CHAPTER XII.
Third Marriage of Lord Sunderland—Calumnies against the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough—Interview between the Duchess and George the First—The result—Her differences with Lord Sunderland—Illness, death, and character of the Duke of Marlborough.—1721–22.
The Duchess of Marlborough tasted at this time sufficient of the real troubles of life to chasten a spirit less elastic than that which she possessed. Amongst various mortifications, Lord Sunderland inflicted a bitter pang, by marrying for the third time. His last wife, Judith, the daughter of Benjamin Tichborne, Esq., was not only of an unsuitable age, but inferior in rank, property, and connexions, to the Earl’s station and circumstances. He aggravated this affront to the family of his former wife, by settling on her successor a portion of his property, to the injury of his children. No remonstrances on the part of the Duchess could prevent this annoying union, andsubsequent arrangement; but her letters to Lord Sunderland teemed with invective, whilst his lordship’s replies were filled with bitter recriminations.
A mind so constituted as Lord Sunderland’s was not calculated to rise above the littleness of revenge, when opportunity occurred. A report, which became current among the higher circles, that the Duchess favoured the Pretender, gave him probably less concern than it would at a former period have imparted. The Duchess, from consideration for her husband, concealed the rumour from him; but Sunderland summoned his father-in-law suddenly to his house, and acquainted him, in a coarse and unfeeling manner, with the calumny. The Duke returned to the Duchess greatly disturbed, and, in answer to her inquiries, informed her that she was accused of favouring the Pretender, and assisting him with a sum of money in his designs upon the throne.
The Duke, shattered in nerves, was greatly agitated by this abrupt disclosure; but it was received by the Duchess with disdain, and by an endeavour to soothe his irritation. But when her husband informed her that the King had heard the report, and that even the Duke wassupposed to share her treasonable practices, she resolved, with her wonted courage, to appear at the drawing-room, in order to ascertain how deeply the poison of calumny had worked.
On her first appearance she was received coldly; and when on a second occasion she repaired to court, a reception equally chilling, and equally contrasted with the marked attention which had formerly been paid to her, confirmed her fears; and upon this demonstration of displeasure she resolved to make her wrongs and her innocence known to the King.
The person through whose mediation the Duchess did not think it unseemly to address his Majesty, was the Duchess of Kendal, formerly Madame Schulemberg, the mistress, or, as some supposed, the left-handed wife of George the First; a lady whose mental and personal qualities were not, fortunately for the safety of virtue, such as to cast a lustre over the equivocal, if not disgraceful position in which she stood.
The Duchess of Kendal was at this time a “tall, lean, ill-favoured old lady,” who had lived for forty years in all the contentment which virtue merits, and without the usual attractions of vice; mistress to a King, unimpassioned, inert, and respectably vicious—an “honest, dull Germangentleman,”[274]to whose darkened conscience habitual profligacy offered no offence.
The Duchess of Kendal, when she arrived in England, was destined to learn a lesson new to her; and the desire of political influence which she acquired, led to an interference of which she had never before dreamed. Her hatred to the Walpole family, whom the Duchess also detested, might probably account for their making common cause together, on the occasion which must now be described.
It was through the persuasion of the Duchess of Kendal that the Duchess of Marlborough obtained an interview with the King, at the apartments of his mistress in St. James’s palace, in the same suite of rooms which were afterwards inhabited by the Countess of Suffolk, the favourite of his equally profligate and equally uninteresting son.
The Duchess of Marlborough, when thus introduced to the sovereign, delivered to his Majesty a letter containing a distinct denial of the charges against her. The plain and homely German monarch seems to have received her address favourably, nor was he a man to daunt, by his stern dignity, one who had been formerlyoften in the presence of the cold, repulsive William of Orange. George was one who could scarcely offend or be offended, and who never sought to awe, and rarely to repulse. His manners and appearance were those of an elderly gentleman, rather of the middle than of the higher class, and his temper resembled that of other elderly gentlemen arrived at a comfortable period of life, when the composure, though not the apathy and weakness of age, begins to be manifested. The King required importunity to rouse him to exertion.[275]He has been described, from recollection, as a tall personage, somewhat pale, with an aspect rather good than august, and dressed in a style equally unobtrusive with his character: a dark tie-wig, a plain coat, waistcoat, and breeches, of snuff-coloured cloth, with stockings of the same colour, and a blue ribbon over all, constituted an attire widely different from the gay and costly habiliments of the gallants of his court, amongst whom the fantastic and studied style of dress of the Stuart days had not yet subsided into the mediocrity of modern days, which has gradually departed more and more widely from the models of former times.
The address delivered by the Duchess to his Majesty expressed in strong terms her surprise that any person “should, after all the trouble and danger she had been exposed to from her zeal for his Majesty and his family, suppose her capable of holding a correspondence with the King’s greatest enemy, and that she should have been represented guilty of so black and foolish a crime.” She entreated, in conclusion, to be allowed “to justify herself in such a manner as should seem possible to his Majesty’s great wisdom.”
After presenting her petition, the Duchess retired, and though pressed by the Duchess of Kendal to return, she refused to do so. It is remarkable, that notwithstanding the period of her exile, and her frequent intercourse with distinguished foreigners, the Duchess could not speak French;[276]any conversation, therefore, with the King was impracticable, for his Majesty neither understood English, nor ever took the slightest pains to acquire the language.
The reply of his Majesty to her grace’s petition fully evinced the coolness of his sentimentstowards her, however he might respect and confide in the Duke.[277]
“St. James’s, Dec. 17, 1720.
“St. James’s, Dec. 17, 1720.
“St. James’s, Dec. 17, 1720.
“St. James’s, Dec. 17, 1720.
“Whatever I may have been told on your account, I think I have shown, on all occasions, the value I have for the services of the Duke, your husband; and I am always disposed to judge of him and you by the behaviour of each of you in regard to my service. Upon which I pray God, my Lady Marlborough, to preserve you in all happiness.
“George R.”
“George R.”
“George R.”
“George R.”
The Duchess was deeply disappointed upon the receipt of this letter. It was, she doubted not, dictated by the ministry at that time in power, of whom Horace Lord Walpole, Lord Sunderland, and Mr. Secretary Craggs, formed the most influential members.
Lord Walpole, the younger brother of the great minister, to whom the dislike of the Duchess extended, had been the early friend and fellow collegian of her deceased son; and what, perhaps, occasioned a greater bond of union in a mind so constituted, during the whole course ofhis political career, a genuine Whig, and, in conjunction with Newcastle, Addison, Pulteney, Craggs, and others. He was, also, a member of the Hanover club, who had gone so far, in 1713, as to show their hatred of the Jacobite cause, by parading effigies of the Devil, the Pope, and the Pretender, in solemn procession from Charing Cross to the Exchange, and back to Charing Cross, where they were burnt.[278]But, notwithstanding the similarity of their political opinions, that administration from which the Duchess had once expected great results, had failed to secure her regard; probably from the little attention which they proffered to that vanity which, like some weeds, grew more vigorously in the shade.
The Duchess was not only already at variance with Lord Sunderland, another ministerial friend, but Mr. Craggs had fallen under her severe displeasure. Upon this statesman of equivocal character the suspicions of the Duchess now rested,[279]of having some years previously sent her ananonymous letter of an offensive kind. She, therefore, in her reply to the King’s laconic letter, gave vent to her suspicions, that since there was only one person in all the world whom she knew capable of calumniating her, that person “who might, perhaps, have malice enough to her, and dishonour enough in himself to be guilty of it, is Mr. Secretary Craggs.”[280]
Her charge, daring as it was, fell to the ground. No notice was taken of this epistle, except a brief answer referring to the King’s former reply; but the painful consequence of the Duchess’s surmises was a total alienation from her son-in-law, Lord Sunderland; an alienation which lasted nearly until his death, which took place in 1722. So singular was the fate of this extraordinary woman in private life, that scarcely did she possess a tie which was not severed, or embittered, by worldly or political considerations.
The affair of the South Sea bubble, as it was called, a scheme designated by Lord Walpole as “weak in its projection, villainous in its execution, and calamitous in its end,”[281]was, in part, the cause of the coolness which thus severed Lord Sunderland from the family with whose interests his own had been so long bound up, and withwhom he held an hereditary alliance of affection, cemented by his happy marriage with one of its best and purest ornaments. Scheming and ill judging, but not venal, Lord Sunderland, during the height of the national infatuation, availed himself of that singular crisis, and made use of the South Sea bubble only as a political engine, and not to benefit his own embarrassed fortunes.
The frenzy of this memorable scheme is said to have aided the settlement of the house of Hanover on the throne, by drawing off the attention of the people from the delirium of faction, to the almost equally dangerous mania for speculation.[282]As an aid to his party designs, Lord Sunderland, weakly, and with shortsighted policy, encouraged its transient influence. He incurred the deepest displeasure from his mother-in-law the Duchess; who might, perhaps, have forgiven him his share in the great imposition, had her family and his lordship’s own children not have suffered in the general crash. His neglect of the interests of his children formed one of her greatest grounds of complaint; yet she received, supported, and educated several of those children, when, from his lordship’s improvidence and his death, heleft his numerous family to suffer from his embarrassments. Amongst other debts, he owed ten thousand pounds to the Duke of Marlborough; but his library, which, says Dr. Coxe, “was only rivalled by that of Lord Oxford in rarity and extent, was one of the items of his personal property, and now forms the basis of the noble collection at Blenheim.”
It may appear reasonable to suppose that the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, having now tasted of the enjoyments, or endured the annoyances, of four successive courts, would gladly retire from all such scenes, thankful to escape to the quiet possession of leisure, and to the participation of such blessings as were spared to their old age. Vast riches were superabundantly their portion. Yet even wealth, which becomes a blessing or a curse according to the quality of that nature to which it is attached, has its inconveniences; and the immense accumulation of ready money appears to have caused the Duke considerable embarrassment.
“I beg pardon for troubling you with this,” he wrote about this time, to a friend, “but I am in a very odd distress—too much ready money. I have now one hundred thousand pounds dead, and shall have fifty more next week; if you canemploy it in any way, it will be a very great favour to me.”[283]
Surely so strange a dilemma as that of having a hundred and fifty thousand pounds too much for one’s peace of mind, and of being able to dispense with the interest of such a sum, is of rare occurrence.
The Duchess, it appears, was not only averse to speculations in the South Sea scheme, but dreaded, at times, lest the national debt should be cancelled by a “sponge,” as she frequently expressed it;[284]though that phrase relates to a later period, when the hated Walpole was in power.
The mere possession of wealth could, however, only have satisfied a mind far less grovelling than that of the Duchess. Power was her aim, her delight; a little brief authority herfoible; intrigue her element, faction her recreation. It was impossible that the habits of a long life could be laid aside, and nothing could pacify her busy spirit. Accordingly, we find her just as much devoted to the acquisition of court favour in the decline of life, as she had been, before death had deprived her of those bright ornaments of society for whose sake she may have been supposed to have coveted royal favour with peculiar avidity. Neglected by the King, she received with eagerness the attentions of the Prince and Princess of Wales, who were at variance with the court, and who consequently cherished the malcontents. The Princess, afterwards Queen Caroline, was eventually a favourite with the Duchess; but, at an earlier period, it was perhaps sufficient that George the First habitually called his daughter-in-law “cette diablesse Madame la Princesse,”[285]to render the Duchess, who was affronted by the small account made of the Duke, and of her own influence, a warm partisan of the Princess of Wales.
Eager to pay her utmost court to the Princess, in June, 1720, the Duchess wrote to her friend Mrs. Clayton[286]a glowing description of a visit to Richmond, which she had paid to theirroyal highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales, whose reception, as she declares, “of the Duke of Marlborough and poor me” would fill more than the paper on which she wrote. Not only was she graciously received by the Prince and Princess, but by the Lord Chamberlain and attendants, even to the pages of the bedchamber; so that the Duchess, long unused to receive such certain demonstrations of favour, fancied herself in a new world. Music of a superior kind gave gaiety to the entertainment; but the shrewd Duchess could very plainly see that the Princess was more charmed with the “music of the box and dice” than with any other instrument. Their royal highnesses had, at that time, a charming residence at Richmond, with beautiful walks, and woods wild and charming, but with a house scarcely handsome enough, as the Duchess thought, for the heir apparent.
The fashionable amusement of the day was ombre, a game in which the Duchess delighted, and in which she freely indulged with one Mr. Nevill, her companion on this occasion, whilst she acknowledged that listening to Mr. Nevill’s singing, in which he excelled, was almost as good an amusement, and a qualification thatpleased her grace mightily, at no expense. Yet ombre riveted her, in spite of its ruinous expenses; and, what was more, she enjoyed her visit to Richmond greatly, notwithstanding that she lost a considerable sum of money. Royal condescension could gild over the unpleasant features even of that incident, although, as the Duchess humorously remarked, “she lost a great deal of money for one who is not in the South Sea!” Yet she came away, nevertheless, with the intention of playing at ombre as long as she could keep my Lord Cardigan and Mr. Nevill at Woodstock, considering that there were but few now in whom she had any interest after her death to induce her to save.
Such were some of the reflections of the Duchess, in quitting the lovely and cheerful scenes of Richmond Park. She came away, delighted with little and great things, full of commendations of the Princess, who had enchanted her, more especially by calling back one of her grandchildren and bidding her hold up her head; a thing of which the Duchess was telling Lady Charlotte every day; and reflecting how well princes might govern without bribing parliament, and be as absolute asthey pleased, if they chose ministers of good reputation, who had the interest of their country at heart.[287]
It is evident, from these comments, that the Duchess expected to resume her influence, when the heir apparent should succeed to the throne of his father. Her daughter, the Duchess of Montague, was, indeed, appointed mistress of the robes to Queen Caroline. But the Duchess of Marlborough discovered that her influence was but little appreciated by the Walpole party, from whom she expected so much. It could not even obtain a commission for her grandson; it could not prevent constant broils with Queen Caroline, which engendered hatred in the mind of the Duchess towards that eulogised Princess.
Seventeen years after the pleasant day at Richmond, when age and infirmity had soured her temper, and time had plainly proved to her that her importance in the society of the great was for ever fled, the Duchess altered her opinion of Queen Caroline.[288]So mutable are opinionsin this world; and so transitory those fashions which capriciously hold up to public favour, or to general execration, the characters of royal personages.
The Duke of Marlborough had continued for some years in the same precarious state of health, to which his first attack of disease had reduced him. He had lingered six years after the first stroke of palsy, suffering repeated attacks of the formidable disorder. His mind, though not totally enfeebled, must, in all probability, have been affected in some degree by those visitations which shackle the limbs, impede the motions of the tongue, and usuallyrender the nervous system cruelly susceptible. Yet still the Duke retained many of his usual habits, underwent the fatigue of journeys, entered into society, and occupied his latter days in arranging the testamentary disposition of that vast wealth which he had laboured so long and so eagerly to accumulate.
The Duke of Marlborough is vaguely stated, by his biographer, Dr. Coxe, to have died “immensely rich;” others have declared his fortune to have amounted, at his death, to nearly a million sterling. It therefore became a matter of much solicitude with him, and it appears to have been so with the Duchess, that his grace should make such a will as should prevent any of those harassing and destructive litigations which are sometimes entailed upon a family to whom great wealth is bequeathed. It was, in this instance, more particularly requisite that every precaution should be adopted. The Duke left a numerous posterity of grandchildren, some of whom might, if so disposed, represent their illustrious progenitor as incapacitated by his infirmity from making an adequate disposition of his effects. The Duchess, with her usual acuteness, foresaw that such obstacles to the administration of his affairs, after his death, might arise; and she adopted the plan of writing a detailed account of her husband’scondition, and of his last actions, from which narrative the following extracts are taken.[289]
“I think it proper, in this place, to give some account of the Duke of Marlborough’s distemper, and how he was when he signed his will. The Duke of Marlborough was taken very ill at St. Albans, in May, 1716, with the palsy; but he recovered it so much as to go to Bath. He lived till June the sixteenth, 1721; and though he had often returns of this illness, he went many journeys, and was in all appearance well, excepting that he could not pronounce all words, which is common in that distemper; but his understanding was as good as ever. But he did not speak much to strangers, because when he was stopped, by not being able to pronounce some words, it made him uneasy. But to his friends that he was used to, he would talk freely; and since his death, Mr. Hanbury, the dowager Lady Burlington, and many others of my friends, have remarked to me, with pleasure, the things that they had heard him say, and the just observations he had made upon what others had said to him; and he gave many instances of remembering several things in conversation that others had forgot.”
A year or more after this time, the Duke foundit necessary to alter his will, and gave directions to Sir Edward Northey and Sir Robert Raymond to that effect. These gentlemen kept the will a long time, but, after it was returned to his grace, in 1721, it was formally signed by him, in the presence of Lord Finch, of General Lumley, and of Dr. Samuel Clarke, the celebrated divine, Rector of St. James’s. All of these gentlemen had read the will, at the request of the Duchess, before it had been signed. They were invited, on this occasion, to dine at Marlborough-house. The Duchess, in her plain, straightforward manner, gives the following account of the Duke’s deportment in this, almost the last effort of his weakened understanding and sinking frame; the closing scene of that drama of many acts, in which he had played the parts of General, Statesman, and Diplomatist.
“As soon as dinner was over,”[290]writes the Duchess, “he asked if Mr. Green was come, (he was Sir Edward Northey’s clerk;) and as soon as he came into the room he asked him how his mother did. Upon Mr. Green’s being come to put the seals to the will, the Duke of Marlborough rose from the table, and fetched it himself out of his closet; and as he held it in his hand, he declared to the witnesses that it was hislast will, that he considered it vastly well, and was entirely satisfied with it; and then he signed every sheet of paper, and delivered it in all the forms. After this the witnesses all sat at the table, and talked for some time. Lord Finch and Dr. Clarke went away first, about business; and when General Lumley rose up to go, who staid a good while longer than the others, the Duke of Marlborough rose up too, and went to him and embraced him, taking him by the hand and thanking him for the favour he had done him.”
Some months after this occurrence, the Duke made his last appearance in the House of Lords, leaving London in the spring, according to his usual custom.
On the sixteenth of June, 1722, this great, brave, and good man was removed from a world which probably would have ceased to be to him a scene of enjoyment, had not the benevolence of his disposition, and the strong nature of his domestic affections, secured to him a serenity which disease could not, with all its pangs, entirely destroy. Repeated attacks of palsy had shaken his once powerful frame. His intellect was weakened, but not wholly darkened. He had the blessing of being able, on his deathbed, to receive the consolations of prayer. Whilsthe lay for several days exhausted by disease, but aware that the great change was at hand, the Duchess, who remained with her husband until the spirit had passed away, inquired of her lord whether he had heard the prayers which had been read to him. “Yes, and I joined in them,” were the last intelligible words which the dying Marlborough uttered. He was removed from a sofa to his bed, at the suggestion of his wife, and remedies were fruitlessly applied to assuage the sufferings which were soon to terminate. The Duchess, and the Duke’s usual attendants remained near him; the rest of his family withdrew, as no symptoms of immediate danger were apparent. About four o’clock in the morning of the sixteenth of June, 1721, his soul returned to his Maker.
Thus sank to rest one of the bravest, and one of the most kindly-tempered of men. It were useless to descant at length on the character of one whose actions are indelibly engraved on every British heart, and with some of whose personal qualities we are rendered familiar from infancy. Yet, notwithstanding the able delineation of his intellectual and moral qualities, which has been at no remote period given to the world by Archdeacon Coxe, sufficient justice has nothitherto been done to the amiable and respectable attributes which characterised Marlborough in private life.
It is remarkable, that of three biographers who were selected by the Duchess or her family to write the history of the hero, all died successively, before the task was even commenced. An impartial biography, if such a work be compatible with the weakness and prejudices of human nature, by a contemporary, a friend, an associate of Marlborough, would have been invaluable. The well-weighed opinions and careful narratives of those who knew him not, can but ill supply the deficiency.
Of the early education which was bestowed upon the great general, we know but little, except that it was extremely limited. He may be termed self-educated; necessity first—ambition afterwards, being his preceptresses. Yet the disadvantages of early neglect were never, even by the assiduous and gifted Marlborough, wholly overcome. To the close of his life, after his extensive commerce with the continental world, after serving under Turenne, and enjoying the intimacy of Eugene, he could not speak French without difficulty. He was probably wholly unacquainted with the dead languages: it was said that henever could master even the orthography of his own.[291]With this disadvantage he rose to be one of the most accomplished courtiers, and one of the ablest diplomatists, in Europe. The energy and compass of a mind which could thus overcome difficulties of such vital importance as those which he must have encountered, when, from the pursuits of a mere soldier, he was compelled by his rapid elevation to enter into the arduous duties of despatches and correspondence, demand our admiration.
The moral character, as well as the intellectual powers, of Marlborough, underwent a remarkable change in the course of his chequered career. Few of those men, perhaps erroneously called heroes, could ever look back upon their progress to military fame with so little cause for remorse as John Duke of Marlborough. He left a name unsullied by cruelty. A remarkable combination of strong affections, with a natural suavity of temper, rendered him the beloved friend of men whose nature was not disposed to friendship. The crafty Sunderland and the unimaginative Godolphin loved him, after a fashion not of the world. To his own family he was peculiarly endeared, and, considering the effect of circumstances, singularly affectionate. His devotion to his wife,his love of his children, were not the only proofs which he gave of a kindly nature: his affections extended to all his numerous relatives. In one of his letters to the Duchess, he begs her to speak two kind words to his brother George, “as brother to him that loves you with all his heart;” and he is incessantly interceding for his sister, Mrs. Godfrey, whilst, at the same time, he owns that she was very indiscreet.[292]
Those graces of manner which, in Marlborough, are said to have disarmed his disappointed suitors, and to have conciliated men of all pursuits and all stations, proceeded from the kindliness of a happy temper, on which the habit and necessity of pleasing engrafted a dignified courtesy, of a higher quality than mere good breeding. His respect for himself and for others appeared alike in his conduct to his soldiers, and in his forbearance to the factious courtiers who forsook him when, on his dismissal from his employments in the reign of Anne, to know him was to know disgrace. He was, in the thorough sense of the phrase, as far as outward deportment was concerned, the kindly, high-bred English gentleman. Upon this fair picture some shadows must appear.
As a man of strict principle, and as a statesmanof unsullied integrity, the character of Marlborough cannot so readily be delineated, as in his domestic sphere. The principle of self-advancement grew with his growth, and soiled those beautiful attributes of a nature so brave and benignant, that we are unwilling to believe he could indulge a selfish passion, or even cherish a weakness. From the days when he was a page in the court of the second Charles, permitting, to say the least, the disgraceful mediation of the Duchess of Cleveland, to the hour when, for the last time, he carried the sword of state on New Year’s day before George the First, the ruling passion of Marlborough was gain—gain of patronage, of money, of fame, of power. For patronage he forbore to spurn the loose preference of a debased woman; for objects of less immediate acquisition he deliberately abandoned the interests of a sovereign and of a master at whose hands he had received unbounded favours. But it may be pleaded, that in deserting the cause of James the Second he adopted, in accordance with the first men of the day, the only measures by which his country could be rescued from the tyranny and bigotry of that wretched ruler. The plea may hold good, but no similar excuse can palliate his resuming a correspondence with theexiled King, whose cause he had upon such just grounds relinquished.
The conduct of Marlborough in prosecuting the war so long, and, as it was urged, without adequate necessity, is even more open to censure than the previous passages of his public career. His success was intoxicating, even to his calm temper, and well-poised mind. But the man who could kindly familiarise himself with his soldiery, share their hardships, so as to obtain the name of the “Old Corporal,” and inculcate the necessity of religious observances upon those who looked up to him with enthusiastic respect, was not likely to sacrifice those troops to a wanton desire for fame, unconnected with some signal public good. The letters of Marlborough plainly show that such was his conviction, and the treaty of Utrecht seemed to justify the conclusion that peace had arrived too soon,—if ever, except at the expense of future tranquillity, it can arrive too soon.
The tenderness of Marlborough towards the lowest in degree; his piety, which led him never to omit the duty of prayer before and after a battle; the sinking health which rendered his later campaigns severe trials to his harassed frame; his pining for home, and for her whom he regardedas the day-star of his existence; all tend to encourage the opinion, that concerning the much-contested question of the war, he was, if in error, a sincere believer in the necessity of its continuance, and a sanguine expectant of much good to be derived from its ultimate success.
In moral conduct, the Duke of Marlborough, after the early period of his youth, gave to the world an edifying and an uncommon example. Numerous as his enemies were, they could not, even with the assistance of Mrs. Manley, bring home one accusation of gross immorality to his charge, after his early, and it must be allowed for many years, happy marriage. His foes, at a loss for subjects of invective, passed on to another theme, regarding which one would gladly be silent: the charge of avarice. This is one of his failings, respecting which we would gladly say with Lord Bolingbroke, when checking a parasite who sought to please him by ridiculing the penuriousness of the Duke of Marlborough; “He was so very great a man, that I forget he had that vice.”[293]His enemies, indeed, took care that it should not be forgotten. It became proverbial in their mouths. “I take it,” says Swift, in one of his letters, “that the same grain of caution which disposeth a man to fill hiscoffers, will teach him how to preserve them at all events; and I dare hold a wager, that the Duke of Marlborough, in all his campaigns, was never known to lose his baggage.”[294]The story of the Duke’s chiding his servant for his extravagance in lighting four candles in his tent when Prince Eugene came to confer with him,[295]is of that species of anecdote to which no one can attach either credit or importance.
That anecdote, so generally in circulation, which describes Marlborough creeping out of a public room at Bath, with sixpence that he had gained at cards, and walking home to save the expense of a chair, we would willingly, with Lord Bolingbroke, forget. His taste, and the good sense which characterised his mind, led him, in an age of extravagance, to avoid ostentation. His table was in the old English style, which by many persons was considered too plain for his rank.[296]His attendants were few; and his dread of increasing the necessary evils of a numerous retinue appears, from some portion of the correspondence between him and Sir John Vanburgh, to have been very great. His dress was habitually simple, except on state occasions, when itsmagnificence is referred to by his contemporary, Evelyn.
With those habits of care, not to say penuriousness, which have been universally ascribed to the Duke, he joined a willingness to relieve the destitute, for whose sake he forgot, when occasion required it, the objects which would have been dearest to a selfish man.[297]
“This great man,” John Duke of Marlborough, say the newspapers of the day, “was completely under the management of his wife, as the following story, well known in the family, evinces. The Duke had noticed the behaviour of a young officer in some engagement in Flanders, and sent him over to England with some despatches, and with a letter to the Duchess, commending him to her to procure some superior commission in the army for him. The Duchess read the letter and approved of it, but asked him where the thousand pounds were, for his increase of rank. The young man blushed and said, that really he was master of no such sum. ‘Well, then,’ said she, ‘you may return to the Duke.’ This he did very soon afterwards, and told him how he had been received by the Duchess. The Duke laughingly said, he thoughtit would be so; but he should, however, do better another time; and presenting him with a thousand pounds, sent him over to England. This last expedition proved successful.”
We may be assured that the petty penuriousness which was ascribed to Marlborough has at all events been greatly exaggerated,—as such errors are always magnified by report. His early narrowness of fortune produced notions of exactness, into which men of business-like habits are prone to fall; and when wealth flows in, it is not easy to discard the small practices which have crept in upon us, step by step, imperceptibly, and which originated in a virtuous principle. Marlborough, however, had one great attribute, possessing which, no man ought to be severely deprecated for penuriousness. He was just. If, unlike Turenne, he had not the greatness and disinterestedness to neglect, in his campaigns, opportunities of amassing wealth, he encroached not upon others in private life; he economised, when economy was needful to preserve him from debt; he spent freely on a large scale. It was in trifles that his “regina pecunia,” as Prince Eugene called it, was his household deity. He maintained many noble establishments, and expended upon Blenheim sums which the nation refused to pay. And finally, immense as it was,he left his wealth in the right channel. No disgraceful connexions, no propensities to gaming, nor to destructive speculations, impaired his fortune, or entailed disgrace upon his name.