Private Correspondence of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough

throw contempt on the clergy, and no care was taken to gain the universities, they were neglected to the last degree, and run down in the most opprobrious manner in all Whig conversation, and one of them, Oxford, has been all along treated as a professed enemy. Your Grace knows who always calls the most considerable body of them Jesuits; and that whole university was disobliged to the last degree, by putting upon them a divinity professor after the Queen had promised Dr. Smalridge, who had discharged the office as a deputy for some years before, greatly to their satisfaction; and indeed he is, as far as I can judge, the most valuable man of the whole party. Add to this the innumerable pamphlets the nation swarmed with without controul, in which religion and the church were for some years insulted in so impudent a manner as had not been known before.

I don't say whether those things could have been hindered; but those that disliked them certainly thought they might, and imputed the contrivance and increase of such writings to the secret encouragement the leading Whigs gave to them; and what affected religion and the established church so much, had no less influence on the Queen, I believe, than it had on the people, and contributed very much to increase her aversion to that party. And when minds were thus prepared, 'tis not so great wonder that Sacheverell's affair had more effect than it ought to have had naturally. When

VOL. II.

people's fears are once alarmed, especially about religion, there is nothing that they are not capable of apprehending; and 'tis thought wisdom to suspect more than is seen; and talking of forming a new test for the clergy on that occasion, and threatening acts and oaths to bind them up in the rude manner they did, confirmed people in their suspicions, and made them think they could not fear too much. These I take to be the causes of the change and the success they have had in their elections; and tho' the Tories may be the gainers by it, they can't be said to be the authors of it: it seems to have been resolved, begun, and entered on, not by them, but by men who would be thought of neither party, but would govern both; and if they have now thrown themselves upon the Tories, 'tis as a last shift; and if the Tories have closed with them, 'tis no more strange than 'tis for men who have been long out, to desire and be glad to come in how they will behave themselves now they are in, is another question. I can't think any man can act a part so false to themselves, as not to endeavour to carry on the publick business, in which, if they had not all the success one could wish, something must be imputed to the opposite party, who, one may be sure, will endeavour to distress them all they can; and the rest of the mischief that has or may arise from this change, must be laid at the door of the leaders, who have ventured in this nice juncture to risque everything to raise themselves, which sober men can't

think of without resentment, and in this changeable climate, there is no security, but the tables may soon turn, and those who shall have been the authors of so much mischief, may have reason to wish they had not been in so much haste.

In the meantime, as these new measures did not take their beginning from any design to favour the Pretender, so I hope for the reasons given in my last, they won't end in him, and that his cause will find no other advantage in them, than what may arise from a less successful carrying on the war, and the success of that I shall still promise myself, if the army continue still under the same command, which I take to be so absolutely necessary, that I can't but think they will come into some reasonable measures with my Lord Duke, rather than want a man they can't possibly do without. As to the Pretender, I can't see the Tories have taken any steps directly in favour of him, but the other side have, I think, made a great one, which, strange as it will seem, will appear, I believe, to your Grace to be very true, if you reflect on what passed last winter. One of the principal things that drew the nation so unanimously into the Revolution, was the supposed illegitimacy of the Pretender; and whatever may have been the sentiments of a few persons of the first rank, as to this matter, 'tis certain the nation in general has all along been strongly possessed of this opinion, and I think 'tis exceeding evident that nothing can weaken the Revolution so much as to