State of Parties—Character of Lord Nottingham—of Bentinck—Influence of
the Villiers family—Of Lady Orkney—Quarrel of the Queen and
Princess—Marriage of Frances Jennings to the Duke of
Tyrconnel—Suspicions of the Earl and Countess of Marlborough
entertained at court—Disgrace of Lord Marlborough. 1689.
In order to understand the vicissitudes of favour which Lord and Lady
Marlborough experienced, some insight into the state of parties, and
some acquaintance with the characters of public men, are essential;
although a lengthened discussion upon the subject, in a work of this
nature, would be wearisome and inconvenient.
Scarcely had William the Third ascended the throne, than he found that
“his crown was encircled with thorns.”[197] In the hurry and stir of
events, carried away by the strong current of sympathy, the Tories had
promoted his elevation; but when dangers were past, they remembered, too
late to retrieve, what they considered to be their error—that in so
doing they had departed from all their established maxims; they
recollected, not only that they had dethroned James, but that they had
preferred his daughters and the Prince of Orange in the succession, to
the infant Prince of Wales; and, to excuse their inconsistency, they
were forced to pretend a mere submission to events which they had
actively promoted. This faction, reluctantly styled by Burnet, in the
portion of his history[198] relating to this period, “Tories,” were
therefore avowedly hostile to the court, and yet not to be considered as
its sole, nor indeed as its most dangerous enemies.
The clergy, the majority of whom had inveighed from the pulpit against
the right of infringing upon the order of succession, were, from motives
of the same description, inimical also to the Calvinistic King, whose
known attachment to Dissenters inspired a jealousy of him, and towards
his numerous adherents of the same tenets with himself, which was
quickly manifested by the Bishops. Among the seven prelates who had been
persecuted by the late King, only one, the Bishop of St. Asaph, did
homage to the new monarch, and took the oaths. And when Mary sent to ask
Sancroft’s blessing, the cutting reply of the Archbishop was, “that she
must seek her father’s first, otherwise his would not be heard in
heaven.”[199]
Thus repelled, William looked in vain for a servile compliance from the
Whigs; they had the plea of consistency to shackle the support which
they might be expected to give the royal minion of their power; and,
having always opposed the crown, they were unwilling to relinquish that
jealousy of its prerogative for which their party had hitherto been
distinguished.
After the happy termination of the war in Ireland, factious spirits,
like gnats after rain coming forth in the sunbeam, began to show
themselves, and to congregate for action. Whilst some complained of the
great standing army kept up after the contest with James and his
adherents was finally and triumphantly concluded—whilst some murmured at
one grievance, some at another—Englishmen of all parties were disgusted
with the preference given to the Dutch, on whom alone the confidence of
the sovereign was bestowed. Nor did William take any means to ingratiate
himself in the affections of his adopted country. He shut himself up all
day, attended chiefly by Bentinck, whom he had created Earl of Portland,
and who shared his favour with Henry Sidney, the only Englishman whom
the King really liked. By degrees, a new feature in the character of the
chosen successor of James, alienated from him that party who had placed
him on the throne, and who began to think that there was something
contagious around that unenviable position. Naturally cautious, and
ignorant of our constitution, William took offence at the warmth of
those who professed liberal opinions, mingled with notions of
republicanism, from which he recoiled with as much dread as his
prerogative-loving predecessors. The name of liberty became intolerable
to him; and it was soon found that his love of monarchy, and his sense
of its high privileges, were far greater than could possibly have been
expected, in a prince whose pretensions rested upon the suffrage of the
great body of the nation.[200]
These opinions were supposed to be cherished in William by the Earl of
Nottingham, who was chosen Secretary of State with the Earl of
Shrewsbury. Lord Nottingham had opposed the settlement of the crown with
vehemence, and in copious orations; declaring, however, when the party
opposed to him had prevailed, that “though he could not make a king,
yet, upon his principles, he could obey one better than those who were
so much set on making one.”[201] It was this minister’s successful
endeavour to infuse distrust and dislike of the Whigs into the mind of
his sovereign—to gain every species of information which could assist
his efforts, from the lowest sources and by the lowest means—every angry
speech in political meetings being reported to his Majesty’s ears, and
making a deep impression on the mind of William.[202] Yet Nottingham has
been said, even whilst holding his office of secretary, to have always
kept “a reserve of allegiance to his exiled master;”[203] whilst the
necessities of a numerous family induced him to take an employment in
the existing government.
The great ambition of this nobleman was to be at the head of the church
party. Regular in his religious duties, strict in morals, and of a
formal, unbending character of virtue, the zeal of Nottingham, affected
or real, aided by a solemn deportment, and by a countenance the
inflexible gravity of which accorded with his disposition,—it was not
until years afterwards that his actual insincerity was discovered, and
that it was found that the principles which he professed had been all
along at variance with those which he actually entertained.[204]
Amongst sundry Tories and Jacobites who, by the influence of Nottingham,
were preferred, Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, contrary to all
expectation, was made a privy counsellor. His near relationship to the
Queen, his niece, had not hitherto secured royal favour. He was
accounted a man of abilities, although immeasurably inferior in that
respect to his celebrated father; he wrote well, but was an ungraceful
speaker. Devoted to the exiled monarch, Rochester, whilst he perceived
the errors of his royal brother-in-law, opposed the act of settlement,
and voted for a regency—a step which Queen Mary found it difficult to
forgive; nor was it until after Bishop Burnet had wrought upon her mind,
that she consented to receive her uncle, or to forget his opposition to
her reign. By degrees, however, he rose in her regard, and attained a
degree of influence which was exerted against Lady Marlborough in
particular, and of which she felt the effects. Lord Rochester, with many
excellent and respectable qualities, united a spirit somewhat too
zealous to be productive of benefit in the state affairs at that time;
he was considered as the leader of the high church party; and, refusing
the oaths of allegiance to William and Mary, remained a non-juror until
his death.[205]
The more placid, but more steady opposition of Bentinck, Earl of
Portland, to all that Lady Marlborough proposed and desired, was
supposed by her to be even more effective than the turbulent temper of
Lord Rochester. Brave, faithful, disinterested, charitable, a favourite
without presumption, a consummate statesman without forgetting the
higher duties, Bentinck would have been a valuable and a devoted friend,
had Lady Marlborough been so fortunate as to possess his esteem; nor is
there any reason to suppose that he was at any time her implacable
enemy, although his interests, and even his affections, were centered in
the monarch whom Lady Marlborough has treated, in her “Conduct,” with so
little respect.
Descended from an ancient family in the province of Guelderland,
Bentinck was first page to William Prince of Orange, and afterwards
gentleman of the bedchamber. When William was made stadtholder, Bentinck
continued near him, and was with him when the Prince was attacked with
the small-pox, a disease which had been peculiarly fatal to the
stadtholder’s family. On this occasion, and during the progress of a
disorder then shunned with as much alarm and horror as the plague and
cholera have since been, and the first symptoms of which were regarded
almost as the signal of death, Bentinck never deserted the sick room of
the Prince. He administered medicines to his master, and was the only
person who lifted him in and out of bed.[206] The first day of the
Prince’s convalescence was the commencement of Bentinck’s illness. He
begged of William to allow him to return home, as he could no longer
combat against the symptoms of disease. Happily, William had not to
grieve that the life of his devoted servant had been sacrificed by his
tender care. From that time Bentinck was peculiarly favoured by the
reserved but not ungrateful Prince; yet so little dependence is there to
be placed on human affections, so constantly are we to be admonished
that nothing is stable, nothing wholly satisfactory, in this life of
chances and changes, that the generous Bentinck afterwards found himself
supplanted in his sovereign’s regard by Keppel Earl of Albemarle; and,
whilst he still retained the confidence of William, perceiving that his
personal influence with the King was gone, in 1698 he retired from
court, leaving those offices which he had so long held in the household
to be performed by deputy.
During the first six or eight years of the reign of William and Mary,
Lord Portland, however, enjoyed all that favour and those distinctions
which his prudence, and the courage which he had displayed both in
military and civil affairs, so well justified. The avowed favourite of
the King, and deriving considerable grants from the crown, he spent the
sums for which he was indebted to the Treasury and to British lands, in
promoting the welfare of the English peasantry. Besides daily extensive
charity among his poor neighbours, Lord Portland built and endowed a
charity school on his estate in Buckinghamshire; and passed his days in
the domestic, and dignified, and useful retirement of an English
nobleman of the old school; visiting Holland every summer, but living
mostly in England. It was before going as ambassador to negociate the
peace of Ryswick, that he endeared himself to the English nation by
being actively instrumental in saving the noble edifice of Whitehall, in
which a fire had broken out, which was chiefly checked by the zeal and
liberal aid of this noble foreigner graft upon our English
nobility.[207]
The Earl of Portland became eventually one of the richest subjects in
England. But, as there is a dark spot on all human brightness, he
rendered himself unpopular to many, notwithstanding his extensive
charities—notwithstanding his profusion “in gardening, birds, and
household furniture,”—qualities truly English,—by a frugality which, in
the continental nations, is carefully instilled into youth by education
and practice, but which is uncongenial to the habits of the English
nation. The resentment of Queen Anne and of the Duchess of Marlborough
was shown in a manner not displeasing to the public, when, on her
accession, the Queen deprived Portland of “the post of Keeper of Windsor
Great Park.”[208]
Whilst we accord to Bentinck every merit due to one so estimable, it
must be allowed that his relationship to the Villiers family contributed
greatly to the support of that rank which he held in the King’s esteem,
whilst it was at the same time the cause of the hostilities afterwards
declared between his lordship and the vehement lady whom he had the
fortune mortally to offend. By his first marriage with Mrs. Villiers,
fourth sister of the Earl of Jersey, Lord Portland strengthened his
interests doubly. Lady Jersey was the confidante of Mary; Lord Jersey
was in high favour with William; whilst Elizabeth Villiers, afterwards
Lady Orkney, was the mistress of the gloomy and grave, but, as it seems,
not altogether faithful husband of the subservient and devoted Mary
Stuart.
There was, however, an intermediate person, a third sister of Lord
Jersey, the Viscountess Fitzharding, one of the favoured few who were
prized by the Countess of Marlborough, but, as it seems, a spy upon her
friend, and a betrayer of her secrets. This lady held a confidential
situation in the household of the Princess of Denmark, and was also one
for whom Lady Marlborough entertained what she truly calls “a very
singular affection”—a possession of which she shamefully availed
herself, by repeating all that she heard, and perhaps more than what she
heard, in the Princess’s family. The pernicious effect of such
repetitions, even between relatives affectionately attached, may readily
be conceived; but in the dissensions of two sisters, whose earliest
instructions, when they referred to conduct to each other, had in all
probability been those of distrust—whose interests clashed, whose
relative position was every way awkward, whose husbands were on
indifferent terms, and who resembled each other only in one respect,
that of displaying filial ingratitude to a misled and culpable monarch,
but an affectionate father—it was certain that a spark would kindle a
flame between spirits so ready for combustion.
At length the smothered discords between Mary and her sister broke out,
and once blazing, they were never entirely extinguished. The imprudence,
vulgarity of taste, or rather deficiency in feeling, of the Princess and
of her favourite, in their ordinary conversation and correspondence,
cannot be justified. It is often from errors apparently trivial, though
originating from coarseness of mind and violence of temper, that the
most serious inconveniences, sometimes the greatest misfortunes,
originate. The Princess and her favourite considered it high diversion
to vent their dislike to the King, in applying to him opprobrious terms,
the most decorous of which was “Caliban,” whilst others will not bear
repetition.[209] These offensive expressions, though, after the death of
Queen Anne, carefully expunged by the Duchess even from her original
letters, as well as in her “Conduct,” were, however, acknowledged by
Lady Marlborough, in the indorsements of letters from Lady Orkney to her
ladyship; and they were carefully collected and repeated by Lady
Fitzharding, whom the malcontents supposed to be in their confidence.
The hour of disgrace was, however, at hand—disgrace inflicted in the
tenderest point, and calculated to humble, if any thing could humble,
the lofty spirit of Lady Marlborough. That, however, which would have
crushed a gentler spirit, scarcely pressed upon hers; as appears by her
subsequent effrontery, which even her own skilful defence could not
extenuate.
But even if the comparative grossness of the times, and the aggravations
received from the court, cannot justify the Princess and her “dear Mrs.
Freeman,” neither can the petulance, meanness, and love of power which
Queen Mary displayed, be excused.
There is always something in feminine altercations that is ludicrous as
well as painful. Few women know how and where to stay the course of
anger; when it once begins to flow, every charm, every grace so fondly
prized by the sex, is obliterated, when retort follows retort, and
retaliation grows vigorous; and dignity, to assert which the fair sex is
oftentimes so valiant, takes its departure immediately we become
vociferous in its defence.
One evening, in the interregnum between the quarrel concerning the
settlement and their final feuds, the Queen, who had lived outwardly on
tolerable terms with her sister for some time, “began,” as the Princess
Anne expressed it, “to pick quarrels,” upon the sore subject of the
annuity, and to intimate that supposing some twenty or thirty thousand
pounds were to be taken off the fifty thousand allowed, the Princess,
she presumed, could live upon it “as she had done before;” upon which an
indecorous altercation ensued.[210] On the following day, Lord
Marlborough, after performing his usual duties as lord of the
bedchamber, received, through Lord Nottingham, the humiliating
intimation that he was dismissed from all his employments, both civil
and military, and forbidden the court. This blow is said to have been
totally unexpected by the Earl, from whom the King had parted on that
very morning in the usual manner.[211]
Lord Marlborough received the intelligence communicated by Lord
Nottingham with the composure of a superior mind. “He retired,” says one
of his biographers, “with the calmness of the old Roman dictator,
wishing to be succeeded by a better servant, and by one more concerned
for his Highness’s honour.”[212]
Of course, innumerable causes for this unlooked for occurrence were
started by the public, always curious on such occasions. By some it was
said that a letter had been intercepted, which gave rise to suspicions
unfavourable to the Earl. By others the disgrace of Marlborough was
ascribed to the resentment of Lord Portland, whom Marlborough was in the
habit of designating “un homme de bois;”[213] by many, the interference
of Marlborough and the Countess in the matter of the settlement was
referred to as the cause of his loss of favour and office, without
taking into account that it was then two years since that affair, and
that Marlborough had been in the mean time so employed and distinguished
by the King as to have obtained from the Marquis of Carmarthen the
invidious appellation of the “General of favour.” But, whilst it has
been allowed that these various causes, severally and conjointly, might
have, in some degree, effected the result so painful to the Earl and so
aggravating to the Countess, the recent boldness of Marlborough, in
representing to his Majesty the detrimental effects of his undue
partiality to the Dutch, was the immediate source of the King’s marked
displeasure.
“It was said,” relates Lediard, “that all the resentment was, for the
liberty he had taken to tell the King, that though himself had no reason
to complain, yet many of his good subjects were sorry to see his royal
munificence confined to one or two foreign lords.” French historians
make no scruple to name the Earl of Portland and Rochford, both
Dutchmen, to be the lords here hinted at; and add that the King turned
his back upon the Earl without making any answer, and soon afterwards
sent him a dismissal from his employments, and forbade him the court.
Those who considered the jealousy or envy of foreign officers a reason
for his lordship’s disgrace, assert it to be a confirmation of their
opinion that the Earl was not employed again, nor recalled to council,
until this motive ceased, and an end was put to the war by the peace of
Ryswick.[214]
The Countess of Marlborough, however, makes no allusion to this
ungrateful and petulant behaviour of the King.[215] “This event may be
accounted for,” she says, speaking of the dismissal of his lordship, “by
saying that Lord Portland had ever a great prejudice to my Lord
Marlborough, and that my Lady Orkney, (then Mrs. Villiers,) though I had
never done her any injury, except not making my court to her, was my
implacable enemy. But I think it is not to be doubted that the principal
cause of the King’s message was the court’s dislike that anybody should
have so much interest with the Princess as I had, who would not obey
implicitly every command of the King and Queen. The disgrace of my Lord
Marlborough, therefore, was designed as a step towards removing me from
about her.”[216]
Lord Rochester, the Countess proceeds to say, was also her foe, having
warmly opposed her coming into the Princess’s family in the first
instance, and wishing at that time greatly for her removal; believing
that if he could compass it, he should infallibly have the government of
both the sisters, his nieces, although he had never done anything to
merit the confidence of the Princess.
There was, however, still another reason assigned for the event which
caused so much speculation. The beautiful Frances Jennings, the “glass
and model” of her fair countrywomen in the days of Charles the Second,
had twice changed her condition since she had officiated, in the bloom
of youth, at the court of the Duchess of York. The first affections of
Frances were bestowed on the noted Jermyn, for whose unworthy sake she
rejected the brave Talbot, marrying, in a temper of mind betwixt pique
and ambition, Sir George Hamilton, a maréchal-de-camp in the French
service, and grandson of the Earl of Aberdeen.
In 1667, Lady Hamilton becoming a widow, and the attachment of Talbot
being unchanged by time, she became his wife; a marriage unfortunate, as
far as ambitious views were concerned, as the high rank which Talbot
afterwards obtained as Duke of Tyrconnel was not acknowledged at the
court of William.
Between the Duchess of Tyrconnel and her sister Lady Marlborough, there
never subsisted any very cordial intercourse,[217] nor was the connexion
likely to prove anything but a source of suspicion towards the Earl and
Countess. The Duchess of Tyrconnel, on the part of William, exercising
the ingenuity with which nature had endowed her, in tormenting those
admirers who were too importunate, or, when she ceased to attract those
who were too cold, turned her lively talents to political intrigue, in
which she played a deep game: but her cabals were often detrimental to
the cause which she espoused, and terminated finally in her becoming one
of those needy Jacobites about the court of St. Germains, whom the beset
and unfortunate exiled monarch—as unfortunate in his friends as in his
enemies—was obliged to satisfy with some portion of his own
pension.[218]
The Duke of Tyrconnel, united as he was to this busy spirit, had
qualities which would have adorned a better cause than that for which,
with zeal and address, he long combated in the sister country. “He was,”
says Clarendon, “a very handsome man, wore good clothes, and was,
without doubt, of a clear, ready courage, which was virtue enough to
recommend a man to the Duke’s good opinion; which, with more expedition
than could be expected, he got, to that degree, that he was made of his
bedchamber.”
To this qualified praise must be added the undoubted stigma attached to
the conduct of Tyrconnel, having in his youth been one of those “men of
honour,” so termed by Grammont, who acted as counsel to James the
Second, when Duke of York, in order to facilitate his nullifying the
marriage contract between his Highness and Miss Hyde. If such were the
arts by which he recommended himself to James, and obtained, added to
various other means, a fortune, as we are told, of forty thousand a
year, they are not much to his credit.
The first object of Tyrconnel’s admiration was Miss Hamilton, to whom he
offered his hand and fortune; and further proffered as many sacrifices
as she could desire of the letters, hair, and pictures of a former
flame, the Countess of Shrewsbury; and although these articles had no
intrinsic value, they testify strongly—such, at least, is the opinion of
that competent judge, Count Grammont, of a lover’s “sincerity and
merit.”
Refused by Miss Hamilton, whose affections were engaged to the gay, the
captivating, the admired, the profligate Grammont, Lord Tyrconnel had
next wooed, and nearly won, the capricious Frances Jennings. In both
these instances he had the good sense and good taste (only to be
mentioned as remarkable in such days as those) to select women of
reputation—with our modern ideas, we can scarcely say of virtue—for the
objects of his adoration. But whilst he laid at Miss Jennings’ feet the
honours, in prospect, of a peerage, and the present respectability of an
ancient name, though represented by an impoverished family—though his
wealth tempted her, and the elegance of his person and manners, in a
court where the art of good-breeding was the only art studied, were
acknowledged, he had been again, as it has been seen, unsuccessful. In
this mortification the vanity of the rejected suitor was solaced by the
languishing attachment of the automaton, Miss Boynton, one of those
young ladies who enjoyed the reputation of performing fainting-fits upon
the slightest occasion, and who had formerly won his regard by swooning
away upon his account at their first interview. To this languid lady, a
contrast to the lively Frances Jennings, Lord Tyrconnel had been
eventually united. Affected in manners, weak in mind, and uninteresting
in person, she proved perhaps a better helpmate to this determined
Jacobite than his equally resolute and more intriguing second wife, to
whom, after the death of her first husband, he was united.
Such is the account of that historical romance by Grammont, to which we
owe the very questionable advantage of an intimate acquaintance with the
court of the second Charles.
To those personal gifts which appeared so dangerous in the eyes of Miss
Boynton,[219] the Duke of Tyrconnel added the still more important
acquisition, derived from the habit of frequenting the best company, of
knowing how to recommend himself to others by that knowledge, which
seems in a man of the world a sort of instinct, of the dispositions, the
weaknesses, and wishes of those with whom he converses. With prodigious
vanity, much cunning, and little principle, Tyrconnel displayed some
noble qualities. By James the Second he had been appointed to the
command of the army in Ireland; by James raised to the Peerage—first to
an earldom, then a dukedom; by James he was appointed Viceroy of
Ireland. Upon the invasion of Ireland by the Prince of Orange he bravely
defended it, nor could the offers which were held out to induce him to
submit, make any impression upon his integrity.[220]
Tyrconnel sank into insignificance after the battle of the Boyne in
1690, but the English court still jealously watched his movements; and
his close connexion with the Earl and Countess of Marlborough was not
forgotten by those who envied the high qualities of the one, and
disliked the proud spirit of the other, and aggravated, doubtless, the
secret dislike which Queen Mary indulged towards the Countess of
Marlborough. Since the origin of most mischief is attributed to women,
an imputed act of indiscretion, on the part of that lady, was alleged,
at any rate, to have been made an excuse for the sudden disgrace of her
husband.[221] The Earl, it was reported, had mentioned to his wife, in
confidence, a scheme which had been confided to him, to surprise
Dunkirk—a project which had been concerted by William, and had proved
abortive. Lady Marlborough, as it was also rumoured, had spoken of this
plan to the lady of Sir Theophilus Oglethorp;[222] and it had been
carried, in some manner, of course, to Lady Tyrconnel, and from her to
the French court.
The author of “The Other Side of the Question,” in confirmation of this
report, has stated, but on no assigned authority, that four persons only
in England were privy to the design on Dunkirk; namely, “the King, Lord
Marlborough, and two more; that one”[223] of these four communicated the
secret to his wife, who, as it was said, sold it to Lady —— for what she
could get: that in consequence, the said design miscarried, and those
concerned in it abroad were hanged: that upon this, the King sent for
his three confidants, and having with some trouble found out the leak,
expressed himself, on the occasion, in his dry way, as follows—“My lord,
you have put a greater confidence in your wife than I did in mine.”
This conjecture, or tradition, however,—for though a prevalent report at
the time, it is nothing more,—is refuted by the fact that the design
against Dunkirk was not projected until the month of August, 1692,
whereas the Earl had been dismissed from his employments in the previous
January;[224] and although every possible obloquy that could be cast
upon the Countess of Marlborough was likely to be propagated in the
court, where she was known to be out of favour, yet it is certain that
no misconduct of hers, nor indiscretion on the part of her husband, on
the score of the projected siege of Dunkirk, could have occasioned the
harsh usage which his lordship had experienced.
Lord Marlborough, although disgraced, was not without advocates, as the
King soon perceived. Admiral Russell, one of a family noted for
magnanimous courage in the cause of justice, “put himself on ill terms
with the King,” as Lediard relates, by pressing to know the grounds of
the Earl’s disgrace; and almost reproached William with his oblivion of
the Earl’s services, who had, as he said, “set the crown on the King’s
head.”[225]
This generous interference, and the regret for the occasion of it which
the Princess of Denmark evinced, only irritated the King and Queen more
and more against their oppressed sister-in-law and her favourite. On the
twenty-ninth of January, the Princess received an anonymous letter,
informing her that a dangerous cabal was formed among the Portland and
Villiers family against the Earl and Countess of Marlborough, and
apprising her that their misfortunes would not end with the Earl’s
dismissal, but that he would be imprisoned as soon as the prorogation of
Parliament had taken place. The unknown friend who wrote this letter,
added, that the interview which Marlborough had held with his friends
Godolphin and Russell, on the day of his disgrace, had excited the
jealousy of the court; whilst the tears which the Princess had herself
been seen to shed since that event, had added to the irritation of her
sister and brother.[226]
Perhaps the Princess Anne might, in the midst of her tears, remember
with a pang the indulgent conduct of the father whom she had deserted,
and who, according to a writer contemporary with her favourite, had
twice paid debts which the mercenary spirit of that favourite, according
to the same account, which must be taken with some reservation, had led
the Princess to incur.[227]
Whatever were Anne’s feelings, those expressed by Lady Marlborough were
quite in accordance with her high spirit, which, with a hardihood which
certainly has the effect of disguising our faults far more than the
varnish of dissimulation, she avows in her own peculiar way.[228]
“But to come to the sequel of the King’s message: I solemnly protest
that the loss of my Lord Marlborough’s employments would never have
broke my rest one single night upon account of interest; but I confess,
_the being turned out_ is something very disagreeable to my temper; and
I believe it was three weeks before my best friends could persuade me
that it was fit for me to go to a court which (as I thought) had used my
Lord Marlborough very ill. However, at last they prevailed, and I
remember the chief argument was urged by my Lord Godolphin, who said
that it could not be thought that I made any mean court to the King and
Queen, since to attend the Princess was only to pay my duty where it was
owing.”
The consequence of this advice, upon which Lady Marlborough so much
relied, was, that “she waited on her mistress to Kensington.”
Particulars of the interview may readily be conceived. The offended
dignity of Mary, the suppressed vexation of the tearful Anne, the flush
of anger on the brow of the haughty lady in waiting, that subdued but
not intimidated favourite, nature struggling with etiquette, as she bent
before the Queen whom she hated, and followed the Princess whom she
governed and despised;—all these circumstances combined must have formed
a fine scene for the pen or the pencil.
Unfortunately, no details of the meeting are permitted us, but the
effect which it had upon the temper even of the mild and prudent Mary,
may be inferred from a letter which the Queen wrote to her sister on the
ensuing day.
After premising that she had something to say which she thought would
not be very pleasing to the Princess, the Queen reminded her sister that
nobody was ever “suffered to live at court in my Lord Marlborough’s
circumstances.” It was therefore incumbent on her Majesty, as she
thought, though much against her will, to tell her sister how very unfit
it was that Lady Marlborough should stay with the Princess either;
“since that,” added the Queen, “gives the husband so just a pretence of
being where he ought not.”
“Taking everything into consideration,” the Queen, therefore, plainly
intimated to her sister, that, since she had allowed Lady Marlborough to
accompany her to Kensington on the foregoing night, her Majesty was
reduced to the necessity of plainly telling her, that her lady of the
bedchamber “must not stay,” and “that she had all the reason imaginable”
to look upon Anne’s bringing her as “the strangest thing that ever was
done; nor,” added the Queen, “could all my kindness for you, (which is
ever ready to turn all you do the best way at any other time,) have
hindered me from showing you that at the moment; but I considered your
condition, and that made me master myself so far as not to take notice
of it then.”
“But now,” adds the Queen, “I must tell you, it was very unkind in a
sister, would have been very uncivil in an equal, and I need not say I
have more to claim, which, though my kindness would make me never
extort, yet when I see the use you would make of it, I must tell you I
know what is due to me, and expect to have it from you. ’Tis upon that
account, I tell you plainly, Lady Marlborough must not continue with you
in the circumstances her lord is.”
This assumption of the Queen towards her offending sister, Mary softened
by kinder terms. “I have all the real kindness imaginable for you,” she
added, “and as I ever have, so will always do, my part to live with you
as sisters ought;” and neither the King nor she were willing, as she
said, to have recourse to harsher means.
But, notwithstanding the resolution expressed in the foregoing
paragraph,—“the sight of Lady Marlborough,” the Princess proceeds to
say, “having changed her style, does naturally change her
thoughts.”[229] “She could pass over most things,” and “live with her
sister as became her,” but she complained of the want of common civility
exhibited by that sister, in not comprehending her wishes, and avoiding
the contact with which she had placed her with Lady Marlborough.
This reproof was felt severely by Anne, and gave dire offence to her who
had courted the rebuke, and it afforded Mary the desired opportunity of
putting a direct affront upon her. Nor could numbers of affectionate
expressions, nor what the Duchess of Marlborough calls, in the
conclusion of the epistle, “useless repetitions,” intended “to remind
her sister of the distance between them,” heal the wounds thus made, nor
reconcile Anne to a sister who had incurred the displeasure of one whom
she loved better than all the world besides.
From this time the firebrand of discord, thrown between the two royal
sisters, was never extinguished except by death. The mortification
inflicted upon Lady Marlborough was bitterly commented upon by her,
years after she had outlived the effects of other changes in those whom
she served, and those whom she endeavoured to serve. This first
humiliation was, perhaps, her bitterest pang of the sort; and she, to
“whose temper the being turned out was not very agreeable,”[230] must
have writhed under the banishment from that court, in whose atmosphere
she had been accustomed from her early youth to consider herself as a
privileged individual.
Queen Mary, having struck the first blow, was resolved not to relax in
her displeasure. The Duchess, in recalling this period of her life,
endeavours to show the inconsistency of the Queen, in expelling from her
sister’s service one whom she had formerly designated as a “kind, dear
friend, from whom she hoped that her sister would never part.”[231] But
Mary then knew the Countess only by letter, and by report, as the
beloved wife of an influential man disposed to liberal measures, and
devoted to Protestantism,—as a Whig in principle herself, and having
influence enough to make her husband turn round to her opinions; as a
woman to be feared, encouraged, courted. Even after her arrival in
England, Mary behaved towards her subsequent foe with a consideration
which would, says the Duchess of Marlborough, have engaged “some people
to fix the foundation of their future fortunes in her favour;” nor could
any one, she asserts, have had a greater chance to rise in it than
herself, “if she could have broken the inviolable laws of friendship;”
but this transient sunshine was now overclouded, and events succeeded
each other, which added to the darkness of the storm.
The Princess Anne returned an answer to the Queen’s letter the day after
she had received it, having first consulted her uncle, Lord Rochester,
requesting him, with the greatest earnestness, to assist her in this
affair, and to convey her letter to the Queen; an office which his
lordship declined, promising, however, that he would speak to the Queen
upon the subject. The epistle, in consequence of his lordship’s refusal
to act as a mediator, was therefore sent to Mary by one of the
Princess’s own servants.
The reply, probably penned only by Anne, and composed either by her who
was termed her “Dictatress,”[232] or by Godolphin, is couched in calm
but resolute terms.
No apology is tendered for the act which had offended the Queen; no
possible reason for the dismissal of Lady Marlborough is allowed: she is
justified throughout; whilst a reference to Lord Marlborough’s conduct,
which might have called down an answer, is prudently avoided. It is to
the unkindness of her sister to herself personally, that the Princess
principally objects. The whole letter bespeaks a stronger mind to have
been employed in its careful construction than the Princess of Denmark
possessed; doubtless, he who gave the advice to go to court, and she who
followed her there, were its authors.[233] Lord Rochester, who had only
recently crept into royal favour, was wise enough not to convey the
offensive document. No other answer was returned to it than a message by
the Lord Chamberlain to the Countess of Marlborough, to forbid her
remaining any longer at the Cockpit.
The residence designated by this undignified name has been already
described, and its appropriation to the Princess Anne, at the time of
her marriage, specified. It appears to have been only sufficient for the
Prince and Princess of Denmark and their household, their children being
established in the Duchess of Portsmouth’s former apartments in the
palace, whither it had formerly been the wish of Anne to remove.[234]
The Cockpit being, however, within the precincts of Whitehall, the
command issued by Queen Mary for the removal of the Countess of
Marlborough was certainly an undue exertion of authority, since it was
disputed by several people whether the King had power to remove any
individual from the Cockpit. At the time of the Princess Anne’s
marriage, Charles the Second had bought this house from the Duke of
Leeds, and settled it on his niece, and on her heirs. It was, therefore,
clearly her own property, and the attendants whom she chose to retain
under its roof were separately and especially her servants. But Anne,
though she might, says the Duchess, have insisted on her right “of being
mistress in her own house,” was resolved to avoid all risk of irritating
the King and Queen; and she determined, consequently, upon retiring from
the Cockpit, instead of continuing to brave the displeasure of these
royal personages by retaining her favourite in that abode. She wrote,
therefore, respectfully, but not submissively, to her sister, declaring
that since all that she had said, and all that Lord Rochester had urged,
could not prevent the Queen from exacting a mortifying sacrifice from
her, she was resolved to retire, and to deprive herself of the
opportunity of assuring her of that duty and respect which she had
always been, and which she should always be, desirous of showing her
Majesty.[235]
The Princess took prompt measures for her departure. She sent to desire
an interview with the Duchess of Somerset,[236] from whom she requested
the temporary loan of Sion house; and the Duchess, with many professions
of service, after retiring to consult with the Duke her husband, waited
on her highness, to acquaint her, in a very respectful manner, that Sion
house was at her service.
As soon as this arrangement was known, the King, according to the
Duchess of Marlborough, sent for the Duke of Somerset,[237] and did all
he could to persuade his grace to retract his promise to the Princess;
“but in vain; so,” as the Duchess contemptuously remarks, “there was an
end of that matter.”[238]
Previous to Anne’s removal from the Cockpit, however, she deemed it
incumbent on her to wait upon the Queen at Kensington, and to make “all
the professions that could be imagined;” but Mary met all these advances
with a cold disdain; or, in the words of the Duchess, “was as insensible
as a statue;” and when she did answer her sister, it was in the same
imperative and offended style as that in which her letter had been
dictated.
This alienation of the royal sisters was, however, fully explained by
events which reflect no honour either upon Lord or Lady Marlborough.
Even the panegyrists of the great Churchill have not attempted to
extenuate, whilst they were unable to deny, his political intrigues at
this epoch.
No individual in the British dominions was more fully aware of the fact,
that King James still lived in the hearts of the English, than he who
held the unenviable post of his successor. The progress of the French
arms abroad contributed greatly to the unpopularity of William, whilst
at the universities, and amongst churchmen of all ranks, the divine and
indefeasible nature of hereditary right was still strenuously, and by
the Archbishop of Canterbury, with eight bishops in his train, publicly
maintained.
The retired habits of the King, his cold exterior, his uniform
preference of his Dutch followers in all appointments about the court,
the vast expense and indifferent management of the war in Ireland, the
presence of foreign troops, and the neglect of the navy, all grievous
and tender points with the English nation, produced a secret but
universal discontent. The Marquis of Halifax was heard to declare, that
if James could be prevailed on to make advances to the Protestants, it
would be impossible to keep him four months longer out of the
kingdom.[239]
Under these circumstances, there were, even in the British cabinet, not
a few who regretted, and even repented, the part which had been so
recently enacted in the late settlement of the crown. The dissolution of
the Parliament, or Convention as it was called, irritated these
discontents; a secret correspondence was held, even from the very centre
of the court, with the monarch at St. Germains; the Duke of Bolton, the
Marquis of Winchester, the Earls of Devonshire and Montagu, the Marquis
of Carmarthen, one of the principal abettors of the Revolution, were all
more or less implicated in the conspiracy.
At this critical period, the fidelity, the honour, and the prudence of
Marlborough, sank beneath the powerful temptation of avenging upon
William the slights which he had suffered, and of raising his own
fortunes by restoring the Stuart dynasty. Historians have been at a loss
to comprehend the motives of one who had so recently sacrificed all
private considerations to what he justly deemed imperative
necessity.[240] Ambition, and, in the mind of Marlborough its too
frequent attendant, the love of gain, sufficiently account for his
defection from William, who, prejudiced, as the Duchess asserts,[241] by
Bentinck, availed himself of the services of Marlborough in war, but was
little disposed to recompense his toils by appointment to lucrative
civil offices.
Whatever might be the motives of Marlborough’s culpable correspondence
with the exiled King, the fact itself was not long concealed from
William, who was cruelly compelled to employ many to whose dissimulation
he was not a stranger; whilst James was equally unable to rely on the
assurances of those whose perfidy to another did not augur the most
perfect fidelity to his own cause.[242] All classes in society were now,
however, more or less infected with Jacobitism. Those who were
dissatisfied with the treatment of the British court were secretly
addressed by the agents of James, whilst the lower classes were
stimulated by means of the press, which formerly had published many
libels against the Duke of York, but which were now loud in his
favour.[243] It was not long before this conspiracy, the first of the
many ineffectual attempts which were made to restore James, began to
assume the distinct and fearful form of a threatened invasion.
In the latter end of the year 1690, James despatched into England
Colonel Bulkley, whose daughter was afterwards married to the Duke of
Berwick,[244] and Colonel Sackville, with instructions to probe the
sentiments of the people, and to attach to him the disaffected. Bulkley
first addressed himself to Lord Godolphin[245] by allurements and
promises. At their interview he inquired, in a tone of despondency, but
kindly, respecting the court of St. Germains; but, on being asked by
Bulkley what he would sacrifice in order to serve the cause of the
deposed monarch, Godolphin started from his chair, and exclaimed that he
would leave the office in which he had lately been replaced, that of
first lord of the Treasury,[246] in order that he might be free to
promote the restoration of James.
Lord Halifax was the next of William’s ministers who received Bulkley
with open arms; and his ready profession of loyalty to James encouraged
the more wary measures of Godolphin and Marlborough. Bulkley, however,
meeting these two noblemen in the park, solicited them to return with
him home to dine at his lodgings: the invitation was accepted, and
Colonel Sackville was summoned to join the conference, and to receive
the declaration of Marlborough’s penitence. The Earl could neither eat,
nor drink, nor sleep, as he assured Colonel Sackville, from the pangs of
conscience; and he protested that he would risk the ruin of all his
fortunes to redeem his apostasy. But, in fact, Marlborough, although
employed by William in situations of high trust, had never entirely
broken off all correspondence with James’s adherents. When he, in
conjunction with other great men, had invited William Prince of Orange
to England, he had, perhaps, in common with many others, no expectation
that William would become king. His connexion with the Duke of Berwick,
his nephew, and with Earl Tyrconnel, had enabled him to maintain a
secret but continued correspondence with those active agents of the
exiled King. Marlborough had long since made his peace with James. He
had been the first to give intelligence to the Jacobite party of
William’s intention to visit Ireland, and was the chief person to
despatch timely notice to any of that faction who were threatened with
warrants of the privy council, of which he was a member. Yet the
services which he had performed in the taking of Cork and Kingsale
somewhat abated those hopes of his defection from William, which James
had never entirely abandoned.
The conference with Bulkley was not the first step of Marlborough’s
treason;—for such, in fact, after the settlement of the crown by the
voice of Parliament, oaths of allegiance taken, and offices of military
trust exercised, it must be deemed.
In January, 1689, the year preceding the visit of Bulkley, Marlborough
had addressed James by letter. He had petitioned for the forgiveness of
the exiled King, and for that of the Queen. He had promised that the
influence of Lady Marlborough to bring back the Princess Anne to her
duty should be exerted. Upon this assurance pardon had been
granted;[247] and in consequence of this reconciliation further measures
were resorted to by Marlborough.
The Duke of Shrewsbury was next brought into the plot; yet both the Duke
and Godolphin were urged by Marlborough, the one to continue in office,
the other to endeavour to regain it, that they might more effectually
serve their liege lord and sovereign. Lord Carmarthen also was willing
to be reconciled, though cautiously neither giving nor refusing
promises; whilst Marlborough went so far as to proffer his exertions to
induce a revolt of the army in England, and to urge an invasion of
twenty thousand men from France with James at their head, acknowledging
that all schemes for his restoration must be visionary, unless they were
seconded by the King of France.[248]
At length an arrangement for striking this decisive blow was completed.
The two admirals, Russell and Carter, were drawn into the scheme, and
Louis the Fourteenth was assured that the army would be conducted by
Marlborough, the fleet by Russell,[249] and informed that the management
of the church was to be left to the judgment and responsibility of the
Princess Anne. That Princess, instigated by her friends, had already
sought a reconciliation with her father; her motives, it is to be
feared, being of a very mixed nature, resentment towards William and
Mary actuating her far more than a late return of filial duty.
The admirable energy and sound judgment of Queen Mary, it is well known,
saved the country from the threatened invasion, and defeated the designs
of the conspirators. In the absence of William, whilst her mind was
saddened with anxiety for the King’s safety, not knowing whom to trust,
she summoned the Parliament by proclamation; she issued warrants against
the disaffected, amongst whom were many persons of high rank; and,
collecting the militia of Westminster, and the trained bands of London,
in Hyde Park, she appeared amongst them at two days’ review, and
commended their readiness and loyalty. By a master-stroke of policy she
prevented the defection of the navy, and is acknowledged to have
contributed greatly to strengthen the tottering adherence of her naval
commanders. Being apprised, in the absence of the King, that several of
the English officers were disaffected, she desired Lord Nottingham to
write to Admiral Russell, informing him that she would change none of
the officers, and that she imputed the reports which had been raised
against them to the contrivance of his enemies and of theirs. The
officers returned an assurance, that they were ready to die in her cause
and that of their country; and her generous and wise confidence was
justified in the event.
The battle of La Hogue, in which Russell retrieved the credit of the
navy, and proved his valour and his restored sense of loyalty, saved our
country.[250]
The same high policy adopted by Mary, magnanimous, it must be
acknowledged, as well as prudent, was pursued by William. Upon his
return from Holland, after the battle of La Hogue, he reproached
Godolphin with the correspondence he had carried on. The minister denied
the fact; but William, placing a letter in his hand, which had been
stolen from the cabinet of the exiled Prince, desired him “to reflect on
the treachery of those whom he was trusting, and the mercy that was
shown him.” The generous mind of Godolphin was touched, and he remained
ever after a faithful servant to William.[251] The Duke of Shrewsbury
was won over by a similar line of conduct. With the Earl of Marlborough
a more severe policy was adopted.
1692. On the 5th of May, a fortnight before the engagement of La Hogue,
Marlborough was suddenly arrested, along with two other noblemen, and
Dr. Spratt, Bishop of Rochester, on a charge of high treason. The
Duchess thus scornfully mentions the occurrence:—
“Soon after the Princess’s going to Sion, a dreadful plot broke out,
which was said to be hid somewhere, I don’t know where, in a flowerpot,
and my Lord Marlborough was sent to the Tower.”[252]
“To commit a peer of the realm to prison, it was necessary there should
be an affidavit of the treason. My Lord Romney, therefore, Secretary of
State, had sent to one Young, who was then in gaol for perjury and
forgery, and paid his fine, in order to make him what they call a legal
evidence; for, as the court lawyers said, Young, not having lost his
ears, was an irreproachable witness. I shall not dwell on the story of
this fellow’s villany, the Bishop of Rochester having given a full
account of it in print.”[253]
The miscreant named Young, whose negative virtue Lady Marlborough thus
describes, was at that time imprisoned in Newgate for the nonpayment of
a fine. This man, being an adept at counterfeiting hands, drew up an
association in favour of James the Second, annexing to it the signatures
of Marlborough, the Bishop of Rochester, and others. He also forged
several letters from Marlborough; and, after secreting the pretended
document of association in the palace of the Bishop of Rochester, at
Bromley in Kent, he gave information of its being lodged there. Measures
were instantly taken to secure the supposed delinquents.
In this season of adversity, new to Marlborough, some tried and faithful
friends proved their respect for his honour, by rejecting the infamous
accusation with contempt. Lady Marlborough thus describes the conduct of
friends and of relatives. Her testimony adds one to the many bitter
convictions which the narrative of life presents, that the ties of blood
are sometimes found inferior in strength to the close bonds of
friendship, in those on whom we have no other claim.[254]
“And though these considerations had no weight with the King, they had
so much with my Lord Devonshire, my Lord Bradford, and the late Duke of
Montagu, that they thought it infamous to send my Lord Marlborough to
prison on such evidence; and therefore, when the warrant for his
commitment came to be signed at the council table, they refused to put
their hands to it, though at that time they had no particular friendship
for him. My Lord Bradford’s behaviour was very remarkable, for he made
my Lord Marlborough a visit in the Tower; while some of our friends, who
had lived in our family like near relations for many years, were so
fearful of doing themselves hurt at court, that in the whole time of his
confinement they never made him or me a visit, nor sent to inquire how
we did, for fear it should be known.”
The affectionate heart of the Princess of Denmark produced a prompt
letter of condolence upon the arrest of the Earl; an event, which it
appears, from one passage, was to be succeeded by a less abrupt, though
equally strict, mode of imprisonment of Anne and her husband. But
William was probably fearful of the consequences of such a step as that
to which Anne alludes; and the degradation of the Princess into a
private station, with the loss of all public honours usually paid to one
of her rank, seems to have been the only penalty imposed upon his
sister-in-law.
“I am just told by pretty good hands,”[255] the Princess writes, “that
as soon as the wind turns westerly, there will be a guard set upon the
Prince and me. If you hear there is any such thing designed, and that
’tis easy to you, pray let me see you before the wind changes; for
afterwards one does not know whether they will let one have
opportunities of speaking to one another. But let them do what they
please, nothing shall ever vex me, so long as I can have the
satisfaction of seeing dear Mrs. Freeman; and I swear I would live on
bread and water, between four walls, with her, without repining: for as
long as you continue kind, nothing can ever be a real mortification to
your faithful Mrs. Morley, who wishes she may never enjoy a moment’s
happiness in this world, or in the next, if ever she proves false to
you.”
These expressions of affection are reiterated in various forms, in
several other letters which the Countess of Marlborough at this time
received from her royal mistress.[256] These epistles speak well for the
generosity of feeling and good-breeding of Anne. The utmost delicacy
towards the inferior, the warmest sentiments for the friend, prevail;
and those obstacles, which gave the character of heroism to their mutual
regard, were doubtless highly favourable to the Countess’s influence. A
little love of opposition reigns in all female bosoms; to oppose their
wishes, is to strengthen those wishes until they become ardent passions.
This, indeed, seems to have been exemplified in the warm intercourse of
Mrs. Morley and Mrs. Freeman, and in the midst of state intrigues,
dangers, invasions, and treasons, to have thrown a character of romance
over their difficulties and their separations, which must have proved
consolatory at least to the disinterested party in a friendly alliance
which has met with undeserved ridicule.
The anxieties of the Countess probably produced an indisposition to
which her friend, in one of these letters, refers. After telling her
friend, “for God’s sake, to have a care of her dear self, and give way
as little to melancholy thoughts as she can,” she suggests a trial of
ass’s milk, and regrets the necessity of her dear Mrs. Freeman’s being
“let blood.”[257]
The proud, imperious Countess writhed under the disgrace of her lord;
and the world might also assign another reason for her distress, and for
the passionate expression of her dislike towards his enemies, and
towards those of the Lord Treasurer, which even in her latter days
dictated the pages of her personal narrative. Amongst the political
enemies of Lady Marlborough, the most celebrated, and the least
scrupulous, was the celebrated Dean of St. Patrick. Swift, who
patronised the authoress of the “Atalantis,” the infamous Mrs. Manley,
and who procured that most abandoned woman remuneration from the Tories,
for the imprisonment which she sustained for some of her lampoons,[258]
has adopted one of her falsehoods gravely, and as a matter of
acknowledged fact, into his “Remarks upon the four last years of Queen
Anne’s reign.” In his character of Lord Godolphin, he says: “His
alliance with the Marlborough family, and his passion for the Duchess,
were the cords which dragged him into a party which he naturally
disliked, whose leaders he personally hated, as they did him.”
This assertion, in which the reputations of two persons are sacrificed
by a side-blow, alludes to a report prevalent during the prosperous
years of Lady Marlborough’s life, and called into being by that very
prosperity. It originated with Swift’s tool, Mrs. Manley, or, as she
chose to call herself, Rivella, who was subsequently employed by the
Tory party in their periodical, “The Examiner,” after Swift had
relinquished his part in it: but he has not blushed to acknowledge that
he supplied this disgrace to her sex with much of the venom poured out
upon the Whigs, in that noted publication.[259]
By the agency of Mrs. Manley, a rumour was spread abroad reflecting on
the nature of that friendly connexion between the Marlborough family and
Godolphin, which a closer tie afterwards cemented. An intrigue of the
grossest character was described, by the pen of that wretched woman, as
having taken place between the Lord Treasurer and the Countess of
Marlborough; whilst even her devoted husband was alleged to have been
acquainted with it, and to have connived at it for purposes of his own
interest, and from party motives.[260]
These calumnies, which, says the anonymous author of the Duchess’s Life,
“however improbable it seems, we remember the time when many people
believed more firmly than they did their creed,”[261] originated in the
intimacy, both personally and in correspondence, not only between the
Earl of Marlborough and the Lord Treasurer, but between Godolphin and
the able and influential woman whose intellectual sway asserted an
enduring power over both these good and distinguished men. In all the
difficulties and anxieties of the Earl and Countess, Godolphin
participated. Their opinions, their feelings, were in unison with those
of the Lord Treasurer. Like him, nurtured in high church and Tory
principles, they had abandoned with reluctance those doctrines when the
spirit of the age no longer went with them. Like him, their early
prepossessions, their maturer affections, leaned to the Jacobite cause.
The Countess, indeed, being younger when the mischievous tendencies of
those bygone notions of prerogative and divine right were disclosed to
her, had more thoroughly imbibed sentiments of the Whig party than Lord
Marlborough and Godolphin; but in essential points this celebrated
triumvirate accorded.
It was easy for the opposite faction to raise conjectures, and to
disseminate calumnies, upon the basis of a friendship so closely
cemented, that neither the Earl nor the Countess ever acted without
first consulting him whom they regarded as their best friend. It is easy
to demolish, by the blast of malignity, every fair fabric which the best
affections of our nature raise up; it is easy to put the worst
construction upon intimacies, the sources of which the innocent mind
would gladly lay bare to the whole world. Endowed with beauty, with wit,
fearless in her temper, unbending in her opinions, Lady Marlborough was
not, nevertheless, one of those individuals whom the infections of
slander could eventually taint. She was of too independent a nature to
be readily susceptible of the tender passions. Her domestic character,
as a mother, acknowledged to be exemplary even by those who commended
her not,[262] afforded the best refutation to the corrupt passions of
which she was accused. The neglect of daily duties is generally the
first signal of a woman’s ruin—the first indication that her mind is
unsettled, her inclinations gone astray, her peace and composure
destroyed. The virtuous, blameless character of the Princess, who gave
the Countess of Marlborough her favour and countenance, was, in a minor
degree, a refutation of the malignant charge, raised doubtless in the
hope of rending asunder the unanimity of three powerful persons, by
awakening the gnawing pangs of suspicion, and the dread of an endangered
reputation, to disturb their repose.
The uniform confidence of the most devoted, if not the best beloved of
husbands; the pride, the virtuous pride, which he felt in her great
qualities; the undying love which he bore her through the toils of
campaigns and the turmoil of politics, triumphantly assert the innocence
of that woman, of whose misdeeds there would have been abundant willing
witnesses, eager to offer their testimony to the absent and injured
husband. But the Earl left her, as it appears, without a misgiving with
respect to her moral conduct; and trusted her to the honour, as he often
commended her to the advice, of that friend whom he loved to his dying
hour, and whom he bitterly regretted after his death.[263]
It is impossible to unveil the secrets of the human heart; but to those
who believe in the existence of virtue, honour, friendship, all the
probabilities are in favour of Lady Marlborough’s innocence of this
hideous charge. From this period of her life, however, when Godolphin
became her acknowledged ally, must be dated the influence which that
firm and notable friendship began to exercise over her opinions and
conduct, as well as the ascendency of her own political influence.
Godolphin, who, according to the Duchess herself, “conducted the Queen,
with the care and tenderness of a father or a guardian, through a state
of helpless ignorance, and who faithfully served her in all her
difficulties,”[264] now shared the counsels, as he had participated in
the scheme of Marlborough to restore James. According to his female
friend, he was admirably calculated for an adviser; being, as she
describes him, “a man of few words, but of a remarkable thoughtfulness
and sedateness of temper; of great application to business, and of such
despatch in it, as to give pleasure to those who attended him in any
affair.”[265] Thus provided with an able and efficient counsellor, less
bigoted, perhaps, to her virtues than her still enamoured husband, and,
by the equability of his temper, well adapted to calm what Dr. Burnet
terms her “impetuous speech,”[266] Lady Marlborough succeeded in
steering through the rest of this reign in far more tranquillity than
could possibly have been anticipated from its commencement.