Of her Lord Wolseley no longer reckoned an inward grace, | mistresses. It so happens that all the incidents in Marlborough's life which are of a shady character, and which have been greedily seized upon by that numerous class whose delight it is to blacken the character of great and public men, occur within the period embraced in these volumes Lord Wolseley has most carefully gone into all these incidents, and, while anxious to do the best he can for his hero, has always stated the facts as they appear against him with scrupulous impartiality. The charges against Marlborough are four. The first is that he accepted money from the Duchess of Cleveland, the king's mistress, with whom he had an intrigue; the second, that he deserted James; the third that he was a traitor to William; the fourth, that he disclosed to the French the plan for Tollemache's attack on Brest. It will be most convenient to examine these charges in succession. We will first give Lord Wolseley's picture of him as a young man. Marlborough, he says, was tall, and his figure was remarkably graceful, although a contemporary says, "Il avait l'air trop indolent, et la taille trop effilée." His bearing was noble and commanding, and one who particularly disliked him tells us that "he possessed the graces in the highest degree, not to say engrossed them." He adds that his manor ner was irresistible either to man woman. The truth was, he knew how to be all things to all men. Kings, courtiers, and private soldiers alike were captivated by his gentle demeanor, his winning grace. He understood court life thoroughly, caressed all people with a soft, obliging deportment, and was always ready to do good offices. Such being the man, it is not to be wondered at that he soon became the intimate friend of the exquisitely beautiful Barbara Palmer, Duchess of Cleveland, one of King Charles's many Her She was the most inconstant of women, and had lovers of all degrees, even whilst openly recognized as the king's mistress. She was a gambler and a spendthrift, imperious in temper, and far from wise. cousin, Mrs. Godfrey - sister of Marlwas the governess of borough's mother her children by the king, and is said to have designedly thrown her handsome nephew, John Churchill, in her way. result was, as anticipated by the lady, an immediate intrigue between them (i. 68, 69). The I. Having now cleared the way and put the pieces on the board, we come to the first charge against Marlborough, which is thus stated by our author :— Ex Churchill spent the winter (1673) at home, and again fell a victim - doubtless a willing victim-to the wiles of his kinswoman, the Duchess of Cleveland. travagant in her style of living, she squandered on every passing whim the large sums of money bestowed on her by the king. Her young lover, Jack Churchill, was poor, and she is said to have been most liberal to him. She had purchased for him the position of gentleman of the bedchamber to the Duke of York, and she is supposed to have now bestowed upon him, as a new mark of her affection the sum of £4,500; but the authority for this statement is the Earl of Chesterfield, who never lost a chance of repeating any gossip that told against the fame or reputation of the man whom he disliked. But whether the duchess did or did not supply the money with which the annuity was purchased in 1674, it is certain that Churchill came into The ordipossession of it about this time. nary courtier of the period who had suddenly found himself in possession of so much money, would have gambled with it, or spent it on some form of pleasure. But this strangely constituted young man was already thinking more of the future than of the present. Bitter experience had taught him the miseries of poverty, and he determined to purchase an annuity, so that, come what might, he should at least feel himself above the daily sting of want. The money was accordingly handed over to Lord Halifax, who, in consideration thereof, settled £500 per annum upon him for life. Want of money had engendered in Churchill that strict attention to economy from which parsimony is so often bred. Long-practised frugality degenerates easily | mature years. He, a Cavalier, was becom Books have been written with the express purpose of proving that, however great Marlborough may have been, he was a monster of ingratitude, and only rose to power by low and infamous methods. That he should take money from the woman he intrigued with is often denounced as the worst and most ignoble action a gentleman could be capable of. But this was not the opinion entertained of the transaction by his contemporaries. It was regarded as quite natural that a handsome young soldier should be selected by the mistress of the king as one of her lovers, and that, penniless as he was, she should make him large presents. Throughout this in ing a traitor, in the common acceptation of the term, and throwing in his lot with his king's greatest enemy. James and Churchill alike suffered for their steady adherence at this epoch to the faith that was within them. One lost his crown, and died in exile, the despised dependant upon the bounty of a foreign sovereign; and the other, though he lived to be the foremost man in Europe, died detested and vilified by the nation which he made great and famous (ii. 42). Upon this point Lord Wolseley's opinion is that, as a soldier, Marlborough's conduct was utterly unjustifiable, but that, as a statesman, he acted for the good of his country. From a military point of view, it is impossible to acquit Marlborough of desertion in 1688. Although he was not then in James's confidence, and held no military command, still, as a favorite of many years' trigue with Barbara Palmer he did noth-standing, and as a courtier who had been ing more than was done by many others most in his secrets and had been promoted by Monmouth, for instance, who, when an by him to high honor, we must be painfully exile, lived chiefly upon the bounty of his impressed with Churchill's ingratitude and mistress, Lady Wentworth. Yet Monmouth has not been held up to everlasting obloquy. No English gentleman of to-day would act as Marlborough and Monmouth did; but their conduct was not regarded at the time as either disreputable or unusual, and it is by contemporary law and custom that we must judge them, and not by our own code of morality and honor (i. 132, 133), This is the best excuse that it is possible to make for Marlborough's conduct on this occasion, but we cannot consider it satisfactory. It implies a complete inversion of the position of the sexes to one another; and it ever must, at any time and in any age, have been a most degrading thing for a gentleman to assume the position of a paid prostitute. II. We come now to the second charge against Marlborough that he deserted James. This [says Lord Wolseley] was the great turning-point in his life. Actuated by lofty motives, and in what was to him a sacred cause, he was breaking away from the patron of his boyhood, the friend of his heartlessness. His conduct was in the highest degree treacherous and deceitful; and it is revolting to think of him and other officers travelling with James from Windsor to Salisbury, and showing him all outward marks of loyalty and obedience, while they were in league with his enemies to betray him on the first favorable opportunity. To hold daily converse with the man whom they were seeking to destroy, and to act towards him as if they were still his faithful servants, implies a depth of baseness and treachery which are all but diabolical. It must be freely admitted that during the ten years between 1688-1698 Marlbor ough's career was sullied with acts which in the present day would place him beyond the pale of society, and which furnished Swift and Macaulay with ample materials for condemning him. But the real question is, Had Marlborough the public good in view when he deserted James, or was his conduct inspired by motives of personal ambition? There is no practical standard by which the conduct of great men of action can be measured. Patriot leaders have generally been unscrupulous as to the means they employed to secure their aims. Thus, without attempting to extenuate or excuse the gravity of his military crimes, the point to |ough wrote to James to implore his forbe considered is, whether in a supreme giveness and to assure him of his future national crisis his duty to his country did devotion and loyalty. Whilst William was not outweigh and override his duty as a absent in Holland struggling with selfish, soldier? In 1688 Marlborough was some- short-sighted allies to arrange a common thing more than a mere soldier owing mil-plan of campaign against France, Marlboritary obedience to his sovereign in all ough, Godolphin, Halifax, Russell, Morthings. He was a power in the country. daunt, Sunderland, Caermarthen, and The time was one of intense excitement, Shrewsbury, all began to intrigue with religious as well as national. The forces James. They expressed heartfelt contriwere evenly balanced, and Marlborough's tion, and begged for pardon, and Marlborinfluence, into whichever scale it should be ough especially seemed sincere in his cast, would decide the issue. The question repentance. He strove to persuade James he put to himself was, Should he remain that he was truly sorry for his past confaithful to James, and rivet, perhaps for- duct, and endeavored to make him believe ever, the yoke of despotism and popery that he sincerely wished to see him restored upon the neck of the English people, or to the throne. . . In this treasonable corshould he, by transferring his allegiance respondence Marlborough professed to reand service to William, set them free? gard his past conduct towards James as so reprehensible that he did not ask to have his confidence or to share Jacobite secrets. He only humbly begged to be made use of in any way that his former master might deem advisable (ii. 227, 228). As I read history, England owes him a debt of gratitude for the calculated deceit which marked his desertion, because it enabled William to accomplish his carefully planned plot without bloodshed. Had Marlborough stood by James as Feversham did, the Revolution could not have succeeded, if indeed it would have been at tempted; and beyond all doubt he fully appreciated the gravity of the step which he was about to take (ii. 82, 83). We have quoted Lord Wolseley's remarks upon this, the most important act of Marlborough's life, in full, because we have never seen the case so clearly and incisively stated, and so justly; in no way palliating his infamous and treacherous conduct as a man, but pointing out the political advantages it conferred upon his country. Happy are those who live in times when they are not called upon to choose between such divergent courses.1 He [Churchill] laid open that prince's designs both by sea and land; which, concurring with what the king had from good hands, was a great argument of Churchill's sincerity (ii. 229). Lord Wolseley thinks that James was never really convinced of Marlborough's repentance; but that, Although the poor exile did not believe in Marlborough's protestations of penitence and loyalty, he was not in a position to reject any proffered aid. The result was that he gave both Marlborough and Godolphin a full pardon in his own handwriting, and Mary of Modena endorsed it with a few pleasing sentences. Marlborough, having thus secured what he had so basely plotted for, felt that, come what might, he was at least safe from the block, and his children from poverty. In the following month he declared that he was the most penitent of men. He enlarged upon the sincerity of his remorse for "his villainies to ye best of Kings, and yt it would be impossible for him to be at rest till he had in some measure made an attonement by en- | William came to the conclusion that deavoring (though at the utmost peril of the only way was by a combined naval his life) to restore his injured Prince and beloved Master." He wrote to James "that he was so entirely to his duty and love to his Majesty's person, that he would be ready with joy upon the least command to abandon wife, children, and country to regain and preserve his esteem " (ii. 230). What a picture of plotting and treachery this is! How sad it is to see a great man come down so low ! IV. We come, lastly, to the fourth of the great charges against Marlborough that he disclosed to the French the plan for Tollemache's attack on Brest, thereby causing its failure with heavy loss. Lord Wolseley thus states the case— This [1694] was the year of our disastrous repulse before Brest, for which Marlborough has long been held primarily responsible. For nearly two centuries it has been repeated as an historical fact that the destination of the expedition sent against the place was first betrayed by Marlborough to St. Germains, and that it was in consequence of the information given by him in a letter of the 4th May this year that Louis XIV. placed Brest in the condition of defence which caused the attack to fail. In considering this charge, it is essential that the reader should remember its wording. The charge is not merely that he communicated with James upon the subject before the attack came off -for of that there is no doubt-but that he was the first who did so, and that it was in consequence of the information he gave that the French king had Brest so well prepared that the attack upon it was repulsed with great loss to the English. If, therefore, it be conclusively proved that the preparations were the result of information obtained by Louis from others previous to the date of Marlborough's letter, then this charge falls to the ground (ii. 304, 305). What led to the Brest expedition was this. After the battle of Cape La Hogue, the French fleet kept within its fortified harbors; but single ships of war and privateers were frequently sent out to prey upon our merchantmen, and they made great havoc of our English commerce. To stop this, and military force to capture the most obnoxious of the French stations, and he chose Brest to begin with. A force the command of General Tollemache, of about seven thousand men, under was accordingly told off for this duty. The plan decided on was to land the troops on the narrow neck of land which separated the roadsteads of Cameret and Brest, and so isolate the port itself. Every effort was made to keep this project dark, but without success. When the attempt was made, everything was found to be prepared and ready for defence, and both the troops who landed and the attacking squadron were defeated with heavy loss. It was evident that the French had received full information. The question that arises then is, Who gave, or gave first, the information which enabled the French to be reinforced in time to meet our attack with success? It appears from decisive evidence that Louis XIV. knew of the proposed attack on Brest as early as April 4; for, in a letter from him to Vauban on that date, he says that he "had learned from several sources that an attack on Brest is intended by seven thousand British troops, and the combined navies of England and Holland," and he goes on to direct Vauban to proceed thither and take the command. Now the paper containing Marlborough's information, which reached Louis XIV., was one from General Sackville, the Jacobite agent in London to Lord Melfort at St. Germains, which runs in these terms: May 4, 1694. I have just now received the enclosed for the king. It is from Lord Churchill; but no person but the queen and you must know from whom it comes. Therefore, for the love of God, let it be kept secret even from Lord Middleton. I send it by express judging it to be of the utmost consequence for the service of the king my master, and consequently for the service of his most Christian Majesty. You see by the contents of the letter that I am not deceived in the judgment I form of Admiral Russell; for that man has not acted sin cerely, and I fear he will never act other- | formation Louis XIV., as early as the wise.1 4th April, had learned "from several The enclosure is in French, and is sources" that an attack on Brest was from Marlborough. Translated, it impending.2 runs thus: It is but this day that it came to my knowledge what I now send you; which is that the Bomb vessels and the twelve regiments now encamped at Portsmouth, together with the two marine regiments, are to be commanded by Talmach, and are designed to burn the harbor of Brest, and to destroy the men-of-war there; this would be a great advantage to England; but no consideration can, or ever shall, hinder me from letting you know what I think may be for your service; so you may make what use you think best of this intelligence, which you may depend upon as exactly true (ii. 312, 313). It also appears that Floyd, groom of the bedchamber to James, who was in London early in May, received from Godolphin the information that Admiral Russell would certainly appear shortly before Brest, which the military officers deemed open to attack, though the sailors were of a different opinion. Floyd's information was laid before Louis at Versailles on May 1, so we are justified in assuming that it was about April the 15th or 20th when Godolphin told Floyd this. It is thus beyond all doubt that the French king, even through this channel, was in possession of the so-called secret at least a week before Marlborough's letter of May 4 could have reached him (ii. 311, 312). The general result of this is, that positive information was given to Louis as to the impending attack on Brest by two separate people one Marlborough, the other Floyd, a regular Jacobite agent; and that of the two, Floyd was able to inform Louis a week before Marlborough could do so. But this is no justification whatever of Marlborough; for it was only by accident, not his fault, that he was anticipated in his treachery by another. It is clear, however, as shown above, that independent of this authentic in 1"The authenticity," says Lord Wolseley, "of this letter is denied by some because the original of neither Marlborough's nor Sackville's letter has ever been found; but the circumstantial evidence is too strong to admit of doubt" (ii. 313, 314). We have now gone through, in some detail, the four great charges that have been brought against Marlborough. It cannot be said that out of any of them he has come forth scathless. But much may be pardoned to a man placed in the difficult position in which he was, surrounded by every kind of temptation, and living in an age when the principles of honor were relaxed to an extent of which we have now, fortunately, no conception. No notice of Marlborough's life would be complete which did not include some account of his celebrated wife Sarah. Of this very remarkable woman Lord Wolseley gives a full and excellent account. We extract some of its best passages : As a child Sarah Jennings had frequently resided at court, when her elder sister Frances was in waiting upon the Duchess of York. During these visits to St. James's, Sarah became the playmate of the Princess Anne, her junior by nearly five years. An attachment soon sprang up between the two girls, and Anne loved to have Sarah constantly with her. the notice of Mary, the Duke of York's second wife, who was only two years her senior, and whilst still quite a child became maid of honor to that beautiful but unhappy princess. ... 66 Sarah also attracted Though less lovely than her elder sister, Sarah was still radiant with beauty, and possessed a graceful figure, and great power of fascination. Numerous portraits enable us to admire her distinguished but scornful style of beauty: there was sweetness in her eyes, invitation in her looks,' wrote Sarah's most scurrilous assailant. Sir Godfrey Kneller has recorded for us her small, regular features so full of life, her pretty mouth expressive of disdain, her slightly turned up nose with its open, wellshaped nostrils, her commanding air, the exquisite pose of her small head, always a 2 The arguments on this point will also be found well stated in that very interesting book "Paradoxes and Puzzles," by Mr. Paget, as early as 1861, pp. 20-25. |