Marlborough

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Marlborough, the slave of his country, the instrument and the controller at once of states and allied armies,—Marlborough, at length, was free,—at length he was permitted, even constrained, to return to the ordeal of private life; for to all men who have played a conspicuous part on the great theatre of the busy world, a domestic sphere must prove an ordeal which few, so situated, sustain with credit.
Since the first years of their early marriage, the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough had scarcely passed a year of uninterrupted conjugal enjoyment. ”

“ For some years after the accession of George the First, Marlborough continued to be a healthy and an active man; riding on horseback or driving about, and delighting, when he was at Blenheim, in walking about the grounds, inspecting those beautiful 268ornate scenes which his taste and wealth had caused to flourish around him. In the evening he received his friends without ceremony, and joined in the games of ombre, basset, and picquet, or of whist, his favourite game; and the illustrious and amiable Marlborough often descended to a pool of commerce with his grandchildren. ”

“ But whilst the measures which he advocated were thus carried into effect, Lord Marlborough had the mortification to perceive a growing coolness between himself and Lord Rochester, an impetuous and well-intentioned man, between whom and Lord Marlborough there had been a friendship of long standing, unshaken by Lady Marlborough’s dislikes and bickerings. [426] In quitting the shores of England, the great general experienced, in the midst of many sources of vexation, how invariably the eminent, and the successful, pay a tax to the rest of mankind for the possession of their envied advantages. ”

“ Marlborough found him the centre of a galaxy of glory of almost every description of military, political, and intellectual distinction. He was blazing in the zenith of his power and success: he was making France the world, and installing the Roman Catholic religion in a black and bloody predominance. "Unbroken good fortune," says Mr Alison, "had attended all his enterprises, since he had launched into the career of foreign aggrandisement." But how did Marlborough leave him? Let the dying monarch speak for himself. ”

“ Let us ask, in passing, what if these two heroes had changed times and places? Each was thrown on troubled and terrible times; each possessed great intellect, and resplendent military genius. Would Marlborough [140] have played Wellington's, or he Marlborough's part, on the scene of moral and political action? As far as the illustrious living hero is concerned, the question admits of an instant answer.
We have now, however, the character of Marlborough fairly delivered into the hands of Mr Alison, to be dealt with according to truth and honour. Will he concur with Mr Hallam and Mr Macaulay? ”

“ In this seeming anomaly Marlborough is a true illustration of its age, when men like Mercer were strong individuals but at the same time typifying and expressing the milieu in which they lived.
Mercer’s rise to wealth and leadership occurred at a time when favorable laws held out the promise of prosperity, while boundless lands offered unparalleled opportunities for investment. ”

“ Rude houses placed informally and connected by lanes and footpaths, the courthouse attempting to dominate them like a village schoolmaster in a class of country bumpkins, a few outbuildings, a boat landing or two, some cultivated land, and a road leading away from the courthouse to the north with another running in the opposite direction to the creek—this is the way Marlborough must have looked even in its best days in 1708. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whilst these minor events were disturbing the peace of the royal household, the first campaign in Ireland called Marlborough away from the home and the wife whom he loved so well. Every letter to the Countess which he penned during his absence, breathes a devotion which time and distance seem only to have heightened. ”

“ Alban’s, on the 15th of September, 1712, determined Marlborough to quit England, and to reside abroad until better times should return. The Duchess fully concurred in this scheme; which became the more and more necessary to their mutual peace, since not even could she and the Duke enjoy and return the ordinary courtesies of society, without incurring observation and provoking suspicion. Marlborough was furnished with a passport, it is said, by the instrumentality of his early favourite, and secret friend, Bolingbroke; and in October the Duke sailed from Dover for Ostend. ”

“ Again, I read Marlborough's life by a copious archdeacon, who has the command of immense papers, of sonorous language, of what is called the best information; and I get little or no insight into this secret motive which I believe influenced the whole of Marlborough's career, which caused his turnings and windings, his opportune fidelity and treason, stopped his army almost at Paris gate, and landed him finally on the Hanoverian side—the winning side ”

“ Marlborough “teaches the battle to rage;” the angel “directs the storm:” Marlborough is “unmoved in peaceful thought;” the angel is “calm and serene:” Marlborough stands “unmoved amidst the shock of hosts;” the angel rides “calm in the whirlwind.” The lines on Marlborough are just and noble, but the simile gives almost the same images a second time. But perhaps this thought, though hardly a simile, was remote from vulgar conceptions, and required great labour and research, or dexterity of application. Of this Dr. Madden, a name which Ireland ought to honour, once gave me his opinion. ”

“ On what apparently trivial incidents often depend the greatest events that can happen to mankind! Marlborough was received with transports [149] in England, and raised to the dukedom of Marlborough. The difficulties which the Dutch deputies had thrown in his way during the first campaign, owing, says Mr Alison, to timidity, ignorance of the military art, personal presumption, and the spirit of party, on several great occasions thwarted the most decisive measures of Marlborough,—but proved only a foretaste of what was in store for the harassed commander. ”

“ THE DEATH OF MARLBOROUGH AS A TOWN
Could this poor village have survived had the courthouse not burned? It was an unhappy contrast to the vision of a town governed by “benchers of the guild hall,” bustling with mercantile activity, swarming on busy market days with ordinaries filled with people. This fantasy may have pulsated briefly through the minds of a few. But, after the abrogation of the Port Act in 1710, there was little left to justify the town’s existence other than the courthouse. ”

“ After the return of the Duke and Duchess to England, it was the arduous office of the Countess of Sunderland to interpose her mild influence between the hasty temper of her husband and the overbearing spirit of her mother. She was the only one of “Marlborough’s daughters” who could brook the maternal authority, exercised even over her grown-up children with unsparing rigour; and Marlborough regarded this dutiful and forbearing child with peculiar affection, on that very account. ”

“ 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. ”

“ George Andrews and Peter Beach, somewhat less distinguished, were perhaps the only full-time residents from among the first grantees. After 1708 Thomas Ballard and possibly William Barber were also householders.
Thus, few of the ingredients of an active community were to be found at Marlborough, the skilled craftsmen or ship’s chandlers or merchants who might have provided the vitality of commerce and trade not having at any time been present. ”

“ But the enjoyments of Marlborough’s declining years were few and transient, whether they consisted in the exalting contemplation of a 316noble structure, the suggestion, though not the gift, of a nation’s gratitude; or in the small, the very small gratification of saving a sixpence, imputed to him by his contemporary; though it is possible, and to the good-natured it may appear probable, that to the humbled invalid, conscious of decay, the satisfaction of being able to resume old habits of activity, the habits of military life, may have been one source of the pleasure. ”

“ The rapid rise of Marlborough to the highest position in the State was due to his singular tact and his diplomatic skill in the management of men. In an age remarkable for grace of manner and for adroitness of compliment, his courteous demeanour and the art with which he refused or granted a favour extorted the admiration of every one with whom he came in contact. Through his consideration for the welfare of his soldiers he held together for years an army drawn from every nation in Christendom. ”

“ The author wiote, "I have tried for long to express in words the impression that the land north of Marlborough must leave.... Simplicity, paucity of words, monotony almost, and mystery are necessary. I think I have got it at last." Sending it home, along with a number of others, in April 1915, he described it as "the last of my Marlborough poems." Line 7: the signpost, which figures here as well as elsewhere (pp. 76, 83) in the poems, stands at "the junction of the grass tracks on the Aldbourne [Poulton] downs—to Ogbourne, Marlborough, Mildenhall, and Aldbourne. It stands up quite alone." ”

“ The last of our four living writers dealing with Marlborough is Mr Alison—a gentleman who has conferred world-wide service, and earned an enduring celebrity in English letters, by the fidelity and power with which he has recorded the mightiest series of events which the world has hitherto seen, and enforced their true teaching. ”

“ In 1716 Marlborough died. The British idea seems to be that his career of victory did not end at that sad event. In the Tower of London some years ago, I was shown a cannon which the warden who spoke by the authority of the three kingdoms, declared was taken by Marlborough at the battle of Dettingen. When I let fall a timid doubt, he repeated the statement with an indignant emphasis which silenced cavil. History does indeed record one other case of the sort. You remember at Rome, near the Cloaca Maxima, a spring where women were washing. ”

“ On the 8th of May, Marlborough set out with his army, crossed the Meuse at Maestricht, and arrived at Bonn on the 28th of that month. Marching up the Rhine, he crossed it at Coblentz on the 26th, and pushed on to Mundlesheim, where he met Prince Eugene, who now commanded the allied force there. Next only to Marlborough himself, Eugene was the greatest general of the age--skillful, dashing yet prudent, brave to a fault--for a general can be too brave--frank, sincere, and incapable of petty jealousy. ”

“ The country to the north of the little old town is very beautiful. The precipitous wall of the Marlborough Downs, with several lovely and little-known villages at its foot, is a remarkable feature of the landscape. The high road to Marlborough, that climbs the hills for three fatiguing miles, passes through the small village of Oare, where there is a modern red-brick church. Not far away to the west are the hamlets of West and East Towel, lost in the lonely by ways beneath the hills. ”

“ Such was Marlborough's first campaign, the herald of a long series of resplendent successes, many of them marked by features similar to those of the first. "He never," indeed, "fought a battle which he did not gain, nor sat down before a town which he did not take; and—alone of the great commanders recorded in history—never sustained a reverse! On many occasions throughout the war he was only prevented, by the timidity of the Dutch deputies, or the feeble co-operation of the Allied powers, from gaining early and decisive success ”

“ That they included no lawbooks at a time when Mercer was preparing for the law is an indication of his broad taste for literature and learning.
Marlborough, we can see, was occupied by a young man of talent, energy, and creativity. He alone, of the many men who had envisioned a center of enterprise on Potomac Neck, was possessed of the drive and the simple directness to make it succeed. For George Mason and the Waughs, Mercer was the ideal solution for their Marlborough difficulties. ”