to engage heartily in the true interests, and no longer leave his country a prey to rapine and faction. He was, besides, required to restrain the rage and fury of his wife. Their of fers were coupled with threats of an impeachment, and boasts that sufficient evidence could be adduced to carry a prosecution through both houses."* To terms so degrading, the duke answered in a manner worthy of his high reputation. He declared his resolution to be of no party, to vote according to his conscience, and to be as hearty as his new colleagues in support of the queen's government and the welfare of the country. This manly reply increased the repulsive feelings with which he was regarded by the ministry, who seem now to have finally resolved on his ruin; while the intelligence that such overtures had been made having got wind, sowed distrust between him and the Whig leaders, which was never afterward entirely removed. But he honorably declared that he would be governed by the Whigs, whom he would never desert; and that they could not suspect the purity of his motives in so doing, as they had now lost their majority in the House of Commons.†

ception of Marlborough by the

Parliament met on the 25th of November; and Marlbor22. ough, in the end of the year, returned to London. Ungrateful reBut he soon received decisive proof of the altered ministers and temper both of government and the country toward country. him. The majority in the House of Commons was now against him, as it had for some time been in the country. The last election had turned the scale in favor of the Tories. In the queen's speech, no notice was taken of the late successes in Flanders, no vote of thanks for his services *BOLINGBROKE's Corresp., i., 41; Mr. Secretary St. John to Mr. Drummond, 20th of Dec., 1710.

"I beg you to lose no time in sending me, to the Hague, the opinion of our friend mentioned in my letter; for I would be governed by the Whigs, from whose principle and interest I will never depart. While they had a majority in the House of Commons, they might suspect it might be my interest; but now they must do me the justice to see that it is my inclination and principle which makes me act.”—Marlborough to the Duchess, Nov. 9, 1710. COXE, iv., 360.

in the campaign was moved by the ministers; and they even contrived, by a side wind, to get quit of one proposed, to their no small embarrassment, by Lord Scarborough. The duchess, too, was threatened with removal from her situation at court; and Marlborough avowed that he knew the queen was as desirous for her removal as Mr. Harley and Mrs. Masham can be." The violent temper, and proud, unbending spirit of the duchess, were ill calculated to heal such a breach, which in the course of the winter became so wide, that her removal from the situation she held, as mistress of the robes, was only prevented by the fear that, in the vehemence of her resentment, she might publish the queen's correspondence, and that the duke, whose military services could not yet be spared, might resign his command. Libels against both the duke and the duchess daily appeared, and passed entirely unpunished, though the freedom of the press was far from being established. Three officers were dismissed from the army for drinking his health. When he waited on the queen, on his arrival in England, in the end of December, she said, "I must request you will not suffer any vote of thanks to you to be moved in Parliament this year, as my ministers will certainly oppose it." Such was the return made by government to the hero who had raised the power and glory of England to an unprecedented pitch, and who, in that very campaign, had cut deeper into the iron frontier of France than had ever been done in any former one.*

Dismissal of

of Marlbor

The female coterie who aided at St. James's the male opponents of Marlborough, were naturally extremely 23. solicitous to get the duchess removed from her situ- the Duchess ations as head of the queen's household and keeper ough. of the privy purse; and ministers were only prevented from carrying their wishes into effect by their apprehension, if these wishes were executed, of the duke's resigning his command of the army. In an audience on the 17th of January, 1711, Marlborough presented a letter to her majesty from the duch

* CoXE, iv., 405.

ess,

couched in terms of extreme humility, in which she declared that his anxiety was such at the requital his services had received, that she apprehended he would not live six months.* The queen at first refused to read it; and when at length, at the duke's earnest request, she agreed to do so, she coldly observed, "I can not change my resolution." Marlborough, in the most moving terms, and with touching eloquence, entreated her majesty not to dismiss the duchess till she had no more need of her services, by the war being finished, which, he hoped, would be in less than a year; but he received no other answer than a peremptory demand for the surrender of the gold key, the symbol of her office, within three days. Unable to obtain any relaxation in his sovereign's resolution, Marlborough withdrew with the deepest emotions of indignation and The duchess, in a worthy spirit, immediately took her resolution; she sent in her resignation, with the gold key, that very night. So deeply was Marlborough hurt at this extraordinary ingratitude for all his services, that he at first resolved to resign his whole commands, and retire altogether into private life.

sorrow.

24. Marlborough

luctance withholds his intended resig

nation.

From this intention he was only diverted, and that with great difficulty, by the efforts of Godolphin and with great re- the Whigs at home, and Prince Eugene and the Pensionary Heinsius abroad, who earnestly besought him not to abandon the command, as that would at once dissolve the Grand Alliance, and ruin the comWe can sympathize with the feelings of a victorious warrior who felt reluctant to forego, by one hasty step, the fruit of nine years of victories: we can not but respect the self-sacrifice of the patriot who preferred enduring mortifications himself to endangering the great cause of religious free

mon cause.

'Though I never thought of troubling your majesty again in this manner, yet the circumstances I see my Lord Marlborough in, and the apprehension I have that he can not live six months, if there is not some end put to his sufferings on my account, make it impossible for me to resist doing every thing in my power to ease him."-Duchess of Marlborough to Queen Anne, 17th of Jan., 1711. CoxE, iv., 410.

dom and European independence. Influenced by these considerations, Marlborough withheld his intended resignation. The Duchess of Somerset was made mistress of the robes, and Mrs. Masham obtained the confidential situation of keeper of the privy purse. Malignity, now sure of impunity, heaped up invectives on the falling hero. His integrity was calumniated, his courage even was questioned, and the most consummate general of that, or perhaps any other age, was represented as the lowest of mankind.* It soon appeared how unfounded had been the aspersions cast upon the duchess, as well as the duke, for their conduct in office. Her accounts, after being rigidly scrutinized, were returned to her without any objection being stated against them; and Marlborough, anxious to quit that scene of ingratitude and intrigue for the real theater of his glory, soon after set out for the army in Flanders.† He arrived at the Hague on the 4th of March; and, although no longer possessing the confidence of government, or intrusted with any control over diplomatic measures, he immediately set himself with the utmost vigor to prepare for military operations. Great efforts had been made by both parties, during the winter, for the resumption of hostilities on even a more extended scale than in the preceding campaign. Marlborough found the army in the Low Countries extremely efficient and powerful; diversions were promised on the side both of Spain and Piedmont; and a treaty had been concluded with the Spanish malcontents, in consequence of which a large part of the Imperial forces were rendered disposable, and Prince Eugene was preparing to lead them into the Low Countries. But, in the midst of these flattering prospects, an event occurred which suddenly deranged them all, postponed for above a month the opening of the campaign, and, in its final result, changed the fate of Europe.

25.

condition of the army in

Prosperous

the Low Countries.

This was the death, by the small-pox, of the Emperor Jo

*SMOLLET, C. x., 20.

↑ Marlborough to the Duchess, 24th of May, 1711. CoxE, v., 417-431.

26.

Death of the

VI. as emper

seph, which happened at Vienna on the 16th of Emperor Jo- April: an event which was immediately followed seph, and election of Charles by Charles, king of Spain, declaring himself a canor, 16th April. didate for the Imperial throne. As his pretensions required to be supported by a powerful demonstration of troops, the march of a large part of Eugene's men to the Netherlands was immediately stopped, and that prince himself was hastily recalled from Mentz, to take the command at Ratisbon, as marshal of the forces of the empire. Charles was soon after elected emperor. Thus Marlborough was left to commence the campaign alone, which was the more to be regretted, as the preparations of Louis, during the winter, for the defense of his dominions, had been made on the most extensive scale, and Marshal Villars's lines had come to be regarded as the ne plus ultra of field fortification. Yet were Marlborough's forces most formidable; for, when reviewed at Orchies on the 30th of April, between Lille and Douay, they were found, including Eugene's troops which had come up, to amount to one hundred and eighty-four battalions and three hundred and sixty-four squadrons, mustering above one hundred thousand combatants.* But forty-one battalions and forty squadrons were in garrison, which reduced the effective force in the field to eighty thousand men.

27.

Great lines

The great object of Louis and his generals had been to construct such a line of defenses as might prevent the constructed irruption of the enemy into the French territory, by Villars. now that the interior and last line of fortresses was so nearly broken through. In pursuance of this design, Villars had, with the aid of all the most experienced engineers in France, and at a vast expense of labor and money, constructed during the winter a series of lines and field-works, exceeding any thing yet seen in modern Europe in magnitude and strength, and to which the still more famous works of Torres Vedras have alone, in subsequent times, afforded a parallel. The for

* Eugene to Marlborough, 23d of April, 1710; Marlborough to St. John, 29th of April, 1710. CoxE, vi., 16. Disp., v., 319.