The second volume of the Rev. Mr. Gleig's _Lives of the most eminent
British, Military Commanders_, (and the 28th No. of the _Cabinet
Cyclopædia_,) contains Peterborough and Wolfe, and concludes
Marlborough. The latter is very copious, and perhaps more detailed than
we expected to find it. We subjoin an extract describing the last days
of
_Marlborough_.
"The stream of public events has hurried us on so rapidly, that we have
found little leisure to record those domestic trials, to which, in
common with the rest of his species, the great Marlborough was subject.
One of these, the death of the young and promising Marquess of
Blandford, was a blow which the duke felt severely when it overtook him,
and which to the last he ceased not to deplore. Another bereavement he
suffered on the 22nd of March, 1714, by the premature decease of his
daughter, Lady Bridgewater, in the twenty-sixth year of her age. Lady
Bridgewater was an amiable and an accomplished woman, imbued with a
profound sense of religion, and beloved both by her parents and her
husband. But she possessed not the same influence over the former, which
her sister Anne, Countess of Sunderland, exercised, on no occasion for
evil, on every occasion for a good purpose. Of the society of this
excellent woman, who had devoted herself since his return to dull the
edge of political asperity, and to control the capricious temper of her
mother, Marlborough was likewise deprived. After bearing with Christian
fortitude a painful and lingering illness, she was attacked, in the
beginning of April, 1716, with a pleurisy, against which her enfeebled
constitution proved unable to oppose itself, and on the 15th she died,
at the early age of twenty-eight. Like Rachel weeping for her children,
Marlborough refused to be comforted. He withdrew to the retirement of
Holywell, that he might indulge his sorrow unseen; and there became
first afflicted by that melancholy distemper, under which first his mind
and eventually his body sunk.
"To what proximate cause this attack is to be attributed,--whether to
excess of sorrow, or, which is more probable, to an accumulation of
predisposing occurrences,--we possess no means of ascertaining; but on
the 28th of May he was smitten with paralysis, and became deprived on
the instant both of sense and of speech. The best medical aid being at
hand, he was speedily relieved from the fit, and under the skilful
management of Sir Samuel Garth, gradually regained his strength; but
from the usual effects of such a stroke he never wholly recovered,
neither his articulation nor his memory being restored to their original
tone. He was able to proceed, it is true, so early as the 7th of July,
to Bath, where he drank the waters with benefit, and he returned in a
certain degree into society, resuming with apparent ease the ordinary
course of his employment. That his faculties were not absolutely
impaired, moreover, is demonstrated by the fact, that it was
subsequently to this his first seizure that he played his part on the
trial of Lord Oxford; while his successful speculation in South Sea
stock, by which, contrary to the custom of the adventure, he realized
100,000_l_. proves that the talent of making money, at least, had not
deserted him. But it seems an idle as well as an uncalled for perversion
of truth to contend, that from the date of his first attack he ever was
the man he had been previously. If 'the tears of dotage' did not flow
from his eyes, it is certain that much of the vigour of mind which once
belonged to him was lost, and even his speech continued embarrassed in
the pronunciation of certain words, as his features were slightly
distorted. Nor did the events which accumulated upon him, both at home
and abroad, by abstracting him from painful subjects, tend to facilitate
his recovery. The duchess, not less the slave of caprice now than
formerly, managed to involve herself in a serious misunderstanding with
the king, and withdrew, in consequence, her attendance on a court where
her presence ceased to be agreeable. This was preceded by quarrels with
almost all the oldest and steadiest friends of her husband, such as
Cadogan, Stanhope, Sunderland, and secretary Scraggs, which were not
composed till after the growing infirmities of the duke had taught them
to think of what he once had been, and what he was likely soon to
become. Nor was the death of Sunderland, which took place in April,
1722, without its effect in harassing the Duke of Marlborough. That
nobleman not only died in his father-in-law's debt, to the amount of
10,000_l_.; but the sealing up of his papers by government occasioned a
tedious suit, Marlborough being naturally anxious to secure them to
himself; a measure which the government, on public grounds, resisted.
"Besides being involved in these vexatious disputes, Marlborough was
again harassed by the workmen employed at Blenheim, who in 1718 renewed
their actions against him for arrears of wages due since 1715. He
resisted the demand; but a decree issued against him, from which he
appealed, though without effect, to the house of lords. No doubt there
was excessive meanness here on the part of government, of which
Marlborough had just cause to complain. Yet was it beneath the dignity
of the greatest man of his age to dispute with his ungrateful country
about 9,000£. Better would it have been had he paid the debt at once;
for the sum was not such as to put him to the smallest inconvenience,
and posterity would have more than recompensed the loss by the judgment
which it would have passed on the entire transaction. In spite, however,
of these multiplied sources of disturbance, it does not appear that the
latter years of this great man's life were spent unhappily. Frequent
returns of illness he doubtless had, each of which left him more and
more enfeebled in mind and body; but his intervals of ease seem to have
been passed in the society of those who were well disposed to cheat him,
as far as they could, into a forgetfulness of his fallen condition. He
played much at chess, whist, piquet, and ombre; he took exercise for
awhile on horseback, latterly, on account of weakness, in his carriage;
he even walked, when at Blenheim, unattended about his own grounds, and
took great delight in the performance of private theatricals. We have
the best authority for asserting, likewise, that he was never, till
within a short time of his death, either indisposed or incapable of
conversing freely with his friends. Whether in London, at Blenheim,
Holywell, or Windsor Lodge (and he latterly moved from place to place
with a sort of restless frequency), his door was always open to the
visits of his numerous and sincere admirers; all of whom he received
without ceremony, and treated with peculiar kindness.
"In this manner Marlborough continued to drag on an existence, which,
when contrasted with the tenour of years gone by, scarcely deserves to
be accounted other than vegetation. In 1720, he added several codicils
to his will, and 'put his house in order;' and in November, 1721, he
made his appearance in the house of lords, where, however, he took no
prominent part in the business under discussion. He had spent the winter
too in London, according to his usual habits, and was recently returned
to Windsor Lodge, when his paralytic complaint again attacked him, with
a degree of violence which resisted all efforts at removal. On this
occasion, it does not appear that the faculties of his mind failed him.
He lay, indeed, for the better part of a week, incapable of the
slightest bodily exertion, being lifted from his couch to his bed, and
from his bed to his couch, according as he indicated a wish to that
effect; but he retained his senses so perfectly as to listen with
manifest gratification to the prayers of his chaplain, and to join in
them, as he himself stated, on the evening preceding his death. The
latter event befell at four o'clock in the morning of the 16th of June,
1722, 'when his strength,' says Dr. Coxe, 'suddenly failed him, and he
rendered up his spirit to his Maker, in the 72nd year of his age.'
"The Duke of Marlborough left behind him three daughters, all of them
married into the best families of the kingdom. Henrietta, the eldest,
the wife of Francis Earl of Godolphin, became on her father's decease
Duchess of Marlborough; but died in 1733, without male issue. Anne
married Charles, Earl of Sunderland, from whom are descended the present
Duke of Marlborough and the Earl of Spencer; and Mary gave her hand to
the Duke of Montagu. The property which he had accumulated in the course
of his long and busy life proved to be very great. In addition to the
estates purchased for him by the country, he disposed by will of lands
and money, of which the interest fell not short of 100,000£ a year;
indeed, the annual revenue bequeathed to his successors in Woodstock
alone is given on the best authority at 70,000£. The mansion house at
Blenheim was at the period of his death still in progress of erection,
and he set apart a sum of money for the purpose of completing it, of
which he committed the management exclusively to the duchess, who
survived her husband many years. It seems alone necessary to add to
this, that the estates of Woodstock are held on feudal tenure, the
occupant presenting to the king once a year a standard similar to those
which the founder of his house captured; and that these are regularly
deposited in a private chapel at Windsor, where they may still be seen
by the curious.
"The funeral of this illustrious warrior and statesman was of course as
magnificent as his reputation and the honour of the country seemed to
require. His body, after undergoing the process of embalming, and lying
in state at Marlborough House, was conveyed in a sort of triumphal car
to Westminster Abbey, long lines of carriages following, and all the
parade of troops, heralds, and mourners preceding and surrounding the
senseless clay. A gorgeous canopy overshadowed it, adorned with plumes,
military trophies, and heraldic achievements. Dukes and earls were the
chief mourners; the pall being borne by persons of not less eminent
rank; and the cavalcade was received by the light of blazing torches at
the door of the abbey by all the dignitaries and ministers of the church
in full canonicals. Yet was the solemn ceremony performed for no other
purpose than to render due honours to the remains of England's most
illustrious commander. The body was not permitted for any length of time
to rest where, amid such splendous, it had been entombed; but, being
removed to the chapel at Blenheim, it was finally deposited in a
mausoleum, erected by Rysbrack, under the superintendence of the
duchess."
Altogether this volume maintains the creditable character of the series
to which it belongs.
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