tion, in the House of Lords. Meanwhile, the building itself, for want of any paymaster, was at a stand; and this noble pile, this proud monument of a nation's gratitude, would have remained a modern ruin to this day, had it not been completed from the private funds of the hero whose services it was intended to commemorate. But the Duke of Marlborough, as well as the duchess, were too much interested in the work to allow it to remain unfinished. He left by his will fifty thousand pounds to complete the building, which was still in a very unfinished state at the time of his death, and the duty was faithfully performed by the duchess after his decease. From the accounts of the total expense, preserved at Blenheim, it appears that out of three hundred thousand pounds which the whole edifice cost, no less than sixty thousand pounds were provided from the private funds of the Duke of Marlborough.*

Which arose

ration of the

It may readily be believed that so long-continued and unre66. lenting a persecution of a man, so great and so disfrom a plan tinguished a benefactor of his country, proceeded for the resto from something more than mere envy at greatness, Stuarts. powerful as that principle ever is in little minds. In truth, it was part of the deep-laid plan for the restoration of the Stuart line, which the declining state of the queen's health, and the probable unpopularity of the Hanover family, now revived in greater vigor than ever. During this critical period, Marlborough, who was still on the Continent, remained perfectly firm to the Act of Settlement and the Protestant cause. Convinced that England was threatened with a counter-revolution, he used his endeavors to secure the fidelity of the garrison of Dunkirk, and offered to embark at their head in support of the Protestant succession. He sent General Cadogan to make the necessary arrangements with General Stanhope for transporting troops to England to support the Hanoverian succession, and offered to lend the Elector of Hanover £20,000 to aid him in his endeavor to secure the * COXE, vi., 369-373.

succession. So sensible was the electoral house of the magnitude of his services, and his zeal in their behalf, that the Electress Sophia intrusted him with a blank warrant, appointing him commander-in-chief of her troops and garrisons, on her accession to the crown. *

67. Death of Anne,

and Marlbor

ough's conduct on the acces

sion of the

Hanover fami

ly.

On the death of Queen Anne, on the 1st of August, 1714, Marlborough returned to England, and was soon after appointed captain-general and master-general of the ordnance. Bolingbroke and Oxford were shortly after impeached, and the former then threw off the mask by flying to France, where he openly entered into the service of the Pretender at St. Germain's. The duke's great popularity with the army was soon after the means of enabling him to appease a mutiny in the Guards, which at first threatened to be alarming. During the rebellion in 1715, he directed, in a great degree, the operations against the rebels, though he did not actually take the field; and to his exertions its rapid suppression is in a great measure to be ascribed.

68. His domestic bereavements and stroke of

palsy, 28th of

But the period had now arrived when the usual fate of mortality awaited this illustrious man. Severe domestic bereavements preceded his dissolution, and in a manner weaned him from a world which he had passed through with so much glory. His May, 1716. daughter, Lady Bridgewater, died in March, 1714; and this was soon followed by the death of his favorite daughter Anne, Countess of Sunderland, who united uncommon elegance and beauty to unaffected piety and exemplary virtue. Marlborough himself was not long of following his beloved relatives to the grave. On the 28th of May, 1716, he was seized with a fit of palsy, so severe that it deprived him, for a time, alike of speech and resolution. He recovered, however, in a certain degree, and went to Bath for the benefit of the waters; and a gleam of returning light shone upon his mind when he visited Blenheim on the 18th of October. He expressed great satisfaction at the survey of the plan, which reminded him of *COXE, vi., 263.

his great achievements, and in which he had always felt so deep an interest; but when he saw, in one of the few rooms which were finished, a picture of himself at the battle of Blenheim, he turned away with a mournful air, with the words, "Something then, but now—”

69.

and death,

On the 18th of November he was attacked by another stroke, more severe than the former, and his famiHis last years ly hastened to pay the last duties, as they conceivJune 16, 1722. ed, to their departing parent. The strength of his constitution, however, triumphed for a time even over this violent attack; but though he continued, contrary to his own wishes, in conformity with those of his friends, who needed the support of his great reputation, to hold office, and occasionally appeared in Parliament, yet his public career was at an end. A considerable addition was made to his fortune by the sagacity of the duchess, who persuaded him to embark rart of his funds in the South Sea scheme; but, foreseeing the crash which was approaching, they sold out so opportunely, that instead of losing, she gained £100,000 by the transaction. On the 27th of November, 1721, he made his last appearance in the House of Lords; but in June, 1722, he was again attacked with paralysis so violently, that he lay for some days nearly motionless, though in perfect possession of his faculties. To a question from the duchess whether he heard the prayers read as usual at night, on the 15th of June, in his apartment, he replied, "Yes; and I joined in them." These were his last words. On the morning of the 16th he sank rapidly, and calmly breathed his last at four o'clock, in the 72d of his age.*

70.

year

28th of June,

1722.

Envy is generally extinguished by death, because the object of it has ceased to stand in the way of those who And funeral, feel it. Marlborough's funeral obsequies were celebrated with uncommon magnificence, and all ranks and parties joined in doing him honor. His body lay in state for several days at Marlborough House, and crowds flocked together from all the three kingdoms to witness the imposing * LEDIARD, 496. CoxE, vi., 384, 385.

ceremony of his funeral, which was performed with the utmost magnificence, on the 28th of June. The procession was opened by a long array of military, among whom were General, now Lord Cadogan, and many other officers who had suffered and bled in his cause. Long files of heralds, officersat-arms, and pursuivants followed, bearing banners emblazoned with his armorial achievements, among which appeared, in uncommon luster, the standard of Woodstock exhibiting the arms of France on the cross of St. George. In the center of the cavalcade was a lofty car, drawn by eight horses, which bore the mortal remains of the hero, under a splendid canopy adorned by plumes, military trophies, and heraldic devices of conquest. Shields were affixed to the sides, bearing the names of the towns he had taken and the fields he had won. Blenheim was there, and Oudenarde, Ramillies and Malplaquet, Lille and Tournay, Bethune, Douay, and Ruremonde, Bouchain and Mons, Aire, St. Venant and Liege, Maestricht and Ghent. The number made the English blush for the manner in which they had treated their hero. On either side were five generals in military mourning, bearing aloft banderoles, on which were emblazoned the arms of the family. Eight dukes supported the pall; besides the relatives of the deceased, the noblest and proudest of England's nobility joined in the procession. Yet the most moving part of the ceremony was the number of old soldiers who had combated with the hero on his fields of fame, and who might now be known, in the dense crowds which thronged the streets, by their uncovered heads, gray hairs, and the tears which trickled down their cheeks. The body was deposited, with great solemnity, in Westminster Abbey, at the east end of the tomb of Henry VII.; but this was not its final resting-place in this world. It was soon after removed to the chapel at Blenheim, where it was deposited in a magnificent mausoleum, and there it still remains, surmounted by the noble pile which the genius of a Vanbrugh had conceived to express a nation's gratitude.*

CHAPTER VII.

MARLBOROUGH.-EUGENE.-FREDERIC.-NAPOLEON.-WEL

1.

Change in the system of war

in Marlborough's time.

LINGTON.

THE extraordinary merit of Marlborough's military talents will not be duly appreciated, unless the peculiar nature of the contest he was called on to direct, and the character which he assumed in his time, are taken into consideration. The feudal times had ceased, at least so far as the raising of a military force by its machinery was concerned. Louis XIV., indeed, when pressed for men, more than once summoned the ban and the arrière-ban of France to his standards, and he always had a gallant array of feudal nobility in his ante-chambers or around his headquarters. But war, both on his part and that of his antagonists, was carried on, generally speaking, with standing armies, and supported by the belligerent state. The vast, though generally tumultuary array which the Plantagenet or Valois sovereigns summoned to their support, but which, bound only to serve for forty days, generally disappeared before a few months of hostilities were over, could no longer be relied on. The modern system invented by revolutionary France, of making war maintain war, and sending forth starving multitudes with arms in their hands, to subsist by the plunder of the adjoining states, was unknown. The national passions had not been roused, which alone could bring it into operation. The decline of the feudal system forbade the hope that contests could be maintained by the chivalrous attachment of a faithful nobility the democratic spirit had not been so aroused as to supply its place by popular fervor. Religious passions, indeed, had been strongly excited; but they had prompted men rather to suffer than to act: the disputations of the pulpit were their