Mrs. A. T. Thomson

“ This perplexing and irritating conduct on the part of Lord Sunderland was one of a series of political vexations, which Marlborough and his Duchess experienced at the hands of that able, but violent nobleman.
The Duchess of Marlborough had now wholly embarked on that voyage of politics which ended only with her long and weary life. A taste for the excitement for cabal, like a passion for gaming, grows with indulgence; it is rarely wholly relinquished, but fastens itself upon the character, until every faculty is absorbed in what is popularly termed a spirit of party. ”

“ How often does it occur, that in the hurry of life some event interposes to show us the fruitlessness of our cares—to prove to us our position, as powerless instruments in the hand of Providence—to mark the weakness of our wills, and the transient nature of all that we prize, and of all that we have sought to gain, by rising early, and late taking rest, and eating the bread of carefulness!
Whilst the Duchess of Marlborough, by the workings of her powerful mind, swayed the destinies of party, and governed her sovereign, it was decreed that a chastising hand should humble and restrain her ”

“ What can we say to the woman who could undervalue such affection, and fritter away the happiness, the glory of being Marlborough’s wife, in petty intrigues and heart-burnings which marred their matrimonial felicity. Some qualities there must have been, generous and attaching in her character, which attracted, in spite of the vexations raised by her provoking activity and interference—in spite even of temper, that word of mighty import in the catalogue of human woes—the ever-returning affection of her husband towards her. ”

“ Brought up in a monastery, the simple-minded Katharine vainly hoped to reform her dissolute husband, whose inconstancy at first grieved and shocked her virtuous notions. Unlike her rival, Anne Duchess of York, a shrewd and worldly woman, who strove to fill her saloons with the young and the fair, Katharine was surrounded by her countrywomen, old, stiff, ungainly, repulsive Portuguese ladies, of birth and pride, who soon became the subjects of infinite merriment to King Charles’s court. ”

“ And now commenced that course of prosperity which proved so intoxicating to the mind of Lady Marlborough, and which is said to have engendered the vice of cupidity in the otherwise noble nature of Marlborough. It is one of the besetting temptations of a long career of success, that it induces us to set a value upon our exertions, and our merits, which produces the curse of discontent. Nothing can come up to our sense of what we deserve: and the bounties of fortune, like some luscious liquors, create only a thirst for more. ”

“ Proud rather than principled, and a coquette, this lovely, aspiring woman had no sooner entered upon her duties of a maid of honour, than her youth and innocence were assailed by every art which could be devised, among men whose professed occupation was what they termed gallantry. Frances united to her other attractions remarkable powers of conversation; her raillery was admirable, her imagination vivid. It was not long before her fascinations attracted the notice of that devotee and reprobate, James Duke of York, whose Duchess she served. ”

“ Like Marlborough, Godolphin, when asked to confer favours, softened his refusals with a kindness and frankness which propitiated even the disappointed.
The notions of economy, which this great minister adopted, not grounded on a passion for wealth which sullied the brightness of the great Churchill’s virtues, were applied with the same rigid care to the public means, as to the expenditure of his own private fortune. Grave even to sternness, he won universal esteem from his inflexible justice, and in society was the object of affection, no less than of respect. ”

“ Thus repelled, William looked in vain for a servile compliance from the Whigs; they had the plea of consistency to shackle the support which they might be expected to give the royal minion of their power; and, having always opposed the crown, they were unwilling to relinquish that jealousy of its prerogative for which their party had hitherto been distinguished.
After the happy termination of the war in Ireland, factious spirits, like gnats after rain coming forth in the sunbeam, began to show themselves, and to congregate for action. ”

“ The worst attribute of Philip Duke of Wharton, as a citizen of the world, was his indifference to reputation. Men of pleasure are not generally indifferent to a character for honour and consistency; but Lord Wharton cared merely for ephemeral applause. Attached, in reality, to no party, and having no actual motives but those of expediency, there was not the slightest dependence to be placed upon those visionary things, his opinions, beyond the moment when he was haranguing a popular assembly, or debating in the House of Lords. ”

“ The young nobleman who had not some small amount of poetical fame, amplified into extraordinary fecundity of genius by the gratitude of poorer and wittier men, seemed to the world scarcely to have fulfilled his destiny, as a man born to all the luxuries of praise and fame. The commotions of the second James’s reign, and the indifference of his grave successor to the interests of learning, checked, but did not annihilate the notion, that to nobility some exhibition of literary taste, and an extensive appreciation of it in others, were essential attributes. ”

“ Already, at an early age, she had been addressed, in secret, with professions of attachment by the young Earl of Mulgrave, afterwards Marquis of Normanby, one of the most accomplished and amiable noblemen of his time. But these proposals were checked as soon as they were discovered, yet not before Anne had imbibed a partiality, or, in the cold words of the historian of her reign, an “esteem,” for the young man, which continued in the form of a kindly regard, until party and politics broke the charm which the recollection of an early attachment had created. ”

“ The more placid, but more steady opposition of Bentinck, Earl of Portland, to all that Lady Marlborough proposed and desired, was supposed by her to be even more effective than the turbulent temper of Lord Rochester. Brave, faithful, disinterested, charitable, a favourite without presumption, a consummate statesman without forgetting the higher duties, Bentinck would have been a valuable and a devoted friend, had Lady Marlborough been so fortunate as to possess his esteem ”

“ Having something to say to you which I know will not be very pleasing, I chuse rather to write it first, being unwilling to surprise you, although I think what I am going to tell you should not, if you gave yourself the time to think, that never anybody was suffered to live at court in my Lord Marlborough’s circumstances. I need not repeat the cause he has given the King to do what he has done, nor his unwillingness at all times to come to such extremities, though people do deserve it. ”

“ The best bred man in Europe became rude and morose. He saw indeed that the popularity which he had in the early part of his reign enjoyed, was now no longer his; he reflected that he had no son to succeed him; that he was, as far as the crown was concerned, childless. Monmouth, the child of shame, whom he had recklessly raised to honour and importance, had caballed against his father; yet that father loved him still. Monmouth had outraged the filial duties, but Charles could not eradicate from his own heart the parental affections. ”

“ A favourite companion of Charles the Second, he never, like Marlborough, and Somers, and Cavendish, retrieved the errors of early youth by a sincere and effectual amendment. The consciences of those individuals were wounded by a sense of their transgressions; but his was hardened. His nature was debased by habitual sin; they, “like sheep, were led astray,” but their hearts were not corrupted. Purity, holiness, honour, had always charms for these great men, and must always have charms for those who are really great; but, to Lord Wharton, these lights were dim. ”

“ No distinction was accounted greater, among the nobility, than the power, and disposition, to reward literary merit. To be a patron of the learned, to protect, with more effectual aids than mere empty commendations, some one, if not several, of the needy wits who came to the metropolis on speculation, was as essential a line of conduct to any young nobleman who aspired to fashionable distinction, as it is now to belong to a certain order of society, or to possess the attributes, without which gentlemen, in every age, must sooner or later sink in the estimation of their own class. ”

“ And whilst Lady Marlborough casts aspersions on the noble-minded monarch, of petty import, she is obliged, for consistency’s sake, to pass over those later days of his life, when William generously placed a man whom he disliked at the head of military affairs, for the simple, but unfashionable, and, unhappily, not often regal reason, that he thought him best adapted to fill that trust. The unreasonable jealousy which he evinced towards the Princess Anne was, in fact, the great blemish of his social character. ”

“ As we have ever borrowed the most startling extravagances from the French, so we owed to Louis the Fourteenth the long reign of perukes, in the adoption of which we were servile copyists, until good sense drove out those disfiguring encumbrances, and left mankind free to breathe and to move untrammelled. When Anne reigned, many lived, more especially amongst the sons of the aristocracy, who could scarcely remember to have worn their own locks. Boys were quickly disguised in flowing curls—the higher the rank, the greater the profusion. ”

“ Endowed with beauty, with wit, fearless in her temper, unbending in her opinions, Lady Marlborough was not, nevertheless, one of those individuals whom the infections of slander could eventually taint. She was of too independent a nature to be readily susceptible of the tender passions. ”