposed to
bring hither the Count di Peschiera?"
"I did hear something, which I did not quite understand, about a
bet of his that he would marry his kinsman's daughter; and so, I
conclude, secure to himself all the inheritance; and that he is
therefore here to discover the kinsman and win the heiress. But
probably you know the rights of the story, and can tell me what
credit to give to such gossip."
"I know this at least, that if he did lay such a wager, I would
advise you to take any odds against him that his backers may give,"
said L'Estrange drily; and while his lip quivered with anger, his
eye gleamed with arch ironical humour.
"You think, then, that this poor kinsman will not need such an
alliance in order to regain his estates?"
"Yes; for I never yet knew a rogue whom I would not bet against,
when he backed his own luck as a rogue against Justice and
Providence."
Randal winced, and felt as if an arrow had grazed his heart; but he
soon recovered.
"And indeed there is another vague rumour that the young lady in
question is married already--to some Englishman."
This time it was Harley who winced. "Good Heavens! that cannot be
true--that would undo all! An Englishman just at this moment! But
some Englishman of correspondent rank I trust, or at least one known
for opinions opposed to what an Austrian would call revolutionary
doctrines?"
"I know nothing. But it was supposed, merely a private gentleman of
good family. Would not that suffice? Can the Austrian Court dictate
a marriage to the daughter as a condition for grace to the father?"
"No--not that!" said Harley, greatly disturbed. "But put yourself
in the position of any minister to one of the great European
monarchies. Suppose a political insurgent, formidable for station
and wealth, had been proscribed, much interest made on his behalf,
a powerful party striving against it, and just when the minister
is disposed to relent, he hears that the heiress to this wealth
and this station is married to the native of a country in which
sentiments friendly to the very opinions for which the insurgent
was proscribed are popularly entertained, and thus that the fortune
to be restored may be so employed as to disturb the national
security--the existing order of things;--this, too, at the very
time when a popular revolution has just occurred in France,[55] and
its effects are felt most in the very land of the exile:--suppose
all this, and then say if anything could be more untoward for the
hopes of the banished man, or furnish his adversaries with stronger
arguments against the restoration of his fortune? But pshaw--this
must be a chimera! If true, I should have known of it."
[55] As there have been so many revolutions in France, it may be
convenient to suggest that, according to the dates of this story,
Harley no doubt alludes to that revolution which exiled Charles X.
and placed Louis Philippe on the throne.
"I quite agree with your lordship--there can be no truth in such a
rumour. Some Englishman hearing, perhaps, of the probable pardon of
the exile, may have counted on an heiress, and spread the report in
order to keep off other candidates. By, your account, if successful
in his suit, he might fail to find an heiress in the bride?"
"No doubt of that. Whatever might be arranged, I can't conceive
that he would be allowed to get at the fortune, though it might
be held in suspense for his children. But indeed it so rarely
happens that an Italian girl of high name marries a foreigner, that
we must dismiss this notion with a smile at the long face of the
hypothetical fortune-hunter. Heaven help him, if he exist!"
"Amen," echoed Randal devoutly.
"I hear that Peschiera's sister is returned to England. Do you know
her too?"
"A little."
"My dear Mr Leslie, pardon me if I take a liberty not warranted by
our acquaintance. Against the lady I say nothing. Indeed, I have
heard some things which appear to entitle her to compassion and
respect. But as to Peschiera, all who prize honour suspect him to
be a knave--I know him to be one. Now, I think that the longer we
preserve that abhorrence for knavery which is the generous instinct
of youth, why, the fairer will be our manhood, and the more reverend
our age. You agree with me?" And Harley suddenly turning, his eyes
fell like a flood of light upon Randal's pale and secret countenance.
"To be sure," murmured the schemer.
Harley surveying him, mechanically recoiled, and withdrew his arm.
Fortunately for Randal, who somehow or other felt himself slipped
into a false position, he scarce knew how or why, he was here seized
by the arm; and a clear, open, manly voice cried, "My dear fellow,
how are you? I see you are engaged now; but look into my rooms when
you can, in the course of the day."
And with a bow of excuse for his interruption, to Lord L'Estrange,
the speaker was then turning away, when Harley said--
"No, don't let me take you from your friend, Mr Leslie. And you need
not be in a hurry to see Egerton; for I shall claim the privilege of
older friendship for the first interview."
"It is Mr Egerton's nephew, Frank Hazeldean."
"Pray, call him back, and present me to him. He has a face that
would have gone far to reconcile Timon to Athens."
Randal obeyed; and after a few kindly words to Frank, Harley
insisted on leaving the two young men together, and walked on to
Downing Street with a brisker step.
CHAPTER X.
"That Lord L'Estrange seems a very good fellow."
"So-so;--an effeminate humourist;--says the most absurd things, and
fancies them wise. Never mind him. You wanted to speak to me, Frank?"
"Yes; I am so obliged to you for introducing me to Levy. I must tell
you how handsomely he has behaved."
"Stop; allow me to remind you that I did not introduce you to Levy;
you had met him before at Borrowell's, if I recollect right, and
he dined with us at the Clarendon--that is all I had to do with
bringing you together. Indeed I rather cautioned you against him
than not. Pray don't think I introduced you to a man who, however
pleasant, and perhaps honest, is still a money-lender. Your father
would be justly angry with me if I had done so."
"Oh, pooh! you are prejudiced against poor Levy. But just hear: I
was sitting very ruefully, thinking over those cursed bills, and how
the deuce I should renew them, when Levy walked into my rooms; and
after telling me of his long friendship for my uncle Egerton, and
his admiration for yourself, and, (give me your hand, Randal) saying
how touched he felt by your kind sympathy in my troubles, he opened
his pocket-book, and showed me the bills safe and sound in his own
possession."
"How?"
"He had bought them, up. 'It must be so disagreeable to me,' he
said, 'to have them flying about the London money-market, and these
Jews would be sure sooner or later to apply to my father. And now,'
added Levy, 'I am in no immediate hurry for the money, and we must
put the interest upon fairer terms.' In short, nothing could be more
liberal than his tone. And he says, 'he is thinking of a way to
relieve me altogether, and will call about it in a few days, when
his plan is matured.' After all, I must owe this to you, Randal. I
dare swear you put it into his head."
"O no, indeed! On the contrary, I still say, 'Be cautious in all
your dealings with Levy.' I don't know, I'm sure, what he means to
propose. Have you heard from the Hall lately?'
"Yes--to-day. Only think--the Riccaboccas have disappeared. My
mother writes me word of it--a very odd letter. She seems to suspect
that I know where they are, and reproaches me for 'mystery'--quite
enigmatical. But there is one sentence in her letter--see, here it
is in the postscript--which seems to refer to Beatrice: 'I don't
ask you to tell me your secrets, Frank, but Randal will no doubt
have assured you that my first consideration will be for your own
happiness, in any matter in which your heart is really engaged.'"
"Yes," said Randal, slowly; "no doubt this refers to Beatrice;
but, as I told you, your mother will not interfere one way or the
other,--such interference would weaken her influence with the
Squire. Besides, as she said, she can't _wish_ you to marry a
foreigner; though once married, she would----But how do you stand
now with the Marchesa? Has she consented to accept you?"
"Not quite; indeed I have not actually proposed. Her manner, though
much softened, has not so far emboldened me; and, besides, before a
positive declaration, I certainly must go down to the Hall and speak
at least to my mother."
"You must judge for yourself, but don't do anything rash: talk first
to me. Here we are at my office. Good-bye; and--and pray believe
that, in whatever you do with Levy, I have no hand in it."