Third Marriage of Lord Sunderland—Calumnies against the Duke and
Duchess of Marlborough—Interview between the Duchess and George the
First—The result—Her differences with Lord Sunderland—Illness,
death, and character of the Duke of Marlborough.—1721–22.
The Duchess of Marlborough tasted at this time sufficient of the real
troubles of life to chasten a spirit less elastic than that which she
possessed. Amongst various mortifications, Lord Sunderland inflicted a
bitter pang, by marrying for the third time. His last wife, Judith, the
daughter of Benjamin Tichborne, Esq., was not only of an unsuitable age,
but inferior in rank, property, and connexions, to the Earl’s station
and circumstances. He aggravated this affront to the family of his
former wife, by settling on her successor a portion of his property, to
the injury of his children. No remonstrances on the part of the Duchess
could prevent this annoying union, and subsequent arrangement; but her
letters to Lord Sunderland teemed with invective, whilst his lordship’s
replies were filled with bitter recriminations.
A mind so constituted as Lord Sunderland’s was not calculated to rise
above the littleness of revenge, when opportunity occurred. A report,
which became current among the higher circles, that the Duchess favoured
the Pretender, gave him probably less concern than it would at a former
period have imparted. The Duchess, from consideration for her husband,
concealed the rumour from him; but Sunderland summoned his father-in-law
suddenly to his house, and acquainted him, in a coarse and unfeeling
manner, with the calumny. The Duke returned to the Duchess greatly
disturbed, and, in answer to her inquiries, informed her that she was
accused of favouring the Pretender, and assisting him with a sum of
money in his designs upon the throne.
The Duke, shattered in nerves, was greatly agitated by this abrupt
disclosure; but it was received by the Duchess with disdain, and by an
endeavour to soothe his irritation. But when her husband informed her
that the King had heard the report, and that even the Duke was supposed
to share her treasonable practices, she resolved, with her wonted
courage, to appear at the drawing-room, in order to ascertain how deeply
the poison of calumny had worked.
On her first appearance she was received coldly; and when on a second
occasion she repaired to court, a reception equally chilling, and
equally contrasted with the marked attention which had formerly been
paid to her, confirmed her fears; and upon this demonstration of
displeasure she resolved to make her wrongs and her innocence known to
the King.
The person through whose mediation the Duchess did not think it unseemly
to address his Majesty, was the Duchess of Kendal, formerly Madame
Schulemberg, the mistress, or, as some supposed, the left-handed wife of
George the First; a lady whose mental and personal qualities were not,
fortunately for the safety of virtue, such as to cast a lustre over the
equivocal, if not disgraceful position in which she stood.
The Duchess of Kendal was at this time a “tall, lean, ill-favoured old
lady,” who had lived for forty years in all the contentment which virtue
merits, and without the usual attractions of vice; mistress to a King,
unimpassioned, inert, and respectably vicious—an “honest, dull German
gentleman,”[274] to whose darkened conscience habitual profligacy
offered no offence.
The Duchess of Kendal, when she arrived in England, was destined to
learn a lesson new to her; and the desire of political influence which
she acquired, led to an interference of which she had never before
dreamed. Her hatred to the Walpole family, whom the Duchess also
detested, might probably account for their making common cause together,
on the occasion which must now be described.
It was through the persuasion of the Duchess of Kendal that the Duchess
of Marlborough obtained an interview with the King, at the apartments of
his mistress in St. James’s palace, in the same suite of rooms which
were afterwards inhabited by the Countess of Suffolk, the favourite of
his equally profligate and equally uninteresting son.
The Duchess of Marlborough, when thus introduced to the sovereign,
delivered to his Majesty a letter containing a distinct denial of the
charges against her. The plain and homely German monarch seems to have
received her address favourably, nor was he a man to daunt, by his stern
dignity, one who had been formerly often in the presence of the cold,
repulsive William of Orange. George was one who could scarcely offend or
be offended, and who never sought to awe, and rarely to repulse. His
manners and appearance were those of an elderly gentleman, rather of the
middle than of the higher class, and his temper resembled that of other
elderly gentlemen arrived at a comfortable period of life, when the
composure, though not the apathy and weakness of age, begins to be
manifested. The King required importunity to rouse him to exertion.[275]
He has been described, from recollection, as a tall personage, somewhat
pale, with an aspect rather good than august, and dressed in a style
equally unobtrusive with his character: a dark tie-wig, a plain coat,
waistcoat, and breeches, of snuff-coloured cloth, with stockings of the
same colour, and a blue ribbon over all, constituted an attire widely
different from the gay and costly habiliments of the gallants of his
court, amongst whom the fantastic and studied style of dress of the
Stuart days had not yet subsided into the mediocrity of modern days,
which has gradually departed more and more widely from the models of
former times.
The address delivered by the Duchess to his Majesty expressed in strong
terms her surprise that any person “should, after all the trouble and
danger she had been exposed to from her zeal for his Majesty and his
family, suppose her capable of holding a correspondence with the King’s
greatest enemy, and that she should have been represented guilty of so
black and foolish a crime.” She entreated, in conclusion, to be allowed
“to justify herself in such a manner as should seem possible to his
Majesty’s great wisdom.”
After presenting her petition, the Duchess retired, and though pressed
by the Duchess of Kendal to return, she refused to do so. It is
remarkable, that notwithstanding the period of her exile, and her
frequent intercourse with distinguished foreigners, the Duchess could
not speak French;[276] any conversation, therefore, with the King was
impracticable, for his Majesty neither understood English, nor ever took
the slightest pains to acquire the language.
The reply of his Majesty to her grace’s petition fully evinced the
coolness of his sentiments towards her, however he might respect and
confide in the Duke.[277]
“St. James’s, Dec. 17, 1720.
“Whatever I may have been told on your account, I think I have shown, on
all occasions, the value I have for the services of the Duke, your
husband; and I am always disposed to judge of him and you by the
behaviour of each of you in regard to my service. Upon which I pray God,
my Lady Marlborough, to preserve you in all happiness.
“GEORGE R.”
The Duchess was deeply disappointed upon the receipt of this letter. It
was, she doubted not, dictated by the ministry at that time in power, of
whom Horace Lord Walpole, Lord Sunderland, and Mr. Secretary Craggs,
formed the most influential members.
Lord Walpole, the younger brother of the great minister, to whom the
dislike of the Duchess extended, had been the early friend and fellow
collegian of her deceased son; and what, perhaps, occasioned a greater
bond of union in a mind so constituted, during the whole course of his
political career, a genuine Whig, and, in conjunction with Newcastle,
Addison, Pulteney, Craggs, and others. He was, also, a member of the
Hanover club, who had gone so far, in 1713, as to show their hatred of
the Jacobite cause, by parading effigies of the Devil, the Pope, and the
Pretender, in solemn procession from Charing Cross to the Exchange, and
back to Charing Cross, where they were burnt.[278] But, notwithstanding
the similarity of their political opinions, that administration from
which the Duchess had once expected great results, had failed to secure
her regard; probably from the little attention which they proffered to
that vanity which, like some weeds, grew more vigorously in the shade.
The Duchess was not only already at variance with Lord Sunderland,
another ministerial friend, but Mr. Craggs had fallen under her severe
displeasure. Upon this statesman of equivocal character the suspicions
of the Duchess now rested,[279] of having some years previously sent her
an anonymous letter of an offensive kind. She, therefore, in her reply
to the King’s laconic letter, gave vent to her suspicions, that since
there was only one person in all the world whom she knew capable of
calumniating her, that person “who might, perhaps, have malice enough to
her, and dishonour enough in himself to be guilty of it, is Mr.
Secretary Craggs.”[280]
Her charge, daring as it was, fell to the ground. No notice was taken of
this epistle, except a brief answer referring to the King’s former
reply; but the painful consequence of the Duchess’s surmises was a total
alienation from her son-in-law, Lord Sunderland; an alienation which
lasted nearly until his death, which took place in 1722. So singular was
the fate of this extraordinary woman in private life, that scarcely did
she possess a tie which was not severed, or embittered, by worldly or
political considerations.
The affair of the South Sea bubble, as it was called, a scheme
designated by Lord Walpole as “weak in its projection, villainous in its
execution, and calamitous in its end,”[281] was, in part, the cause of
the coolness which thus severed Lord Sunderland from the family with
whose interests his own had been so long bound up, and with whom he held
an hereditary alliance of affection, cemented by his happy marriage with
one of its best and purest ornaments. Scheming and ill judging, but not
venal, Lord Sunderland, during the height of the national infatuation,
availed himself of that singular crisis, and made use of the South Sea
bubble only as a political engine, and not to benefit his own
embarrassed fortunes.
The frenzy of this memorable scheme is said to have aided the settlement
of the house of Hanover on the throne, by drawing off the attention of
the people from the delirium of faction, to the almost equally dangerous
mania for speculation.[282] As an aid to his party designs, Lord
Sunderland, weakly, and with shortsighted policy, encouraged its
transient influence. He incurred the deepest displeasure from his
mother-in-law the Duchess; who might, perhaps, have forgiven him his
share in the great imposition, had her family and his lordship’s own
children not have suffered in the general crash. His neglect of the
interests of his children formed one of her greatest grounds of
complaint; yet she received, supported, and educated several of those
children, when, from his lordship’s improvidence and his death, he left
his numerous family to suffer from his embarrassments. Amongst other
debts, he owed ten thousand pounds to the Duke of Marlborough; but his
library, which, says Dr. Coxe, “was only rivalled by that of Lord Oxford
in rarity and extent, was one of the items of his personal property, and
now forms the basis of the noble collection at Blenheim.”
It may appear reasonable to suppose that the Duke and Duchess of
Marlborough, having now tasted of the enjoyments, or endured the
annoyances, of four successive courts, would gladly retire from all such
scenes, thankful to escape to the quiet possession of leisure, and to
the participation of such blessings as were spared to their old age.
Vast riches were superabundantly their portion. Yet even wealth, which
becomes a blessing or a curse according to the quality of that nature to
which it is attached, has its inconveniences; and the immense
accumulation of ready money appears to have caused the Duke considerable
embarrassment.
“I beg pardon for troubling you with this,” he wrote about this time, to
a friend, “but I am in a very odd distress—too much ready money. I have
now one hundred thousand pounds dead, and shall have fifty more next
week; if you can employ it in any way, it will be a very great favour to
me.”[283]
Surely so strange a dilemma as that of having a hundred and fifty
thousand pounds too much for one’s peace of mind, and of being able to
dispense with the interest of such a sum, is of rare occurrence.
The Duchess, it appears, was not only averse to speculations in the
South Sea scheme, but dreaded, at times, lest the national debt should
be cancelled by a “sponge,” as she frequently expressed it;[284] though
that phrase relates to a later period, when the hated Walpole was in
power.
The mere possession of wealth could, however, only have satisfied a mind
far less grovelling than that of the Duchess. Power was her aim, her
delight; a little brief authority her foible; intrigue her element,
faction her recreation. It was impossible that the habits of a long life
could be laid aside, and nothing could pacify her busy spirit.
Accordingly, we find her just as much devoted to the acquisition of
court favour in the decline of life, as she had been, before death had
deprived her of those bright ornaments of society for whose sake she may
have been supposed to have coveted royal favour with peculiar avidity.
Neglected by the King, she received with eagerness the attentions of the
Prince and Princess of Wales, who were at variance with the court, and
who consequently cherished the malcontents. The Princess, afterwards
Queen Caroline, was eventually a favourite with the Duchess; but, at an
earlier period, it was perhaps sufficient that George the First
habitually called his daughter-in-law “_cette diablesse Madame la
Princesse_,”[285] to render the Duchess, who was affronted by the small
account made of the Duke, and of her own influence, a warm partisan of
the Princess of Wales.
Eager to pay her utmost court to the Princess, in June, 1720, the
Duchess wrote to her friend Mrs. Clayton[286] a glowing description of a
visit to Richmond, which she had paid to their royal highnesses the
Prince and Princess of Wales, whose reception, as she declares, “of the
Duke of Marlborough and poor me” would fill more than the paper on which
she wrote. Not only was she graciously received by the Prince and
Princess, but by the Lord Chamberlain and attendants, even to the pages
of the bedchamber; so that the Duchess, long unused to receive such
certain demonstrations of favour, fancied herself in a new world. Music
of a superior kind gave gaiety to the entertainment; but the shrewd
Duchess could very plainly see that the Princess was more charmed with
the “music of the box and dice” than with any other instrument. Their
royal highnesses had, at that time, a charming residence at Richmond,
with beautiful walks, and woods wild and charming, but with a house
scarcely handsome enough, as the Duchess thought, for the heir apparent.
The fashionable amusement of the day was ombre, a game in which the
Duchess delighted, and in which she freely indulged with one Mr. Nevill,
her companion on this occasion, whilst she acknowledged that listening
to Mr. Nevill’s singing, in which he excelled, was almost as good an
amusement, and a qualification that pleased her grace mightily, at no
expense. Yet ombre riveted her, in spite of its ruinous expenses; and,
what was more, she enjoyed her visit to Richmond greatly,
notwithstanding that she lost a considerable sum of money. Royal
condescension could gild over the unpleasant features even of that
incident, although, as the Duchess humorously remarked, “she lost a
great deal of money for one who is not in the South Sea!” Yet she came
away, nevertheless, with the intention of playing at ombre as long as
she could keep my Lord Cardigan and Mr. Nevill at Woodstock, considering
that there were but few now in whom she had any interest after her death
to induce her to save.
Such were some of the reflections of the Duchess, in quitting the lovely
and cheerful scenes of Richmond Park. She came away, delighted with
little and great things, full of commendations of the Princess, who had
enchanted her, more especially by calling back one of her grandchildren
and bidding her hold up her head; a thing of which the Duchess was
telling Lady Charlotte every day; and reflecting how well princes might
govern without bribing parliament, and be as absolute as they pleased,
if they chose ministers of good reputation, who had the interest of
their country at heart.[287]
It is evident, from these comments, that the Duchess expected to resume
her influence, when the heir apparent should succeed to the throne of
his father. Her daughter, the Duchess of Montague, was, indeed,
appointed mistress of the robes to Queen Caroline. But the Duchess of
Marlborough discovered that her influence was but little appreciated by
the Walpole party, from whom she expected so much. It could not even
obtain a commission for her grandson; it could not prevent constant
broils with Queen Caroline, which engendered hatred in the mind of the
Duchess towards that eulogised Princess.
Seventeen years after the pleasant day at Richmond, when age and
infirmity had soured her temper, and time had plainly proved to her that
her importance in the society of the great was for ever fled, the
Duchess altered her opinion of Queen Caroline.[288] So mutable are
opinions in this world; and so transitory those fashions which
capriciously hold up to public favour, or to general execration, the
characters of royal personages.
The Duke of Marlborough had continued for some years in the same
precarious state of health, to which his first attack of disease had
reduced him. He had lingered six years after the first stroke of palsy,
suffering repeated attacks of the formidable disorder. His mind, though
not totally enfeebled, must, in all probability, have been affected in
some degree by those visitations which shackle the limbs, impede the
motions of the tongue, and usually render the nervous system cruelly
susceptible. Yet still the Duke retained many of his usual habits,
underwent the fatigue of journeys, entered into society, and occupied
his latter days in arranging the testamentary disposition of that vast
wealth which he had laboured so long and so eagerly to accumulate.
The Duke of Marlborough is vaguely stated, by his biographer, Dr. Coxe,
to have died “immensely rich;” others have declared his fortune to have
amounted, at his death, to nearly a million sterling. It therefore
became a matter of much solicitude with him, and it appears to have been
so with the Duchess, that his grace should make such a will as should
prevent any of those harassing and destructive litigations which are
sometimes entailed upon a family to whom great wealth is bequeathed. It
was, in this instance, more particularly requisite that every precaution
should be adopted. The Duke left a numerous posterity of grandchildren,
some of whom might, if so disposed, represent their illustrious
progenitor as incapacitated by his infirmity from making an adequate
disposition of his effects. The Duchess, with her usual acuteness,
foresaw that such obstacles to the administration of his affairs, after
his death, might arise; and she adopted the plan of writing a detailed
account of her husband’s condition, and of his last actions, from which
narrative the following extracts are taken.[289]
“I think it proper, in this place, to give some account of the Duke of
Marlborough’s distemper, and how he was when he signed his will. The
Duke of Marlborough was taken very ill at St. Albans, in May, 1716, with
the palsy; but he recovered it so much as to go to Bath. He lived till
June the sixteenth, 1721; and though he had often returns of this
illness, he went many journeys, and was in all appearance well,
excepting that he could not pronounce all words, which is common in that
distemper; but his understanding was as good as ever. But he did not
speak much to strangers, because when he was stopped, by not being able
to pronounce some words, it made him uneasy. But to his friends that he
was used to, he would talk freely; and since his death, Mr. Hanbury, the
dowager Lady Burlington, and many others of my friends, have remarked to
me, with pleasure, the things that they had heard him say, and the just
observations he had made upon what others had said to him; and he gave
many instances of remembering several things in conversation that others
had forgot.”
A year or more after this time, the Duke found it necessary to alter his
will, and gave directions to Sir Edward Northey and Sir Robert Raymond
to that effect. These gentlemen kept the will a long time, but, after it
was returned to his grace, in 1721, it was formally signed by him, in
the presence of Lord Finch, of General Lumley, and of Dr. Samuel Clarke,
the celebrated divine, Rector of St. James’s. All of these gentlemen had
read the will, at the request of the Duchess, before it had been signed.
They were invited, on this occasion, to dine at Marlborough-house. The
Duchess, in her plain, straightforward manner, gives the following
account of the Duke’s deportment in this, almost the last effort of his
weakened understanding and sinking frame; the closing scene of that
drama of many acts, in which he had played the parts of General,
Statesman, and Diplomatist.
“As soon as dinner was over,”[290] writes the Duchess, “he asked if Mr.
Green was come, (he was Sir Edward Northey’s clerk;) and as soon as he
came into the room he asked him how his mother did. Upon Mr. Green’s
being come to put the seals to the will, the Duke of Marlborough rose
from the table, and fetched it himself out of his closet; and as he held
it in his hand, he declared to the witnesses that it was his last will,
that he considered it vastly well, and was entirely satisfied with it;
and then he signed every sheet of paper, and delivered it in all the
forms. After this the witnesses all sat at the table, and talked for
some time. Lord Finch and Dr. Clarke went away first, about business;
and when General Lumley rose up to go, who staid a good while longer
than the others, the Duke of Marlborough rose up too, and went to him
and embraced him, taking him by the hand and thanking him for the favour
he had done him.”
Some months after this occurrence, the Duke made his last appearance in
the House of Lords, leaving London in the spring, according to his usual
custom.
On the sixteenth of June, 1722, this great, brave, and good man was
removed from a world which probably would have ceased to be to him a
scene of enjoyment, had not the benevolence of his disposition, and the
strong nature of his domestic affections, secured to him a serenity
which disease could not, with all its pangs, entirely destroy. Repeated
attacks of palsy had shaken his once powerful frame. His intellect was
weakened, but not wholly darkened. He had the blessing of being able, on
his deathbed, to receive the consolations of prayer. Whilst he lay for
several days exhausted by disease, but aware that the great change was
at hand, the Duchess, who remained with her husband until the spirit had
passed away, inquired of her lord whether he had heard the prayers which
had been read to him. “Yes, and I joined in them,” were the last
intelligible words which the dying Marlborough uttered. He was removed
from a sofa to his bed, at the suggestion of his wife, and remedies were
fruitlessly applied to assuage the sufferings which were soon to
terminate. The Duchess, and the Duke’s usual attendants remained near
him; the rest of his family withdrew, as no symptoms of immediate danger
were apparent. About four o’clock in the morning of the sixteenth of
June, 1721, his soul returned to his Maker.
Thus sank to rest one of the bravest, and one of the most
kindly-tempered of men. It were useless to descant at length on the
character of one whose actions are indelibly engraved on every British
heart, and with some of whose personal qualities we are rendered
familiar from infancy. Yet, notwithstanding the able delineation of his
intellectual and moral qualities, which has been at no remote period
given to the world by Archdeacon Coxe, sufficient justice has not
hitherto been done to the amiable and respectable attributes which
characterised Marlborough in private life.
It is remarkable, that of three biographers who were selected by the
Duchess or her family to write the history of the hero, all died
successively, before the task was even commenced. An impartial
biography, if such a work be compatible with the weakness and prejudices
of human nature, by a contemporary, a friend, an associate of
Marlborough, would have been invaluable. The well-weighed opinions and
careful narratives of those who knew him not, can but ill supply the
deficiency.
Of the early education which was bestowed upon the great general, we
know but little, except that it was extremely limited. He may be termed
self-educated; necessity first—ambition afterwards, being his
preceptresses. Yet the disadvantages of early neglect were never, even
by the assiduous and gifted Marlborough, wholly overcome. To the close
of his life, after his extensive commerce with the continental world,
after serving under Turenne, and enjoying the intimacy of Eugene, he
could not speak French without difficulty. He was probably wholly
unacquainted with the dead languages: it was said that he never could
master even the orthography of his own.[291] With this disadvantage he
rose to be one of the most accomplished courtiers, and one of the ablest
diplomatists, in Europe. The energy and compass of a mind which could
thus overcome difficulties of such vital importance as those which he
must have encountered, when, from the pursuits of a mere soldier, he was
compelled by his rapid elevation to enter into the arduous duties of
despatches and correspondence, demand our admiration.
The moral character, as well as the intellectual powers, of Marlborough,
underwent a remarkable change in the course of his chequered career. Few
of those men, perhaps erroneously called heroes, could ever look back
upon their progress to military fame with so little cause for remorse as
John Duke of Marlborough. He left a name unsullied by cruelty. A
remarkable combination of strong affections, with a natural suavity of
temper, rendered him the beloved friend of men whose nature was not
disposed to friendship. The crafty Sunderland and the unimaginative
Godolphin loved him, after a fashion not of the world. To his own family
he was peculiarly endeared, and, considering the effect of
circumstances, singularly affectionate. His devotion to his wife, his
love of his children, were not the only proofs which he gave of a kindly
nature: his affections extended to all his numerous relatives. In one of
his letters to the Duchess, he begs her to speak two kind words to his
brother George, “as brother to him that loves you with all his heart;”
and he is incessantly interceding for his sister, Mrs. Godfrey, whilst,
at the same time, he owns that she was very indiscreet.[292]
Those graces of manner which, in Marlborough, are said to have disarmed
his disappointed suitors, and to have conciliated men of all pursuits
and all stations, proceeded from the kindliness of a happy temper, on
which the habit and necessity of pleasing engrafted a dignified
courtesy, of a higher quality than mere good breeding. His respect for
himself and for others appeared alike in his conduct to his soldiers,
and in his forbearance to the factious courtiers who forsook him when,
on his dismissal from his employments in the reign of Anne, to know him
was to know disgrace. He was, in the thorough sense of the phrase, as
far as outward deportment was concerned, the kindly, high-bred English
gentleman. Upon this fair picture some shadows must appear.
As a man of strict principle, and as a statesman of unsullied integrity,
the character of Marlborough cannot so readily be delineated, as in his
domestic sphere. The principle of self-advancement grew with his growth,
and soiled those beautiful attributes of a nature so brave and
benignant, that we are unwilling to believe he could indulge a selfish
passion, or even cherish a weakness. From the days when he was a page in
the court of the second Charles, permitting, to say the least, the
disgraceful mediation of the Duchess of Cleveland, to the hour when, for
the last time, he carried the sword of state on New Year’s day before
George the First, the ruling passion of Marlborough was gain—gain of
patronage, of money, of fame, of power. For patronage he forbore to
spurn the loose preference of a debased woman; for objects of less
immediate acquisition he deliberately abandoned the interests of a
sovereign and of a master at whose hands he had received unbounded
favours. But it may be pleaded, that in deserting the cause of James the
Second he adopted, in accordance with the first men of the day, the only
measures by which his country could be rescued from the tyranny and
bigotry of that wretched ruler. The plea may hold good, but no similar
excuse can palliate his resuming a correspondence with the exiled King,
whose cause he had upon such just grounds relinquished.
The conduct of Marlborough in prosecuting the war so long, and, as it
was urged, without adequate necessity, is even more open to censure than
the previous passages of his public career. His success was
intoxicating, even to his calm temper, and well-poised mind. But the man
who could kindly familiarise himself with his soldiery, share their
hardships, so as to obtain the name of the “Old Corporal,” and inculcate
the necessity of religious observances upon those who looked up to him
with enthusiastic respect, was not likely to sacrifice those troops to a
wanton desire for fame, unconnected with some signal public good. The
letters of Marlborough plainly show that such was his conviction, and
the treaty of Utrecht seemed to justify the conclusion that peace had
arrived too soon,—if ever, except at the expense of future tranquillity,
it can arrive too soon.
The tenderness of Marlborough towards the lowest in degree; his piety,
which led him never to omit the duty of prayer before and after a
battle; the sinking health which rendered his later campaigns severe
trials to his harassed frame; his pining for home, and for her whom he
regarded as the day-star of his existence; all tend to encourage the
opinion, that concerning the much-contested question of the war, he was,
if in error, a sincere believer in the necessity of its continuance, and
a sanguine expectant of much good to be derived from its ultimate
success.
In moral conduct, the Duke of Marlborough, after the early period of his
youth, gave to the world an edifying and an uncommon example. Numerous
as his enemies were, they could not, even with the assistance of Mrs.
Manley, bring home one accusation of gross immorality to his charge,
after his early, and it must be allowed for many years, happy marriage.
His foes, at a loss for subjects of invective, passed on to another
theme, regarding which one would gladly be silent: the charge of
avarice. This is one of his failings, respecting which we would gladly
say with Lord Bolingbroke, when checking a parasite who sought to please
him by ridiculing the penuriousness of the Duke of Marlborough; “He was
so very great a man, that I forget he had that vice.”[293] His enemies,
indeed, took care that it should not be forgotten. It became proverbial
in their mouths. “I take it,” says Swift, in one of his letters, “that
the same grain of caution which disposeth a man to fill his coffers,
will teach him how to preserve them at all events; and I dare hold a
wager, that the Duke of Marlborough, in all his campaigns, was never
known to lose his baggage.”[294] The story of the Duke’s chiding his
servant for his extravagance in lighting four candles in his tent when
Prince Eugene came to confer with him,[295] is of that species of
anecdote to which no one can attach either credit or importance.
That anecdote, so generally in circulation, which describes Marlborough
creeping out of a public room at Bath, with sixpence that he had gained
at cards, and walking home to save the expense of a chair, we would
willingly, with Lord Bolingbroke, forget. His taste, and the good sense
which characterised his mind, led him, in an age of extravagance, to
avoid ostentation. His table was in the old English style, which by many
persons was considered too plain for his rank.[296] His attendants were
few; and his dread of increasing the necessary evils of a numerous
retinue appears, from some portion of the correspondence between him and
Sir John Vanburgh, to have been very great. His dress was habitually
simple, except on state occasions, when its magnificence is referred to
by his contemporary, Evelyn.
With those habits of care, not to say penuriousness, which have been
universally ascribed to the Duke, he joined a willingness to relieve the
destitute, for whose sake he forgot, when occasion required it, the
objects which would have been dearest to a selfish man.[297]
“This great man,” John Duke of Marlborough, say the newspapers of the
day, “was completely under the management of his wife, as the following
story, well known in the family, evinces. The Duke had noticed the
behaviour of a young officer in some engagement in Flanders, and sent
him over to England with some despatches, and with a letter to the
Duchess, commending him to her to procure some superior commission in
the army for him. The Duchess read the letter and approved of it, but
asked him where the thousand pounds were, for his increase of rank. The
young man blushed and said, that really he was master of no such sum.
‘Well, then,’ said she, ‘you may return to the Duke.’ This he did very
soon afterwards, and told him how he had been received by the Duchess.
The Duke laughingly said, he thought it would be so; but he should,
however, do better another time; and presenting him with a thousand
pounds, sent him over to England. This last expedition proved
successful.”
We may be assured that the petty penuriousness which was ascribed to
Marlborough has at all events been greatly exaggerated,—as such errors
are always magnified by report. His early narrowness of fortune produced
notions of exactness, into which men of business-like habits are prone
to fall; and when wealth flows in, it is not easy to discard the small
practices which have crept in upon us, step by step, imperceptibly, and
which originated in a virtuous principle. Marlborough, however, had one
great attribute, possessing which, no man ought to be severely
deprecated for penuriousness. He was just. If, unlike Turenne, he had
not the greatness and disinterestedness to neglect, in his campaigns,
opportunities of amassing wealth, he encroached not upon others in
private life; he economised, when economy was needful to preserve him
from debt; he spent freely on a large scale. It was in trifles that his
“regina pecunia,” as Prince Eugene called it, was his household deity.
He maintained many noble establishments, and expended upon Blenheim sums
which the nation refused to pay. And finally, immense as it was, he left
his wealth in the right channel. No disgraceful connexions, no
propensities to gaming, nor to destructive speculations, impaired his
fortune, or entailed disgrace upon his name.