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favourite to keep the matter concealed even from lord Halifax himself; yet the negotiation led to no result. The king saw too many dangers in the way to follow the daring counsels of his brother; and hence all that Churchill found it practicable to effect was to bring back to the duke a true account of the state of parties, and to prevail upon him to continue for some time longer his sojourn in the north.

Soon after his return from this mission, colonel Churchill's lady was delivered of her first-born child, a daughter, whom the parents named Henrietta. The event appears to have afforded to colonel Churchill sincere delight; but the times were too pregnant with important events to leave to a man of his genius and ambition much leisure for the indulgence of domestic feelings. He was repeatedly engaged in the conduct of state affairs, in the interval between January, 1671, and the triumphant return of the duke of York in 1672. When the latter occurrence took place, colonel Churchill, as a matter of course, accompanied his master; and he was one of the fortunate few who escaped from the wreck of the Gloucester frigate, when she perished with upwards of 120 of her crew on board. The circumstances attending this calamity are these:

James, having obtained the king's permission to settle once more in the metropolis, embarked, with a numerous attendance of his personal friends, for the purpose of bringing up by sea the duchess and the rest of his family. It so happened that the Gloucester ran aground upon the sand-bank called the Lemon and Ore in Yarmouth roads, and the wind being high and the night dark, great confusion ensued. In the midst of the tumult, the duke, who had gone to sleep, was awakened, and took his place in the long boat, into which crowds of men were indiscriminately rushing. To prevent all hazard to the duke's person, two gentlemen stationed themselves, the one in the boat the other in the gangway, with drawn swords, by which means the boat was kept comparatively light, and its precious burthen conveyed safely to land. He who thus guarded the person of James in the boat was colonel Churchill; his fellow warden was sir John Berry, who, as soon as he saw the barge push off, threw himself into the sea, and, being an excellent swimmer, easily reached the shore.*

Whatever James's faults might be, ingratitude to one who had served him so long and so faithfully was not numbered among them. On the

*It was falsely asserted by the party writers of the day, that the duke of York, while he refused admission mto his boat to many persons of rank, took care to save the lives of his priests, and even of his dogs. James was certainly a bigot, and in many respects a weak and absurd man; but such a calumny as this could be oredited only by bigots as blind as himself. The truth is, that the boat was loaded to the gunwale, and that the common sailors, when they knew that the duke was safe, shouted with joy as she pushed off.

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1st of December, 1682, Mr. Churchill was raised to the Irish peerage, by the title of baron Churchill, of Aymouth, in Scotland; and on the 19th of November in the following year, he was appointed colonel of the royal regiment of horse-guards, then about to be embodied. It was his anxious wish at this period to withdraw his lady entirely from attendance on the court, but an occurrence took place which frustrated the resolution. The princess Anne, with whom lady Churchill had continued in terms of the most intimate familiarity, married prince George, brother of the king of Denmark; and lady Churchill being solicited to accept the office of lady of the bedchamber, neither duty nor inclination would permit her to refuse. The friendship which had long subsisted between the ladies was thus continued and strengthened; and their correspondence, of which numerous selections have been published, affords ample proof that it was for a time one of the most unaffected and romantic in all history.*

Throughout the interval which elapsed between the marriage of the princess Anne and the accession of James II., the part taken by lord Churchill in public affairs was very trifling; but a wider field of exertion presented itself by the event just recorded. In March, 1685, we find him specially appointed to communicate to Louis the death of Charles II., on which occasion he seems to have acquitted himself to the satisfaction both of the French monarch and of his own master. On the 23d of April he assisted in the coronation of the new king; and on the 14th of May was advanced to an English peerage, as baron Churchill, of Sandridge, in the county of Hertford. But the most important service which he found an opportunity to perform occurred during the attempt of the duke of Monmouth to ascend the throne. Being invested with the command of a detached corps, he not only harassed the rebels by frequent attacks, but cut off their supplies, and reduced them to the necessity of risking all in a general action, in which his personal activity and vigilance saved the royal army from defeat, and lord Feversham, its commander, from the disgrace of a surprise. He was rewarded for his exertions by the thanks of his sovereign, and the colonelcy of the third troop of horse-guards.

From the termination of this rebellion till the concluding years of James's reign, lord Churchill seems to have taken little part in the management of public affairs. To what his retirement from official business was owing, has never been satisfactorily explained. By one party it is affirmed, that, perceiving the bias of his master's disposition, and being sincerely attached to the reformed religion, he withdrew himself from public life, as a matter both of duty and feeling; by another, no

They soon ceased to address each other as your highness and my lady; for the princess assuming the style of Mrs. Morley, wrote fully and openly to her friend under the appellation of Mrs. Freeman.

hesitation is exhibited in asserting, that the sharpsighted courtier beheld the turn which matters were about to take, and hence that he studiously avoided mixing up his own fortunes with those of either faction. Let the truth rest where it may, no fact can be more accurately ascertained, than that Churchill, so soon as the king had excited a general feeling against his government, was one of the first to make a tender of his services to the prince of Orange. If it be a hard matter to form a correct judgment as to the motives which govern our own contemporaries, it is still more difficult to pass sentence upon such as acted public parts in an age prior to our own. Far it be from us, therefore, to insinuate that lord Churchill was not swayed by the purest principles; that he was not, what his friends represent him to have been, " one who preferred the service of his sovereign to all things except the service of his God." Yet it does seem strange that one who owed every thing to James, who had repeatedly declared his abhorrence of the doctrine of exclusion, and had conducted so many negotiations with the French court for the purpose of preventing it, should all at once discover a thousand dangers in the very line of policy which he had laboured with so much secrecy and assiduity to advance. Be this, however, as it may, we are informed that lord Churchill no sooner surmised the object towards the attainment of which James's policy tended, than he assured lord Galway of his determination to desert his master; and that, on the first favourable opportunity, he entered into correspondence with the well-kown aspirant to the throne. His letter to the prince of Orange, bearing date August 4, 1688, is one of the most curious documents in history, and as such we subjoin it.

"August 4, 1688.

"SIR, "Mr. Sidney will let you know how I intend to behave myself; I think it is what I owe to God and my country. My honour I take leave to put into your highness's hands, in which I think it is safe. If you think there is any thing else that I ought to do, you have but to command me: shall pay an entire obedience to it, being resolved to die in that religion that it has pleased God to give you both the will and power to protect."

Let it be borne in mind, that the writer of this letter, though not filling any conspicuous place in the administration of the government, enjoyed, at the very moment when it was penned, the fullest confidence of his patron and king. As such, it is fair to conclude that not a few of the court secrets were in his possession; indeed, the promptitude with which he was put in command of a division of the force sent down to oppose William after his landing, proves that he had taken care to exhibit no falling away of loyalty or affection in his general manner. A line of conduct so contradictory and subtle may be reconciled to men's ordinary no

tions of honour and integrity; but this is not the worst feature in the political character of Marlborough. That James obstinately shut his eyes to the dangers by which he was surrounded, no better proof can be given than is furnished by his refusal, in spite of lord Feversham's urgent entreaty, to arrest Churchill as a traitor; and the consequence was, that Churchill, followed by several officers of the highest rank, made good the desertion which they had long meditated. General Bourmont has been vilified for his abandonment of Napoleon's cause on the eve of the battle of Waterloo, yet Bourmont's behaviour was praiseworthy in the highest degree when compared with that of lord Churchill at Salisbury.

It would have been extraordinary had not an act of treachery in itself so palpable been rendered even more gross than it was by the injured party. Numberless tales were circulated touching a design to assassinate the king, which, however they might be credited at the moment, are now justly regarded as groundless; yet the letter which Churchill left behind, as exculpatory of his proceeding, is not, we must confess, quite satisfactory to our minds. Entertaining as we do the most profound respect for abstract principle, we cannot discover how any man can reconcile to himself, first, the acceptance of a responsible command under an authority which he abhors, and next the betrayal of his trust; at least we have seen nothing, either in lord Churchill's epistle, or in any other document of the same kind, to convince us that the writer stands free from the charge of double treason. For to this, and to nothing short of this, Churchill's proceedings amounted. After assuring the prince of Orange that "his highness had but to command, and he would pay entire obedience," he accepted the command of 5000 men, who were embodied for the express purpose of disputing with the same prince of Orange the road to London; and he embraced the first opportunity of abandoning his charge, and passing over, with as many as his influence could corrupt, to the enemy's lines.

Our admiration of the genius of the duke of Marlborough is too great to permit our dwelling upon this the blackest page in his eventful history. We shall content ourselves, therefore, with stating, that prince George of Denmark, following the example of his friend, turned his back upon his father-in-law; that the princess Anne, attended of course by lady Churchill, fled, first to the house of the bishop of London, and afterwards to the prince's camp; and that James, overcome by the contemplation cf so many and such unlooked-for acts of treachery, burst into tears. "God help me!" cried he, in the extremity of his agony; "my own children have forsaken me!" it is scarcely to be wondered at, if, with such spectacles before him, the unhappy monarch lost all hope, and, listening to the advice of interested and short-sighted counsellors, quitted the kingdom.

Churchill, who had advanced rapidly upon London, for the purpose of gathering round him his own corps, exhibited no disinclination to take his seat in the convention parliament. To his honour be it recorded, however, that he was one of those who at first stood out against a change of dynasty. The utmost for which he voted was a regency. Nevertheless, when the tide of party gained strength, he saw good reason for refusing his voice to such as would have excluded William and Mary from the throne. Like many other half Jacobites, he absented himself from the house on the day when the eventful question was agitated, and thus negatively sanctioned a measure which he professed positively to condemn. To sum up all, he took office as a privy counsellor and lord of the bedchamber under king William, and was created, two days prior to the coronation, earl of Marlborough.

About this period died sir Winston Churchill, the eccentric, but high-principled, father of lord Marlborough. His eldest son being long ago deceased, John, earl of Marlborough, was now his heir; yet the old cavalier-by what motive instigated we pretend not to determine-left his estate, such as it was, to his youngest son Charles. The consequence was, that lord Marlborough fixed his principal residence at Sandridge, of which a moiety had come to him in right of his wife, and of which, as the countess chanced to be extremely partial to it, he purchased the fee-simple. He built upon it a mansion, to which he gave the name of Holywell, and which is described, by the local writers of the day, as a structure of great magnificence and elegance.

For some time after the revolution, Marlborough abstained from taking any other share in public business than by assisting largely in procuring for the princess Anne her separate establishment of 50,000l. a year. His conduct in this transaction served by no means to conciliate the favour of his new master. Yet his talents were of an order not to be left unemployed; and hence we find him sent abroad, in the summer of 1689, to command the English forces employed against the French in Holland. As he acted under the orders of the prince of Waldeck, Marlborough found but one opportunity of turning his consummate military knowledge to account. Of that, however, he readily availed himself; and commanding at the post of Walcourt, he held it in defiance of a great superiority of numbers, not more to the dismay of his enemies than the astonishment of his general. He received for his gallantry and skill the warmest thanks of the prince*, and was honoured by a letter of strong commendation from William himself.

We have not hesitated to speak openly of Marl

* It was on this occasion that the prince of Waldeck said of him, that he had in one battle exhibited a greater proficiency in his art than many generals in a series of campaigns.

borough's treachery to king James; it is a matter of great satisfaction that we are enabled to place in opposition to such conduct one striking instance of good feeling and good sense. When William proceeded to Ireland, to contend there for the crown which he had seized, Marlborough refused to accompany him, on the ground that he could not in honour draw his sword against his former master and the benefactor of his youth. Though far from oppressed with an excess of feeling, William admitted the excuse; and hence Marlborough was in no way accessary to the defeat of the Boyne. But James had no sooner returned to France than he freely offered his services; and while William found it necessary to proceed in person to the continent, Marlborough took the command of the troops employed in Ireland. He rendered in this capacity important service to the cause. Besides reducing the strong holds of Cork and Kinsale, he checked numerous incursions of the insurgents, and contrived, as much by the mildness and equity of his proceedings in the cabinet, as by his conduct in the field, to introduce order into the provinces. These victories, both military and civil, were all obtained in the short space of a few months; for we find him early in the spring of 1690 again in London, and occupied in business of a very different nature.

William the Third had not long occupied the British throne, ere the feeling of enthusiasm with which his arrival had been hailed began to subside. Cold and forbidding in his outward deportment, as well as avaricious and selfish in his disposition, he soon lost the esteem of a people who are, perhaps, not less susceptible of first impressions than any that have ever existed; whilst his undisguised partiality towards his Dutch followers gradually converted alienation into disgust. The strong desire, likewise, expressed by him to throw open all places to dissenters, gave as much umbrage to the tories as James's countenance of popery had given offence to the whigs; and the indifference with which he squandered English treasure in the furtherance of plans no way conducive to English prosperity, produced discontent in every circle. Men began to doubt whether the expulsion of the old dynasty was likely to prove, in the end, beneficial to the country. Doubts, in most instances, were followed by the conviction that a great error had been committed; and many an eye, which had witnessed with delight the departure of James, was now turned with anxiety to St. Germain's. The stanch friends of the exiled family were not slow in availing themselves of the opportunity thus afforded. Negotiations were secretly opened with numerous influential houses relative to the recall of James, and a counter-revolution appeared to be on the eve of its accomplishment.

It is one of the most extraordinary facts in history, that the earl of Marlborough, who had taken a part so active in the expulsion of James, should

have been among the first to enter with his deposed king into a clandestine correspondence. That he was influenced in his conduct by any sense of honest compunction, we are not prepared to say. On the contrary, the whole tenor of his letters goes far to prove, that now, as formerly, a regard to self, and to self alone, chiefly swayed him; for while we find him anxiously securing his own pardon in the event of the king's return, and dealing largely in general professions of devotion and loyalty, he is uniformly seen to start off so soon as some definite proposition is advanced, having a tendency to lead to the accomplishment of the proposed design. Thus, when it was urged upon him that he could not do the cause more important service than by bringing over the English troops then in Flanders, "he excused himself under pretence that there was some mistake in the message; that it would ruin all, to make the troops come over in parcels; that his business was to gain an absolute power over them, and then to do the business all at once."* "So that," to use the words of our author, "they (Marlborough and Godolphin) were to be pardoned and in security in case the king returned, and yet to suffer nothing in the interim, nor to give any other proofs of their sincerity than vain words and empty promises, which, under pretence of being suspected, or doing greater service afterwards, there was never found a suitable time to put the least of them in execution." It must be confessed, that conduct such as this furnishes the enemies of Marlborough's reputation with too much ground of censure, and leads almost unavoidably to the conclusion, that he who had betrayed one master in his hour of greatest need, was ready, should circumstances require it, to betray another.

The correspondence with James, though frequent and protracted, was carried on with so much caution, that it escaped either the notice or the regard of William. That prince, passing over to the continent in the spring of 1691, carried Marlborough along with him, and sent him to arrenge the plan of the campaign, while he himself repaired to Holland, in order to attend the congress of the Hague. It was now that Marlborough exhibited, in a more striking light than ever, that acuteness of perception and readiness of calculation which form prominent features in the character of a great commander. Having received information that two magazines were formed, one of firewood, the other of dry forage, on a particular line of road, he pronounced that Mons, the barrier of Flanders, would be attacked, and entreated the deputies of the states-general to look to its defence. The deputies derided the warning; pronounced the siege of Mons at that season impracticable; and persisted in opinion that the enemy's designs were against Charleroi. While therefore they turned their attention to cover Char

* Life of James II.

leroi, Mons was left to the fate which had all along been prepared for it. On the 4th of March the place was invested, and, in spite of many attempts to bring relief, all of them made when too late, it fell into the hands of the French.

During the remainder of this campaign, Marlborough conducted himself so as to command the admiration of all ranks, both among his friends and his enemies; but as the situations which he filled were necessarily subordinate, it seems needless to swell our present narrative, by recording movements for which he was in no degree responsible.

Early in October, the troops on both sides having retired into quarters, Marlborough departed for England, where, on the 19th, he landed, in full favour with the king and the people. No great while elapsed, however, ere the sun of his political heavens became obscured. He had, on a previous occasion, zealously espoused the cause of the princess Anne, in a dispute which she maintained with the king and queen relative to money transactions; and he now entered, with equal zeal, into fresh cabals, originating in the somewhat ungracious exclusion of prince George from service on board the fleet. It does not exactly appear how far Marlborough expressed himself in disrespectful language of his sovereign; but that some such act of imprudence had been committed, was proved by his abrupt dismissal, on the 10th of January, 1692, from the king's service, and the order conveyed to him not again to show himself at St. James's.

Irritated at the treatment bestowed upon her favourite, the princess withdrew, in a great measure, from all intercourse with the court, and gathered round her as many persons of rank as preferred the countenance of a lady strongly suspected of Jacobitism to the cold civilities of a foreign usurper. The circumstance was not in any respect favourable to Marlborough's prospects; it served but to encourage in their attacks the many enemies whom his superior good fortune had created; and their machinations, aided by other causes, led, before long, to a still more unsatisfactory result. Lady Marlborough having ventured to appear at the drawing-room as a personal attendant on the princess, received a peremptory command to quit the palace, whilst her mistress, perceiving in the measure a studied insult to herself, gave up her apartments also, and retired to Berkeley House. All London was in amazement; but if the feeling had been excited before, it rose to a still higher pitch in consequence of an event which almost immediately ensued. On the 8th of May Lord Marlborough was arrested on & charge of high treason, and, together with the earls of Huntingdon and Scarsdale, and Dr. Pratt, bishop of Rochester, committed to the Tower.

It so happened that at this particular juncture a French fleet, filled with troops for the invasion of England, had put to sea. As a measure of pre

caution, the lords Griffin, Middleton, and Dunmore, sir John Fenwick, colonels Slingsby and Sackville, with many other avowed partisans of the exiled family, were seized; and men, naturally connecting one circumstance with another, came to the conclusion that a similar motive had guided the public authorities in the treatment of Marlborough. But it soon appeared that not Marlborough only, but the nobles and prelate committed along with him, stood on ground much more delicate than that occupied by their companions in disgrace. There was one Young, a man of infamous character, who lay in Newgate in default of the payment of a fine, and exercised his ingenuity in forging the handwriting of men of rank and influence. This miscreant, aided by an associate named Stephen Blackhead, found means to draw up a declaration in favour of James II., and to affix to it the signatures of Marlborough, Scarsdale, Dr. Pratt, Lord Cornbury, and sir Basil Firebrass. Having secreted this deed in the bishop's palace at Bromley, Young communicated its existence to the secretary of state; by whose order a search was instituted, and the document found. The arrest of the supposed traitors immediately followed, though the ground of accusation was for a brief space kept secret.

There is good reason to believe that had it been possible to substantiate the charge of treason against the parties now accused, small regret would have been experienced by king William, to whom the friend of the princess Anne, and the most distinguished soldier of his day, had become an object of strong personal antipathy. No sooner, however, was Young confronted with the bishop of Rochester than his forgery became apparent, and all except Marlborough were released. Why he should have been detained after his supposed associates were acquitted, has never been satisfactorily explained, unless the conjecture which refers the circumstance to the naturally suspicious temper of the king be admitted as correct; but of the fact itself there is no doubt. Marlborough remained a prisoner in the Tower till the 15th of June, the last day of the term. He was then admitted to bail in the court of king's bench, the marquis of Halifax, the earl of Shrewsbury, the earl of Cornby, and Mr. Boyle being his sureties; and on the 23d of the same month his name, with the names of the lords who supported him, were struck off from the list of privy counsellors.

From this date up to the close of 1694 Marlborough continued in disgrace, without making any effort to recover the favour of his sovereign. The death of the queen, however, which occurred on the 28th of December, having led to a reconciliation between the king and the princess of Denmark, Marlborough took advantage of the circumstance, and tendered his services in any capacity in which they might be deemed advantageous to his country. Though supported by the influence both of lord Shrewsbury and admiral Russell, this

offer was rejected; nor, when all the facts of the matter are taken into consideration, can we experience surprise that the case should have been so. It was very generally understood that Marlborough still kept up a correspondence with the court of St. Germain's. He had been just accused, likewise, of taking part in Fenwick's plot for the assassination of king William, and though acquitted by the house of peers, suspicion was not obliterated from the naturally suspicious mind of the king. Hence every effort on the part of Marlborough's friends to bring his merits conspicuously before the sovereign were coldly met or peremptorily rejected; nor was it till the exigencies of the times in some degree forced the arrangement upon him, that William would consent to honour the earl with his confidence.

By the act of settlement, the crown, though conferred conjointly upon William and Mary, and secured to either in the event of the demise of one, was destined, failing issue from these parties, to pass to the princess of Denmark. Mary having died childless, the princess Anne was now next in succession; and her son, the duke of Gloucester, a boy of very promising disposition, was treated as heir presumptive to the throne. It became a subject of deep interest to procure for him a guardian, qualified both by natural and acquired talents to form his mind aright; and the favour of the nation, not less than the partiality of the princess mother, pointed out Marlborough as of all others the best fitted for such a trust. there been any rival to Marlborough in public opinion, it is extremely probable that he would have been preferred; but there was none. The tories were now all-powerful; and William, conscious that opposition to their wishes would be fruitless, yielded with a good grace. Associating with Marlborough, as superintendent of the prince's education, bishop Burnet, he committed to the former his important charge, addressing to him a compliment which reflected equal honour un the one party as upon the other: "My lord," the king, "make him but what you are, and my nephew will be all I wish to see him."

Had

Marlborough entered upon his new and important office in June 1698, having been previously restored to all his honours, civil as well as military. He discharged its duties during two years with acknowledged zeal and judgment; but at the end of that time the heir of the British crown died, to the inexpressible grief both of the king and the people. It does not appear that the calamity produced any injurious effect either upon the future prospects or immediate situation of Marlborough. Restored to the full favour of the reigning monarch, and strong in the undisguised partiality of the heir, Marlborough had every right to anticipate a career of honour and

* William offered the appointment to Shrewsbury, who declined it; and would have bestowed it upon Rochester, but for his dislike of that nobleman's temper and party prejudices.

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