1697, 1698.
Circumstances attending the Peace of Ryswick—Appointment of
Marlborough to the office of preceptor to the Duke of
Gloucester—Bishop Burnet—His appointment and character.
The peace of Ryswick, in 1697, was accompanied by two acts, intended, on
the part of William the Third, to relieve and indemnify his predecessor
for some of his disappointments and afflictions. On the one hand, the
King bound himself to pay fifty thousand pounds a year to Mary of
Modena, the wife of James; a sum which would have been her jointure had
she continued Queen of England. By another act William consented that
the son of James the Second, afterwards known as the Pretender, should
be educated in England in the Protestant faith, and should inherit the
crown after his own death.[309] Such were his just intentions; but, in
consequence of the distinct refusal of James on both these points, the
Pretender lost his crown, and his mother her jointure; and the hopes of
the country, and the kindly feelings of the King, were henceforth
centered in William, the young Duke of Gloucester, the only surviving
child of the Prince and Princess of Denmark.
The Duke was now entering his tenth year; and it was thought advisable
to withdraw him from the care of female instructresses, and to place
him under the guidance of the learned and the valiant. He was a child
of singular promise, and of a precocious capacity, foreboding weakness
of body and premature decay. The King long hesitated before he could
resolve to comply with the wishes of the Princess Anne, who earnestly
desired that Marlborough might be appointed her son’s governor. The
situation was first offered to the Duke of Shrewsbury, but was
declined by that nobleman, whose infirm health rendered him, at that
time, desirous of retiring from public life. There was a considerable
struggle in the mind of William before he could decide to place, in so
responsible an office as that of governor, the man upon whom all the
most enlightened of his advisers had fixed, as the proper tutor for
the Prince. At length, the persuasions of the Earl of Sunderland, and
of Lord Albemarle, who had succeeded Lord Portland in the royal
favour, induced the monarch to bestow the honour upon Marlborough. It
was conferred with these remarkable words: “Teach the Duke of
Gloucester, my lord, to be like yourself, and my nephew cannot want
accomplishments.”[310] On the evening of this appointment, June 19th,
1698, Lord Marlborough was sworn one of the privy council.
This sudden restoration to good fortune and to the King’s confidence
acted doubtless beneficially upon the disposition of Lord Marlborough,
who, like all superior natures, received benefits with the kindly spirit
with which they were proffered. But no conciliation could mollify the
implacable spirit of Lady Marlborough, nor reconcile her to the monarch
who had once consented to the indignity offered to her, of forbidding
her the court. Instead, therefore, of softening her tone when she
discusses the events of this period, or of acknowledging the distinction
conferred on Lord Marlborough, she refers to the arrangements respecting
the household of the young Duke, as plainly proving that the Princess
judged rightly, when she refused, on a former occasion, to leave her
settlement to the generosity of the King.
William, as the Duchess affirms, obtained from Parliament a grant of
fifty thousand pounds a year for the settlement of the young Duke, but
allowed the young Prince five thousand pounds only of that sum, refusing
even to advance one quarter for plate and furniture, which the Princess
Anne was therefore obliged to supply out of her own funds.[311] The
Princess received, also, a promise from his Majesty that she should have
the appointment of all the household, excepting to the offices of the
deputy-governor and gentlemen of the bedchamber. The message which
brought Anne this assurance was, what the Duchess calls, “so humane,”
and had so different an air from anything the Princess had been used to,
that it gave her “extreme pleasure;” and she instantly set about to fill
up the appointments, making various promises to her own, and undoubtedly
to her favourite’s, friends. What then were the consternation of the
Princess, and the fury of the Countess of Marlborough, when, after a
long delay in confirming these appointments, they were apprised that the
King, who was going abroad, would send a list of those persons whom he
had selected for the Duke’s household.
The cogitations of two ladies, on such an occasion, may be imagined. The
disappointment of various friends, the affronts sustained by others—the
loss of patronage—the sure gain of contempt and ridicule—all the
awkwardness of the affair must have ruffled even the placid Anne, who
was probably, however, not half sufficiently incensed to satisfy the far
more irritable and indignant Countess.
Anne, too, was in that condition which rendered any annoyance to her a
matter seriously to be dreaded. She had settled who were to be grooms of
the bedchamber, and who were to be pages of honour, and was not by any
means disposed to unsettle these appointments.
All this was duly represented to the King by Lord Marlborough, who
respectfully hoped that his Majesty “would not do anything to prejudice
the Queen in her present state;” but this intercession produced no other
effect than a violent fit of passion in the King, who declared that the
Princess “should not be Queen before her time,” and that he would make a
list of what servants the Duke should have.
At length, however, Keppel Earl of Albemarle, who had more influence
than any other courtier with the King, undertook to settle the affair.
He took the list of the household made out by the Princess, and, whilst
they were in Holland, showed it to the King. The list was, as it
happened, approved by William, with very few alterations. But that was
not, the Duchess declares, owing to the King’s goodness, but “to the
happy choice which the Princess had made of the servants.” Nay, she
further insinuates that the reason of William’s desiring to alter the
list was, that he might place in the household some of the servants of
the last Queen, and by that means save their pensions.[312]
At length, however, the arrangements were completed. It must be
acknowledged they were made somewhat too soon for the benefit of the
royal child. The young Prince, delicate in frame, would have been
happier perhaps, and, in the event of his living, stronger in mind as
well as in body, had nature, and not etiquette, been made the rule of
his youthful pursuits, and if state and ceremonials, too fatiguing for
his infancy, had been postponed until his childish powers could better
sustain their injurious effects upon his health. But the little victim,
who had struggled into boyhood, the only one of his family, and who was
doomed to be the national hope, and the sole object of the monarch’s
care, was to be rendered valiant, theological, wise—a hero, a wonder—in
short, that miserable being, a prodigy.
Marlborough was to teach him military tactics and the theory of war. The
boy delighted in all that boys of simpler habits, and in a happier
sphere, usually delight in. He learned with facility all the terms of
fortification and of navigation; knew all the different parts of a
strong ship, and of a man of war; and took pleasure in marshalling as
soldiers a company of boys who had voluntarily enlisted themselves to
form his troop.[313] All this the great Marlborough himself taught him.
In the departments of classical literature and theology, the Duke had
another preceptor, scarcely less celebrated.
Dr. Gilbert Burnet, whom William now appointed governor to the Duke of
Gloucester in conjunction with Marlborough, was at this time Bishop of
Salisbury, a see which he wished to resign on being appointed preceptor
to the young Prince; being conscientiously averse from holding any
preferment, the duties of which he could not in person superintend. Dr.
Burnet was the intimate friend of the Countess of Marlborough; and
probably he had had some share in forming her political opinions, and in
weaning her from the Tory party, in whose principles the Countess had
been reared.
It was scarcely possible for the Countess to possess a more valuable
friend, nor the Duke of Gloucester a more enlightened preceptor, than
this able, uncompromising advocate of civil and religious freedom—this
pious divine, this disinterested, scrupulous, and zealous man. Burnet
was of Scotch descent, and his character exhibited some of the noblest
features which distinguish the inhabitants of the north of the Tweed, in
all varieties of situation and circumstance. Like many great men, he
owed much of his eminence, and most of his religious impressions, to his
mother. She was a Presbyterian, a sister of the famous Sir Alexander
Johnston, Lord Warristoun, who headed the Presbyterians during the civil
wars, and whom no alliance nor kindred could bend to show any lenity to
those who refused the solemn league and covenant. Dr. Burnet’s father,
differing from these opinions, from the conviction that the
Presbyterians did not intend to reform abuses in the Episcopal church,
but to destroy that church itself, resolutely rejected the league and
covenant; and was, on that account, at three several times, obliged to
fly from his native county of Aberdeen; and, during one occasion, to
remain five years in exile. Such were some of the consequences of
fanatic zeal, in those disturbed and uncomfortable times.
By his father, himself a barrister, Burnet was educated, until he
attained ten years of age, when, being a master of the Latin tongue, he
was removed to Aberdeen College, and at fourteen began to study for the
bar; such was the precocity of his intellect; in some respects, the
effect of the custom of the day.
Fortunately for the Church of England, Burnet, after a year’s
application to the law, changed his course of studies, and applied
himself to divinity, for which his father had originally destined him.
When eighteen years of age, he was put upon his trial as a probationary
preacher, the first step in Scotland towards an admission into orders,
both in the Episcopal and in the Presbyterian church. From this epoch in
his career, he devoted his life to the service of the church. He
improved his notions upon many matters, in those times still unsettled,
relative to the rites and ceremonies of the church, by conversing with
the learned at the English universities. By foreign travelling, he
enlarged his ideas concerning the differences into which learned and
pious men fall, upon points of discipline and matters of doctrine.
Whilst residing in Holland, he became acquainted with the leading men of
the various persuasions tolerated in that country; the Arminians,
Papists, Unitarians, Brownists, and Lutherans, all passed under review
in his reflecting mind; and, from the observation of the pious
dispositions and high motives, of which he met with instances among all
professing Christians, he drew this satisfactory and benevolent
conclusion, that nothing but general charity could be acceptable to the
great Ruler of men; he learned to abhor severity, and to see the beauty
and wisdom of universal toleration.
Thus prepared for the eminent station which he afterwards filled, and
for the great part which he had to act, Burnet, during a protracted
intercourse with the kings and nobles of the land, held fast his
integrity. When chaplain to Charles the Second, he remonstrated with him
on his licentious course of life, fearless of the consequences to
himself. He laboured with as little success to convert James from the
doctrines of papacy. At a time when silence would have best aided his
preferment in the church, he published his History of the Reformation,
for which he received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament. Nor did
he lose any opportunity of publicly admonishing, and of privately
reclaiming, the abandoned members of the aristocracy; and of calling
sinners of all ranks and conditions to repentance. His preaching was
earnest, unstudied, emphatic, effective. He improved upon the Scottish
mode of giving premeditated discourses from memory, and by allotting
many hours of the day to meditation on any given subject, and then
accustoming himself to speak upon those aloud, he attained a remarkable
facility in that mode of religious instruction, which is, of all others,
when well acquired, the most effective.[314]
It was whilst this excellent and energetic man was chaplain to Charles
the Second, an unwilling witness of the corruptions of the court, that
he was requested to visit a female of abandoned character, who had been
treading the paths of destruction with the celebrated Wilmot Earl of
Rochester. Burnet, at this time without any parochial duty, never
refused his aid to those who sought it. He went to the sinner, and left
her penitent; but the good which he did ceased not here, but shed its
beams forth in a “naughty world.” The Earl of Rochester, hearing of the
manner in which the divine had reclaimed the unfortunate partner of his
guilt, sent for Burnet; and during a whole winter, once in every week,
went over with him all those topics by which infidelity attacks the
christian religion. The judgment of the sceptic, Rochester, was
convinced; his conviction of the importance of moral duty established;
his proud spirit laid prostrate; his opinions and his deportment
entirely changed. He died a sincere penitent; whilst Burnet, in
bequeathing to posterity the memorial of the sceptical difficulties, of
the true contrition, of this misled and sinful man, has left to the
infatuated and to the erring a legacy of inestimable price. In the words
of Dr. Johnson, speaking of the bishop’s account of these conferences,
entitled “Some Passages in the Life of John Earl of Rochester,” “the
critic ought to read it for its elegance, the philosopher for its
argument, the saint for its piety.”[315]
Burnet, both by his own account and that of his biographer, appears to
have been very unwilling to undertake the charge now offered to him by
the King, and pressed upon him by the Princess. “I used,” he says, “all
possible endeavours to decline the office.”
Having once, however, consented, he devoted himself with his usual
ardour to the important task of educating the Prince. His admirable
observations on education, in the conclusion of his History, show how
excellently qualified the bishop was for the task. He went beyond his
age, and was devoid of the narrow views and prejudices of his time. The
great design of instruction was, as he justly thought, to inculcate
great and noble sentiments, to give general information, to avoid
pedantry, and to represent virtue and religion in the true light, as the
only important, the only stable acquisitions in this sublunary state. He
looked with regret on the errors committed by parents of the highest
rank, who, lavish in other respects, were narrow in their notions of
expenditure on education; he regarded education as “the foundation of
all that could be proposed for bettering the next age.” He considered
that “it should be one of the chief cares of all government.”[316]
With such a preceptor, it may readily be supposed how exact, and how
earnest, would be those lessons guided by such high principles. “I
took,” says the bishop, “to my own province, the reading and explaining
the scriptures to him, the instructing him in the principles of religion
and the rules of virtue, and the giving him a view of history,
geography, politics, and government;” instructions which the peculiar
though simple eloquence of the bishop might have rendered invaluable in
any other case.
But such advantages as these were adapted to one of riper years, and of
a more hardy constitution than the feeble Prince. His progress was
indeed amazing. Under the guidance of the bishop he attained a religious
knowledge which was, says Burnet, “beyond imagination.” His inquiries,
his reflections, his pursuits, were those of a precocious and highly
endowed mind. The custom of the times authorised this hot-bed culture to
the infant mind. Our nobles and gentry were generally members of the
universities at a period of life when now they would be school-boys. But
the approved mode of rearing a vigorous plant cannot be pursued with a
tender and delicate shoot. Henry Prince of Wales, the wonder of the
court of James the First; and the Duke of Gloucester, the last remaining
object of the Princess Anne’s maternal affection, are instances of
excellence too prematurely developed to be permanent. The event of two
years showed, indeed, that the care and zeal bestowed upon the powers of
the Duke’s mind might with advantage have been postponed, however
admirable the intentions, and valuable the instructions, of his
distinguished preceptors.
Whilst Marlborough, with his eminent colleague, was training up the
young Prince to prove, as they hoped, an honour to his country, the
great general’s own family were growing up around him, displaying more
than the ordinary graces and promise of youth. At this time, five
children, one son and four daughters, formed the domestic circle of Lord
and Lady Marlborough. Yet they were not destined to derive unalloyed
felicity from these fondly prized objects of paternal affection. Their
eldest son, afterwards Marquis of Blandford, a youth of considerable
attainments, and of great moral excellence, was eventually consigned by
his disconsolate parents to an early grave. The beauty and talents of
their daughters were counterbalanced by defects which occasioned many
heart-burnings, and much “home-bred” infelicity, in the latter period of
Lady Marlborough’s life.
Henrietta, the eldest daughter of these distinguished parents, inherited
much of her mother’s spirit, with more than Lady Marlborough’s personal
charms, and with a great portion of that mother’s less enviable temper.
When old age and bitter humiliation had added to the Duchess of
Marlborough’s native moroseness, which they ought rather to have
subdued, their eldest daughter and she were long at variance, and never
reconciled. Yet, in a happier season, better expectations and brighter
hopes were formed in the prospect of an union between Lady Henrietta,
and the son of Lord and Lady Marlborough’s most intimate and valued
friend. At this time, in her eighteenth year, the Lady Henrietta had
already attracted many admirers. The intimacy of her parents with Lord
Godolphin directed, however, her inclination to one object, Francis,
Lord Rialton, the eldest son of the Earl. The attachment between these
two young persons began at a very early age, and was viewed with
approbation by the parents on both sides, although the advantages to be
derived from the projected marriage were chiefly, in worldly respects,
on the side of Lord Rialton; Godolphin having, two years previously,
resigned his situation as first lord of the Treasury, at the time of Sir
John Fenwick’s accusations, and, whilst he conducted the public
finances, he had rather impaired than improved his own property. But
similarity of political opinions, a close intimacy, mutual confidence
and respect, rendered the prospect of a near alliance with Godolphin not
only agreeable, but advantageous; and Marlborough, in his subsequent
campaigns, and after Godolphin was reinstated in his office, experienced
the benefit of possessing a friend at the head of that important
department, in which Lord Godolphin, as first lord of the Treasury,
aided all the great general’s designs, by a prompt attention to a supply
of those means without which the most skilful projects could not have
succeeded.
When Lady Henrietta had completed her eighteenth year, the marriage with
Lord Rialton took place. The fortune of Lord Marlborough did not, at
this time, authorise him to bestow a large portion on his daughter; yet
he prudently and honourably declined the ample settlement which the
Princess Anne, with kindness of intention, and delicacy of manner,
offered to make in favour of the lovely bride. The sum which her royal
highness proposed was ten thousand pounds; one half of which was
accepted by her favourites, who added five thousand pounds to the
liberal gift. And with an establishment ill suited to their rank, but
probably sufficient for happiness, the young couple were obliged to be
content.
Lady Anne Churchill, next in age to Lady Rialton, and according to
Horace Walpole, “the most beautiful of all Lady Churchill’s four
charming daughters,”[317] excelled her sister Henrietta in sweetness of
disposition, as well as in external advantages. Her amiable manners, and
the possession of mental qualities beyond her age, particularly endeared
this beautiful and affectionate daughter to her parents. She was the
object of admiration, as well as of affection. Lady Anne received,
before her marriage, the flattering tribute of complimentary verses from
Lord Godolphin, who delighted to relieve the duties of the great master
of finance by the fascinating attempts of the poetaster.[318] Lord
Halifax, of whose poetry, we must agree with Dr. Johnson, that “a short
time has withered the beauties,”[319] celebrated also the charms of Lady
Anne, in verses somewhat better, though not above mediocrity. Yet it was
not the fate of this admired young lady, at first, to inspire that
ardent attachment in the husband selected for her by her parents, which
her beauty and her goodness of disposition merited.
Amongst the most intimate of Lord Marlborough’s friends, Robert Spencer,
Earl of Sunderland, secretary of state and president of the council to
James the Second, had proved himself, at the time of Marlborough’s
disgrace at court, the most zealous of his advocates. Sunderland, who
had encountered a variety of accusations for countenancing popery to
please King James, and for betraying that monarch afterwards to William,
was now in high favour with the reigning sovereign, over whom he
exercised a remarkable ascendency. Although beloved neither by Whig nor
Tory, his ministry was more efficient than any which succeeded it in the
time of William. Of disputed integrity, but of acknowledged talents,
Lord Sunderland was, however, constrained to bend beneath the violence
of party. He withdrew about this time from public life, notwithstanding
the earnest entreaties of the King that he would remain near him; and,
fearing that in the attacks made upon him by the Tories he would not be
supported by the Whigs, Sunderland fled from the censures for which he
felt there was too real a foundation, in his conduct during the
preceding reign.[320]
Between the Countess of Sunderland and Lady Marlborough there existed a
friendship of an enthusiastic, almost a romantic character. This
affectionate intimacy was accounted for by mutual obligations and common
misfortunes, shared by the two great statesmen, the husbands of these
two ladies.
After the revolution, Marlborough had exerted his influence to assist
Sunderland in exile and distress. When Marlborough fell into disgrace,
Lord Sunderland had pleaded his cause, and adhered to him with a
grateful constancy; advocating with the King the expediency of placing
Marlborough in the office of preceptor to the young Duke of Gloucester.
The warm attachment between the two Countesses sometimes aroused even
the jealousy of the Princess Anne, who considered Lady Sunderland as her
rival in the affection of the spoiled and flattered Lady
Marlborough,[321] and envied the terms of equality which rendered the
friendship of the two Countesses a source of mutual happiness. Not
devoid of romance in her early years, though in her latter days she
degenerated into coarseness of mind and vulgarity of manners, Anne felt,
it seems, the insuperable barrier which her exalted rank had placed
between her and the delights of a true, disinterested friendship.
Charles Lord Spencer, the only son of the Earl and Countess of
Sunderland, reported to have been famed alike for “his skill in
negociations and his rapid equestrian movements,”[322] was the object to
whom the ambition of his parents now pointed, as a probable bond of
union between their family and the powerful houses of Marlborough and
Godolphin. The lovely Lady Anne was god-daughter to the Countess of
Sunderland. Her beauty, her accomplishments, and the favour which she
already enjoyed with the Princess Anne, were all cogent reasons for
promoting the match, in the eyes of the veteran courtier and statesman,
Sunderland. The first proposals in the affair seem to have originated on
his side. In one of the letters written on the subject he says:[323]
“If I see him so settled, I shall desire nothing more in this world but
to die in peace, if it please God. I must add this, that if he can be
thus happy, he will be governed in everything, public and private, by
Lord Marlborough. I have particularly talked to him of that, and he is
sensible how advantageous it will be to him to do so. I need not, I am
sure, desire that this may be a secret to every one but Lady
Marlborough.”
Notwithstanding their friendship for the family of the Earl, the
suggestion of a closer bond was not at first received by Lord and Lady
Marlborough with encouragement. Perhaps they might regard the betrothing
of their favourite daughter to Lord Spencer somewhat in the light of a
sacrifice. That young nobleman had displayed a character of mind both
uncommon and repulsive: grave, cold, and staid in his deportment, an
ardent, impetuous, and somewhat haughty spirit was concealed beneath
that icy exterior.[324] His political principles were those of
republicanism; his notions of filial duty were tinctured by the actions
of his school-boy studies. Already had he anathematised his father in
the House of Commons, with all the powers of a ready eloquence, and
declared against the crafty Earl for protecting traitors, and for
permitting his mother to harbour her own daughter, the wife of the
attainted Lord Clancarty. For this act of Roman heroism, Lord Spencer
had been extolled by the violent party, and his loyalty to the King
eulogised; since, to serve his Majesty, he would not scruple to expose
his father. But cautious observers had questioned this unnatural
display, which was supposed to be concerted between the young lord and
his father; and Lord Spencer had lost some friends from the
supposition.[325]
The detestation which Lord Spencer expressed for his father’s opinions,
and especially for those which he had adopted on his conversion to the
Church of Rome, was, however, sincere. On the death of Lord Sunderland,
he took care to manifest his unseemly disrespect, by casting out of the
library which his father had collected, all the works of the holy
fathers, or, as he called them, “dregs of antiquity,” which he
considered well replaced by the works of Machiavel.[326] This
self-opiniativeness characterised his whole career. Though professing
himself a devoted adherent of Lord Somers, Lord Spencer had neither the
moderation nor the true patriotism of that great and good man.[327] He
carried all his notions to extremes; mistook violence and recklessness
for zeal, and bluntness for sincerity; and his private deportment was
ill calculated to obliterate the unfavourable impression which his
public career had imparted.
To this dark picture we must add, however, before we consider the
portrait of Lord Sunderland to be complete, some, though few, enlivening
touches. Eager for distinction, or at least for notoriety, this nobleman
was, nevertheless, exempt from the mercenary motives by which many
public men were debased. His high spirit led him, though not rich for
his station, to reject a pension offered him by Queen Anne, when, during
her reign, he was left out of the administration. The same indifference
to his pecuniary interests caused him to reject, with indignation, the
attempts made by his mother-in-law to reinstate him in his employments,
in the reign of George the First.[328] And when it is stated that he
discarded the “holy fathers” from his library, after his father’s death,
it must be added that he replaced them by numerous works of great value,
forming a library of considerable extent, and selected with admirable
judgment.
To this ungenial partner the young and lovely Anne was eventually
consigned. At first, indeed, her parents made many objections to the
marriage. The coldness and indifference of Lord Spencer to their
daughter was the chief obstacle. He was now a widower, having recently
lost, in the Lady Arabella Cavendish, a wife whom he idolised, and for
whom he still mourned with all the depth of feeling, and tenacity of a
man of strong passions, and reserved nature. His political violence was
another impediment, in the opinion of the rightly-judging mind of the
great Marlborough, who saw in the times nothing to justify, but
everything to deprecate, temerity and factious heats. But the Countess
of Marlborough, more disposed to Whig opinions, viewed that objection to
Lord Spencer with far less anxiety than his coldness to her darling
child, and the increased gloom of the young nobleman’s deportment and
countenance. From those she augured little of happiness to a daughter
for whom she evinced true maternal apprehensions, and who lived not to
harass and aggravate her, when the once fascinating Countess,
degenerated into “Old Marlborough,” had become captious and vindictive.
High-minded, though faulty, Lady Marlborough dreaded that her daughter
should be sacrificed to a man who loved her not, and who might be
induced to marry whilst his affections were buried in the grave of
another. The eagerness of Lord and Lady Sunderland for the promotion of
the match—their remonstrances, the earnest solicitations, which they
addressed to their son—all added to her apprehensions, and occasioned
her to draw back somewhat from the first steps in her projected
alliance.
By degrees, however, the grief of the gloomy young widower yielded to
the loveliness and youthful graces of the Lady Anne. He began not only
to tolerate, but to cherish, the idea of a second marriage. The growing
attachment became ardent, as his other passions; and his mother, eagerly
communicating the change in his feelings to her friend, urged Lady
Marlborough to hasten an union now anxiously desired by her once
reluctant son.
Lady Marlborough found some scruples, some objections on the part of her
husband, still to overcome. But her influence was paramount. In spite of
many forebodings, induced by the headstrong nature of Lord Spencer, he
gave his consent; but his prognostications, that political differences
between him and his future son-in-law would ere long arise, were
unhappily justified.
The marriage, however, after a series of negociations which lasted
eighteen months, was solemnised at St. Albans in January 1699–1700, the
Princess Anne bestowing a dowry of five thousand pounds upon the bride,
and her father adding as much more.[329]
The young couple appear to have lived happily together, though not
without some alloys from the habits and circumstances of Charles Lord
Sunderland. Lady Sunderland became the centre of a political and
fashionable circle, and, as the “Little Whig,” (so called from the
smallness of her stature,) took the lead in that party in the great
world. Years afterwards, the solicitude which Swift evinced to
conciliate her ladyship’s favour, when, during the struggle for power
between the contending parties, the influence of the “Little Whig” might
avail his selfish pursuits, proves the estimation in which Lady
Sunderland’s fascinations were held.[330]
The Lady Elizabeth, Countess of Bridgwater, third daughter of the Earl
and Countess of Marlborough, is said to have eclipsed her three sisters
in beauty of countenance, eminently gifted as they were in personal
advantages, whilst she was inferior to none in excellence of
disposition. Her face is described to have been remarkable for symmetry:
and its sweet and intelligent expression lent that indescribable charm
to beauty which, in Lady Elizabeth, captivated some singular and
highly-gifted admirers. Pope ventured to admire, and admiring, first
depicted her face, and then her mind.
“Hence Beauty, waking, all her forms supplies,
An angel’s sweetness, or Bridgwater’s eyes.”[331]
Yet the poet threw all the drawings which he is said to have made of
this amiable lady into the fire. “She was,” says the monumental
inscription to her memory in Little Gaddesden church, Hertfordshire, “a
lady of exquisite fineness, both of mind and body; agreeably tall; of a
delicate shape and beautiful mien; of a most obliging, winning carriage;
sweetness, modesty, affability, were met together; whatsoever is
virtuous, decent, and praiseworthy, she made the rule of all her
actions; her discourse was cheerful, lively, and ingenuous; pleasing,
without ever saying too much or too little; so that her virtue appeared
with the greatest advantage and lustre; her address was as became her
quality, great, without pride; admired and unenvied by her equals; and
none condescended with greater grace and satisfaction to her
inferiors.”[332]
For this accomplished being a suitable settlement in life was provided;
and, at a very early age, she was united to Scrope, Earl, and afterwards
Duke, of Bridgwater.
If we may judge from the inscription on her monument, this union appears
to have been as replete with happiness as the fondest parents could have
wished. “Happy,” says the epitaph, “her lord in such a wife; happy her
children in such a mother; happy her servants that duly attended upon
her. Being arrived at the highest pitch of worldly felicity, in full
enjoyment of tenderest love and esteem of her entirely beloved husband,
universally admired and spoken of for every good quality.”[333]
Such were the terms employed in describing this beloved child of the
Marlborough family, whose early fate, like that of her sister, Lady
Sunderland, afterwards embittered their father’s old age, and hastened
his death by the effects of grief.
His youngest daughter, Lady Mary, Pope’s “Angel Duchess Montagu,”
married, in 1705, John Montagu, Duke of Montagu, Grand Master of the
Order of the Bath, and the trusted servant of successive
sovereigns.[334] The Duchess of Montagu became, eventually, one of the
bedchamber ladies to the Princess of Males, afterwards Queen Caroline,
towards whom her mother, the Duchess of Marlborough, imbibed a strong
aversion. “The Angel Duchess Montagu,” beautiful as her sisters, appears
not to have verified that name in her subsequent conduct to her mother,
with whom she was long at bitter variance. At this epoch of the Duchess
of Marlborough’s life, Lady Mary was, however, yet a child, and her
mother’s temper had not shone forth, as afterwards it became apparent,
in her conduct.
Thus, in the exalted stations which her children attained, the ambition
of Lady Marlborough, as a mother, may be supposed to have been fully
gratified. But whilst she accomplished for them, aided by their personal
advantages, connexions all advantageous, though not equally splendid,
she omitted to sow the good seed of filial subjection, which is ever
best secured by cultivating the affections. In her family she may be
said to have been peculiarly unhappy. Not many years elapsed after Lord
Marlborough was raised to a dukedom, before his son, the Marquis of
Blandford, the sole male representative of his father’s honours, was
summoned to an early grave. The title eventually descended in the female
line, and Lady Godolphin became Duchess of Marlborough. With this
daughter Lady Marlborough was many years embroiled in endless
contentions, and the latter period of the illustrious Marlborough’s life
was employed in the vain attempt to mediate between two fierce and
grasping combatants. Money, as usual, was the cause of the combustion,
and a total alienation the result.
Lady Sunderland died young, but her sons became at once the delight and
the torment of their grandmother in the decline of her long-lived
importance, and, as it almost appeared, of her judgment and sense of
decorum.
Lady Bridgwater also died too early for _her_ contentions with her
mother to be signalised; but she left a daughter, the Duchess of
Bedford, afterwards married to Lord Jersey, between whom and the Duchess
of Marlborough a running warfare was long maintained.
With her youngest daughter, the Duchess of Montagu, the irritable
Duchess was on terms equally unhappy. The Duke of Marlborough was heard
to observe, speaking to his wife of this daughter, “I wonder you cannot
agree, you are so alike!”—a speech which augurs ill for the Duchess of
Montagu’s temper. The lively and amiable Duchess of Manchester,
granddaughter of the aged and morose Sarah, and described by one who
knew her as “all spirit, justice, honour,” possessed that influence over
her grandmother which gay and open characters often seem to acquire, by
the unpremeditated frankness which charms whilst it half offends.
“Duchess of Manchester,” said her old grandmother to her one day, “you
are a good creature, but you _have_ a mother.”—“And _she_ has a mother,”
was the arch and fearless reply.[335]
Such were the anecdotes in circulation at a later period. In her own
youth Lady Marlborough rendered the beauty and accomplishments of her
daughters serviceable in her own elevation to power. She afterwards
obtained for so many of them posts about the Queen, that Anne was said
to have her court composed of one family.[336] Yet the Duchess lived to
prove, in the joyless isolation of her old age, how completely all our
wishes may be realised without producing happiness.