CHAPTER XVIII.

Old age and decline of the Duchess—Her incessant wrangling with Sir

Robert Walpole—Her occupations—The compilation of her Memoirs.

It is now necessary to touch upon the closing scene of the Duchess’s

long and eventful life. Let it not be supposed that it passed in a calm

retirement from the turmoils of the world, or in the agitating though

small sphere of domestic faction. She was a politician to the last; but

the gales which had in early life driven her along, now blew from a

different direction. She despised and reviled the Whig administration of

Sir Robert Walpole, with as much inveteracy as she had formerly

manifested towards Lord Rochester and Lord Oxford. She considered the

mode of managing public affairs to be disgraceful to her country.[383]

She professed to deem it a sacred duty to use every exertion to defeat

the measures of the minister, Walpole; and perhaps that profligate

minister had, in the three kingdoms, no enemy more potent, as far as the

influence of property was concerned, and certainly not one more

determined, than Sarah Duchess of Marlborough.

It was in vain that the minister attempted to conciliate her by

proffered honours. Few of the favours which he had to confer came up to

her ideas of what her family and her influence merited. Sir Robert had

revived the order of the Bath, a measure described by his son as an

“artful bank of thirty-six ribbons to supply a fund of favours in lieu

of places.” “He meant too,” adds the lively historian, “to stave off the

demands for garters, and intended that the red should be a step for the

blue, and accordingly took one of the former himself.” He offered the

new order to the Duchess for her grandson, the Duke, and for the Duke of

Bedford, who had married one of her granddaughters. The answer he

received was a haughty intimation that her grandson should take nothing

but the garter. “Madam,” answered Sir Robert, “they who take the Bath

will sooner have the Garter.” He proved the sincerity of this assurance,

by taking the garter himself in the year following, with the Duke of

Richmond, who, like himself, had been previously installed knight of the

Bath.[384]

On the accession of George the Second, the hated ascendency of Walpole,

greatly to the wrath of the Duchess, gained fresh strength. The King

doubtless preferred another man, but the Queen’s influence was

all-powerful; she had long desired Sir Robert, whose stability in power

was, in this instance, based upon his knowledge of mankind, and who

proffered to her Majesty that respectful devotion which the rest of the

world assigned to the mistress, not to the wife of George the Second.

The Queen repaid this proof of discernment by a preference which ceased

only with the existence of the minister. Before the real choice of the

King had become public, and when it was still supposed that Sir Spencer

Compton was to be premier, the King and Queen received the nobility at

their temporary abode at Leicester-house. Lady Walpole, as her son

relates, could not make her way between the scornful backs and elbows of

her late devotees, nor approach nearer to the Queen than the third or

fourth row. But no sooner did the gracious Caroline perceive her, than

she exclaimed, “There, I am sure, I see a friend.” The crowd fell back,

and, “as I came away,” said her ladyship, “I might have walked over

their heads.”[385]

This predilection would, independent of her injuries, be sufficient to

account for the Duchess’s aversion to the very Princess whom, some years

before, she had extolled as a model of excellence. The Queen, it might

have been thought, would have possessed a hold over her good opinion,

from the very nature of her education, which she received from the

careful and judicious hands of the electress Sophia, the “nursing

mother” of the Hanoverian interests. But nothing could mitigate the

aversion and contempt of the Duchess towards the new school of Whiggism,

which, to her penetrating view, but little resembled the disinterested

spirit of Godolphin, or the unflinching adherence of her son-in-law

Sunderland to what he termed patriotism. That word had now gone quite

out of fashion, and it consisted with Sir Robert Walpole’s notions of

perfect good-breeding, upon which it was his weakness to pique himself,

to laugh generally at those high-minded sentiments which the Duchess, to

her credit, ever professed, and the absence of which, however often they

might be violated in the frailty of human nature, could not be

compensated by the “pompous pleasantry”[386] with which Walpole

satirised all that is good and great.

The Duchess has left on record the workings of her powerful mind. With

an intellect unenfeebled by age, whilst she described herself, in 1737,

as a perfect cripple, who had very little enjoyment of life, and could

not hold out long, she gave ample proof that her reasoning faculties

were unimpaired, her discernment as acute as it had ever been; and that

wonderful power, the result of both qualities, of seeing into the events

of futurity as far as the concerns of this world are involved, had in

her arrived at a degree of perfection which can scarcely be too much

admired.

It was her practice to write down her impressions and recollections of

the various circumstances in which she had been engaged, and to entrust

them to such friends as were likely to be interested in those details.

Many of these productions she put into the hands of Bishop Burnet. Her

character of Queen Anne; her able account of Sacheverell, written with

impartiality and clearness; her character of Lord Halifax, of the Duke

of Shrewsbury, Lord Somers, Lord Cowper, Swift and Prior, and others,

have been preserved among her papers, and were composed expressly for

her friends.[387] It was during the Duchess’s residence abroad that she

is supposed by Dr. Coxe to have written her long letter in vindication

of her general conduct to Mr. Hutchinson; from which unpublished

document many facts in this work have been taken. But in 1788, a little

book, called “Opinions of the Duchess of Marlborough,” collected from

her private papers, was printed, but not published, with a preface, and

notes by an anonymous editor, known to be Sir John Dalrymple, afterwards

Lord Hailes. These memoranda, for they scarcely deserve a more imposing

name, were commenced in the year 1736, and terminated in 1741. They are

undoubtedly genuine, and are written with a spirit and fearlessness

which plainly speak their source.[388] The learned antiquary and eminent

historian who collected and honoured them with a preface, was not an

admirer of the high-spirited lady, upon whose political conduct he has

commented unsparingly in his memorials of Great Britain. Yet he could

scarcely have done more to place the Duchess on a footing with the many

other female writers who have added to the stores of British literature,

than in preserving, as the shadow of his name must preserve, these

specimens of the occupations of her solitary hours.

The aversion of the Duchess to Sir Robert Walpole appears to have been

the ruling passion of her mind. “I think,” she writes, “’tis thought

wrong to wish anybody dead, but I hope ’tis none to wish he may be

hanged, for having brought to ruin so great a country as this.” Yet she

declares herself still partial to the Whig principles, observing,

nevertheless, that both parties were much in fault; and the majority in

both factions she calls by no milder term than “knaves,” ready to join

with each party for the sake of individual benefit, or for the purpose

of carrying any particular measure.[389]

Like many other old persons, the Duchess viewed the world through the

medium of a dark veil, which years and disappointments had interposed

before her intellectual perceptions. The world was no longer the same

world that it had been. Honour, patriotism, loyalty, had fled the

country, and she, “though an ignorant old woman,” as she called herself,

could anticipate that national degradation begins with laxity of

principle. She upheld stoutly the purity of former times, of that

“well-intentioned ministry,” of which Swift had successfully sapped the

foundations. Deceived by everybody, as she averred, and not able to

depend upon a thing which she heard, she yet perceived that, as long as

Walpole continued in power, the general demoralisation was progressing;

and that he would continue in power until the Queen died, she was

equally and mournfully certain.

The Duchess was not a character to sit still and complain, and her

efforts to resist what she justly deemed the influence of a corrupt

administration were earnest and laudable. She resolved, as she said, for

the good of her country, that wherever she had an ascendency, the

partisans of the hated minister should meet, in the elections, with a

spirited resistance. It was in her power to procure the return or the

rejection of any members that she pleased, in Woodstock and in St.

Albans. On one occasion she managed to defeat an objectionable

candidate, in a manner truly ingenious and characteristic. A certain

Irish peer having put up at St. Albans, daring to brave her dislike to

him and to his party, she took the following method to vanquish him. His

lordship had formerly written and printed, at his own expense, a play.

He had also offered it to the managers of one of the theatres, by whom

it had been rejected. It was, however, circulated, but treated with so

much contumacy by the critics, that the peer bought it up; and some

curiosity being excited upon the subject, the copies that remained

dispersed became extremely valuable, and were sold for a guinea a piece.

Expensive as they were, the Duchess resolved to collect all she could,

even at that price. She was even at the expense of having a second

edition printed, and hundreds of them given to the freemen of St.

Albans, and people hired to cry them up and down the town whilst the

election was going on. The result was, that the unfortunate nobleman

lost his election, through the ridicule that was thus skilfully pointed

at him with his own weapons.[390]

The Duchess at first hailed with delight the rising talents of Lord

Carteret, whose disinterested and aspiring mind excited her lively

admiration. Upon the motion of censure upon Sir Robert Walpole, made by

Mr. Sandys, her hopes of the country revived, yet she dreaded lest the

influence of the minister behind the throne might continue, after a

“golden bridge” had been made for him to pass over to his unhonoured

retirement. She lived to see Sir Robert Walpole driven to the very

threshold of the Tower, and to learn that he had been compelled to the

expedient, almost unparalleled in effrontery, of offering through the

Bishop of Oxford a bribe to the Prince of Wales of fifty thousand

pounds, to detach him from the party by whom he had been espoused. The

indignant refusal of the Prince to accept of any conditions while Sir

Robert Walpole remained at the head of affairs, completed the downfal of

the despised, but still indefatigable minister. The Duchess had the

mortification of seeing him, in spite of contempt, protected by the

sovereign, and honoured by a peerage; and still more, of learning that

he had succeeded by bribes and insinuations to corrupt and divide his

foes, and to frustrate the scheme of his impeachment, the only proof of

public honour that had been signalised for many years.[391]

Lord Carteret, her favourite, who had spoken against Walpole, in her

grace’s opinion, as well as man could, who had exerted against the

minister the powers of what was, in the estimation of an incomparable

judge,[392] the ablest head in England, was, with Mr. Sandys, the first

to embrace the offers of a court, and to accept employments and honours,

upon the condition that Walpole should remain unpunished. This the

Duchess, in her own manner, foretold. She who knew courtiers and

statesmen well, “was confident that there was nothing Sir Robert Walpole

so much desired as to secure himself by a treaty of quitting with

safety;” and “that there were some so desirous to have the power, that

they would give him a golden bridge to go over; and that there would be

a scheme to settle a ministry from which she could not believe that

England would receive any good.” Events proved the justness of this

prediction.

It was not until two years before her death that the Duchess ventured to

give to the world what she considered as a complete vindication of

herself. When the work, entitled “An Account of the Dowager Duchess of

Marlborough, from her first coming to Court in the year 1710,” was

published, she was eighty-two years of age. Her conviction must have

been that she could not live long; to life she had, according to her own

statement, become indifferent, but she still cherished a desire for

justification in the eyes of posterity. The charges alleged against her

were avarice, insolence, and ingratitude to her royal mistress. Doubtful

of her own powers of executing a complete and connected work, the

Duchess selected as the nominal historian of her life, Nathaniel Hooke,

best known as the compiler of a Roman history, and long the companion,

and in some respects a dependent, of the great and learned. Hooke had

been a sufferer in the South Sea bubble, after which epidemic

infatuation he described himself, in a letter to the Earl of Oxford, as

in some measure happy to find himself at that time “just worth nothing;”

that being considered, at the period in question, as an escape compared

with the heavy burden of debts. The cause of the Duchess’s preference to

Hooke is not discoverable, since he was a Quietist and a Mystic, and had

evinced the sincerity of his religious opinions by taking a Catholic

priest to Pope on his deathbed, to the great annoyance of

Bolingbroke.[393] The Duchess did not object to Hooke on that account,

and gave him the large sum of five thousand pounds, on condition that he

would aid her in her work. She would not, however, allow him to make use

of all her letters, and they were, according to the historian’s

statement, sadly garbled at her grace’s desire.[394] In the course of

their mutual task, however, certain conversations arose, in which the

Duchess perceived, or fancied she perceived, an intention on the part of

Hooke to beguile her into popery. The result was a violent quarrel; but

whether before or after the completion of the work does not appear.

Hooke, in extenuation of the quarrel, stated, on his own part, that

finding her grace without religion, he had attempted to infuse into her

mind his own opinions.

Whether this account be true or not, it is acknowledged that by the

united efforts of the Duchess and the historian in her pay, a work was

produced of singular power and interest. A reference to the passages

from this curious narrative, quoted in this work, will prove the truth

of the foregoing observation. The distinctness of the statements, the

nervous simplicity of the language, and the fearlessness of the

sentiments of the work, convey to the mind a conviction of the sincerity

and conscious rectitude of the writer. No traces of mental decay are

evident; but it is not difficult to perceive in the abrupt termination

of some passages, the curtailing hand of some cautious critic, according

to Horace Walpole, that of the historian.

No sooner did the “Account” appear, than it was attacked by various

anonymous writers. The Duchess had compiled her work in the form of a

letter, and a similar framework was adopted in the construction of

several of the answers to her Vindication. It is remarkable that she

addressed her justification to Lord Cholmondeley, the third Earl of that

name, the son-in-law of Sir Robert Walpole. The public eagerly perused

the publication, yet it is said not to have made any considerable

impression in favour of the Duchess at the time in which it appeared.

The “Vindication of her Conduct,” as it is entitled, was not, however,

the only work that the Duchess compiled in her own defence. Several of

her manuscript narratives are now for the first time made serviceable in

compiling this work. But there appears, from a passage in one of her

letters to Mr. Scrope, to have been another book, which she showed only

to a few confidential friends, and, among the number, to Mr. Scrope.

“I am going,” she writes to him, “to make you a more unreasonable

request than I ever have yet done, or I hope ever shall, which is, that

you will give me one hour of your time to read the enclosed book, some

time when you happen to have so much leisure, and send it me back when

you have done with it; for though it is printed, I would not by accident

have it made public. When I printed a letter to vindicate my own

conduct, when I had the honour of serving Queen Anne, I thought it

necessary to say something upon the subject of the enclosed book; but

after it was done I thought it was better to show it to a few of my

particular friends, because they were so near relations that would be

exposed by it, for all the facts are as well proved as what I think is

possible you may have read in the accounts given of my honest endeavours

to serve her Majesty Queen Anne; and as to all that relates to accounts,

from your own office, you must know the relation is true.”

To this communication Mr. Scrope replies, after, in his answer,

referring to other matters, “I herewith return to your grace the book

you were pleased to send me, which I read with an aching heart.”[395]

Happily for her grace’s fame, she was vindicated by one man of ability,

Henry Fielding, whilst her traducers, except in one instance, were

devoid of talents sufficient to bear down the testimony of her plain

facts, or to weaken the effect of her shrewd arguments.[396] The Duchess

was unfortunate in provoking the malignant wit of Horace Walpole, whose

satire, couched in terms of playful gossip, like nauseous medicines in

sweet syrup, has been spread far and wide in his universally popular

works. Horace Walpole is an instance, that to be what Dr. Johnson calls

a “good hater,” it is not necessary to cherish the brooding enmities of

a misanthropic retirement, in which the angry and vindictive passions

are supposed to be fostered with propitious care. The only proof of

attachment which he evinced to his family was his bitterness towards

their foes, a bitterness indulged with all the rancour of a worldly man,

who knows not the virtue of forbearance. His estimate of the Duchess’s

character is well known. He allows her not one good quality, and seems

to experience a gratification such as fiends might betray, when, in a

tone of exultation, he announces her death.

The dislike which the Duchess manifested for Sir Robert Walpole was

attributed by his son to a base spirit of revenge. Among the few

favourites whom she possessed among her relations, was Lady Diana

Spencer, afterwards Duchess of Bedford. It became, according to Horace

Walpole, a scheme of the Duchess of Marlborough to marry this young lady

to Frederic Prince of Wales. She offered her to his royal highness with

a fortune of a hundred thousand pounds. He accepted the proposal, and a

day was fixed for the nuptials, which were to be solemnized secretly at

the Lodge in the Great Park at Windsor; but Sir Robert Walpole gained

intelligence of the plot, and “the secret was buried in silence.”[397]

In the gloom of the sick chamber, to which by the infirmities of old age

she was frequently confined, the unbroken spirit of the Duchess showed

itself still. “Old Marlborough is dying,” writes Horace Walpole to his

friend Sir Horace Mann; “but who can tell? Last year she had lain a

great while ill, without speaking; her physicians said she must be

blistered, or she would die; she called out, ‘I won’t be blistered, and

I won’t die.’ If she takes the same resolution now, I don’t believe she

will.”[398]

This passage forms a melancholy sequel to hints of infirmities, and

reflections on approaching death, contained in the Duchess’s Opinions.

As on this subject the least reserved of our species are seldom disposed

to converse, since the stranger knoweth not the heart, and

“intermeddleth not” with its joys or sorrows, we may receive, as her

genuine sentiments, the plaintive reflections of the feeble and

declining Duchess, couched in such terms as these.

“It is impossible,” she writes in 1737, “that one of my age and

infirmities can live long; and one great happiness there is in death,

that one shall never hear more of anything they do in this world.”

In another passage, she expresses herself so weary of life, that “she

cared not how soon the stroke was given, and wished only that it might

be given with as little pain as possible.”

Her grace’s amusements became yearly more and more circumscribed. In

former years she had occupied her shrewd and masculine mind with

purchases of land, which she bought in the firm belief, or at least with

the excuse of belief to her own mind, that a “sponge” might do away with

all the funded property, and that land would “hold longest.” It appears

from her will that she was incessantly making additions to the immense

landed property in which she possessed a life interest, and even went to

the city herself, when nearly eighty years of age, to bid for Lord

Yarmouth’s estate. Her quarrels with Sir Robert Walpole began, as we

have seen, upon the subject of “_trust-money_,” and they seem to have

hinged upon that same matter even so late as the year 1737.[399]

As the darkened day drew to its close, the poor Duchess was fain to be

contented to amuse herself by writing in bed, in which shackled position

much of her “Vindication” was penned by her.[400] She frequently spoke

six hours a day, in giving directions to Hooke. Then she had recourse to

a chamber-organ, the eight tunes of which she was obliged to think much

better than going to an Italian opera, or an assembly.[401] Society

seems to have afforded her little pleasure. Like most disappointed and

discontented persons, she became attached to animals, especially to her

three dogs, who had those virtues in which human beings, in her

estimation, were so greatly deficient. Satiated with the world, the

Duchess found, in the numerous visitants to Marlborough-house, few that

were capable of friendship. Hers was not a mind to cull sweetness from

the flowers which spring up amid the thorns of our destiny. She knew no

enjoyment, she declared, equal to that accompanying a strong partiality

to a certain individual, with the power of seeing the beloved object

frequently; but she now found the generality of the world too

disagreeable to feel any partiality strong enough to endear life to the

decrepit being that she describes herself to have become.

The Duchess, during the latter years of her life, changed her residence

frequently. Sometimes she remained at Marlborough-house, but exchanged

that central situation for the quiet of Windsor-lodge or of Wimbledon.

Yet at Windsor-lodge she was tantalised with a view of gardens and parks

which she could not enjoy; and Wimbledon, she discovered, after having

laid out a vast sum of money on it, was damp, clayey, and, consequently,

unhealthy.[402] Wrapped up in flannels, and carried about like a child,

or wheeled up and down her rooms in a chair, the wealthy Duchess must,

nevertheless, have experienced how little there was, in her vast

possessions, that could atone for the infirmities of human nature.

A very few months before her death she requested an extension of the

lease of Marlborough-house, the term of which had been extended in the

reign of George the First. This residence had been built at the entire

expense of the Duke of Marlborough, who had likewise paid Sir Richard

Beelings two thousand pounds for what the Duchess calls a pretended

claim which he had upon the land; so that she considered that she had as

just a claim “to an extension as any tenant of the crown could have;”

yet she deemed it prudent to make the application to government whilst

Mr. Pelham was at the head of the Treasury, “he being the only person in

that station who would oblige her, or to whom she would be obliged;”

adding to this remark, that Mr. Pelham “had been very civil to her, and

was the only person in employment who had been so for many years.” The

letter in which this petition was contained was written in June 1744,

and the Duchess died in October. Such was the clearness of her

faculties, and so strongly were her desires still fixed upon all the

privileges which she thought she merited.

Had she been blessed with an exalting and practical faith, such a faith

as elevates the heart, and chastens those angry passions and wilful

discontents which embitter the dark valley of old age far more even than

bodily suffering, the Duchess, looking around her upon those whom she

had the power to bless, might have been happy. But, without by any means

imputing to her that scepticism with which it was the fashion of the day

to charge her, it must be allowed that there is no reason to suppose

that the Duchess’s path in life was illumined by those rays which guide

the humble and practical Christian through the changes and chances of

the world. Her views were all bounded to the scene before her: a spoiled

child, the victim of prosperity, as well as its favourite, she received

the bounties of Providence as if they had been her due, whilst she

aggravated its dispensations of pain by a murmuring spirit.[403]

In the midst of her unenjoyed wealth, some acts of charity employed her

later days. Such persons as had fallen into decay, were never, if they

bore good characters, repulsed by her.[404] Imposition of any kind she

detected instantly, and exposed it in her own eccentric and fearless

manner. Having, on one occasion, sent a costly suit of clothes to be

made by a certain fashionable dressmaker, Mrs. Buda, the Duchess, on the

dress being completed, missed some yards of the expensive material which

she had sent. She discovered and punished the fraud in the following

manner. Mrs. Buda had a diamond ring which she valued greatly, and wore

frequently when attending the Duchess’s orders. The Duchess pretended to

be pleased with this ring, and begged a loan of it as a pattern. Having

kept it some days, she sent it to Mrs. Buda’s forewoman, with a message

importing that it was to be shown to her, as a token between her grace

and Mrs. Buda that a certain piece of cloth should be returned instead.

The woman, knowing the ring, sent the Duchess the remnant of cloth which

had been fraudulently kept by Mrs. Buda; upon which the Duchess sent for

Mrs. Buda, and putting the ring into her hand, said, that since she had

now recovered the cloth which had been stolen from her, Mrs. Buda should

regain the ring which the Duchess had kept.[405]

As she grew older, the firm grasp with which she had ever endeavoured to

hold her temporal possessions became more tenacious. She seems to have

tired out the Treasury with frequent complaints respecting disputed

points which concerned her office of Ranger of Windsor Park, and to have

been wonderfully grateful to the powers that had the ascendant for

civility to which for years she had been unaccustomed. “You have drawn

this trouble upon yourself,” she writes to Mr. Scrope, secretary to Mr.

Pelham, “by a goodness I have not found in any body these many

years.”[406] And with corresponding humility she begs him to excuse the

length of her letter, for, having none of her servants in the way, she

found herself obliged to make use of a female secretary, who was not

very correct; “but the hand,” adds the poor old Duchess, “is plain

enough to be read easily; the worst of it is, that it looks so

frightfully long, that a man of business will turn it before he reads

it.”[407] Such was the subdued tone in which the Duchess, a year before

her death, addressed the official whom in former days she would have

commanded.

The vigour and clearness of intellect which had ever distinguished the

Duchess, were spared to her until the last. Even in her letters to Mr.

Scrope, written mostly in 1743, there is an exactness, distinctness, and

force not often to be met with in female correspondence at an earlier

age. Her letters on business, and she seems to have passed her days in

writing them, are peculiarly clever; sufficiently explicit, but without

a word too much. Throughout the Duchess’s letters there is,

notwithstanding the asperity of her general remarks, no appearance of

discourtesy. In her correspondence with Mr. Scrope, she begins as if

addressing a stranger, but, on perceiving that he to whom she wrote

entered kindly into her concerns, she becomes gracious, then friendly,

and, lastly, even confidential.

To her other concerns was added the charge of Windsor Park, and all the

affairs contingent on that office, which the Duchess rendered, when she

had nothing else to employ her, a source of irritation, and of

occupation.

Queen Caroline, as we have seen, upon the refusal of the Duchess to sell

some part of her property at Wimbledon to her Majesty, threatened to

take away the annuity of six hundred pounds a year, coupled with the

office of Ranger. The threat, to the disgrace of that eulogised

Princess, was put into execution; and during Mr. Pelham’s

administration, and very shortly before her death, the Duchess applied,

through Mr. Scrope, for the restitution of her salary. “Though,” she

says, “I have a right to the allowance, I have no remedy, since the

crown will pay, or not pay, as they please.” Her arguments for her

claims are written with admirable clearness, but couched in terms of

earnestness at which one cannot but smile, when we reflect that the

writer, now upwards of eighty, who displayed such solicitude for the

restitution of the sum of six hundred pounds yearly, not to talk of

arrears, which she seems to think were hopeless, was in the receipt of

an annual income of at least forty thousand pounds. But it was her

right; and the pleasure, perhaps, of triumphing over the injustice of

Queen Caroline, then in her grave, moved her to exertion on this

subject.

“I have a right,” says this pattern of exactness, “by my grant, to five

hundred pounds a year for making hay, (in Windsor Park,) buying it when

the year is bad, paying all tradesmen’s bills, keeping horses to carry

the hay about to several lodges, and paying five keepers’ wages at

fifteen pounds a year each, and some gate-keepers, mole-catchers, and

other expenses that I cannot think of. But as kings’ parks are not to be

kept as low as private people’s, because they call themselves kings’

servants, I really believe that I am out of pocket upon this account,

besides the disadvantage of paying ready money every year for what is

done, and have only long arrears to solicit for it.”[408]

A more satisfactory and genial occupation, one would suppose, than

wrangling for rights and sums of money which would soon be useless to

her, might have occupied many of the Duchess’s declining days. In the

month of September, previous to her death, she describes herself as

having entered into a “new business,” which entertained her extremely;

tying up great bundles of papers to assist very able historians to write

a Life of the Duke of Marlborough, which would occupy two folios, with

the Appendix.

The arrangement of these papers seems to have afforded the Duchess

considerable pleasure. Her feelings were rendered callous by age, and

she could now peruse with a poignant regret the correspondence of her

husband and of Godolphin. The Lord Treasurer, occupied and harassed as

he always was, took no copies of his letters, but desired his friend to

keep them, so that they had been carefully preserved, and amounted to

two or three hundred in number.

Such materials, together with the minute accounts of all continental

affairs, would form, the Duchess felt assured, “the most charming

history that had ever yet been writ in any country; and I would rather,”

she adds, in a spirit with which all must sympathise, “if I were a man,

have deserved to have such an account certified of me, as will be of the

two lords that are mentioned, than have the greatest pension or estate

settled upon me, that our own King, so full of justice and generosity,

will give to reward the quick and great performances brought about by my

Lord Carteret, and his partner the Earl of Bath.”

With this reverence for the dead, and contempt for the living, the

Duchess proceeded with her task; observing, (then in her eighty-fourth

year,) “that it was not likely that she should live to see a history of

thirty or forty years finished.”

As autumn approached, her strength seemed more and more to fail. In

answer to Mr. Scrope’s inquiries respecting her health, she replies, “I

am a little better than I was yesterday, but in pain sometimes, and I

have been able to hear some of the letters I told you of to-day; and I

hope I shall live long enough to assist the historians with all the

assistance they can want from me: I shall be contented when I have done

all in my power. Whenever the stroke comes, I only pray that it may not

be very painful, knowing that everybody must die; and I think that

whatever the next world is, it must be better than this, at least to

those that never did deceive any mortal. I am very glad that you like

what I am doing, and though you seemed to laugh at my having vapours, I

cannot help thinking you have them sometimes yourself, though you don’t

think it manly to complain. As I am of the simple sex, I say what I

think without any disguise; and I pity you very much for what a man of

sense and honesty must suffer from those sort of vermin, which I have

told you I hate, and always avoid. I send you a copy of a paper, which

is all I have done yet with my historians. I have loads of papers in all

my houses that I will gather together to inform them; and I am sure you

will think that never any two men deserved so well from their country as

the Duke of Marlborough and my Lord Godolphin did.”

One of the last topics of courtly gossip which seems to have disturbed

the Duchess’s mind, was the quarrel between George the Second, his son,

and the Princess of Wales, upon occasion of the Princess’s sudden and

hazardous removal from Hampton Court to St. James’s, previous to the

birth of his Majesty George the Third. The Duchess warmly espoused the

part of the Prince and Princess, wished them well out of their

difficulties, and esteemed Queen Caroline a very hard-hearted

grandmother, because, instead of being mightily glad that the Princess’s

hour of trial was “well over,” she was extremely angry with the Prince

for not consulting the usual ceremonies on this momentous occasion.

Several charitable institutions perpetuate the Duchess’s bounty, and the

principal of these, the almshouses of St. Albans, was founded upon a

scheme equally benevolent and judicious. It was intended for decayed

gentlewomen, and until, for electioneering purposes, the character of

its inmates was changed, it retained its useful character of a

respectable home and shelter for gentlewomen whose pecuniary

circumstances rendered such an asylum desirable.

Several other anecdotes of her benevolence and generosity are recorded;

among others, one of munificent generosity is supplied by the newspapers

of the day. One of the firm of the Childs was oppressed, nearly to his

ruin, by an opposition from the Bank. Upon this occasion, a member of

the family stated his case to the Duchess of Marlborough, who placed the

following order in his hand:—

“Pay the bearer the sum of one hundred thousand pounds.

“SARAH MARLBOROUGH.

“To the Governor and Company

of the Bank of England.”

It is needless to state that the Bank dropped the quarrel; but their

persecution made the fortune of the banker.

Until the beginning of October, 1744, the Duchess of Marlborough appears

to have continued capable of transacting business; for we find, on the

sixth of that month, a letter written to her from Mr. Scrope, whom she

had presented with her picture, begging for an interview with her grace;

and in a previous letter he intimates that he has some message from Mr.

Pelham to deliver to the Duchess. Thus, to the last, her concerns, those

of Windsor Lodge, the renewal of the lease of Marlborough-house, and the

more commendable, but too late deferred task of compiling the memoirs of

her husband, engrossed her mind. What portion of her thoughts was given

to the Maker who had sent her into the world endowed with singular

faculties, who had entrusted her with many talents, for which soon she

would be responsible to her God, does not appear. She sank, at length,

to rest. Her death took place at Marlborough-house, on the 18th of

October, 1744.[409]

The personal qualities of this remarkable woman require little comment;

in the narrative of her life they are sufficiently displayed. The

advantages with which nature qualified her to play a conspicuous part in

society have been rarely combined in woman. Of extraordinary sagacity,

improved alone by that species of education which the world gives, her

mind displayed almost masculine energy to the latest period of her

existence. Her judgment, though biassed by her passions, exemplified

itself in the clear and able estimate which she made of the motives,

opinions, and actions of her contemporaries. Time has proved the value

of her observation.

To an extraordinary capacity for business, the Duchess of Marlborough

united great facility in expressing, and in making others comprehend,

all that she desired them to understand. From her earliest years, her

mind soared above the pursuits of her young companions. The puerile

recreations of a court could not shackle the vigorous intellect which

disdained the captivity of etiquette. Compelled by circumstances to

endure the society of a Princess whom she despised, her mind never sank

to the level of that of the placid and unaspiring Anne. Even amidst the

irksome duties of perpetual attendance on one who had little to

recommend her except good nature, the grasping intellect of the youthful

favourite was gaining opinions on topics generally connected with

politics, and with such themes as affected her interest and that of her

future husband. The capacity of Anne remained stationary; and that of

her companion, amid similar occupations to those of her young mistress,

and enjoying only the same opportunities, like a plant entangled amongst

others of slower growth, although shackled, yet acquired vigour.

With few opportunities of mental culture, except such as society offered

her, with scarcely the rudiments of education, Sarah Duchess of

Marlborough became, at an early age, the affianced wife of a man who

was, like herself, practical, not erudite, the scholar of the world, the

pupil of fortune. At the time of this early engagement, she probably

possessed, along with the vivacity, the sweetness and attractions

natural to her sex. The world, and a love of politics, that bane to

delicacy and grace in woman, had not then hardened her nature, and

increased the acrimony of her temper. She became the wife of

Marlborough, the associate of his associates, the companion, the friend

of the eloquent, of the lettered, and the brave. Her capacity grew in

the congenial sphere now formed around her. Her observation, by nature

accurate, was exercised upon subjects worthy of her inspection. She

learned, by conversation, by experience, to think and to reason. For

many years she took but a trivial share in the public events which

agitated the nation; but she viewed from “the loophole of retreat” all

that was important, with a mind enlightened by the sound and moderate

opinions of Godolphin, from whom she was, in fact, much more rarely

separated than from her husband. The Lord Treasurer could never, indeed,

teach her to love William the Third, who had graciously overlooked his

defection; but he restrained her vehemence, he regulated her

expressions; and it was not until Godolphin had sunk under the cruel

disease which consumed him, that the Duchess became intractably violent.

Thus, formed by circumstances into a reflecting, shrewd, and energetic

being, the Duchess of Marlborough, when her mind attained, along with

her frame, its full growth, and that lasting vigour for which both were

remarkable, began to turn with disgust from the irksome duties which her

offices at court imposed upon her unwilling mind. The daily round of

ceremonials which she was compelled to witness became revolting to her;

the monotony of Anne’s mind inspired her with contempt. It was with

difficulty, as she confessed years afterwards, that she brought herself

to endure the society of one whose conversation consisted, like that of

James her father, in a constant repetition of one favourite idea; a

species of discourse far more dispiriting than absolute silence.

The imperious temper of Sarah was fostered by the meek disposition and

mean understanding of her royal mistress. As she grew into political

importance, she probably ceased to be the engaging and attractive woman

whose loveliness gained universal admiration. Henceforth, her empire,

excepting with regard to her husband, appears to have been over the

intellect alone; and whilst she was at once the pupil and the adviser of

Godolphin, she was no longer beloved as a parent; her influence over the

affections of those with whom she was connected melted away when

politics absorbed her thoughts.

There can be no doubt but that, whilst the virtues of the Duchess were

not many, her faults were egregiously exaggerated by contemporary

writers. The principal accusations against her relate to avarice,

ingratitude towards Anne, arrogance of demeanour, and a spirit of

intrigue. The grounds upon which this formidable array of demerits

rests, have been fully discussed in the foregoing portion of this work.

That the Duchess was of a most grasping disposition, that she coveted

money, thirsted for power, place, honour, everything that could raise

her to a pinnacle in that world which she loved too well, cannot be

denied. The attempts at peculation, and the corrupt and dishonest

practices with which she has been charged, are, however, succinctly and

satisfactorily disproved by her. Though greedy to an excess of wealth,

she was not dishonest. Queen Anne truly said that cheating was not the

Duchess’s crime; and no individual could be a more exact or competent

judge than the Princess who uttered that sentence. It appears, indeed,

that the Duchess endeavoured very diligently to reform the royal

household; that she caused an order to be passed, prohibiting the sale

of places; that she never exceeded, and, in some instances, refused the

usual perquisites of her office; that, far from encroaching on royal

bounty, she refused frequently large sums from the Queen when Princess;

and that, after Anne’s accession, the value of her presents to the

Duchess was so contemptible that the latter, in her letter to Mr.

Hutchinson, has given a list of them, which borders, from its meanness,

on the absurd.

The conduct of the Duchess towards her sovereign has been, by party

writers, severely stigmatised, and not without justice. There was, on

both sides of this memorable quarrel, much to blame. A long course of

arrogance, imprudence, and negligence, on the part of the Duchess, led

to the alienation of Anne. Yet even the Queen specifically declared, and

reiterated, that she had no fault to allege against the haughty Sarah,

except “inveteracy to poor Masham.” It was not in the Duchess’s nature

to check that inveteracy. A generous, high-minded line of conduct was

beyond her power. Yet, at any rate, the alleged cause of her disfavour

was not a crime of heinous character. It was the mode in which she

revenged the injuries which she received, that constitutes her

delinquency. Her character of her royal mistress was written in the

spirit of revenge; her pen was fledged with satire as it traced the

lines in which the follies and defects of Anne are described. Years

failed to soften the bitterness of her vindictive spirit. Death had not

the power to disarm her rancour. The publication of certain letters, an

act with which she frequently threatened the Queen;[410] the careful

insertion in her narrative of every circumstance that can throw ridicule

upon a mistress once her benefactress, one who descended from her high

rank to claim the privileges of friendship: these are acts which must be

heavily charged upon the Duchess. Age and affliction ought to have

taught the relentless writer a better lesson. The Queen was no more—the

Duchess tottering towards the tomb. Their mutual animosities should not

by the survivor have been dragged forth to gratify revenge.

Such a breach of confidence, such an outrage upon the sacred name of

friendship, society ought not to pardon. Such an offence, of too

frequent occurrence, where disgust has superseded confidence, renders

affection a snare to be dreaded by the unsophisticated mind, and must

entirely preclude those who hold offices of responsibility from the

necessary relief of confidence; and, were such acts of treachery

excused, monarchs might indeed tremble, before they indulged the amiable

inclinations of minds not corrupted by the intoxicating possession of

power.

The office which the Duchess held about the person of the Queen rendered

silence an imperative claim of honour; but, with an unrelenting

coarseness, the Duchess laid bare the very privacies of the closet, the

foibles, the vacillations, the manœuvres, the weaknesses, the

peculiarities of her sovereign. No self-justification could be worth

such a price—revenge upon the memory of one silent in the grave.

As a wife and as a mother, the Duchess stands not pre-eminently high.

She was born for the public, and to the public she was devoted. Her

sentiments of patriotism, however commendable, would have been well

exchanged for duty to her husband, and patient affection for her

children. Her gross partiality to some of her grandchildren, in

preference to others, revealed the source of her misfortunes as a

mother. Wherever such a noxious fungus as injustice grows within the

domestic sphere, peace and affection take their leave. Hence those

divisions which the possession of a large fortune in the hands of a

family entails upon the junior branches, among whom there is not the

foundation of a happy confidence. The precise sources of those

irritating bickerings does not appear in the published correspondence

relating to the domestic concerns of the Duke and Duchess of

Marlborough; but it is too probable that the miserable dissensions

between his wife and daughters, which embittered the Duke’s life,

originated in jealousies on pecuniary matters.

In what is commonly termed purity of morals, the character of the

Duchess of Marlborough has descended to posterity without a stain.

Whatever direction the calumnies of the day may have taken in that

respect, their influence was ephemeral. No historian of respectability

has dared to attach a blemish to the purity of her lofty deportment. She

esteemed the probity, and she was powerfully influenced by the sterling

sense, of Lord Godolphin; but her attachment was in no degree greater

than that of the Lord Treasurer’s affectionate friend, her husband. No

similar aspersion with respect to any other individual appears in the

lampoons of the day. In a moral sense, in so far as it comprises the

purity of a woman’s conduct, the Duchess is therefore unimpeached. She

was in that respect worthy of being the wife of the great hero who

worshipped her image in absence, with the romantic devotion of love,

unabated even by indifference. But when we speak of female excellence,

to that one all-important ingredient must be added others, without which

a mother, a wife, and a friend, cannot be said to fulfil her vocation.

Sweetness, forbearance, humanity, must grace that deportment, in the

absence of which virtue extorts with difficulty her need of praise. The

lofty temper which could scarcely be restrained in the presence of the

staid and decorous Queen Mary, expanded into acts of fury, when time and

unlimited dominion over her sovereign and her husband had soured that

impetuous spirit into arrogance.

In reviewing the long life whose annals we have written, it is not easy

to point out the benefits which the Duchess conferred upon society.

Endowed with natural abilities of a very uncommon order; with a person

so remarkably beautiful, that it would have bestowed a species of

distinction upon a female in a humble station; possessing a most

vigorous constitution, which seemed destined to wear out, with

impatience, her heirs and her enemies; raised to rank, her coffers

overflowing with wealth; she appeared marked out by destiny to effect

some signal good for a country in whose concerns she took an active

part. What distress might she not, with her enormous wealth, have

relieved; what indigent genius might she not have brought forth to

light; what aids to learning by endowments might she not have bestowed;

what colleges might she not have assisted; what asylums for the

miserable might she not have provided! Of these laudable undertakings,

of intentions so beneficent, we find, compared with her enormous means,

but few instances. There are some laudable endowments, some impulses of

benevolence recorded, which make one hope that there may have been more,

unseen, unknown. But a truly amiable mind would not have been solely

occupied by what she deemed her claims and her wrongs; it would, when

the fervour of the noon-day was over, have delighted in those kind acts

which cheer the evening of life. To the last she was grasping,

accumulating, arranging. To the world, in its worst sense, she gave up

the powers of a mind destined for higher things. The immense

accumulation of her wealth spoke volumes against the extension of her

charity. To each of her heirs, Charles Duke of Marlborough, and to his

brother, Lord John Spencer, she bequeathed a property of thirty thousand

a year, besides bequests to others, particularly enumerated in her

singular will.[411]

But taking into account all the errors that she committed, and the good

acts which she omitted, Sarah Duchess of Marlborough had still some

noble qualities to command respect. Her hatred of falsehood stands

foremost in bold relief among these attributes. Supposing that the great

world of those days resembled, in its leading features, the luxurious

and fashionable portion of the community in these, her sincerity was a

virtue of rare occurrence. Her motives, her very foibles, were laid bare

for the inspection of her associates. Her unadorned and accurate account

of all those affairs in which the busy portion of her life was passed,

was never attacked for untruth. She resolutely exposed all that she

hated and despised; but she was equally averse to duplicity in her own

personal conduct, and resentful towards it in others. Her plain dealing

with the Queen, even her loss of temper and occasional insolence, rise

high in estimation when contrasted with the vile duplicity of Mrs.

Masham, and the servility and intriguing meanness of Harley. That she

was not able to cope with such enemies as these, is to her credit. With

her indignation at the stratagems by which she was secretly undermined,

we must cordially sympathise. There was something high-minded in her

endeavours to prevent the Duke from ever taking office again; and in the

last conditions to her will, that those who so largely benefited by it

should forfeit their share if they ever took office under a monarch whom

she disliked, and a ministry whom she despised. Her virtues, like her

faults, were of the hardy order. There was nothing amiable in the

Duchess’s composition, to present her good qualities in fair keeping, or

to render her an object for affectionate veneration in her old age. Her

sincerity was ever too busy in unveiling the faults of others: it was

unaccompanied by charity. Her resentments ended only with her existence.

The Duchess of Marlborough was interred in the sumptuous monument at

Blenheim, in the chapel, in the same vault which contained the remains

of the Duke, after they were removed thither from Westminster Abbey.

In the Duchess’s will, which occupied eight skins of parchment, she

ordered that her funeral should be strictly private, and with no more

expense than decency required, and that mourning should only be given to

those servants who should attend at her funeral.

She appointed Hugh Earl of Marchmont, and Beversham Filmer, Esq., her

executors, to whose charge she left in trust her almost countless

manors, parsonages, rectories, advowsons, lands, tenements, and

hereditaments, in no less than eleven counties.

By a proviso in her will, she rendered it void, as far as he was

concerned, if ever her grandson Lord John Spencer should become bound or

surety for any person, or should accept from any King or Queen, of these

realms, any office or employment, civil or military, except the

rangership of the Great or Little Park at Windsor. She left ample

bequests to many of her servants, not forgetting twenty pounds a year to

each of her chairmen. One of the most remarkable items of her codicil

was the sum of ten thousand pounds to William Pitt, Esq., afterwards

Earl of Chatham, for the noble defence he had made in support of the

laws of England, and to prevent the ruin of his country. But the sum of

twenty thousand pounds to Philip Earl of Chesterfield, accompanied by

the bequest of her best and largest diamond ring, appears sadly

disproportioned to the small sums which she bequeathed to near

relations. Those who are desirous of further particulars can satisfy

their curiosity by referring to the Appendix. The Duchess was said to

have left, besides her numerous legacies, property to the amount of

sixty thousand pounds per annum to be divided amongst her two grandsons,

Charles Duke of Marlborough, and his brother Lord John Spencer. It is

remarkable that one clause in her will prohibits the marriage of any of

her grandsons under the age of twenty-one, on penalty of losing the

annuity bequeathed to them, and of having half of the proposed sum

transferred to their wives.

In closing this narrative of a long life—this estimate of a remarkable

person, it must be observed that many allowances are to be made for the

errors and failings displayed by the individual whose character has been

described. Her youth witnessed an age of self-indulgence, and of moral

degradation: the period of her maturer years was marked by civil strife,

and by the anarchy of faction. A perilous course of prosperity attended

the middle period of her career. Disappointment, dissensions, calumny,

misfortune, and neglect, commenced with her decline, and accompanied her

slow decay, to the last moment of her existence. Those who hopelessly

covet wealth, honour, and celebrity, may read the life of Sarah Duchess

of Marlborough with profit, and rise from the perusal, resigned to fate.

APPENDIX.

_The following letter is taken from the Coxe Manuscripts, vol. xv. p.

123. It is referred to by the Duchess, in her Account of her Conduct._

THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH TO THE QUEEN.

I have said something in answer to the letters I had the honour to

receive last from your Majesty in one of these very long papers, and

there remains nothing to observe more, but that your Majesty seems very

much determined to have no more correspondence with me than as I am the

Duke of Marlborough’s wife, and your groom of the stole. I assure your

Majesty I will obey that command, and never so much as presume, as long

as I live, to name my cousin Abigail, if you will be pleased to write me

word in a very short letter that you have read this history, which is as

short as I could make it, and that you continue still of the same

opinion you were as to all your unjust usage of me. You will know all I

have writ is exactly the truth, and I must desire that you will be

pleased to do this before you receive the holy sacrament; and my reason

for it is this: everybody considers that as the most serious and

important thing they have to do in the world; and in order to prepare

themselves for it in such a manner as the greatness of the mistery

requires, they are directed to take a strict account of their lives, and

to be sorry for any wrong thing they have done, and to resolve never

more to do the same; and I know your Majesty on that occasion always

observes the great rule of examining yourselfe, and, justly considering

what a sacred work you are going about, constantly makes use of that

opportunity to search and try your wayes, and take a solemn view of your

actions. Now, upon the head of examination which I find in “The Whole

Duty of Man,” I observe there are these that follow Neglecting lovingly

to admonish a friend; forsaking his friendship for a slight or no cause;

unthankfulness to those that admonish, or being angry with them for it;

neglecting to make what satisfaction we can for any injuries we have

done him. And we are directed, in the same place, to read this catalogue

carefully over, upon days of humiliation, and to ask our own hearts as

we go along, Am I guilty or not of this? And when we are guilty, to

confesse it, particularly to repent of it, and to make what amends we

can, as the nature of the fault requires.

This rule is what I would beg your Majesty would be pleased to observe

upon the four articles which I have now written exactly as they stand in

that book, and upon the first to ask your own heart seriously whether

you have ever told me of any fault but that of believing, as all the

world does, that you have an intimacy with Mrs. Masham; and whether

those shocking things you complain I have said, were any more than

desiring you to love me better than her, and not to take away your

confidence from me after more than twenty-five years’ service and

professions of friendship.

Upon the second, whether you have not forsaken my friendship upon slight

or no faults?

Upon the third, whether you have ever taken well any kind advice that I

have endeavoured to give you, but have been always angry at me for it?

Upon the fourth, whether you have attempted ever, by the least kind

word, to make me any amends upon all the just representations I have

made of the wrong done me in the business of my office, in Mrs. Masham’s

using my lodgings, and all that you have said upon those occasions?

I beg your Majesty will be pleased to weigh these things attentively,

not only with reference to friendship, but also to morality and

religion; and that if ever I have said anything to you, of the truth of

which you are not convinced, you will be so favourable to let me know

what it is.

In the warning before the Communion, in the Common Prayer Book, we are

enjoined so to search and examine our consciences that we may come holy

and cleane to such a heavenly feast, and to reconcile ourselves, and

make restitution to those that we have done the least injury to; and if

we have given any reall cause of complaint, to acknowledge our fault, in

order to regain the friendship of those we have used ill, and not to

think it a disparagement to speak first, since ’tis no more than our

duty; and I have read somewhere, that God himself does not forgive the

injurys that are done to us, till we are satisfied and intercede for

those that did them, who are afterwards obliged to make suitable returns

by all offices of Christian love and friendship. The Scripture itself

does explain this matter in these words:—First be reconciled to thy

brother, and then offer thy gift. The meaning can be no other but that

if at any time we are going to receive, and remember that we have used

any one ill, we should first endeavour to make satisfaction, it being

but reasonable and just that whoever has done wrong should confess and

acknowledge it, and to the utmost of his power make reparation for it.

To this purpose I beg leave to transcribe a passage in Dr. Taylor. “He

that comes to the holy sacrament must, before his coming, so repent of

his injurys as to make actual restitution, for it is not fit for him to

receive benefit from Christ’s death, as long as by him his brother feels

an injury; there is no repentance unless the penitent, as much as he

can, makes that to be undone which is done amiss, and therefore because

the action can never be undone, at least undoe the mischiefe. Doe

justice and judgement. That’s repentance. Put thy neighbour, if thou

canst, into the same state of good from whence by thy fault hee was

removed,—at least, make that it should be no worse. Doe no new injury,

and cut off the old. Restore him to his fame and his lost advantages.”

And I beg leave to quote one other passage of the same author.

“Examine thyself in the particulars of thy relation, especially where

thou governest and takest accounts of others, and exactest their faults,

and art not so obnoxious to them as they are to thee; for princes and

masters think more things are lawful to them towards their inferiors

than indeed there are.”

Upon the whole, it appears by the authority of this great man, that the

first steps towards a reconcilliation should always be made by those

that did the injury, and not by those that received it. On the first

part, there should be shown some effects of repentance—some returns of

kindness and friendship, and then it will be the duty of the other to

remember it no more. This is as far as any one can go in this matter by

the rules of justice. If anything I have written now, or at any time,

appears to bee too familiar from a subject to a sovereign, I hope your

Majesty will think it less wrong, if you consider its coming from Mrs.

Freeman to Mrs. Morley, which names you so long obliged me to use that

it is not easy for me now quite to forget them; and I still hope I have

a better character in the world than Mrs. Masham tells your Majesty of

inveteracy and malice, as I mentioned before, for I do not comprehend

that one can be properly said to have malice or inveteracy for a viper,

because one endeavours to hinder it from doing mischief: for I think

when I know there is such an one, and do not acquaint you with it, I

should fail in my duty, and I can’t see how that can be called being

malicious. But since you make so ill returns for all the information

which I have given you, which I know to be right from the dear-bought

experience of that ungrateful woman, I will never mention her more,

after I have had what I desire at the beginning of this, that you will

say upon your word and honour that you have read these papers in the

manner desired, and that you are not changed, though I wish you may not

repent it and alter your opinion of this wretch, as you did of Mr.

Harley, when it is too late: and I do assure your Majesty that I have

not the least design of recovering what you say is so impossible (your

kindness) in the letter of the twenty-sixth of October. What I have

endeavoured is only with a view of your own safety and honour, and the

preservation of the whole. I have but one request more, and then I have

done for ever, upon the conditions I have written, and that is, that you

will not burn my narratives, but lay them somewhere that you may see

them a second time; because I know, sometime or other, before you die,

if you are not now, you will be sensible how much you have wronged both

yourself and me; but after you have read these papers and performed what

Dr. Taylor recommends, whatever you write I will obey.

If I continue in your service, I will come to you noe oftener than just

the business of my office requires, nor never speake to you one single

word of anything else. And if I retire with the Duke of Marlborough, you

may yet be surer that I will come no oftner than other subjects in that

circumstance do.

1711.

_A statement written by the Duchess of Marlborough relating to her

removal from St. James’s; respecting which many curious anecdotes had

been circulated._ Taken from the Coxe MS., vol. xv. p. 143.

I have given some account in a former paper of what the Queen said, when

she desired Lord Marlborough’s things should be removed out of St.

James’s, and of the way I took to make Mrs. Cowper tell the Queen that

her lodgings were part of my grant, that, for her own case as well as

mine, she might get for herself some rooms in St. James’s, before they

were all disposed of; and I think I have observed in that paper, how

much civiller her Majesty’s answer was upon this occasion than in the

message the Duke of Shrewsbury reported to Mr. Craggs, when she ordered

my lodgings to be cleared; which confirms me in my opinion that his

grace did not speak to the Queen in the manner that he ought to have

done, though he pretended to think her Majesty was in the wrong. But the

answer I received from Mrs. Cowper was to this effect.

After I had desired her to acquaint the Queen with what I have said, she

came to me the next morning and told me that her Majesty having been

spoken to, was pleased to say, I would have you tell the Duchess of

Marlborough, that I do know your lodgings are in her grant, _and I will

be sure to give you some others before I go out of town_. It did not

appear by this that the Queen was angry, as indeed she had no reason to

be; and to show that Mrs. Cowper had no thoughts of that, she sent me a

very civil message, a day or two before she went to Windsor, that she

had often put the Queen in mind of giving her some lodgings, and her

Majesty had always said she would do it, one day after the other, but it

was to be hoped she would name them the next day, being the last she

should stay in town, and as soon as it was done, I should certainly have

notice.

After this had passed, which I thought very void of offence, the next

thing I heard was that my Lord Oxford having offered her Majesty a

warrant to sign for money to go on with the building at Woodstock, she

had refused it, saying, that she would not build a house for one that

had pulled down and gutted hers, and taken away even the slabs out of

the chymneys, and had lately sent a message by Mrs. Cowper, which she

had reason to be angry at. This last is as I have mentioned it just now;

and the other ground of offence is still more extraordinary, because her

Majesty went herself through all those that were my rooms just before

she left the town, and must therefore see with her own eyes that there

was no one chymney piece, floor, or wainscote touched, but every thing

in good order, and every room mended, and nothing removed but glasses

and brass locks of my own bringing, and which I never heard that anybody

left for those that came after them; nay, the very pannels over the

doors and chimneys were whole, the pictures having been only hung upon

the wainscote; yet her Majesty suffered my Lord Oxford to send Lord

Marlborough word that he would endeavour to serve him, and get over this

great offence as soon as he could, but that at present the Queen was

inexorable. This he said to a friend of Lord Marlborough’s, desiring he

might be acquainted with it, making at the same time great professions,

and wishing to hear of some good success, which he said would set all

things right, and declaring how well he could live with Lord

Marlborough; and when the person he spoke to represented the diffycultys

Lord Marlborough was under, and complained of the libels that came out

against him, My Lord Oxford replyed, that he must not mind them, and

that he himself was called _rogue_ every day in print, and knew who did

it, yet he should live fairly with that person; adding, that the

Examiner himself had been upon him lately; which was so very ridiculous

that it made me laugh, since it is certain that all the lyes in that

paper are set about by himself. Now, whether he invented these last for

the pleasure of telling them, and hurting me with Lord Marlborough, or

for a pretence to get off from his promise of finishing Blenheim, I

can’t tell; but this I am sure of, that before he found out that excuse,

he had lost the best season for the work, for this answer was given in

the beginning of July, and if they had actually ordered money then, the

winter would have come on so fast before stones and materials could have

been got, that little or nothing could have been done. But as it was

natural for me to endeavour to clear myself, when I know such a message

had been sent to Lord Marlborough, and such lyes were made about myself,

I made my servant write in my name to the housekeeper of St. James’s,

and desire he would examine all the lodgings, and send word in what

condition he found them, that I might know whether my servants had

observed my orders, which were to remove nothing but what is usual, and

called by all people furniture. Upon this the housekeeper took with him

the servant I sent with the letter, and after he had gone through all

the lodgings, he sent me word that they were in very good order, and

that the report of my having taken anything out of them that did not

belong to me, was false and scandalous. Having received this account, I

desired Mr. Craggs, who had been with me at St. Albans, where I then

was, to go to the Lord Chamberlain, who was the proper officer to apply

to upon such occasions, and to give him an account of what had been

reported, and to desire that he would send somebody to examine the

lodgings; but my Lord Chamberlain not being in town, Mr. Craggs went of

himself to my Lord Oxford, and told him what misrepresentations had been

made to her Majesty about the lodgings; to which he answered, that there

could be none, since the Queen had viewed them herself, and had been

much displeased at the taking away the brass locks, which she believed

_were mostly her own_; but as to the message by Mrs. Cowper, he knew

nothing of it, only he understood it was something that had disturbed

her Majesty. Mr. Craggs told him there was no message from me to the

Queen, but only a discourse, that was very natural with Mrs. Cowper, and

necessary to her getting some lodgings for herself, since those she had

were in my grant, as her Majesty was pleased to say she knew they were;

who made a very civil answer upon the subject of my conversation with

Mrs. Cowper. It was some comfort, however, to find that all the outcry

that was made about the chymnies and getting the lodgings were let fall,

and ended only in her Majesty being angry at my taking away brass locks,

which she only _thought were mostly her own_, and therefore was in some

doubt whether they were not mine; but when so much disagreeable noise

had been made about this matter, I thought it would be right to have the

housekeeper of St. James’s sign a paper to the same effect with what he

had said; upon which I sent him such a one, which I desired him to sign

for the justification of my servants, who had orders to remove nothing

but furniture, and if he had any difficulty in doing it, I desired him

to ask my Lord Chamberlain if he might not sign to what was the truth;

and if it were not true, then he had but to show where my servants had

done wrong, and I would punish them for it. The housekeeper at first was

unwilling to give anything under his hand, notwithstanding what he had

declared by word of mouth, and the message he had sent to me; but he was

afraid, I suppose, of being put out of his place: yet upon my sending

him the paper I mentioned just now, which was all true, and nothing but

the fact, he signed it at last, though it was directly contrary to what

my Lord of Oxford reported from the Queen, in which he said, _there

could not possibly be any mistake, since her Majesty had been in the

lodgings herself_; but, in the conclusion, his lordship was so good as

to say he was sorry anything should happen to put the Queen out of

humour, and the best way was to say no more of it, for he had prevailed

with her Majesty to sign a warrant for twenty thousand pounds to go on

with Blenheim, and he would order weekly payments forthwith; but the

same person that writ me this account, added, that his lordship’s airs

and grimaces upon this occasion were hard to represent, and that it was

pretty difficult to make anything out of what he had said, or to guess

what was the occasion of this quick turn, and so far I agree with him;

yet if I had not taken so much pains to expose his lyes....

Soon after my Lord Oxford had made a merit to my Lord Marlborough of his

having prevailed with the Queen to continue money for the building, I

received a letter from abroad, dated the 26th of July, by which it

appeared there was no hope that the French would give such a peace as

even so bold a villain as my Lord Oxford durst accept, and therefore

’tis probable he ordered this money to delude Lord Marlborough, so far

as to make him continue in the service for the sake of having that great

work finished, since his lordship would have too many difficulties, when

no peace could be had, to fall out quite with Lord Marlborough; and

besides that, a whole year is lost.

I hear the money is to be paid in such little sums, if at all, that it

looks like a design rather to keep still some hold of Lord Marlborough,

rather than to do him any good; and for what concerns the Queen’s part

in this whole affair, there is nothing surer than that Lord Oxford and

Mrs. Masham did first persuade her Majesty to stop the warrant, and

afterwards instruct her in those fine reasons which she gave for doing

it, for she has no invention of her own, as I have often told you; but

then she makes up that defect by thorough industry, in getting by heart

any lesson that is given to her; and though she would not therefore, of

herself, have told all these storys about gutting of the lodgings, and

pulling down the marble chymney pieces, nor ever intended to have stopt

any money upon it, yet as soon as she heard Mrs. Masham say it was wrong

in me to presume to remove anything, she would not fail to echo to that,

and to say that truly she believed the brass locks were _mostly her

own_; and if by chance she had heard my Lord Oxford or Mrs. Masham say

that I had taken anything else out of the lodgings which she knew to be

still there, she would be so far from doing me justice, that she would

have said anything they would have put into her mouth, to make that

falsehood be believed; nor is it in her nature to make any reparation

for injuries of this kind, nor to be sorry or ashamed for what she has

done wrong at any time, but, on the contrary, to hate the persons she

has prejudiced, especially if they endeavour to vindicate themselves,

and by that, to put her in the wrong, or those that govern her.

_Character of Queen Anne written by the Duchess, and inscribed on the

statue at Blenheim._[412]

Queen Anne had a person very graceful and majestic; she was religious

without affectation, and always meant well. Though she believed that

King James had followed such counsells as endangered the religion and

laws of her country, it was a great affliction to her to be forced to

act against him even for security. Her journey to Nottingham was never

concerted, but occasioned by the sudden great apprehensions she was

under when the King returned from Salisbury.

That she was free from ambition, appeared from her easiness in letting

King William be placed before her in the succession; which she thought

more for her honour than to dispute who should wear first that crown

that was taken from her father. That she was free from pride, appeared

from her never insisting upon any one circumstance of grandeur more than

when her family was established by King Charles the Second; though after

the Revolution she was presumptive heir to the crown, and after the

death of her sister was in the place of a Prince of Wales. Upon her

accession to the throne the Civil List was not encreased, although that

revenue, from accidents, and from avoiding too rigorous exactions, (as

the Lord Treasurer Godolphin often said,) did not, one year with

another, produce more than five hundred thousand pounds. Yet she paid

many pensions granted in former reigns, which have since been thrown

upon the publick. When a war was found necessary to secure Europe from

the power of France, she contributed, for the ease of the people, in one

year, out of her own revenue, a hundred thousand pounds. She gave

likewise the first fruits to augment the provisions of the poorer

clergy. For her own privy purse she allowed but twenty thousand pounds a

year, (till a very few years before she died, when it was encreased to

six and twenty thousand pounds,) which is much to her honour, because

that is subject to no account. She was as frugal in another office,

(which was likewise her private concern,) that of the robes, for in nine

years she spent only thirty-two thousand and fifty pounds, including the

coronation expense, as appears by the records in the Exchequer, where

the accounts were passed.

She had never any expense of ostentation or vanity; but never refused

charity when there was the least reason for it. She always paid the

greatest respect imaginable to King William and Queen Mary. She was

extremely well bred, and treated her chief ladies and servants as if

they had been her equals. To all who approached her, her behaviour,

decent and dignified, shewed condescension without art or manners, and

maintained subordination without servility.

SARAH MARLBOROUGH.

1738.

_Papers relating to Blenheim._

_Description of the Buildings and Gardens at Woodstock._

LORD GODOLPHIN TO THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH.[413]

Woodstock, Sept. 25th, 1706.

Before I left Windsor, I writ to you so fully for two or three posts

together, that I shall have nothing left to say from hence but of what

belongs to this place.

The garden is already very fine, and in perfect shape; the turf all

laid, and the first coat of the gravel; the greens high and thriving,

and the hedges pretty well grown.

The building is so far advanced, that one may see perfectly how it will

be when it is done. The side where you intend to live is the most

forward part. My Lady Marlborough is extremely prying into, and has

really not only found a great many errors, but very well mended such of

them as could not stay for your decision. I am apt to think she has made

Mr. Vanburgh a little[414] ... but you will find both ease and comfort

from it.

Lady Harriot and Wiligo have walked all about the garden this evening. I

hope, when we do so again, we shall have the happiness of your company.

SIR J. VANBURGH TO THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.[415]

(_Extract._)

June 11, 1709.

Madam,—As to the main concern of the whole, madam, which is as to the

expense of all, I will, as I writ your grace yesterday, prepare in a

very little time a paper to lay before you that I hope will give you a

great deal of ease upon that subject, notwithstanding there is

134,000_l._ already paid. But I beg leave to set your grace right in one

thing which I find you are misinformed in. The estimate given in was

between ninety and a hundred thousand, and it was only for the house and

two office wings next the great court; for the back courts, garden

walls, court walls, bridges, gardens, plantations, and avenues were not

in it, which I suppose nobody could imagine would come to less than as

much more. Then there happened one great disappointment; the freestone

in the park quarry not proving good, which, if it had been, would have

saved fifty per cent. in that article. And besides this, the house was

(since the estimate) resolved to be raised about six feet higher in the

principal parts of it. And yet, after all, I don’t question but to see

your grace satisfied at last; for though the expense should something

exceed my hopes, I am most fully assured it will fall vastly short of

the least of your fears. And I believe, when the whole is done, both the

Queen, yourself, and everybody (except your personal enemys) will

easilyer forgive me laying out fifty thousand pounds too much, than if I

had laid out a hundred thousand too little.

I am your Grace’s most humble

And obedient servant,

J. VANBURGH.

SIR JOHN VANBURGH TO THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH.[416]

Oxford, Oct. 3, 1710.

My Lord Duke,—By last post I gave your grace an account from Blenheim,

in what condition the building was, how near a close of this year’s

work, and how happy it was that after being carried up in so very dry a

season, it was like to be covered before any wet fell upon it to soak

the walls. My intention was to stay there till I saw it effectually

done; the great arch of the bridge likewise compleated and safe covered,

and the centers struck from under it. But this morning Joynes and Robart

told me they had read a letter from the Duchess of Marlborough to put a

stop at once to all sorts of work till your grace came over, not

suffering one man to be employed a day longer. I told them there was

nothing more now to do in effect but just what was necessary towards

covering and securing the work, which would be done in a week or ten

days, and that there was so absolute a necessity for it, that to leave

off without it would expose the whole summer’s work to unspeakable

mischiefs: that there was likewise another reason not to discharge all

the people thus at one stroke together, which was, that though the

principal workmen that work by the great, such as masons, carpenters,

&c., would perhaps have regard to the promises made them that they

should lose nothing, and so not be disorderly; yet the labourers,

carters, and other country people, who used to be regularly paid, but

were now in arrear, finding themselves disbanded in so surprising a

manner without a farthing, would certainly conclude their money lost,

and finding themselves distressed by what they owed to the people where

they lodged, &c., and numbers of them having their familys and homes at

great distances in other countys, ’twas very much to be feared such a

general meeting might happen, that the building might feel the effects

of it; which I told them I the more apprehended, knowing there were

people not far off who would be glad to put ’em upon it; and that they

themselves, as well I, had for some days past observed ’em grown very

insolent, and in appearance kept from meeting, only by the assurances we

gave them from one day to another that money was coming. But all I had

to say was cut short by Mr. Joynes’s shewing me a postscript my Lady

Duchess had added to her letter, forbidding any regard to whatever I

might say or do.

Your grace won’t blame me if, ashamed to continue there any longer on

such a foot, as well as seeing it was not in my power to do your grace

any farther service, I immediately came away.

I send this letter from hence, not to lose a post, that your grace may

have as early information as I can give you of this matter; _which I am

little otherwise concerned at, than as I fear it must give you some

uneasyness_. I shall be very glad to hear no mischief does happen on

this method of proceeding; but ’tis certain so small a sum as six or

seven hundred pounds to have paid off the poor labourers, &c., would

have prevented it; and I had prevailed with the undertakers not to give

over till the whole work was covered safe.

I shall, notwithstanding all this cruel usage from the Duchess of

Marlborough, receive, and with pleasure obey, any commands your grace

may please to lay upon me; being with the defference I ever was,

Your Grace’s most humble

And most obedient servant,

J. VANBURGH.

SIR JOHN VANBURGH TO THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.[417]

_Extract from a Letter, dated Blenheim, July 27, 1716._

* * * * *

And I hope you will, in almost every article of the estimate for

finishing this great design, find the expense less than is there

allowed. Even that frightful bridge will, I believe, at last be kindlier

looked upon, if it be found (instead of twelve thousand pounds more) not

to cost above three; and I will venture my whole prophetic skill in this

one point, that if I lived to see that extravagant project compleat, I

shall have the satisfaction to see your grace fonder of it than of any

part whatsoever of the house, gardens, or park. I don’t speak of the

magnificence of it, but of the agreeableness, which I do assure you,

madam, has had the first place in my thoughts and contrivance about it:

which I have said little of hitherto, because I know it won’t be

understood till ’tis seen, and then everybody will say, _’twas the best

money laid out in the whole design. And if at last_ there is a house

found in that bridge, _your grace will go and live in it_.

_A Letter respecting a Suit in Chancery, which one Gardiner had

commenced against her._

(This probably relates to the expenses of Blenheim. Supplied by W.

Upcott, Esq.)

Marlborough-house, the 9th of July, 1712.

Sir,—I thank you for your letter which I received yesterday, which makes

me have a mind to tell you what perhaps you may not have heard

concerning Gardiner, who has acted, I think, with as much folly as

knavery. You must have heard, I don’t doubt, that he began his suit in

chancery with a charge upon me of nothing but lies, which I am told the

law allows of, as a thing of custom. I was always pressing to have it

come to a conclusion; but a thousand tricks were plaid for him to delay

it; and at last, when they could hold out no longer, he begun a suit at

common law. The court would not suffer a suit for the same in two

courts, so he was obliged to make his election which court he would

choose, and he chose the Exchequer. I thank you for your civil offer of

being ready to do me any service; but my cause is so good and so

strongly attested, that I have no occasion for anything more than I have

already. But I have a curiosity to know whether Gardiner did subpœna you

to be a witness, because I have never yet known him tell the truth in

anything, and what he has lately done seems very extraordinary. In the

first place, he made an excuse to my lawyer for having delayed the

hearing, but said it should come on in Mic. Term, and yet, immediately

after that, surprised him with a notice of trial for to-morrow. Some of

my witnesses being nearly eighty miles off, it was a very difficult

thing for me to bring them on so short a notice. However, I did compass

it; but while the master was striking a special jury, Gardiner

countermanded it. However the master finished it; and Gardiner’s reason

for countermanding it was, because he said his witnesses had

disappointed him. I don’t care what they do. And what he will do next I

cannot guess; but I think he must pay considerable costs, not having

given notice time enough to prevent my witnesses coming to London; for

he countermanded the trial last Monday night, which was to be on Friday

following, and Dr. Farrar came to London on Tuesday.

I am, Sir,

Your humble servant,

S. MARLBOROUGH.

_Correspondence relative to the destruction of the old Manor of

Woodstocke._

SIR JOHN VANBURGH TO THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.[418]

Thursday, June the 9th, 1709.

Madam,—Whilst I was last at Blenheim I set men on to take down the ruins

at the old manor, as was directed; but bid them take down the chapell

last, because I was preparing a little picture of what had been in

general proposed to be done with the descent from the avenue to the

bridge, and the rest of the ground on that side, which I feared was not

perfectly understood by any explanation I had been able to make of it by

words. This picture is now done, and if your grace will give me leave, I

should be glad to wait upon you with it, either this morning, or some

time before the post goes out to-night; for if you should be of opinion

to suspend any part of what they are now executing, I doubt the order

would be too late if deffered till Saturday.

I hope your grace will not be angry with me for giving you this one (and

last) moment’s trouble more about this unlucky thing, since I have no

design by it to press or teaze you with a word; but only in silent paint

to lay before and explain to you what I fear I have not done by other

means, and so resign it to your owne judgment and determination, without

your ever hearing one word more about it from

Your Grace’s

Most obedient humble servant,

J. VANBURGH.

SIR J. VANBURGH TO LORD GODOLPHIN.[419]

(_Extract._)

Your Lordship will, I hope, pardon me if I take this occasion to mention

one word of the old mannor.

I have heard your Lordship has been told there has been three thousand

pounds laid out upon it; but upon examining into that account, I find I

was not mistaken in what I believed the charge had been, which does not

yet amount to eleven hundred pounds, nor did there want above two more

to complete all that was intended to be done, and the planting and

levelling included. And I believe it will be found that this was by one

thousand pounds the cheapest way that could be thought on to manage that

hill, so as not to be a fault in the approach. I am very doubtful

whether your Lordship (or indeed my Lord Duke) has yet rightly taken the

design of forming that side of the valley, where several irregular

things are to have such a regard to one another, that I much fear the

effects of so quick a sentence as has happened to pass upon the remains

of the manour. I have, however, taken a good deal of it down, but before

’tis gone too far, I will desire your Lordship will give yourself the

trouble of looking upon a picture I have made of it, which will at one

view explain the whole design, much better than a thousand words. I’ll

wait upon your Lordship with it as soon as I come to town, and hope in

the mean time it won’t be possible that the pains I take in this

particular, should be thought to proceed only from a desire of procuring

myself an agreeable lodging. I do assure your Lordship that I have acted

in this whole business upon a much more generous principle, and am much

discouraged to find I can be suspected of so poor a contrivance for so

worthless a thing; but I hope the close of this work will set me right

in the opinion of those that have been pleased to employ me in it.

I am

Your Lordship’s, &c.

J. VANBURGH.

(Endorsed thus by the Duchess.)

Nov. 9.

All that Sir J. V. says in this letter is false. The manour house had

cost me three thousand pounds, and was ordered to be pulled down, and

the materialls made use of for things that were necessary to be done.

The picture he sent to prevent this was false. My Lord Treasurer went to

Blenheim to see the trick: ... and it is now ordered to be pulled down.

_Reasons offered for preserving some part of the Old Manor, by Sir J.

Vanburgh._[420]

June 11, 1709.

There is, perhaps, no one thing which the most polite part of manhood

have more universally agreed in, than the vallue they have ever set upon

the remains of distant times: nor amongst the several kinds of those

antiquitys are there any so much regarded as those of buildings; some

for their magnificence and curious workmanship; and others as they move

more lovely and pleasing reflections (than history without their aid can

do) on the persons who have inherited them, on the remarkable things

which have been transacted in them, or the extraordinary occasions of

erecting them. _As I believe it cannot be doubted, but if travellers

many ages hence shall be shewn the very house in which so great a man

dwelt, as they will then read the Duke of Marlborough in story; and that

they shall be told it was not only his favourite habitation, but was

erected for him by the bounty of the Queen, and with the approbation of

the people, as a monument of the greatest services and honours that any

subject had ever done his country—I believe, though they may not find

art enough in the builder to make them admire the beauty of the fabric,

they will find wonder enough in the story to make ’em pleased with the

sight of it._

I hope I may be forgiven if I make some slight application of what I say

of Blenheim, to the small remain of Woodstock manor. It can’t indeed be

said it was erected upon so noble or so justifiable an occasion; but it

was raised by one of the bravest and most warlike of the English kings;

and though it has not been famed as a monument of his arms, _it has been

tenderly regarded as the scene of his affections_. Nor amongst the

multitude of _people who came daily to view what is raising to the

memory of the great Battle of Blenheim, are there any that do not run

eagerly to see what ancient remains may be found of Rosamond’s Bower. It

may, perhaps, be worth some little refection upon what may be said, if

the very footsteps of it are no more to be found._

But if the historical argument stands in need of assistance, there is

still much to be said upon other considerations.

That part of the park which is seen from the north front of the new

building has little variety of objects, nor does the country beyond it

afford any of value. It therefore stands in need of all the helps that

can be given, which are only five; buildings and plantations—those

indeed, rightly disposed, will supply all the wants of nature in that

place: and the most agreeable disposition is to mix them, which this old

manour _gives so happy an occasion_ for, that were the enclosure filled

with trees, principally fine yews and hollys, promiscuously set to grow

up in a wild thicket, so that all the building left, which is only the

habitable part, and the chapel, might appear in two risings amongst

them, it would make one of the most agreeable objects that the best of

landskip painters cou’d invent. And if, on the contrary, this building

is taken away, there remains nothing but an irregular, ragged, and

ungovernable hill, the deformitys of which are not to be cured but at a

vast expense; _and that at last will only remove an ill object, and not

produce a good one_. Whereas, to finish the present wall for the

inclosures, to form the slopes and make the plantation, (which is all

that is now wanting to complete the design,) wou’d not cost two hundred

pounds.

I take the liberty to offer this paper, with a picture to explain what I

endeavour to describe, that if the present direction for destroying the

building shou’d hereafter happen to be repented of, I may not be blamed

for neglecting to set in the truest light I cou’d, a thing that seemed

to me at least so very materiall.

J. VANBURGH.

_Remarks upon this Letter by the Duchess._

The enclosed paper[421] was wrote by Mr. Robard, who lived always at

Blenheim, and, as I have said, was taken into Mr. Bolter’s place. He

wrote these directions from the Duke of Marlborough’s own mouth. And

when he was gone, for fear of any contest, I suppose, in which he must

disobey my Lord Marlborough’s orders, or disoblige Sir John Vanburgh, he

brought it to me, and I wrote what you see under the instructions, which

anybody would have thought might have put an end to all manner of

expense upon that place. The occasion of the Duke of Marlborough’s

giving these orders was as follows:—

Sir John Vanburgh having a great desire to employ his fancy in fitting

up this extraordinary place, had laid out above two thousand pounds upon

it, which may yet be seen in the books of accounts; and without being at

all seen in the house, excepting in one article for the lead, which I

believe is a good deal more than a thousand pounds of the money. Mr.

Traverse, who calls himself the superintendent and chief of Blenheim

works, let this thing go on (I will not call it a whim because there has

been such a struggle about it) till it was a habitation; and then he

came and complained of the great expense of it to me, desiring me to

stop it; and Sir John having another house in the park where he lived,

and where he had made some expense, Mr. Traverse was unwilling to think

he designed this other for his own use, and very prudently wrote to my

Lord Marlborough into Flanders, to ask for this old manour for himself,

he having no place for the dispatch of his great business in carrying on

these great works. The Duke of Marlborough made no answer, but when he

came into England, I remember upon a representation that these ruins

must come down, because they were not in themselves a very agreeable

sight, but they happened to stand very near the middle of the front of

this very fine castle of Blenheim, and is in the way of the prospect

down the great avenue, for which a bridge of so vast an expense is made

to go into. Upon this the Duke of Marlborough went down to Blenheim, and

there was a great consultation held, whether these ruins should stand or

fall; and I remember the late Earl of Godolphin said, that could no more

be a dispute than whether a man that had a great wen upon his cheek

would not have it cut off if he could. And upon hearing all people’s

opinion, and the Duke of Marlborough seeing the thing himself, he gave

this paper of directions, which prevented anything more from being done

upon the ruins; but it had not the intended effect of pulling them down.

In August third, 1716, when I was at the Bath, Mr. Robart wrote to me

that Sir John Vanburgh had ordered some walling about the old manour to

plant some fruit-trees upon, which he would pay for. This, I suppose,

was to save himself, because of the orders he had to do nothing there;

and by the advance of what is done at that place, I believe it must have

been begun a good while before I had this notice of it. I am sure it was

upon the nineteenth of June, which was never mentioned by Sir John

either to Lord Marlborough or to me. I thought this a little odd, but I

had so great a mind to comply with Sir John, (if it were possible,) that

I took no notice of this, nor wrote any to Mr. Robart concerning it,

only that I was sure the Duke of Marlborough would never let Sir John

pay for anything in his park, and I heard no more of it till I came

here; only that I observed that several officers and people that had

come by Blenheim to the Bath, when they talked of this place, and of the

workmen that were employed about it, could hardly keep from laughing.

Since Sir John went to London, the Duke of Marlborough and I, taking the

air, went to see these works, where there is a wall begun; I wish my

park or some of my gardens had such another; the first having none but

what you may kick down with your foot, nor the fine garden but what must

be pulled down again, being done with a stone that the undertakers must

know would not hold; but it was not their business to finish, but rather

to intail work. If one may judge of the expense of this place by the

manner of doing things at Blenheim, there is a foundation laid for a

good round sum. There is a wall to be carried round a great piece of

ground, and a good length of it done, with a walk ten feet broad that is

to go on the outside of this wall on the garden side, which must have

another wall to enclose it. There are to be fruit-trees set, but the

earth not being proper for that, it is to be laid I know not how many

feet deep with stone, and then as much earth brought to be put upon

that, to secure good fruit. And there is one great hole that I saw in

the park that must be filled up again, already occasioned by making

mortar for that part of the wall that is already done. What I have

wrote, I saw myself, and upon my commending the fancy of it, the man was

so pleased at my liking it, who lives in the house, and has some care of

the works about the causeway, that he told me with great pleasure the

whole design.

_Correspondence between the Duchess of Marlborough and Sir John Vanburgh

on the subject of a Marriage between the Lady Harriot Godolphin and the

Duke of Newcastle._

SIR JOHN VANBURGH TO THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.[422]

January 16, 1714.

Madam,—Sir Samuel Garth mentioning something yesterday of Lord Clare

with relation to my Lady Harriot, made me reflect that your grace might

possibly think (by my never saying anything to you of that matter since

you did me the honour of hinting it to me) I had either forgot or

neglected it: but I have done neither. ’Tis true, that partly by company

being in the way, and partly by his illness when I was most with him, I

have not yet had an opportunity of sounding him to the purpose. What I

have yet done, therefore, has only been this,—I have brought into

discourse the characters of several women, that I might have a natural

occasion to bring in hers, which I have then dwelt a little upon, and,

in the best manner I could, distinguished her from the others. This I

have taken three or four occasions to do, without the least appearance

of having any view in it, thinking the rightest thing I could do would

be to possess him with a good impression of her before I hinted at

anything more. I can give your grace no further accounts of the effect

of it, than that he seemed to allow of the merit I gave her; though I

must own he once expressed it with something joined which I did not

like, though it showed he was convinced of those fine qualifications I

had mentioned; and that was a sort of wish (expressed in a very gentle

manner) that her bodily perfections had been up to those I described of

her mind and understanding. I said to that, that though I did not

believe she would ever have a beautiful face, I could plainly see it

would prove a very agreeable one, which I thought was infinitely more

valuable; especially since I saw one thing in her, which would

contribute much to the making it so, which was, that we call a good

countenance, than which I ever thought no one expression in a face was

more engaging. I said further, that her shape and figure in general

would be perfectly well; and that I would pawne all my skill, (which had

used to be a good deal employed in these kind of observations,) that in

two years time no woman in town would be better liked. He did not in the

least contradict what I said, but allowed I might very probably be

right.

Your grace may depend upon me that I will neglect nothing I can do in

this thing, for I am truly and sincerely of opinion that if I coud be an

instrument in bringing it about, I shoud do my Lord Clare as great a

piece of service as my Lady Harriott.

I am your Grace’s

Most humble and obedient Servant,

J. VANBURGH.

SIR J. VANBURGH TO THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.[423]

Whitehall, Nov. 6, 1716.

Madam,—When I came to town from Blenheim, I received a letter from the

Duke of Newcastle out of Sussex, that he wou’d in a day or two be at

Claremont, and wanted very much to talk with me. But I, having engaged

to Mr. Walpole to follow him into Norfolk, cou’d not stay to see him

then. At my return from Mr. Walpole’s, which was Friday last, I found

another letter from the Duke, that he was at Claremont, and deferred

returning back to Sussex till he could see me; so I went down to him

yesterday.

He told me the business he had with me was to know if anything more had

passed on the subject he writ to me at Scarborough, relating to Lady H.,

and what discourse might have happened with your grace upon it at

Blenheim. I told him you had not mentioned one word of it to me. He said

that was mighty strange, for you had talked with Mr. Walters upon it at

the Bath, and writ to him since, in such a manner as had put him upon

endeavouring to bring about a direct negotiation. _He then told me, that

before he cou’d come to a resolution of embarking in any treaty, he had

waited for an opportunity of discoursing with me_ once more upon the

qualities and conditions of Lady H. For that, as I knew his whole views

in marriage, and that he had hopes of some other satisfaction in it than

many people troubled themselves about, I might judge what a terrible

disappointment he should be under, if he found himself tied for life to

a woman not capable of being a usefull and faithful friend, as well as

an agreeable companion. That what I had often said to him of Lady H., in

that respect, had left a strong impression with him; but it being of so

high a consequence to him not to be deceived in this great point, on

which the happiness of his life wou’d turn, he had desired to discourse

with me again upon it, in the most serious manner, being of opinion (as

he was pleased to say) that I cou’d give him a righter character of her

than any other friend or acquaintance he had in the world: and that he

was fully persuaded, that whatever good wishes I might have for her, or

regards to my Lord Marlborough and his family, I wou’d be content with

doing her justice, without exceeding in her character, so as to lead him

into an opinion now, which, by a disappointment hereafter, (should he

marry her) wou’d make him the unhappiest man in the world.

He then desired to know, in particular, what account I might have heard

of her behaviour at the Bath; and what new observations I might myself

have made of her at Blenheim; both as to her person, behaviour, sense,

temper, and many other very new inquiries. It wou’d be too long to

repeat to your grace what my answers were to him. It will be sufficient

to acquaint you, that I think I have left him a disposition to prefer

her to all other women.

When he had done with me on these personal considerations, he called Mr.

Walters (who was there) into the room, and acquainted him with what had

passed with your grace through me at several times, and then spoke his

sentiments as to fortune, which Mr. Walters intends to give your grace

an account of; so I need not.

And now, madam, your grace must give me leave to end my letter by

telling you, that if the Duke of Newcastle was surprised to find you had

said so much to Mr. Walters at the Bath, and nothing to me on the

subject at Blenheim, I was no less surprised than he, after the honour

you had done me of opening your first thoughts of it to me, and giving

me leave to make several steps about it to his friends and relations, as

well as to take such a part with himself as you seemed to think might

probably the most contribute towards disposing his inclinations the way

you wished them.

I don’t say this, madam, to court being further employed in this matter,

for matchmaking is a damned trade, and I never was fond of meddling with

other people’s affairs. But as in this, on your own motion, and at your

own desire, I had taken a good deal of very hearty pains to serve you,

and I think with a view of good success, I cannot but wonder (_though

not be sorry_) you should not think it right to continue your commands

upon

Your obedient, humble Servant,

J. VANBURGH.

LETTER FROM THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH TO SIR JOHN VANBURGH.[424]

Woodstock, Thursday night.

I am sure nobody can be more surprised at anything than I am with your

letter of the sixth of this month, in which you seem to think I have

proceeded in a very extraordinary manner concerning Mr. Walter. I will

therefore go back to the very beginning of the negotiation, that you or

anybody else may be able to judge whether there is any ground for the

reproaches which you have made me.

Some time after I came from Antwerp, having a great mind to dispose of

Lady Hariot well, and knowing that you had opportunity of speaking to

the Duke of Newcastle, I desired your help in that affair, if you found

he would marry, and were persuaded, as I was, that he could not find a

young woman in all respects that was more likely to make him happy than

she is, for I never imagined that you would endeavour to serve me upon

any other account. This you engaged in very readily, and I thought

myself much obliged to you for it, and I shall always be thankful for

any good offices upon that subject, though ’tis no more than justice and

speaking the truth. After the conversation, you may remember that I

allowed you to say that you knew my mind in this concern, and you said

you would speak to Mr. Walpole; but we agreed that you should manage it

in such a manner as not to give the Duke of Newcastle the uneasiness of

sending any message to me, in case he did not like the proposal. Some

time after this, you came to me, and gave me an account of your

conversation with Mr. Walpole, in which there were some civil things

said as to the alliance, but at the same time you said, what they

expected for her fortune was forty thousand pounds; and from that time

till you wrote to me from Scarborough, I never spoke to anybody of this

matter, nor so much as thought of it; for I concluded that the Duke of

Newcastle or his friends thought that great demand the most effectual

way of putting an end to my proposal, since Lady Harriot is not a

citizen nor a monster, and I never heard of such a fortune in any other

case, unless now and then, when it happens that there is but one child.

After this I had the most considerable offer made me that is in this

country, and, considering all things, I believe, as to wealth, as great

a match as the Duke of Newcastle, and in a very valuable family; but to

show that money is not the chief point, this match was refused, where I

could have had my own conditions; and I had not then the least

imagination that I should hear any more of what I am now writing of. But

when I was at the Bath, you gave me an account of a letter you had from

the Duke of Newcastle, which lookt as if he wanted to hear something

more from you concerning Lady Harriot: and upon that I writ to you, that

I was not so much at liberty as I had been to give her a portion when I

first proposed this match, having many other children that were so

unhappy as to want my help; but that I still liked it so well that there

was nobody who I could imagine had power with the Duke of Marlborough

that I would not endeavour to make them use it in compassing this thing,

which I thought so very agreeable; and some other reasons I gave, which

ought to induce my Lord Marlborough to come into it; which you approved

of entirely in your answer to this letter, and concluded by giving me an

expectation of hearing from you when you had heard from the Duke of

Newcastle, or rather when you had seen him, for you repeated something

of his having desired you to cast an eye upon some of his houses in your

way home; but from that time till your letter of the sixth of November,

though you were here some days, you never writ a word of this matter,

nor mentioned it to me. And I think it was your turn to speak, after

what I had written; and not at all reasonable for you to find fault with

what passed between Mr. Walter and me at the Bath. I never saw him in my

life before I was there; but upon his giving me an occasion, it was not

very unnatural, and not unreasonable, I think, in me to own how much I

wished an alliance with the Duke of Newcastle. He professed a great

value and respect for him, seemed to think this match, as you did, as

good for him as for anybody else; and since you left Blenheim, he writes

to me upon that subject, but not what you mention of letting me know the

Duke of Newcastle’s sentiments as to the fortune; but he said something

civil from the Duke of Newcastle, and deferred the rest till we met in

town, thinking it was better to speak than to write of such matters.

This letter I answered in my usual way, professing all the satisfaction

imaginable in the thing, if it should happen to succeed, (which, by the

way, I have not thought a great while that it will). I have now given a

very true relation of this whole proceeding, and if any third person

will say that I have done anything wrong to you in it, I shall be very

sorry for it, and very ready to ask your pardon; but at present I have

the ease and satisfaction to believe that there is no sort of cause for

your complaint against

Your most humble Servant,

S. MARLBOROUGH.

I have two letters of yours concerning the building of this place, which

I will not trouble you to answer after so long a letter as this;

besides, after the tryal which I made when you were last here, ’tis

plain that we can never agree upon that matter.

Upon the receiving that very insolent letter upon the eighth of the same

month, ’tis easy to imagine that I wished to have had the civility I

expressed in this letter back again, and was very sorry I had fouled my

fingers in writing to such a fellow.

_Explanatory Letter from Sir John Vanburgh, concerning his disagreement

with the Duchess of Marlborough._[425]

The Duke of Marlborough being pleased, some time since, to let me know

by the Duke of Newcastle he took notice he had never once seen me since

he came from Blenheim, I was surprised to find he was not acquainted

with the cause why I had not continued to wait on him as I used to do;

and I writ him a letter upon it, in which I did not trouble him with

particulars, but said I wou’d beg the favour of your lordship, when you

came to town, to speak to him on that occasion.

And since your lordship gave me leave to take this liberty with you, I

will make the trouble as little as I can, both to yourself and to the

Duke of Marlborough, by as short an account as possible of what has

happened since his grace’s return to England, in two things I have had

the honour to be employed in for his service, purely by his own and my

Lady Duchess’s commands, without my applying or seeking for either, or

ever having made any advantage by them. I mean, _the building of

Blenheim_, and _the match with the Duke of Newcastle_.

As to the former, as soon as the Duke of Marlborough arrived in England,

I received his commands to attend him at Blenheim, where he was pleased

to tell me, that when the government took care _to discharge him_ from

the claim of the workmen for the debt in the Queen’s time, he intended

to finish the building at his own expense. And, accordingly, from that

time forwards he was pleased to give me his orders as occasion required,

in things preparatory to it; till, at last, the affair of the debt being

adjusted with the Treasury, and _owned to be the Queen’s_, he gave me

directions to set people actually to work, after having considered an

estimate he ordered me to prepare of the charge, to finish the house,

offices, bridges, and out-walls of courts and gardens, which amounted to

fifty-four thousand pounds.

I spared for no pains or industry to lower the prices of materials and

workmanship, on the reasonablest considerations of _sure and ready_

payment, which before (as experiments show) was _precarious_. I made no

step without the Duke’s knowledge while he was well; _and I made none

without the Duchess’s after he fell ill_; and was so far, I thought,

from being in her ill opinion, that even the last time I waited on her

and my Lord Duke at Blenheim, (which was last autumn,) she showed no

sort of _dissatisfaction on anything I had done_, and was pleased to

express herself to Mr. Hawkesmore (who saw her after I had taken my

leave) _in the most favourable and obliging manner of me_; and to enjoin

him to _repeat to me_ what she had said to him.

Thus I left the Duke and Duchess at Blenheim. But a small time after I

arrived in London, Brigadier Richards showed me a packet he had received

from her grace, in which (without any new matter having happened) she

had given herself the trouble, in twenty or thirty sides of paper, to

draw up a charge against me, beginning from the time this building was

first ordered by the Queen, and concluding upon the whole, that I had

brought the Duke of Marlborough into this unhappy difficulty, either to

leave the thing unfinished, and by consequence useless to him and his

posterity; or, by finishing it, to distress his fortune, and deprive his

grandchildren of the provision he inclined to make for them.

To this heavy charge I know I need trouble the Duke of Marlborough with

nothing more in my own justification than to beg he will just please to

recollect that I never did anything without _his approbation_; and that

I never had the misfortune to be once found fault with by him in my

life.

As to the Duchess, I took the liberty, in a letter I sent to her on this

occasion, to say, “that finding she was weary of my service, (unless my

Lord Duke recovered enough to take things again into his own direction,)

I would do _as I saw she desired_, never trouble her more.”

I thought after this I could not wait on the Duke when she was present;

and that if I endeavoured to do it at any other time, she would not like

it. There has been no other reason whatever why I have not continued to

pay my constant duty to him.

The other service I have mentioned, which her grace thought proper to

lay her commands upon me, was the doing what might be in my power

towards inclining the Duke of Newcastle to prefer my Lady Harriot

Godolphin to all other women who were likely to be offered him. Her

grace was pleased to tell me, on the breaking of this matter, I was the

first body she had ever mentioned it to; and she gave me commission to

open it to the Duke of Newcastle’s relations, as well as to himself,

which I accordingly did, and gave her from time to time an account of

what passed, and how the disposition moved towards what she so much

desired.

Her grace did not seem _inclined to think_ of giving _such a fortune_ as

should be any great inducement to the _Duke’s prefering this match_ to

others which might probably be offered; but she laid a very great and

very just stress on the extraordinary qualifications and personal merits

of my Lady Harriot, which she was pleased to say she thought might be

more in my power to possess him rightly of than any other body she knew;

and did not doubt but I would have that regard for the Duke of

Marlborough, _and the advantage of his family_, as to take this part

upon me, and spare no pains to make it successful.

This thing her grace desired I should do was so much with my own

inclination, and what I was to say of the personal character of my Lady

Harriot so truly my own opinion of her, that I had no sort of difficulty

in resolving to use all the credit I had with the Duke of Newcastle to

prefer the match to all others.

His grace received the first intimation with all the regard to the

alliance that was due to it, and the hopes of having a posterity

descended from the Duke of Marlborough had an extraordinary weight with

him; but I found he had thoughts about marriage not very usual with men

of great quality and fortune, especially so young as he was. He had made

more observations on the bad education of the ladies of the court and

towne than any one would have expected, and owned he shou’d think of

marriage with much more pleasure than he did, if he cou’d find a woman

(fit for him to marry) that had such a turn of understanding, temper,

and behaviour, as might make her a usefull friend, as well as an

agreeable companion; but of such a one he seemed almost to despair.

I was very glad to find him in this sentiment; agreed entirely with him

in it, and upon that foundation endeavoured, for two years together, to

convince him the Lady Harriot Godolphin was, happily, the very sort of

woman he so much desired, and thought so difficult to find.

The latter end of last summer he writ to me to Scarborough, to tell me

he was come to an absolute resolution of marrying somewhere before the

winter was over, and desired to know if I had anything new to say to him

about my Lady Harriot.

Upon this I writ to the Duchess of Marlborough at the Bath, and several

letters past between her grace and me on this fresh occasion, in which

she thought fit to express her extreme satisfaction to find a thing

revived she so much desired, though for some time past had retained but

little hopes of.

Not long after, I waited on her and the Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim;

but not happening to be _any time alone with her_, and being to see the

Duke of Newcastle before there you’d be anything new to speak upon, I

did not wonder she said nothing to me of that matter. But when I came to

London, I was much surprised to find the cause of it.

I met with two letters from the Duke of Newcastle, expressing a great

earnestness to see me. I went immediately to him to Claremont, where he

told me his impatience to see me had been to know what I might have

further to say of Lady Harriot; what I had learnt of her conduct and

behaviour at the Bath; what I might have observed of her at Blenheim;

and, in short, that if I knew anything that could reasonably abate of

the extraordinary impression I had given him of her, I would have that

regard to the greatest concern of his life not to hide it from him, for

that if he marryed her, his happiness would be entirely determined by

her answering, or not answering, the character he had received of her

from me, and upon which he solely depended. That he had therefore

forborne making any step (though prest to it by Mr. Walters) that cou’d

any way engage him, till he saw me again, and once for all received a

confirmation of the character, so agreeable to his wishes, I had given

him of my Lady Harriot.

As I had nothing to say to him on this occasion but what was still to

her advantage, he came _to an absolute resolution of treating_: and

asking me what the Duchess of Marlborough had said to me at Blenheim

about the fortune, the letter at Scarborough having (amongst other

things) been on that subject, I told him she had not said a word to me

of it, or anything relating to the matter in general.

The Duke seemed much surprised to hear me say so, and told me he took it

for granted she had let me know what lately passed through Mr. Walters,

whom she had accidentally fallen acquainted with at the Bath, and

engaged him in this affair. That he had even pressed him to enter into a

direct treaty, but that he had made pretences to decline it, being

undetermined till he had once more had an opportunity of talking the

whole matter over with me, especially on what related personally to my

Lady Harriot, having resolved to make that his decisive point.

I told him it was very extraordinary the Duchess of Marlborough, after

two years employing me, and finding I had succeeded in the very point

she judged me fittest to serve her in, and by which point almost alone

she hoped to bring this match about, shou’d drop me in so very short a

manner; and that I cou’d conceive no cause good or bad for it, unless

she was going to dismiss me from meddling any more in the building, and

so judged it not proper to employ me any further in this other part of

her service.

The Duke seemed inclined to hope I might be mistaken in that thought,

and so desired I wou’d continue to act in this concern with her; upon

which (calling Mr. Walters into the room) he was pleased to relate all

that had passed through me from the beginning, with the Duchess of

Marlborough, Lord Townsend, Mr. Walpole, &c., and ended in desiring we

wou’d both join in bringing the matter to a conclusion, he being now

determined to treat; and that we wou’d both write to the Duchess of

Marlborough the next post.

I writ accordingly, and in the close of my letter mentioned the surprise

I had been in to find she had not been pleased to continue her commands

to me in a thing I had taken so much pains to serve her, and not without

success.

But when I came to London, I heard of the charge her grace had thought

fit to send up against me about the building, and so found I had not

been mistaken in what I had told the Duke of Newcastle I apprehended

might be the cause of her dropping me in so very easy a manner in what

related to him.

_The following Remarks were added by the Duchess to the above Letter._

Upon this false assertion of what the Duchess of Marlborough had said to

Mr. Hawkesmoor, she met him at Mr. Richards’ at Black Heath, and told

him what Sir John Vanburgh had said as to the Duchess of Marlborough’s

message by him, upon which Mr. Hawkesmoor protested, as he had never

seen her after Sir John went away, he never said any such thing to him;

and that it had given him a great deal of trouble very often to see the

unreasonable proceedings of Sir John.

What he repeats out of his own letter is quite different, as may be

seen.

My Lady Harriot Godolphin had twenty-two thousand pounds to her portion,

procured by the Duchess of Marlborough.

FROM THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH.[426]

Friday.

Sir,—I beg pardon for troubling you with this, but I am in a very odd

distress; too much ready money. I have now 105,000_l._ dead, and shall

have fifty more next weeke: if you can imploy it any way, it will be a

very great favor to me.

I hope you will forgive my reminding you of Mr. Sewell’s memorial for a

majority; if any vouchers are wanting for his character, I believe Mr.

Selwin will give him a very good one. I am, with great truth,

Your most obliged

And obedient servant,

MARLBOROUGH.

LORD CONINGSBY TO THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.[427]

December 11, 1712.

The shortest day of the year dates this letter, and to me the most

melancholy, because it is the first after I heard of thirty-nine’s

(Marlborough’s) leaving the kingdom (under God) he had saved. I who have

not a friend left, now he is gone, (yourself excepted,) have this only

comfort, that I am sure his greatest enemies on the side of the water

where he now is, will be much kinder to him than many of the pretended

friends he left behind him have been for some years past. They have,

however, their full reward, and being true Irishmen, by cutting the

bough they stood upon themselves, have fallen from the very top of the

tree, and have broke their own necks by their senseless politics of

breaking his power, who alone had acquired by his merits interest enough

to support theirs. Though I know more of this than any man now alive,

yet I shall never make any other use of it but to beg that you, during

his absence, will never trust to anything they, or any one they can

influence, shall either say or do, since, to my certain knowledge, they

were ever enemies to you and yours; and so thirty-nine (Marlborough)

knows I have told him long; and if I had been so happy to have been

credited, others had travelled, and not dear thirty-nine (Marlborough.)

But past time is not to be recalled. God preserve him wherever he goes.

It is time to return my thanks for the paper I have received about the

chaplain, and to assure you that now thirty-nine (Marlborough) is gone,

there is nobody behind him in this kingdom more heartily concerned for

the happiness of you and yours, &c.

LORD CONINGSBY TO THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.[428]

_Letters of Lord Coningsby to the Duchess of Marlborough, after the

death of the Duke._ (Referred to in vol. ii.)

Hampton Court in Hertfordshire, Oct. 14, 1720.

I received with the greatest pleasure imaginable your grace’s commands,

as I shall ever do to the last moment of my life, and obey them with a

readiness as becomes one to do, who, with all his faults, has not those

fashionable ones of fickleness and insincerity, which the dear Duchess

of Marlborough has, to my knowledge, so often met with in this false

world.

I am sure your grace is overjoyed to hear the Duke is so well, and the

more so because it is truth beyond contradiction, that as we owe our

liberties to him, so he, under God, owes his life to the care and

tenderness of the best of wives.

My dearest girls order me to present their duty to your grace, and their

services to Lady Dy and Lady Hun.

There is not upon the face of the earth anybody that is more than I am,

and ever will be, &c.

LORD CONINGSBY TO THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.[429]

Did I not know myself to be so entirely innocent as never to have had a

single thought, that if you had known it would have given the least

umbrage of offence to your grace, the usage I have lately met with would

be to me insupportable; but since that is my case, I can, though with

great uneasiness, bear it now, as I did once before, till the happy time

will come when your grace will be convinced that I am incapable of being

otherwise than your faithful servant; and that those who have persuaded

you to believe the contrary are as great enemies to your grace, as I

know they are to the true interest of their country. In the mean time, I

beseech Heaven to let me learn by degrees to be without that agreeable

conversation which I valued more than I can express. I can say no more,

but conclude with assuring your grace, that, use me as you will, it is

not in your power to make me otherwise than your grace’s, &c.

Saturday, Six o’Clock.

_Letters between Mr. Scrope and the Duchess of Marlborough._[430]

MR. SCROPE TO THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.

April 20, 1744.

Madam,—The letter which I had the honour to receive from your grace the

26th, hath given me great uneasiness, for I have always made it a rule

not to intermeddle in family affairs, even of my relations and friends,

and I should not have been so unguarded in what I presumed to mention to

your grace about the Duke of Marlborough, had you not been pleased to

hint what you inclined to do for his son, and had not my veneration for

the name of a Duke of Marlborough, and my passion and desire to have it

always flourish, and make a figure in the world, provoked me to say what

I did, which I hope your grace will pardon. I know nothing of the Duke’s

affairs, nor how or with whom he is entangled; but sincerely wish he had

your prudence and discretion, for the sake of himself and family. I

herewith return to your grace the book you pleased to send me, which I

read with an aching heart.

I am, with the utmost duty and esteem,

Madam,

Your Grace’s most dutiful

and obedient humble servant,

J. SCROPE.

THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH TO MR. SCROPE.[431]

June 4, 1744.

Sir,—Your repeated civilities to me persuade me that you would willingly

employ yourself to do me any reasonable service; and what I am now going

to trouble you about is, I think, not unreasonable; at least I am told

it is very customary, and almost a matter of form. I mean the

prolongation of my term in Marlborough-house. I had it prolonged, I

think, in the late king’s time, and am now desirous to prolong it again

for as long as I can, paying what is usual upon such occasions. Some

years ago I asked Sir Robert Walpole to add the term of years that was

lapsed to my lease of Marlborough-house, and likewise to do another

little favour for me: he answered me, that as to Marlborough-house he

would do it, because he could do it himself, but that for the other he

must ask it of the king. Somebody then advised me to wait a little, and

they would be both done together; and I was fool enough to take that

advice. However, I have still half the term left. The house was entirely

built at the Duke of Marlborough’s expense, and moreover, I paid two

thousand pounds to Sir Richard Beeling, for a pretended claim which he

had upon part of the ground, so that I think I have as just a claim as

any tenant of the crown can have. The late Lord Treasurer, I remember,

granted a new term in a house upon crown land to Lord Sussex, an avowed

enemy to the government, even when his first term was within a month of

expiring, saying, it would be too great a hardship to take it from him.

I am sure I am no enemy to the government, though possibly no friend to

some in the administration, and therefore I hope that what would have

been thought too hard in that case, will not be thought reasonable in

mine. I am always sincere, and, for aught I know, some people may think

me too much so; and I confess to you freely, that I take this

opportunity, while Mr. Pelham is at the head of the Treasury, he being

the only person in that station who, I believe, would oblige me, or to

whom I would be obliged; and this I find, by the answer I have already

mentioned from Sir Robert Walpole, is entirely in his power to do. He

has been very civil to me, and the only one in employment who has been

so for many years. I therefore desire you to mention this affair to him

at a proper time, of which you are the best judge, and I put off my

application till now, in order to be as little troublesome to him as

possible, knowing that he has much less business in the summer. Your

assistance and friendship in this matter will very much oblige

Your most faithful,

and most obliged,

humble servant,

S. MARLBOROUGH.

THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH TO MR. SCROPE.[432]

June 7, 1744.

I am very much obliged to you for your application in my behalf to Mr.

Pelham, and to him for his civil answer to it. I desire you will make

him my compliments and acknowledgements. I would much rather have the

lease under the exchequer seal only, and not trouble his Majesty about

this affair; but as you desire me to ask advice of counsell thereupon, I

have accordingly sent it to my lawyer for his opinion. I shall employ

one Mr. Keys, who is used to matters of this kind, to attend this affair

through the offices, and he will draw up my memorial in the proper form

to be presented to the treasury. Mr. Keys informs me that the lease of

the Duke of Richmond’s and the Montague’s houses in Whitehall, and many

others, are only under the exchequer seal; so that I make no doubt but

that the opinion of my counsell will agree with my own inclinations. As

I cannot express, as I would do, my acknowledgements to you for the

kindness you have shewn, and the trouble you have taken in this affair,

I will only say that I am, with great esteem and truth,

Your most faithful,

humble servant,

S. MARLBOROUGH.

THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH TO MR. SCROPE.[433]

September 11, 1744.

Sir,—’Tis a great while since I have troubled you with either thanks for

the favours you have done me, or with any solicitations. The first, I

believe, you don’t care for; and I know, you have so much business that

I was willing to delay, as long as I could, giving Mr. Pelham or you any

trouble concerning Windsor parke. You know the whole history about that

matter, how Queen Caroline took the allowance away, which her Majesty

sent me word she would do, if I would not let her buy something out of

my estate at Wimbledon, which was settled upon my family. This I

refused, but in a very respectful manner. After this she kept her word,

and took the allowance away, which I have in my grant. And I am sure you

know that I never gave any occasion for it by bringing any bills for

what I did there on my own account. I certainly have as much right to

this allowance in my grant as I have to any part of my own estate, and

there is no person that has a grant from the crown, that has not an

allowance more or less for taking care of his Majesty’s deer. I desire

no favour, but only strict justice; and you will oblige me extremely if

you will direct me in what manner I should proceed. I lost a

considerable arrear, which his present Majesty did not think right to

pay me, when King George the First died; saying, he was not obliged to

pay his father’s debts. And since the Queen stopped the allowance, I

have been at great expenses. I have a right by my grant to five hundred

pounds a year for making hay, buying it when the year is bad, paying all

tradesmen’s bills, keeping horses to carry the hay about to several

lodges, and paying five keepers’ wages at fifteen pounds a year each,

and some gate-keepers, mole-catchers, and other expenses that I cannot

think of. But as kings’ parkes are not to be kept so low as private

peoples’, because they call themselves king’s servants, I really believe

that I am out of pocket upon this account, besides the disadvantage of

paying ready money every year for what is done, and having only long

arrears to sollicit for it. But I think, by your advice, this matter may

be settled better, and that the treasury will either comply with my

grant, or allow me to send the bills of what is paid upon his Majesty’s

account. If they think anybody will do it honester or cheaper than I

have done, I shall be very glad to quit the allowance, and I should have

quitted the parke long ago, if I had not laid out a very great sum in

building in the great parke, and likewise in the little parke, where

John Spencer lives.

I have another small trouble at this time with Mr. Sandys the cofferer.

The custom has ever been to serve venison for the royal family and the

nobles; and the cofferer sends to know what venison the parks can

furnish. My Lord Sandys, to shew his breeding, made a letter be sent to

ask this question, I believe from some footman. I sent to the keepers to

know what they could furnish without hurting the parke; the number was a

very great one, but I have always chosen to send more by a great many

than any other ranger ever did. However, his lordship was pleased to

sent warrants for two more than the number, which I ordered the keepers

to comply with. Since that, he has given out four warrants more above

the number, which I forbade them to serve. For this year has been so bad

for venison in all parkes but my own at Blenheim, that it has been

seldom good. And Mr. Leg sent one of these warrants from the cofferer,

who gave me a great deal of trouble, by being very impertinent in

drawing warrants himself upon this park, signing only “_Leg_.” He

certainly is a very great coxcomb; but I will say no more of that. The

keepers send me word that it has been so bad a season this year, that I

must buy a great deal of hay for the deer, or they will be starved this

winter;—for though ’tis a great parke, it is full of roads; and there is

nothing beautiful in it but clumps of trees, which, if Mr. Pelham does

not prevent it, will be destroyed by the cheats of the surveyors, which

in a great measure I have prevented for more than forty years.

Pray forgive me this long trouble, and be assured that you never obliged

anybody in your life that is more sincerely, though I am insignificant,

Your friend and

humble servant,

S. MARLBOROUGH.

THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH TO MR. SCROPE.[434]

September 17, 1744.

Sir,—I give you many thanks for your enquiring after my health to-day. I

am a little better than I was yesterday, but in pain sometimes, and I

have been able to hear some of the letters I told you of read to-day;

and I hope I shall live long enough to assist the historians with all

the information they can want of me; but it is not possible for me to

live to see a history of between thirty and forty years finished. I

shall be contented when I have done what lies in my power.

* * * * *

I cannot make up this letter without telling you something I have found

in these papers, in the few I have heard read. My Lord Godolphin was

prodigious careful to save all he could of the money of England, and to

make the allies bear their proportion, according to the advantages they

were to have, not to allow of anything that the parliament did not

appropriate—and there were proper vouchers, and no douceurs. I have not

found yet no more than so many crowns asked upon some occasions; now,

one hears nothing but one hundred and fifty thousand pounds repeated

over and over. That I suppose has been occasioned by the great success

we have had, and that it was reasonable that one commander should have a

great share himself, for his courage in standing all the fire, and for

his wisdom in directing the whole matter. There is one letter of my Lord

Godolphin’s that pleased me much, though of no great consequence, but it

shewed his justice and humanity. There was some money returned from

England, the value of which was more in that country than it was here,

and Lord Godolphin writes to the Duke of Marlborough that the advantage

of that gain should be to England, or given amongst the soldiers, and

that the paymaster should not have it. Contrary to that notion, I have

been told, and I believe it is true, that Mr. Hanbury Williams had a

place made for him, quite unnecessary, with fifteen hundred a year

salary, and that it is lately found out that he has cheated the

government of forty thousand pounds. I am not sure that this last part

is true, but I hope it is, for I am sure there is not a more infamous

man in England than he is in every part of his character.

THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH TO MR. SCROPE.[435]

September 20, 1744.

Sir,—Since I have heard from you, I have heard a great many things read

which you seem to think would be of use in the history, and besides what

I have mentioned before, of the great numbers writ in his own hand of my

Lord Godolphin’s to the Duke of Marlborough, I have found a great number

of books of the Duke of Marlborough’s letters, copied by Mr. Cardenoll;

some of them to my Lord Godolphin, treasurer, Mr. St. John, Mr. Harley,

and to a great number of others. My Lord Godolphin’s own letters shew

that he was a very knowing minister in all foreign affairs; though you

never heard, I believe, that he boasted of the great respect that the

Princess abroad had for him, nor did he tell ever any of the lords of

the cabinet counsell that they knew nothing, and that France trembled at

his name. I need not say anything of my Lord Godolphin’s management and

honesty in the treasury, for you know enough of that; but perhaps you do

not know that he was so far from having pensions and grants, that if his

elder brother had not died just before Mr. Harley turned him out, he

must have been buried, as a great man in Plutarch’s Lives was, by the

public or his friends; though he never spent anything himself, excepting

in charity and generosities to any of his friends that happened to be

poor; for he was not so ingenious as some people are in making places

for insignificant people, and quartering them upon the crown; and by

some of the letters I have heard read, I find the demands he consented

should be paid in the war were sometimes so many livres, and I have not

yet come to anything higher than crowns, neither of which amounted to

any very great sum. I believe there are at least twenty great books, of

Mr. Cardenoll’s copying, of the Duke of Marlborough’s letters to the

minister at home, and to the Princes abroad; and, in short, to those in

England that were at all useful to contribute anything to the good of

the common cause. It is impossible to read what I have done lately,

without being in vapours, as you call it; to think how these two men

were discarded after serving so many years, when she was Princess, and

assisting her when she was perfectly ignorant what was to be done in a

higher station. My Lord Treasurer was taken leave of by a letter sent by

a groom. That was because I suppose Mrs. Harley was ashamed to see him

after all the expressions she had made to him, and for all his

disinterested services. When Mr. Freeman was discharged, it was by a

letter also; though he was so remarkable for having always a great deal

of good temper, it put him into such a passion, that he flung the letter

into the fire; but he soon recovered himself enough to write her an

answer, a copy of which I can shew you whenever you care to read it. One

would think that my Lord Sandys had been at the head of the councill

upon these occasions. Mr. Freeman had nothing to do with the management

of the money, but only the war for the security and grandeur of the

Queen and England, and had gained more than twenty sieges and pitched

battles. How this business will end by the great undertaking of C. and

his partner D., I cannot pretend to say, but I could say something in

behalf of Lord ——, if he had not taken the last grant for the pension,

after he had taken all the money out of the treasury. I am sure you

can’t suspect my being partial to him, and he really has some good

qualities that made me love him extremely, as my Lord Marlborough and my

Lord Godolphin did for many years, but I know they both thought he had

not good judgment; and I thought he did not want it so much as to be

persuaded by his friend C. to take the last pension, since his family

was so vastly provided for. I thought he would have chosen rather to be

his own master, and to have contributed what he could to secure his own

great property, by endeavouring to recover our very good laws, and

secure our once happy island.

I am glad to find I have so much judgment as to trouble you no longer at

this time, but I must beg of you that you will read one paper more,

which I will send as soon as I can; who am

Your most obliged and troublesome

Humble servant,

S. MARLBOROUGH.

MR. SCROPE TO THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.[436]

September 21, 1744.

Madam,—When your grace can spare a quarter of an hour, I should be

extremely obliged to you if you would give me leave to wait on you to

return my humble thanks for the pleasure and honour of your picture and

your other favours, and to acquaint your grace what progress is made in

the commands you were pleased to commit to the care of,

Madam,

Your grace’s most faithful and most

Obliged humble servant,

J. SCROPE.

LETTER ADDRESSED BY THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH TO THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE.

_Communicated by W. Upcott, Esq._[437]