Taisnière, the half-hour during which the Prince of Orange had been
directed to suspend his attack had elapsed, and that gallant chief,
impatient of inactivity when the battle was raging with such fury on
his right, resolved to move forward in good earnest. The Scotch
brigade, led on by the Marquis of Tullibardine, headed the column on
the left; to their right were the Dutch, under Spaar and Oxenstiern;
while the Prince of Hesse-Cassel, with twenty-one squadrons, was in
reserve to support and follow the infantry into the works, when an
opening was made. On the word "march" being given, the troops of these
various nations, with rival courage, advanced to the attack. The
Scotch Highlanders, headed by the gallant Tullibardine,[38] rushed
impetuously forward to the attack, despite a tremendous fire of grape
and musketry which issued from the works, and succeeded in reaching
the top of the intrenchment. But before they could deploy, they were
charged by the French infantry in close order, and driven out.
Tullibardine met a glorious death in the redoubt he had won. Equally
gallant was the assault, and unpropitious the result, of the Prince of
Orange's attack on the right towards the French centre. There, too,
by a vehement rush the intrenchment was carried; but the troops which
surmounted it had no sooner penetrated in than they were attacked by
Boufflers, at the head of fresh troops in close order in front, while
a powerful battery opened with grape on their flank. This double
attack proved irresistible; the assailants were pushed out of the
works with dreadful slaughter. Spaar lay dead on the spot; Hamilton
was carried off wounded. Seeing his men recoil, the Prince of Orange
seized a standard, and advancing alone to the slope of the
intrenchment, said aloud, "Follow me, my friends; here is your post."
But it was all in vain. Boufflers' men from the French second line had
now closed up with the first, which lined the works, and a dense mass
of bayonets, six deep, bristled at their summit behind the embrasures
of the guns. A dreadful rolling fire issued from them; their position
could be marked by the ceaseless line of flame, even through the
volumes of smoke which enveloped them on all sides; and at length,
after displaying the most heroic valour, the Prince of Orange was
obliged to draw off his men, with the loss of three thousand killed,
and twice that number wounded. Instantly the brigade of Navarre issued
with loud shouts out of the intrenchments. Several Dutch battalions
were driven back, and some colours, with an advanced battery, fell
into the enemy's hands. Boufflers supported this sally by his
grenadiers _à cheval_; but the Prince of Hesse-Cassel came up with his
well-appointed squadron on the other side, and, after a short
struggle, drove the French back into their works.
Hearing that matters were in this precarious state on the left,
Marlborough galloped from the right centre, accompanied by his staff,
where Lotturn's infantry and D'Auvergne's horse had gained such
important advantages. Matters erelong became so alarming, that Eugene
also followed in the same direction. On his way along the rear of the
line, the English general had a painful proof of the enthusiastic
spirit with which his troops were animated, by seeing numbers of the
wounded Dutch and Hanoverians, whose hurts had just been bound up by
the surgeons, again hastening to the front, to join their comrades,
though some, faint from the loss of blood, yet tottered under the
weight of their muskets. The reserves were hastily directed to the
menaced front, and by their aid the combat was in some degree restored
in that quarter; while Marlborough and Eugene laboured to persuade the
Prince of Orange, who was burning with anxiety at all hazards to renew
the attack, that his operations were only intended as a feint, and
that the real effort was to be made on the right, where considerable
progress had already been made. Order was hardly restored in this
quarter, when intelligence arrived from the right that the enemy were
assuming the initiative in the wood of Taisnière, and were pressing
hard both upon the troops at La Folie and in front of the wood. In
fact, Villars, alarmed at the progress of the enemy on his left in the
wood, had drawn considerable reinforcements from his centre, and sent
them to the threatened quarter. Marlborough instantly saw the
advantage which this weakening of the enemy's centre was likely to
give him. While he hastened back, therefore, with all imaginable
expedition to the right, to arrest the progress of the enemy in that
quarter, he directed Lord Orkney to advance, supported by a powerful
body of horse on each flank, directly in at the opening between the
two woods, and if possible force the enemy's intrenchments in the
centre, now stripped of their principal defenders.
These dispositions, adopted on the spur of the moment, and instantly
acted upon, proved entirely successful. Eugene galloped to the extreme
right, and renewed the attack with Schulemberg's men, while Withers
again pressed on the rear of the wood near La Folie. So vigorous was
the onset, that the Allies gained ground on both sides of the wood,
and Villars hastening up with the French guards to restore the combat
near La Folie, received a wound in the knee, when gallantly heading a
charge of bayonets, which obliged him to quit the field. In the
centre, still more decisive advantages were gained. Lord Orkney there
made the attack with such vigour, that the intrenchments, now not
adequately manned, were at once carried; and the horse, following
rapidly on the traces of the foot soldiers, broke through at several
openings made by the artillery, and spread themselves over the plain,
cutting down in every direction. The grand battery of forty cannon in
the allied centre received orders to advance. In the twinkling of an
eye the guns were limbered up, and moving on at a quick trot. They
soon passed the intrenchments in the centre, and facing to the right
and left, opened a tremendous fire of canister and grape on the dense
masses of the French cavalry which there stood in the rear of the
infantry, who were almost all in front among the works. These noble
troops, however, bore up gallantly against the storm, and even charged
the allied horse before they had time to form within the lines; but
they were unable to make any impression, and retired from the attack
sorely shattered by the allied artillery.
The battle was now gained. Villars' position, how strong and gallantly
defended soever, was no longer tenable. Pierced through in the centre,
with a formidable enemy's battery thundering on either side, in the
very heart of his line, on the reserve squadrons, turned and menaced
with rout on the left, it was no longer possible to keep the field.
Boufflers, upon whom, in the absence of Villars in consequence of his
wound, the direction of affairs had devolved, accordingly prepared for
a retreat; and he conducted it with consummate skill, as well as the
most undaunted firmness. Collecting a body of two thousand chosen
horse yet fresh, consisting of the _élite_ of the horse-guards and
garde-du-corps, he charged the allied horse which had penetrated into
the centre, and was by this time much blown by its severe fatigues in
the preceding part of the day. It was accordingly worsted and put to
flight; but all the efforts of this noble body of horsemen were
shattered against Orkney's infantry, which, posted on the reverse of
the works they had won, poured in, when charged, so close and
destructive a fire, as stretched half of the gallant cavaliers on the
plain, and forced the remainder to a precipitate retreat. Still the
indefatigable Boufflers made another effort. Drawing a large body of
infantry from the works on his extreme right, which had been little
engaged, he marched them to the left, and reforming his squadrons
again, advanced to the charge. But Marlborough no sooner saw this,
than he charged the garde-du-corps with a body of English horse which
he himself led on, and drove them back, while the infantry staggered
and reeled like a sinking ship under the terrific fire of the allied
guns, which had penetrated the centre. At the same time the Prince of
Orange and the Prince of Hesse-Cassel, perceiving that the
intrenchments before them were stript of great part of their
defenders, renewed the attack; in ten minutes these works were
carried; a tremendous shout, heard along the whole line, announced
that the whole left of the position had fallen into the hands of the
Allies.
In these desperate circumstances, Boufflers and his brave troops did
all that skill or courage could suggest to arrest the progress of the
victors, and withdraw from the field without any additional losses.
Forming his troops into three great masses, with the cavalry which had
suffered least in rear, he slowly, and in perfect regularity,
commenced his retreat. The Allies had suffered so much, and were so
completely exhausted by the fatigue of this bloody and protracted
battle, that they gave them very little molestation. Contenting
themselves with pursuing as far as the heath of Malplaquet, and the
level ground around Taisnière, they halted, and the men lay down to
sleep. Meanwhile the French, in the best order, but in deep dejection,
continued their retreat still in three columns; and after crossing the
Hon in their rear, reunited below Quesnoy and Valenciennes, about
twelve miles from the field of battle.[39]
Such was the desperate battle of Malplaquet, the most bloody and
obstinately contested which had yet occurred in the war, and in which
it is hard to say to which of the gallant antagonists the palm of
valour and heroism is to be given. The victory was unquestionably
gained by the Allies, since they forced the enemy's position, drove
them to a considerable distance from the field of battle, and hindered
the siege of Mons, the object for which both parties fought, from
being raised. The valour they displayed had extorted the admiration of
their gallant and generous enemies.[40] On the other hand, these
advantages had been purchased at an enormous sacrifice, and never
since the commencement of the contest had the scales hung so even
between the contending parties. The Allies lost, killed in the
infantry alone, five thousand five hundred and forty-four; wounded and
missing, twelve thousand seven hundred and six; in all eighteen
thousand two hundred and fifty, of whom two hundred and eighty-six
were officers killed, and seven hundred and sixty-two wounded.
Including the casualties in the cavalry and artillery, their total
loss was not less than twenty thousand men, or nearly a fifth of the
number engaged. The French loss, though they were worsted in the
fight, was less considerable; it did not exceed fourteen thousand
men--an unusual circumstance with a beaten army, but easily accounted
for, if the formidable nature of the intrenchments which the Allies
had to storm in the first part of the action, is taken into
consideration. In proportion to the numbers engaged, the loss to the
victors was not, however, nearly so great as at Waterloo.[41] Few
prisoners, not above five hundred, were made on the field; but the
woods and intrenchments were filled with wounded French, whom
Marlborough, with characteristic humanity, proposed to Villars to
remove to the French headquarters, on condition of their being
considered prisoners of war--an offer which that general thankfully
accepted. A solemn thanksgiving was read in all the regiments of the
army two days after the battle, after which the soldiers of both
armies joined in removing the wounded French on two hundred waggons to
the French camp. Thus, after the conclusion of one of the bloodiest
fights recorded in modern history, the first acts of the victors were
in raising the voice of thanksgiving, and doing deeds of mercy.[42]
No sooner were these pious cares concluded, than the Allies resumed
the investment of Mons: Marlborough, with the English and Dutch,
having his headquarters at Belian, and Eugene, with the Germans, at
Quaregnon. The Prince of Orange, with thirty battalions and as many
squadrons, was intrusted with the blockade. Great efforts were
immediately made to get the necessary siege equipage and stores up
from Brussels; but the heavy rains of autumn set in with such
severity, that it was not till the 25th September that the trenches
could be opened. Boufflers, though at no great distance, did not
venture to disturb the operations. On 9th October, a lodgement was
effected in the covered way; on the 17th, the outworks were stormed;
and on the 26th, the place surrendered with its garrison, still three
thousand five hundred strong. By this important success, the conquest
of Brabant was finished; the burden and expense of the war removed
from the Dutch provinces; the barrier which they had so long sought
after was rendered nearly complete; and the defences of France were so
far laid bare, that by the reduction of Valenciennes and Quesnoy, in
the next campaign, no fortified place would remain between the Allies
and Paris. Having achieved this important success, the allied generals
put their army into winter-quarters at Ghent, Bruges, Brussels, and on
the Meuse; while fifty battalions of the French, with one hundred
squadrons, were quartered, under the command of the Duke of Berwick,
in the neighbourhood of Maubeuge, and the remainder of their great
army in and around Valenciennes and Quesnoy.[43]
During the progress of this short but brilliant campaign, Marlborough
was more than ever annoyed and disheartened by the evident and
increasing decline of his influence at home. Harley and Mrs Masham
contrived to thwart him in every way in their power; and scarcely
disguised their desire to make the situation of the Duke and Godolphin
so uncomfortable, that out of spleen they might resign; in which case,
the entire direction of affairs would have fallen into their
hands.[44] Influenced by these new favourites, the Queen became cold
and resentful to the Duchess of Marlborough, to whom she had formerly
been so much attached; and the Duke, perceiving this, strongly advised
her to abstain from any correspondence with her Majesty, as more
likely to increase than diminish the estrangement so rapidly growing
between them. The Duchess, however, was herself of too irritable a
temper to follow this sage advice; reproaches, explanations, and
renewed complaints ensued on both sides; and as usual in such cases,
where excessive fondness has been succeeded by coldness, all attempts
to repair the breach only had the effect of widening it. Numerous
events at court, trifles in themselves, but "confirmation strong" to
the jealous, served to show in what direction the wind was setting.
The Duchess took the strong and injudicious step of intruding herself
on the Queen, and asking what crime she had committed to produce so
great an estrangement between them. This drew from her Majesty a
letter, exculpating her from any fault, but ascribing their alienation
to a discordance in political opinion, adding, "I do not think it a
crime in any one not to be of my mind, or blamable, because you cannot
see with my eyes, or hear with my ears." While this relieved
Marlborough from the dread of a personal quarrel between the Duchess
and Royalty, it only aggravated the precarious nature of his
situation, by showing that the split was owing to the wider and more
irremediable division on political subjects.[45]
Encouraged by this powerful support at court, Harley now openly
pursued his design of effecting the downfall of Marlborough, and his
removal from office, and the command of the armies. The whole campaign
which had terminated so gloriously, was criticised in the most unjust
and malignant spirit. The siege of Tournay was useless and expensive;
the battle of Malplaquet an unnecessary carnage. It was even
insinuated the Duke had purposely exposed the officers to slaughter,
that he might obtain a profit by the sale of their commissions. The
preliminaries first agreed to at the Hague were too favourable to
France; when Louis rejected them, the rupture of the negotiations
rested with Marlborough. In a word, there was nothing done by the
English general, successful or unsuccessful, pacific or warlike, which
was not made the subject of loud condemnation, and unmeasured
invective. Harley even corresponded with the disaffected party in
Holland, in order to induce them to cut short the Duke's career of
victory by clamouring for a general peace. Louis was represented as
invincible, and rising stronger from every defeat: the prolongation of
the war was entirely owing to the selfish interests and ambition of
the allied chief. These and similar accusations, loudly re-echoed by
all the Tories, and sedulously poured into the royal ear by Harley and
Mrs Masham, made such an impression on the Queen, that she did not
offer the smallest congratulation to the Duchess on the victory of
Malplaquet, nor express the least satisfaction at the Duke's escape
from the innumerable dangers which he had incurred.[46]
An ill-timed and injudicious step of Marlborough at this juncture, one
of the few which can be imputed to him in his whole public career,
inflamed the jealousy of the Queen and the Tories at him. Perceiving
the decline of his influence at court, and anticipating his dismissal
from the command of the army at no distant period, he solicited from
the Queen a patent constituting him Captain-general for life. In vain
he was assured by the Lord Chancellor that such an appointment was
wholly unprecedented in English history; he persisted in laying the
petition before the Queen, by whom it was of course refused. Piqued at
this disappointment, he wrote an acrimonious letter to her Majesty, in
which he reproached her with the neglect of his public services, and
bitterly complained of the neglect of the Duchess, and transfer of the
royal favour to Mrs Masham. So deeply did Marlborough feel this
disappointment, that on leaving the Hague to return to England, he
said publicly to the deputies of the States--"I am grieved that I am
obliged to return to England, where my services to your republic will
be turned to my disgrace."[47]
Marlborough was received in the most flattering manner by the people,
on landing on 15th November, and he was greeted by the thanks of both
Houses of Parliament for his great and glorious services. The Queen
declared in her speech from the throne, that this campaign had been at
least as glorious as any which had preceded it; and the Chancellor, in
communicating the thanks of the House of Lords, added--"This high
eulogium must be looked upon as added to, and standing upon the
foundation already laid in the records of this House, for preserving
your memory fresh to all future times; so that your Grace has also the
satisfaction of seeing this everlasting monument of your glory rise
every year much higher." Such was the impulse communicated to both
Houses by the presence of the Duke, and the recollection of his
glorious services, that liberal supplies for carrying on the war were
granted by both Houses. The Commons voted £6,000,000 for the service
of the ensuing year, and on the earnest representation of Marlborough,
an addition was made to the military forces.
But in the midst of all these flattering appearances, the hand of
destruction was already impending over the British hero. It was mainly
raised by the very greatness and inappreciable nature of his services.
Envy, the invariable attendant on exalted merit, had already singled
him out as her victim: jealousy, the prevailing weakness of little
minds, had prepared his ruin. The Queen had become uneasy at the
greatness of her subject. There had even been a talk of the Duke of
Argyll arresting him in her name, when in command of the army. Anne
lent a ready ear to the representations of her flatterers, and
especially Mrs Masham, that she was enthralled by a single family;
that Marlborough was the real sovereign of England, and that the
crown was overshadowed by the field-marshal's baton. Godolphin,
violently libelled in a sermon by Dr Sacheverell, at St Saviour's,
Southwark, the Doctor was impeached before the House of Lords for the
offence. The government of the Tower, usually bestowed on the
recommendation of the commander-in-chief, was, to mortify Marlborough,
bestowed without consulting him on Lord Rivers. At length matters came
to such a pass, and the ascendency of Mrs Masham was so evident, while
her influence was exercised in so undisguised a manner to humiliate
him, that he prepared the draft of a letter of resignation of his
commands to her Majesty, in which, after enumerating his services, and
the abuse which Mrs Masham continued to heap on him and his relations,
he concluded with saying--"I hope your Majesty will either dismiss her
or myself."[48]
Sunderland and several of the Whig leaders warmly approved of this
vigorous step; but Godolphin, who foresaw the total ruin of the
ministry and himself, in the resignation of the general, had influence
enough to prevent its being sent. Instead of doing so, that nobleman
had a long private audience with her Majesty on the subject; in which,
notwithstanding the warmest professions on her part, and the strong
sense she entertained of his great and lasting services, it was not
difficult to perceive that a reserve as to future intentions was
manifested, which indicated a loss of confidence. Marlborough declared
he would be governed in the whole matter by the advice and opinion of
his friends; but strongly expressed his own opinion, "that all must be
undone if this poison continues about the Queen."[49] Such, however,
was the agony of apprehension of Godolphin at the effects of the
duke's resignation, that he persuaded him to adopt a middle course,
the usual resource of second-rate men in critical circumstances, but
generally the most hazardous that can be adopted. This plan was to
write a warm remonstrance to the Queen, but without making Mrs
Masham's removal a condition of his remaining in office. In this
letter, after many invectives against Mrs Masham, and a full
enumeration of his grievances, he concludes with these words--"This is
only one of many mortifications that I have met with, and as I may not
have many opportunities of writing to you, let me beg of your Majesty
to reflect what your own people and the rest of the world must think,
who have been witnesses of the love, zeal, and duty with which I have
served you, when they shall see that, after all I have done, it has
not been able to protect me against the malice of a bed-chamber
woman.[50] But your Majesty may be assured that my zeal for you and my
country is so great, that in my retirement I shall daily pray for your
prosperity, and that those who serve you as faithfully as I have done,
may never feel the hard return I have met with."
These expressions, how just soever in themselves, and natural in one
whose great services had been requited as Marlborough's had been, were
not likely to make a favourable impression on the royal mind, and,
accordingly, at a private audience which he had soon after of the
Queen, he was received in the coldest manner.[51] He retired in
consequence to Blenheim, determined to resign all his commands,
unless Mrs Masham was removed from the royal presence. Matters seemed
so near a rupture, that the Queen personally applied to several of the
Tories, and even Jacobites, who had long kept aloof from court, to
support her in opposition to the address expected from both Houses of
Parliament on the duke's resignation. Godolphin and Somers, however,
did their utmost to bend the firm general; and they so far succeeded
in opposition to his better judgment, and the decided opinions of the
Duchess, as to induce him to continue in office without requiring the
removal of Mrs Masham from court. The Queen, delighted at this victory
over so formidable an opponent, received him at his next audience in
the most flattering manner, and with a degree of apparent regard which
she had scarcely ever evinced to him in the days of his highest
favour. But in the midst of these deceitful appearances his ruin was
secretly resolved on; and in order to accelerate his departure from
court, the Queen inserted in her reply to the address of the Commons
at the close of the Session of Parliament, a statement of her
resolution to send him immediately to Holland, as "I shall always
esteem him the chief instrument of my glory, and of my people's
happiness." He embarked accordingly, and landed at the Brill on March
18th, in appearance possessing the same credit and authority as
before, but in reality thwarted and opposed by a jealous and ambitious
faction at home, which restrained his most important measures, and
prevented him from effecting any thing in future on a level with his
former glorious achievements.