Before the Revolution
Marlborough’s formative experience was that of a courtier.
a man of noble and graceful appearance, bred up in a court with no literature: but he had a solid and clear understanding, with a constant presence of mind. He knew the arts of living in a court beyond any man in it. He caressed all people with a soft and obliging deportment, and was always ready to do good offices.
Burnet, iii. 280.
In his early manifestation as a courtier, ‘no expectations were given of the accomplished officer and soldier. His complexion was fine and delicate, the whole fabric of his body… indicated nothing like strength and vigour’. His initial appointments at court, as a page and as an ensign were almost certainly due to the influence of his elder sister, Arabella, the duke of York’s mistress.
Churchill’s uncertain prospects partly account for his prolonged courtship of Sarah Jennings; his parents wished him to marry Katherine Sedley, daughter of Sir Charles Sedley‡ and another of York’s mistresses. He avoided the match by joining with his father in breaking the entail to the family’s estates, so that his father could pay his debts, and provide for his younger children. Meanwhile, the death of Sarah’s brother, Ralph, in the summer of 1677, made her a co-heiress to the family’s estates, and therefore a much better prospect. The date of Churchill’s marriage is unknown, but was probably shortly after the marriage of Princess Mary to the Prince of Orange in November 1677. It was not publicly acknowledged until May or June of the following year, and the first official document mentioning the fact was a deed of 15 June 1678.
Meanwhile, Churchill strove to improve his position. In November 1677, he paid Ned Villiers £2,000 for the post of master of the robes to York.
Churchill and his wife were particularly close to York’s younger daughter, Princess Anne. When Churchill’s daughter Anne (the future countess of Sunderland) was born in February 1683, the princess was one of her godparents. In June, Churchill (by now a Scottish peer, Lord Churchill), was one of those dispatched to bring over Prince George, the future duke of Cumberland, to England for his marriage to the princess. Following the marriage Sarah Churchill was employed in the household of the princess, first as a lady of the bedchamber and then as groom of the stole. Henceforth, both Churchills were important members of her household, and Sarah’s friendship with the princess became the key to his future career.
In the winter of 1684 the Churchills moved into the Cockpit, part of Princess Anne’s lodgings in the palace of Whitehall.
On 19 May 1685 he was introduced into the House by William Maynard, 2nd Baron Maynard, and Richard Butler, Baron Butler of Weston, more commonly known as the earl of Arran [I]. In all he attended on five days of this part of the session, and was named to three committees. He last attended on 12 June, thereafter he was engaged in the suppression of the rebellion of James Scott, duke of Monmouth. When the House resumed on 9 Nov. Churchill attended on each of the 11 days. Over the whole session, he attended on 16 days of the session, 37 per cent of the total.
At the end of December 1685, Sir John Reresby‡ suggested that Churchill was part of the faction led by Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland, and Lord Chancellor George Jeffreys, Baron Jeffreys, rather than that of the king’s brothers-in-law, Laurence Hyde, earl of Rochester, and Henry Hyde, 2nd earl of Clarendon. This was probably accurate, given Churchill’s suspicion of the Hydes.
By the end of Charles II’s reign the Churchills were already able to invest surplus income.
Although Churchill prospered, there is evidence of his continued concern over the direction of royal policy. On 29 Dec. 1686 Princess Anne wrote to her sister that Churchill ‘will always obey the king in all things that are consistent with religion – yet rather than change that, I daresay he will lose all his places and all that he has’. Churchill acted as Anne’s representative in discussions with Everard Dijkvelt in March 1687, whom William had sent to observe the political situation.
Despite any misgivings that Churchill may have had over the direction of royal policy, he continued in the king’s service.
In December 1687, Churchill revealed a certain sense of insecurity when he conveyed Sandridge to the family lawyer, Anthony Guidott.
On 3 Dec. Churchill told Clarendon that the king was mistaken in thinking he would have betrayed him to William if he continued his advance, adding that ‘he had never left him, but that he saw our religion and country were in danger of being destroyed’. On 8 Dec. Churchill was one of those consulted about the response to the commissioners sent from James, and one of those reporting their conclusions to the prince. He said very little on the contentious matter of whether to supersede the writs already issued for calling a Parliament.
Churchill was soon at the centre of the new regime.
Churchill was present on the opening day of the Convention on 22 Jan. 1689. Rather diplomatically, given his long service to James II, on 29 Jan. he was listed as absent with ‘some indisposition’ from the vote on whether a regency would be the best way to preserve the protestant religion and the nation’s laws.
After the Revolution, 1689-92
Despite William’s distrust, Churchill’s role in the Revolution and its aftermath brought him advancement. At the end of February 1689 he was named a gentleman of the bedchamber. On 9 Apr. he was created earl of Marlborough, choosing that title because of his mother’s distant relationship to the wife of James Ley†, earl of Marlborough.
William III’s suspicion of Marlborough’s closeness to Princess Anne was probably exacerbated by the question of an independent income for the princess, which the king opposed. The Commons grappled with the issue during the second half of 1689, eventually agreeing an address which was presented to the king on 23 December. On 30 Dec. the king’s reply was reported to the House: ‘whatsoever comes from the House of Commons, is so agreeable to me, and particularly this address, that I shall do what you desire of me.’ This victory for the princess and her court was bought at some cost. As Sarah later recalled, she ‘had taken a vast deal of pains to compass’ this settlement, and that this ‘was the true cause of King William’s and his queen’s anger against me’.
Marlborough was absent when the next session of the Convention convened and on 28 Oct. he was excused attendance, being abroad. He arrived back on 4 Nov. and attended for the first time on 6 November.
Marlborough was present at the opening of Parliament on 20 Mar. 1690, attending in all on 47 days, including the adjournment on 7 July, 87 per cent of the total. On 2 May Clarendon recorded that Marlborough ‘went away and gave no votes’ on the bill for the better securing King William and Queen Mary against the Jacobite threat.
In May Roger Morrice reported that Marlborough had lent the king £10,000, which may tally with a Jacobite report of 9 May that ‘Lord Churchill is raising as much money as he can upon his estates’.
Nevertheless, on 7 July the queen wrote that Marlborough was much with Carmarthen and Nottingham, and ‘loses no opportunity of coming upon all occasions with the others [the Council of Nine]’.
Marlborough’s service in Ireland meant that he was absent when the 1690-1 session convened, not attending until 29 Oct. 1690. On 27 Dec. he entered his dissent against the resolution allowing written protections to be given to menial servants. In all, he attended on 43 days of the session, 59 per cent of the total and was named to six committees. Meanwhile, his prestige was sufficient for rumours to circulate that he would be made master of the Ordnance and a duke, possibly taking the title of Albemarle, although his ambitions may have been restricted to the garter and a military command to accompany the ordnance.
When William went to The Hague early in 1691 for a military conference, he did not take Marlborough. The perception that Marlborough had grievances was picked up by Jacobite agents and in January 1691, Henry Bulkeley‡ made contact with the earl in the hope of preying upon his disillusionment.
Marlborough continued to be dissatisfied with his professional prospects. Important army commands had been given to Dutch and German officers like Godard van Reede Ginkell (later earl of Athlone [I]) and Solms, and he was only one of several lieutenant generals appointed in December for the next campaign in Flanders.
On 20 Jan. 1692, without warning, Marlborough was dismissed from all his offices.
Marlborough was in attendance at the beginning of the 1691-2 session, 22 October. On 12 Jan. 1692 he entered his dissent to the resolution to receive the divorce bill of Henry Howard, 7th duke of Norfolk. On 9 Feb. he registered his proxy to Godolphin, but he continued to attend the Lords until the adjournment on 23 February. Although one newsletter remarked on 2 Feb. that ‘Marlborough is present in the House of Peers daily’, he attended only 62 days of the session, 64 per cent of the total and was named to five committees.
Out of favour, 1692-4
In April 1692 Marlborough was excepted from James II’s pardon, although Portland had obtained information early in May that Marlborough had received a pardon by ‘his own promises to engage a great part of the army’.
Believing that the government was planning his destruction, Marlborough became more openly critical in Parliament and began to figure more prominently in Jacobite correspondence. Nottingham continued to collect intelligence, including an affidavit from Dr. Richard Kingston, affirming that Marlborough had said that King William ‘exercised a more arbitrary and tyrannical power than King James did’, and that ‘every good man ought to lay his helping hand to put an end to it’. Marlborough retained the support of Princess Anne, and socialized with various opponents of the ministry, including Bishop Compton, of London, Russell, Shrewsbury, Montagu, Carbery, Godolphin, Henry Boyle and Thomas Felton‡. Nor was he lacking support among government officials: Nottingham was informed that Sir John Werden‡, a customs’ commissioner, had made a speech at the board ‘in commendation of the Lord Marlborough’s carriage in the House of Lords’.
Marlborough was present when the 1692-3 session convened on 4 November. On 7 Nov. the House took into consideration the cases of Marlborough, Theophilus Hastings, 7th earl of Huntingdon, and Robert Leke, 3rd earl of Scarsdale, all of whom were still under bail in the king’s bench, and ordered the matter to be brought before the committee for privileges. On the 9th, the lord chief justice, Sir John Holt‡, was quizzed in a committee of the whole about his refusal to bail the accused. Upon hearing that such an action was not lawful, Marlborough asked for the protection of the House.
On 21 Nov. 1692 Marlborough acted as a teller in opposition to Ailesbury on the motion to vacate protections granted by Edward Clinton, 5th earl of Lincoln. On 7 Dec. he entered his protest against the failure of the House to agree to a committee of both Houses to consider the state of the nation. On 8 Dec. he acted as a teller in opposition to Richard Lumley, earl of Scarbrough, in a division concerning the ordnance. On 20 and 21 Dec. he was named to manage a conference on the naval papers brought to the Lords by Nottingham. In a follow-up to this, on 29 Dec. he was named to prepare reasons for a conference on whether the vote delivered from the Commons approving Admiral Russell’s conduct was according to the usual manner of proceedings, and was then one of the managers of the subsequent conference on 4 Jan. 1693. On 31 Dec. 1692 and 3 Jan. 1693 he voted in favour of the place bill, signing a protest against its rejection on 3 January.
At about the turn of the year, Ailesbury forecast Marlborough as a likely opponent of Norfolk’s divorce bill; he voted against it on 2 Jan. 1693. On 17 Jan. he entered his dissent against the resolutions concerning the failure of Charles Knollys’ claim to the earldom of Banbury. On 19 Jan., following the report of a conference with the Commons, he entered two dissents to the resolutions concerning the failure of the Lords to insist on their amendments to the land tax bill. On 24 and 25 Jan. he was named to manage conferences on the recently published libel, King William and Queen Mary Conquerors. On 4 Feb. Marlborough voted Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohun, not guilty of murder. When the House considered the heads of advice to be offered to the king on 11 Feb. he acted as a teller on two occasions in opposition to John Egerton, 3rd earl of Bridgwater, who reported the heads to the House. Both men were then named to draw up the resultant address.
On 6 Mar. 1693 Marlborough dissented to the resolution not to communicate to the Commons information concerning the state and condition of Ireland. Two days later he entered his dissent to the expiring laws bill. On 10 Mar. he was named to report the conference on the bill concerning the duchy of Cornwall, and then named to draw up reasons for the Lords insisting on their amendments to the bill. On 13 Mar. he acted as a teller in opposition to Feversham at the report stage of the bill to prevent the false and double return of Members. On 14 Mar. he was named as a reporter to the conference on the bill to prohibit trade with France and for the encouragement of privateers. In all he was present on 95 days of the session, 93 per cent of the total, and was named to 25 committees. Clearly, his presence must have been pervasive, and a reminder to the government that he might be better off employed rather than left to foment opposition.
During August 1693 Marlborough took part in the political manoeuvring aimed at securing a reconstruction of the ministry. On the same day Charles Hatton affirmed the importance of Marlborough to the discussions when he wrote that ‘Lord Churchill’ had effected a reconciliation between the two royal sisters. The crucial summit of ‘great men’, at Althorp included Shrewsbury, Montagu, Godolphin, Marlborough, Russell and Thomas Wharton, future marquess of Wharton; another meeting was hosted by Montagu at Boughton. The intention was to replace Nottingham with Sunderland; Sydney was to carry ‘the scheme of this great new settlement’ to the king and according to Anne Nicholas ‘if he will accept of them they will give him four hundred thousand pounds’.
Marlborough was present when the 1693-4 session opened on 7 November. He attended on 103 days of the session, 81 per cent of the total. On 4 Dec. he acted as a teller for a division on the triennial bill. In the debate which followed about what constituted holding a Parliament, he offered the word ‘assemble’ as part of the definition. On 8 Dec. he backed Devonshire’s amendment defining a session as being held even if ‘no act or judgment’ should pass. On 21 Dec. Marlborough moved that the duchess of Grafton and William Bridgeman‡ be allowed to withdraw their petition in the cause of Bridgeman v. Holt, the duchess having agreed the matter with the lord chief justice. The matter was adjourned, ‘some Lords thinking such a failure of justice should not go without some censure.’
On 3 Jan. 1694 Marlborough was named to manage a conference about the proceedings in council concerning the admirals who had commanded the fleet the previous summer. On 12 Jan. he suggested that the Lords adjourn until the House receive a more satisfactory answer from the king. He was named to further conferences on the conduct of the admirals on 15 Jan. and 8, 12 February. On 15 Feb. he acted as a teller concerning the same issue. On 5 Jan. Marlborough was named to manage a conference on the Lords’ amendments to the place bill. On 17 Feb. he voted in favour of reversing the court of chancery’s dismission in Montagu v Bath. On 26 Feb. he spoke in support of the Commons’ bill for the reform of treason trials, which was lost without a division. On 14 Apr. he was named to manage a conference on the bill for the easier recovery of small tithes. In all he was named to a further 20 committees during the session.
Marlborough was not an opponent of the government out of conviction; he still sought a return to office. He had helped convince Shrewsbury to return to office as secretary at the beginning of March 1694, in part to secure his ‘own peace’.
Rehabilitation, 1695-8
Marlborough was present at the opening of the 1694-5 session, 12 November. On 22 Nov. he acted as a teller in a vote concerning stamp duty on parliamentary records. The death of Queen Mary on 28 Dec. opened the way towards Marlborough’s rehabilitation as it emphasized the need for a reconciliation between William and Princess Anne. As Shrewsbury observed on 29 Jan. 1695, Marlborough had ‘no small credit’ with Princess Anne and seemed ‘very resolved to contribute to the continuance of this union, as the only thing that can support her, or both. I do not see he is likely, at present, to get much by it, not having yet kissed the king’s hand, but his reversion is very fair and great’.
On 19 Mar. 1695 Marlborough acted as a teller in a division on the descent of baronies by writ. On 13 Apr. he was named as a reporter of the conference with the Commons concerning Sir Thomas Cooke‡ and the East India Company. He was named to the committee to draw up reasons to be offered at a conference on the matter, and was named as a manager on the 17th. On 18 Apr. he was named to manage a conference on the expiring laws bill. On 22 Apr. he was elected (with 26 votes – the joint lowest total), as one of the peers to serve on a joint committee with the Commons in the examination of Cooke; he also served as the manager of a conference about it on the 24th.
Meanwhile, Marlborough’s slow rehabilitation continued; he kissed the king’s hand on 29 Mar. 1695, and it was reported that he would serve as a lieutenant general in Flanders.
Having attended the prorogation on 8 Oct. Marlborough was present on the opening day of the 1695-6 session, 22 November. On 5 Dec. he was named to manage a conference on the coinage. On 6 Dec, in the committee of the whole on the state of the nation, he supported moves to investigate the naval failings of the previous summer, noting that ‘whether by a negligence or treachery the losses of the merchants did arise’. On 14 Dec. he was named to a conference on the address against the Scottish East India Company. On 23 Dec. in committee of the whole on the treason trials bill, he supported making the statute effective from the year 1695, and not postponing it. He also wished to draw the definition of the crime against the king to include ‘any violence, hurt or mischief of the king’.
On 3 and 7 Jan. 1696 Marlborough was named to manage conferences on the bill for regulating the silver coinage, which had been extensively amended by the Lords. On 9 Jan. he entered his protest against the resolution that the House not insist upon a clause allowing, for a limited time, the export of coin; acted as a teller in on the question of whether to insist upon the Lords’ amendment about the Mint receiving gold in the coinage bill; and entered his dissent against the resolution that the House not insist upon a clause requiring that the deficiency on all clipped coin be made good. He was then appointed to the committee to prepare reasons for the Lords insisting on some amendments to the bill; and what should be offered, concerning the Commons denying the Lords a right of inflicting pecuniary penalties. He was then named on 10 Jan. to manage the ensuing conference. Also on 9 Jan. Marlborough acted as a teller on the question of whether to read the petition of Sir Richard Verney* , the future 11th Baron Willoughby de Broke. On 24 Feb. he was named to the address committee following the king’s speech alerting the Lords to the Assassination Plot, and to the resultant conference with the Commons. He signed the Association on 27 February. In all he attended on 101 days of the session, 82 per cent of the total and was named to a further 48 committees, reporting on the Wye and Lugg navigation bill.
Marlborough continued to seek advancement. On 23 May 1696 Sunderland wrote to Portland about a successor to Henry Capell, Baron Capell, as lord deputy in Ireland, that there were ‘many pretenders and none more pressing than Marlborough’.
Marlborough was present when Parliament convened on 20 Oct. 1696. On 6 Nov. the king informed the Commons that the information given by Fenwick contained allegations against ‘several persons of quality’, including Marlborough. Fenwick was sent for and questioned by the Commons, and given the opportunity to substantiate his charges. Following the inadequacy of his answers, the Commons voted that his information was ‘false and scandalous’, and ordered a bill of attainder to be brought in against him. In these debates Charles Montagu, future earl of Halifax, distinguished himself, doing ‘great right’ to Russell, Shrewsbury and Marlborough, ‘by name, showing how improbable this fiction was, as to any of you’.
Marlborough first stood up, and spoke… that he did not wonder to find a man in danger, willing to throw his guilt upon any other body; that he had some satisfaction to be owned in such good company; but that he assured their Lordships that he had no sort of conversation with him, upon any account whatsoever since this government.Shrewsbury Corresp. 438-39.
Marlborough informed Shrewsbury on 2 Dec. that ‘it all went as well as you could wish’, and that ‘Rochester has behaved himself on all this occasion like a friend’.
On 5 Jan. 1697 Somers wrote to Shrewsbury that Marlborough and Russell would be with him the next day concerning the machinations of Charles Mordaunt, earl of Monmouth, over the Fenwick affair. On 9 Jan., Marlborough and Godolphin ‘spoke in behalf of themselves’ and of Shrewsbury when the Lords considered the papers which Lady Mary Fenwick had produced upon the order of the House (of 22 Dec.) about how Fenwick should behave at his trial. On several occasions this advice to Fenwick mentioned using the evidence which had led to Marlborough’s committal to the Tower in 1692 by contriving to have it laid before the House. On 15 Jan., when the Lords debated these papers and Monmouth’s role therein, Marlborough, together with Godolphin, and others, ‘all pressed that they could not but look upon him as the contriver of those papers, and the judgment of the House ought to be formed accordingly’.
Marlborough was involved in other business during the session. On 30 Nov. 1696 he was named to manage a conference at which the Commons communicated their resolution on the privilege of Members. His skills as a mediator were called upon in an attempt to resolve disputes involving peers. On 4 Dec. he was one of seven peers appointed to compose matters between Devonshire and John Sheffield, marquess of Normanby, over the purchase of Berkeley House.
Peace brought with it the prospect of ministerial changes, and Marlborough was very much part of the political speculation that spring and summer. In April 1697 John Locke was informed that Sunderland was being cultivated ‘and ’tis buzzed about that he is bringing the Lord Rochester, Marlborough and Godolphin into play’.
Marlborough was present on 3 Dec. 1697 when the next session opened. Vernon reported on 6 Jan. 1698 that when Bartholomew Burton was examined by the Commons about the false endorsement of exchequer bills, he ‘gave some occasion to think of it by saying he had contracted with some gentlemen to pay their subscriptions, they laying down half the money should have the benefit of the whole sums’ naming Marlborough among others, ‘but those present denying it, and he being called in again it appeared that he very ill explained himself, for besides the half deposited he had the party’s bills to negotiate for the rest and they were to bear the discount’.
On 6 May 1698 John Methuen‡ informed Galway that the Irish interest had ‘been much frighted about the woollen bill, but I have at last engaged my Lord Godolphin, Rochester and Marlborough to secure it for this session and they kept their words, and have put it off a week in such manner that I hope we shall certainly gain our point’.
Return to office, 1698-1701
By 11 June 1698 Vernon had heard that ‘Marlborough is to be one of the cabinet council; he will be a very fit man to be one of the lords justices, there being a want of such.’ The king declared this and Marlborough’s appointment as Gloucester’s governor at the cabinet on 12 June, and on 16 July Marlborough was declared one of the lords justices.
Marlborough was present when the 1698-9 session opened on 6 December. On 29 Dec. Somers wrote to Shrewsbury of the king’s intentions to abandon the country in the wake of the votes on the army, noting that the king ‘had spoken of it to my Lord Marlborough (which one would wonder at, almost as much as the thing itself)’.
Marlborough was named a lord justice by the king on 30 May 1699.
Marlborough was present at the opening of the 1699-1700 session on 16 November. Vernon reported that on 8 Dec. the Commons considered the state of the debt owing to the Prince George, and that although Marlborough ‘has bestirred himself… some of the leading men were not to be prevailed with.’
On 5 Apr. 1700 William III wrote to Portland to get him to encourage the lord privy seal, John Lowther, Viscount Lonsdale, in his opposition to the Irish forfeitures bill, adding ‘I did so myself yesterday evening; but Milord Marlborough who dogs his footsteps certainly intimidates him. If the bill does not now fall in your House, I count all lost’.
By the end of the session ministerial changes were being openly discussed even before Somers was dismissed in May. As ever, Sunderland ‘struck up a new scheme’, involving Marlborough, Godolphin and Rochester.
On 30 July Gloucester died of smallpox, bringing the issue of the succession into sharp focus, and by implication enhancing Marlborough’s importance as the leading counsellor of the heir to the throne. On 5 Sept. Guy intimated to Harley that Marlborough had been instrumental in patching up a disagreement with between Godolphin and Rochester adding on the 24th that Sunderland, Godolphin and Marlborough ‘do positively say that the king must and will go on, and that without doubt Harley will have a summons, and that he must be positive and bold and rely upon his strength, for that will be sufficiently able to do it thoroughly’.
On 22 Sept. Marlborough was reported to have arrived at St Albans from Althorp, having elicited from Sunderland that he had no designs to visit London that winter.
Marlborough attended the election held at St Albans on 15 Jan. 1701 in support of his brother, George, while remaining aloof from the struggle for the second seat. He missed the opening of the 1701 session on 10 Feb., first attending on 21 February. On 14 Mar. he was named to draw the address on the partition treaty. On 15 Mar. Portland revealed that the treaty had been shown to a group of leading royal servants, including Marlborough, before the ratifications in late February 1700. Having obtained the king’s permission to respond, on 17 Mar. Marlborough informed the House that he had seen a rough draft of the treaty during a meeting at Portland’s, but never been formally consulted on it as the Privy Council had never discussed it. As Leeds (the former Carmarthen) perceived it, those including Marlborough named by Portland ‘to have been the Lords before whom the treaty hath been considered’, had all ‘had the king’s leave to declare their parts in it, and have all them shew’d their particular dislikes to several parts of it, and so have left it at the king’s door’. As Marlborough was not one of the men ‘struck at’ nothing was said against him.
Meanwhile, on 12 May 1701, Brydges recorded in his diary that the Marlboroughs ‘came to see me and left Lady Tyrconnel’s petition’, presumably the petition from her surviving trustees, Sir John Temple and Anthony Guidott, relating to Irish forfeitures, which was presented to the Commons on 19 May.
Commander-in-chief, 1701
On 31 May Marlborough was appointed commander-in-chief of the English forces abroad. The following month, on 26 June, the king also appointed Marlborough ambassador-plenipotentiary to be England’s chief negotiator for the new treaty of grand alliance. On 1 July Marlborough and the king left for Holland. Once there Marlborough paid some attention to domestic politics: on 8 July he asked Godolphin how Sunderland ‘has behaved himself’ to Rochester and Godolphin as the king ‘has not named him since we have been here’. Marlborough also noted that Albemarle had told him the king had said that Sunderland was ‘very unreasonably dissatisfied with’ Marlborough. The earl certainly feared Sunderland’s influence noting on 6 Aug. that ‘it’s already said in England’ that Charles Howard, 3rd earl of Carlisle, ‘is come over to turn all things into another channel by his means’.
Marlborough was keen to have the allocation of forces to be supplied by each party to the alliance agreed by Parliament. As he wrote to Vernon on 3 Oct. 1701 ‘if the king should be prevailed upon to settle this by his own authority… we shall never see a quiet day more in England, and consequently not only ruin ourselves, but also undo the liberties of Europe’.
Marlborough favoured an early meeting of the existing Parliament to take advantage of the change in political opinion caused by Louis XIV’s recognition of James III, abrogating the treaty of Ryswick.
Marlborough was present when the 1701-2 session began on 30 December. On 1 Jan. 1702 he signed the address of support for William III attendant upon the recognition of the Pretender by France. On 3 Jan. Sandwich registered his proxy with Marlborough. On 5 Jan. he laid before the House the treaties which had been signed with England’s allies during the summer and autumn of 1701. On 9 Jan. Marlborough wrote to the grand pensionary of Holland, Anthonie Heinsius, to inform him that the Commons had unanimously agreed to furnish 40,000 men for the war, suggesting that this as clear evidence that ‘the gentlemen of England are entirely in the interest of Holland’. He then added a request that ‘your prints may make no party distinctions’. This was one of many letters to Heinsius in which he interpreted events in Parliament. On 20 Jan. he added that when the estimate for the 40,000 troops was laid before Parliament on the following day it might ‘occasion some angry speeches, but pray be not alarmed, for I dare assure you that the quota of forty thousand will be made good to you’.
On 25 Jan. 1702 Godolphin wrote to Speaker Harley upon Rochester’s ‘dismissal’ that he and Marlborough would wait on him at his house the following evening.
The king’s fatal illness saw Marlborough, Godolphin and Harley in consultation, with Godolphin arranging a meeting for the evening of 6 Mar. 1702.
During the early months of the new reign there was discussion about the extent to which Marlborough and Godolphin would be free to take a moderate course. Rochester and the Tories desired ‘a more entire change, to be carried quite through all subaltern employments’. Burnet added that Marlborough had assured him that the mainly Tory ministry was appointed ‘upon the promises they made to carry on the war, and to maintain the alliances: if they kept these, then affairs would go on smoothly in the house of Commons; but if they failed in this, the queen would put her business in other hands’.
Marlborough was one of five peers named by the queen to inspect King William’s papers, following which they declared to the Lords on 4 May 1702 that they had not found anything ‘tending to the prejudice of the queen, or her succession to the crown’. Marlborough was absent through ill health, but according to Burnet he confirmed the findings ‘to some peers who were sent by the House to ask him the same question’.
The Session of 1702-3
As early as 23 July 1702 Marlborough was thinking of the next Parliament: hoping that it might meet to do business early in October. On 28 July he felt the need to reassure Heinsius about the results of the general election: ‘by the elections that are come, they seem to be more of the Church party than Whigs, but I beg you to be assured that whatever sort of men are chosen they will be all zealous for the common cause’. On 10 Aug. he asked Heinsius to ensure that when the Danish ambassador to London, Christian von Plessen, passed through The Hague he knew that Marlborough was fully supportive of the claims of Prince George to command the allied forces: ‘I take him to be an honest man, but he is imposed upon by my Lord Rochester’. Also on 10 Aug. he told Godolphin that Rochester ‘will always be endeavouring to give mortifications’ to them, and that if he continued ‘disturbing underhand the public business’, the queen would have to intervene to ensure he took up his Irish lieutenancy in person. Once on campaign, Marlborough faced pressure from Godolphin for his return to England at the earliest opportunity in order to assist in the planning of the war and the resultant parliamentary business. Marlborough found it ‘morally impossible’ for him to be in London two weeks before the parliamentary session.
By 14 Sept. 1702 Marlborough’s thoughts had turned to the queen’s speech at the opening of Parliament, so that he could provide the Pensioner with some idea of its contents. On 6 Oct. he informed Heinsius that as he could not be at The Hague ‘time enough to discourse you concerning what the queen may say to the Parliament, if there be any particular thing you could wish she should put in her speech, that may be good for the common cause, I desire you will let me know it’. By 8 Oct. he had received the heads of the speech but since he was not able to be at The Hague in time to send the Pensioner’s thoughts on them before the opening of the session, he did not make use of them, apart making a suggestion that something should be said in the speech about the Cadiz expedition, which was done.
Godolphin clearly expected a political boost from Marlborough’s arrival, ‘from a very much applauded campaign, for himself and the reputation of the queen’s government, will easily have influence to disperse those clouds and a great many others of the same nature’.
As early as 22 Oct. 1702, first Godolphin and then the queen had intimated to Sarah that she wished to raise Marlborough to a dukedom. Marlborough was able to counter his wife’s arguments against the honour with reference to Heinsius’s arguments in favour.
In keeping with Marlborough’s long service to the queen, he was involved in cajoling the Lords to accept the bill settling £100,000 for life on Prince George. In the committee of the whole on 11 Jan. 1703 there was a debate on a clause exempting the prince from the clause in the act of settlement excluding ‘strangers, though naturalized’ from English offices and peerages after the Hanoverian succession.
At the third reading of the bill against occasional conformity on 19 Dec. 1702, Marlborough was one of those peers that had argued that although ‘the thing was just in itself’, it was ‘unseasonable’.
Marlborough’s local power base in St Albans often led to delicate negotiations with the nominal head of Hertfordshire society, the lord lieutenant, Algernon Capell* , 2nd earl of Essex. Of particular importance was the make-up of the lieutenancy and at the end of February 1703 Adam de Cardonnel‡ delivered Marlborough’s list of the gentlemen to be added to the lieutenancy to Secretary Hedges. When Hedges showed it to Essex, he ‘made some scruple at the number and said he should speak to your grace of it at your coming to town’.
Marlborough’s powers of patronage reached even to the peerage itself. On 14 Mar. 1703 Lady Hervey wrote a letter thanking Sarah for her ‘kind mediation’ through which her husband, John Hervey, was raised to the peerage as Baron Hervey.
The one field of patronage in which Marlborough’s powers were of limited reach was the Church, but that did not prevent him from trying to advance his favoured army chaplains; on 24 May 1703 he proposed Dr. Knightly Chetwood for the vacant see of St Asaph, but to no avail. More serious were the patronage concerns relating to the ordnance in which he was bedevilled by disputes at Carlisle involving the earl of Carlisle on one side and the Musgraves on the other.
Marlborough’s letters during March 1703 evinced some concern with Tory manoeuvring. On the 16th he wrote of Rochester’s ‘passion and faction’, and that ‘the more submissive 19 [Rochester] is, the more care must be taken that he may not have to do with any business that may concern 85 [the queen], for he is not capable of having anything but revenge in his heart’. Similarly, on the 26th, he wrote that if Buckingham (as Normanby now was) ‘continues being so impertinent’ as to join with Seymour and others ‘to obstruct business’, it would be ‘better to be plain with him, than to suffer him to go on in that way. For, by that he will be much abler to do mischief, than if he were out, and I am very much mistaken if he will care to part with his place’.
Marlborough’s prestige also placed the marriage of his remaining unmarried daughter, Lady Mary Churchill, in the spotlight. As early as May 1703 the duke evinced some concern that a marriage proposal from Montagu on behalf of his heir John Montagu, the future 2nd duke of Montagu, was ‘very good if the young man were some years older’.
Marlborough remained concerned about Tory plotting, his anxieties centring on Rochester, Musgrave and Seymour. A visit from the two latter to the former was interpreted by him in June 1703 as flattering Seymour into doing ‘such mischiefs as they dare not openly own’. Upon Sarah urging a purge of Tory office-holders, he reflected that even if some were fit to be removed, such as Jersey and Buckingham, there were no obvious replacements. Instead, he felt Rochester should be spoken to by the queen, for if his influence ‘be strong enough to declare which way the war shall be managed, they may ruin England and Holland at their pleasure, and… do it in a manner as may not at first be unpopular, so that the people may be undone before they can see it’. The Scottish parliament and the succession was also becoming an issue. Somewhat naively, on 3 June he wrote to the duchess, ‘I do not understand the Scotch affairs, but I should think the settling of the Succession can’t but be good’. By 14 June he told Godolphin, ‘methinks the Scotch affairs do not go well’.
Marlborough was perennially distracted while abroad with requests for his early return home. He wrote to Heinsius on 31 July 1703, ‘I am already so pressed to be early in England, that my stay at The Hague can’t be long’. Nor was he willing to compromise his neutral stance between the parties; on 29 Aug. he told the duchess ‘that I shall always continue in the humour I am now in, which is to be governed by neither party, but to do what I think is best for England, by which I know I shall disoblige both parties’. He continued to be worried by Tory machinations, telling the duchess on 9 Sept. that he agreed with Godolphin that Seymour ‘will not be his nor my friend this winter, but play the knave and fool as he did last winter’. On 27 Sept. he added that Buckingham’s impertinence came naturally to him, and that ‘I dare say you will find him the most troublesome this winter’, and ‘if possible’, a more violent party man than Nottingham.
The Session of 1703-4
On 29 Sept. 1703 the secretary at war, William Blathwayt‡, made several salient points to Marlborough as he looked forward to the parliamentary session: how far, he asked, was the duke willing for military success to ‘be taken notice of as there shall be occasion at the next meeting of the Parliament’ and he requested that he would ‘be pleased to inform such as are fittest for the direction of such a matter’. Further, he asked that Cardonnel ‘transmit such a scheme’ as Marlborough judged proper ‘to be laid before the House of the additional charge of this last year and of the whole in all particulars for the year to come’. Blathwayt added that this should be sent as soon as possible in case Marlborough ‘should be detained by contrary winds or otherwise on the other side, as the last year, after the opening of the session’. On 30 Sept. Marlborough outlined his fears that ‘if both parties agree that the war must not be offensive in this country… the Dutch will not think themselves very safe in our friendship’. By saving the Dutch ‘they must preserve us from the arbitrary power’ of Rochester and the Tories. He hoped ‘the heats that continue between the two parties’ could be overcome by the management of Godolphin and Harley.
Marlborough arrived in The Hague on 16 Oct. 1703.
On 25 Dec. 1703 Marlborough journeyed to Petworth, where on the following day he met Archduke Charles, the Habsburg claimant to the Spanish throne.
Marlborough sailed from Rotterdam on 12 Feb. 1704, landing at Gravesend and attending the Lords on the 15th.
tells his party that the queen is desirous to do everything that would give them satisfaction, but that she is hindered by you and me; that he is so convinced that we shall in a very short time put all the business into the hands of the Whigs, that if he can’t get such alterations made in the Cabinet Council as he thinks absolutely necessary for the safety of the Church, he would then quit.
Nottingham had then suggested tacking the bills against occasional conformity and reviving the commission of accounts to the land tax bill.
The Blenheim Campaign and the Session of 1704-5
On 9 June Marlborough responded to the news that ‘matters are not like to go well’ in Parliament and that Wright and Buckingham would act with ‘all the ill that is in their power’, by leaving matters to Godolphin, who as he was ‘upon the place is best judge of what measures ought to be kept with them. I employ my own thoughts so entirely of succeeding in what I am a doing that till this is over I am not capable of helping in any other matter’. This did not prevent him from proffering the advice on 25 June that Queensberry should be sacrificed if he should ‘oppose the queen’s business’, or on 2 July that ‘since the liberties of Europe will depend upon the Parliament being in good humour this next winter, so that I entirely agree with 46 [Harley], that everybody ought to be spoke to very plainly’. On 16 July Marlborough suggested that Buckingham’s ‘intentions are to be troublesome the next winter … for he is governed by nothing but self-interest’. On 30 July Marlborough agreed with his wife on the desirability of Parliament sitting ‘as early as possible’, as he had told Godolphin before he left London. Following the battle of Blenheim (2 Aug.), the need to replace the men lost in battle became an additional imperative for Parliament’s early meeting. With that in view on 10 Aug. Marlborough was already thinking of taking an account on oath from every regiment ‘so that the Parliament may provide for it’.
The Emperor celebrated Blenheim by making Marlborough a prince of the Empire. Vernon rather perceptively hoped that ‘Marlborough will overcome envy as well as the common enemy; but as dangers decrease from abroad, they may strengthen at home, if there be not great prudence used to prevent it’.
Meanwhile, the duchess sent him a stream of letters on the position of the remaining Tories in the ministry and their penchant for trouble-making. On 9 Oct. 1704 he had to fend off criticism that he was favouring Tory designs: ‘my pretending to be of no party is not designed to get favour, or to deceive anybody, for I am very little concerned what any party thinks of me’, and ending with a desire to retire to a country that did not know ‘the detested names of Whig and Tory’. On 23 Oct. having been further nagged by Sarah, he returned to the position of Buckingham, who he felt was ‘in measures’ with Nottingham and Rochester to ‘give all the obstruction that is in their power to the carrying on the public business with vigour this sessions’. To allow him to retain his post would encourage others to obstruct business. For a replacement Marlborough suggested John Holles, duke of Newcastle, who had long been favoured by Harley.
Although he was destined to be absent from Parliament until mid-December 1704 (he was excused attendance on 23 Nov.), Marlborough maintained a close watch on proceedings. On 5 Dec. he returned to the matter of recruits, telling Godolphin ‘for God’s sake let the House of Commons be pressed to help in the getting of men early, for I think the success of the next campaign depends upon which shall get first into the field’.
The Tories seemed intent on stirring up trouble for the ministry. In their Address on 25 Oct. the Commons coupled Marlborough’s success at Blenheim with Rooke’s at Malaga. In about November, Marlborough’s name appeared on a list, which may be a forecast of those thought likely to support the Tack. His views were unequivocal on the issue. On 5 Dec. he wrote to Harley welcoming the defeat of the Tack: ‘when I reflect on the dangerous consequences the obstinacy of some people might have produced, I cannot but think this happy turn as great a victory with reference to England as any advantage we have had since I saw you’.
Marlborough embarked from Rotterdam on 11 Dec. 1704, arriving at Greenwich from whence he went to St James’s on 14 December. He attended the Lords for the first time on 15 Dec., when he received the thanks of the House. He spent Christmas at St Albans, and then Windsor Lodge, returning to London on 2 Jan. 1705 having spent ten days in the country. On 3 Jan. the standards captured at Blenheim were paraded in Westminster Hall. On the 6th he attended a dinner in his honour at Goldsmiths’ Hall paid for by the lord mayor and aldermen. Not everyone was convinced of Marlborough’s military prowess, some preferring to give the credit to Prince Eugene: as his once prospective bride, Katherine Sedley, countess of Dorchester put it, ‘Dr. Radcliffe and I can cure a fever’.
As before, meetings to manage parliamentary affairs were regularly held between Marlborough, Godolphin and Harley. Messages between the two latter often demonstrated Marlborough’s initiative in such matters; for example, ‘Marlborough desires the gentlemen of the House of Commons may be summoned to meet at Mr. Boyle’s tomorrow night’.
this and the other business will make her majesty be early tomorrow night at the Cabinet Council. I therefore wish that after you have dined you would come tomorrow to my house that we may have a little the more time, and I will endeavour to get the duke of Marlborough to meet you there.Add. 70285, Godolphin to Harley, ‘Sat. at 7’ [24 Feb. 1705].
On 2 Feb. 1705 Sandwich registered his proxy with Marlborough and on the following day William North, 6th Baron North, did likewise. On 7 Feb. Marlborough, Godolphin ‘and the courtiers’ spoke against the second reading of the place bill, which was committed ‘yet such amendments were ordered to be made to it as tis thought will hardly be complied with by the Commons,’ which proved to be an accurate assessment.
Interestingly, Marlborough did not feel the need to interpret parliamentary events to Heinsius during this session, limiting his comments to assessments of when Parliament would rise and therefore when he could be expected in Holland. Before Marlborough went on campaign he was involved in facilitating a ministerial change. On 23 Mar. he was reported to have ‘just now spoken with’ Buckingham, ‘who is not very easy with it’, presumably the idea of taking the position of lord privy seal away from Buckingham, and offering him the position of lord keeper (albeit in commission), replacing Wright, instead. On 24 Mar. Godolphin wanted to see Harley at his home ‘if it were only to take leave of the duke of Marlborough’, and also to discuss the ‘matter of the great seal’.
The 1705 Election and the Session of 1705-6
With a general election in progress, Marlborough defined a good Parliament as one in which ‘neither party might have a great majority, so that her majesty might be able to influence what might be good for the common cause’. He now had a parliamentary interest to defend at Woodstock, through his nominee, William Cadogan†, the future Earl Cadogan. Cadogan was allegedly set up ‘contrary to all assurances and promises’ made to Montagu Venables Bertie, 2nd earl of Abingdon, previously the dominant interest in the borough. Marlborough even wrote to St John and James Craggs‡ to insist on a poll, even if defeat was certain, and asked St John to get Sir Simon Harcourt, the future Viscount Harcourt, to appear for Cadogan. The election at St Albans also proved difficult with both seats only being gained after a petition against the Tacker, John Gape‡, even though the duchess was present in person to support his opponent, Henry Killigrew‡.
The Whig victory at the polls in 1705 posed a managerial problem for the duumvirs: to ensure support for the ministry in Parliament required concessions to the Whigs, which the queen seemed unwilling to grant. On 25 May Marlborough suggested that the queen ‘advise with [the] lord treasurer what encouragement may be proper to give them’.
Marlborough was increasingly the target for pamphleteers, a most unwelcome development given his sensitivity to criticism. Already in July 1703, he had written to the duchess of his being ‘named in a libel [The Prophecy]. I beg you will send it me, for if I should not see it, I shall think it worse than maybe it is.’ Now came James Drake’s Memorial of the Church of England, which Marlborough thought ‘the most impudent and scurrilous thing I ever read; for if such liberties may be taken of writing scandalous lies without being punished, no government can stand long’, even though he was able to laugh at its depiction of Buckingham and Jersey as pillars of the Church.
found out a mid-way; only to acquaint the House that the discovery was in great part made, but because [it] reached some of the servants of their Members, and might [reach] some of their Members, the queen thought fit to lay it before the House that she had made such a progress in it; but not the informations themselves, unless asked for; the Secretary to be instructed to say, if the House inclinable to call for ’em, he had leave to lay them before the House.Cowper, Diary 35-36.
The following day Harley informed the Commons of developments. On 22 Jan. Godolphin wrote to Harley about the prosecution of Stephens, understanding that the duke would ‘have him prosecuted in both your names or in neither’. On 3 Feb. Stephens approached Harley to facilitate his ‘humble submission’ to the duke for publishing ‘those false and malicious reports of him, which with too great credibility I have received’.
Towards the end of the campaigning season, Marlborough faced a dilemma, which he summed up on 3 October. Portland ‘thought my going to Vienna was necessary, but at the same time he told me that my being at the opening of the Parliament might prevent heats’. In the end Marlborough decided on Vienna, but this did not prevent him from proffering advice to the queen: she should follow Godolphin’s advice in order to carry on the war as the only other course of action was to rely on Rochester and Nottingham, which would encourage party warfare. In the event, the queen yielded to their entreaties and replaced Wright as lord keeper with William Cowper, the future Earl Cowper, at the end of September. From Vienna Marlborough demanded from lieutenant general Thomas Erle‡ that ‘no care will be wanting in laying the proper estimates before the Parliament, and making the necessary demands for the service of the Ordnance’. Nor did he neglect the contribution of army Members to the parliamentary arithmetic, informing Godolphin on 9 Oct. that he would ‘send over all the Parliament men before I leave the army, except Cadogan, who cannot well come before me’. On 3 Nov. he regretted the heats engendered by the struggle for the speakership of the Commons, hoping that a large majority would make the queen’s business ‘easy, for I think Europe must be saved by England’. Even in Vienna, Marlborough was capable of considering the demands of Parliament, writing to Harley on 3 Nov. that he ‘had taken care that Mr. St John may be instructed to answer as well as he can any demand the Parliament may make as to the state of the quotas furnished by the allies this campaign’.
Marlborough was excused attendance on the House on 12 Nov. 1705. On 15 Nov. John Thompson, Baron Haversham, made a motion for an address inviting the electress of Hanover to reside in England, a delicate matter given the queen’s inveterate opposition. Marlborough thought it would be easy to convince the elector that it was ‘unseasonable and may be prejudicial to his interest’, to condone such a move. On 18 Nov. he was able to forewarn Godolphin of a proposal to lend the emperor £250,000, a loan to which Marlborough eventually subscribed £10,000.
after we had agreed to send the deputations into the country and had answers from most people, whom we took care to sound, I heard that Reeves was appointed clerk of the lieutenancy. I wish this trifle be not sufficient to sour some people. It’s a nice matter to bring that county into humour; when they are once so, a little care will maintain it.
On 14 June St John wrote ‘the commissions of lieutenancy are sent into Oxfordshire, and I intend to be in that country as soon as this embarkation is over’.
the true occasion of these misunderstandings… was the occasional conformity bill, which as it was unseasonably set on foot, was so unwarrantably prosecuted, that it might give just grounds to suspect that something else was aimed at besides the bare passing of that bill. That when designs were formed against the lord treasurer, the laws of friendship, as well as the queen’s service, obliged you to make what interest you could for his preservation. That not your grace but the e[arl], of N[ottingham], and Sir E. S[eymour], were to be blamed, who made that conduct which displeased him, unavoidable.Add. 61365, ff. 23-24.
By March 1707 Marlborough was working to ensure that his son-in-law, now styled Viscount Rialton, would be chosen knight of the shire at the next election. Opposition was expected at the assizes, Shrewsbury writing that ‘he will meet with a greater opposition than I could have imagined an heir of the duke of Marlborough recommended by him could have found’. Marlborough engineered a reconciliation with Abingdon and Rialton was elected unopposed.
Marlborough took part in several other debates during the 1705-6 session. On 21 Feb. he was one of those peers that spoke successfully against Rochester’s motion to dispense with the standing order of allowing 14 days after the commitment of a private bill.
Ramillies, the Union and the Session of 1706-7
Despite Marlborough’s victory at Ramillies on 12 May 1706, he thought that ‘France is not yet reduced to her just bounds, and that nothing can be more hurtful to us on this occasion than seeming over-forward to clap up a hasty peace’.
On the related question of the Union with Scotland, Marlborough advised Godolphin on 29 July that ‘care must be taken against the malice of the angry party, and notwithstanding their malicious affectation of crying the church may be ruined by the Union, the Union must be supported.’ To this end Marlborough was willing to write to James Johnston‡, even though he had ‘very little interest’ with him. On 29 Aug. Marlborough related to Johnston his view that nothing could tend towards the ‘public good’ than ‘the union of the two nations’, and asking him to use his interest with John Ker, duke of Roxburghe [S], to get him to support the project. On 12 Oct. Johnston reported that he had received a letter from Marlborough ‘earnest for the Union’, although his reply made Marlborough think that ‘as far as I can judge by it he has no opinion of the Union, nor will meddle so as to be of any use’. Further Marlborough agreed to persuade Argyll to take leave of absence from the campaign to promote the Union.
With no progress having been made towards accommodating Whig demands for office on 26 Sept. 1706 Marlborough revealed to Godolphin the gist of a letter he had written to the queen:
I am not for putting yourself into the hands of either party. But the behaviour of Lord Rochester and all the hot heads of that party are so extravagant, that there is no doubt to be made of their exposing you and the liberties of England to the rage of France, rather than not be revenged as they call it. This being the case, there is a necessity as well as justice of your following your inclinations in supporting lord treasurer, or all must go to confusion. As the humour is at present, he can’t be supported but by the Whigs, for the others seek his destruction, which in effect is yours.
As he affirmed to the duchess on 30 Sept. Rochester and the tackers ‘are not for carrying on the war, and consequently not in the true interest of the queen and kingdom’.
On the eve of the parliamentary session, the queen finally gave in and appointed Sunderland to the secretaryship. Marlborough was present on the opening day of the session, 3 Dec. 1706, noting to Thomas Wentworth, 2nd Baron Raby (later earl of Strafford), that ‘the proceedings today in Parliament… gives us the prospect of a very happy session’. On 13 Dec. he wrote to Heinsius that ‘everything goes in Parliament as could be wished’.
Meanwhile, on the 4 Dec. 1706 the House ordered thanks to be given to Marlborough when he was ‘in his place’, which took place on the following day. Marlborough was now in a strong position to bring to gestation plans to exploit his success for the purpose of establishing his family. On 14 Dec. Charles Powlett, 2nd duke of Bolton, moved successfully for an address to the queen to allow Marlborough’s honours to be passed by act of Parliament through the female line.
On 24 Jan. 1707 Marlborough informed Albemarle that the Union had passed in Scotland and ‘is like to meet with some struggle here, though I make no doubt but it will have a happy issue’.
Harley and the Session of 1707-8
On 7 Feb. Marlborough had successfully approached Bishop Compton for a prebend of St Paul’s for his chaplain, Francis Hare†, the future bishop of Chichester.
as to what you say that I must either put my business into the hands of 4 [Harley], or follow 10 [Godolphin’s] measures, I should be glad you would explain yourself a little more on that, for I know no measures 10 has but what were laid down when 40 [Marlborough], was here, and I do not know I have broken any of them, for I cannot think my having nominated Sir William and Dr. Blackall to be bishops is any breach, they being worthy men, and all the clamour is raised against them proceeds only from the malice of 18 [the Whigs].
She rejected the charge that Dawes and Blackall had been recommended to her by Harley: ‘I do assure you these men were my own choice.’
Given the opposition which Marlborough and Godolphin had encountered at court, typified by the time-consuming battles with the queen over appointment of Sunderland and the Whig bishops, they cast around for its source. On 22 May 1707, Marlborough wrote to Sarah, acknowledging receipt of a letter in which she had revealed her suspicions that Abigail Masham had been speaking of business to the queen. This in turn pointed the finger at her distant relative, Harley. On 30 June Marlborough advised Godolphin to find a way to speak plainly to Harley ‘for if he continues in doing ill offices upon all occasions’ to Somers, Sunderland and Halifax, ‘it will at last have so much effect upon 239 [the queen], whose inclinations are already that way, it must occasion that no measures will be followed’. To the queen on 7 July he wrote that the ‘interest of the Whigs obliges them to be more governed by you than that of the Tories’. Blaming ‘the malice of their chiefs, and the behaviour of the greatest part of the clergy’, he told her that if the Tories were in charge, ‘they would not carry this war on with vigour, on which depends your happiness and the safety of our religion’. In conclusion, he advised that the queen ‘lose no time in taking such measures with [the] lord treasurer as may make the next sessions of Parliament cheerfully enable you for the carrying on of this war, without which all must run to ruin’.
Whilst Marlborough recognized the need to appease the Whigs, he also valued Harley’s managerial qualities. On 4 Aug. 1707 he told the duchess that ‘there is no possibility in my opinion of acting otherways than making use of him, so that there should not only be pains taking in possessing 42 [the queen] of a just character, but also of convincing 199 [Harley]’. He also warned her that if the Whigs ‘mortify’ the court, it would dishearten Godolphin and then Harley would have ‘the power and credit of doing what he pleases’. To Godolphin the ‘timely remedy’ to the influence of Abigail and Harley was for Marlborough to join him in ‘speaking very plainly at the same time to Mrs. Morley [the queen] both of 199 [Harley] and a great many other things, and settling a rule for preventing (before it is too late) all those uneasinesses for the future’. To accomplish this Marlborough needed to be in England before the Parliament met. Marlborough appears to have taken this on board for on 1 Sept. he asked Sarah for her thoughts on ‘what you think best for the service and quiet of 38 [Godolphin], for whatever it be I think it ought to be put in practice before the meeting of the Parliament.’
Other matters of concern to Marlborough while on campaign were the repercussions of the failure of the attack on Toulon, and the machinations of the Tories at Hanover in promoting an invitation to Princess Sophia, which the Whigs threatened to support. On 20 Aug. Marlborough offered Godolphin advice on how to deal with Peterborough (the former Monmouth): ‘you must do no step in that matter but in conjunction with’ Halifax, Somers, Sunderland, and if possible Wharton.
not let those that have the honour to serve you govern your affairs agreeable to the circumstances of the time, your business must inevitably run to confusion, and consequently make it impracticable for 10 [Godolphin] to continue in his employment. For if he be thought to have the power and do not govern, both parties will be angry with him, but when once out of service both will admire and be his friends. If I were with you I believe I could better let you see the trouble and distraction you are like to be in this winter, which you must prevent before the meeting of the Parl[iament], or it will be too late.Add. 61101, ff. 103-4.
In a more practical vein, he informed Godolphin that he would write to St John shortly about ‘what ought to be laid before the Parliament concerning the troops. For if I take time for my doing what is necessary on this side the water, they will have met above a fortnight before I can be in London’. If Parliament ‘at their first meeting should not act with vigour, it must add to our misfortunes abroad.’
With the need to settle matters before Parliament met, Godolphin suggested on 22 Sept that Marlborough return to England for a fortnight while Parliament ‘passed all their votes and taken their resolutions for carrying on the war’, and then go back to The Hague to finish concerting measures with the allies. On 25 Sept. Godolphin informed Harley that he had asked Marlborough to be in London four or five days before Parliament met. Marlborough could not agree to this as he was already committed to a journey into Germany, but on 27 Sept. he suggested delaying the meeting of Parliament for two weeks. On 7 Oct. Godolphin thought that would be difficult, but that ‘nothing is fixed here to make 88 [Parliament] succeed, nor can 38 [Godolphin] do anything so shameful as to abandon 42 [the queen] but upon a joint measure with Mr. Freeman [Marlborough]’. He hoped Marlborough would ‘hasten’ over ‘so that nothing very material may be decided finally before you come’.
Cadogan reported that Marlborough was ready to embark for England on 28 Oct. 1707, awaiting only a ‘fair wind’. He embarked on 4 Nov. arriving in London on 7 November.
On 9 Dec. 1707 Vernon told Shrewsbury, ‘I don’t think you can expect to see the duke of Marlborough [in the country], very soon, for our House is now upon enquiries relating to the war’.
the ministry had been reflected on by some Lords during the session and therefore desired they would speak out who had anything to say and if there was any misconduct that it might be laid before the House: and without dealing in general terms desired the Lords that were dissatisfied to mention the actions and persons that were to blame. His grace showed at the same time how bad it was for the ministry to be schooled on all occasions when any member of the House thought fit to do it whether there were any reason given or not, and acquainted the Lords with several particulars relating to the last campaign and that which is to come that they say were fully satisfactory and took away all occasion of complaint.Addison Letters, 84-85; HMC Egmont, ii. 220-21; Vernon-Shrewsbury Letters, iii. 301; Timberland, ii. 184-85.
Following the adjournment of the House on 23 Dec. Brydges summed up the situation: ‘by the steadiness of my Lord Marlborough, &c we have all been preserved from the violence of the Whigs’.
On 22 Dec. 1707 Marlborough went ‘to pass the holidays at Blenheim’, returning on the 30th.
At this point, the divisions between the leading ministers as to how to manage Parliament reached a crisis. Discussions had been ongoing between Marlborough, Godolphin and Harley over the idea of strengthening the ministry by bringing in some moderate Tories to join those moderate Whigs who had supported the ministry in December, and who were likely to support the lord treasurer over the admiralty, the Scottish Privy Council and the conduct of the war in Spain. However, Harley appears to have gone too far, albeit with the queen’s backing, and attempted to negotiate with Tories such as William Bromley‡ who had been the ministry’s vigorous opponents. In effect, Harley presented Marlborough with the option of abandoning the lord treasurer and joining a new scheme of government, one with which he had some sympathy given his natural inclination towards moderation and his fear of Junto domination. The alternative was to stick with Godolphin and his plans to reconstruct the ministry by admitting more Whigs into office. Marlborough only backed Godolphin after being convinced that moderate Whig opinion would not join Harley’s scheme.
Once Marlborough had made his decision to remain loyal to Godolphin, he informed the queen around 6 Feb. 1708 that:
since all the faithful service I have endeavoured to do you, and the unwearied pains I have taken for these ten days to satisfy and convince your majesty’s own mind, have not been able to give you any such impression of the false and treacherous proceedings of Mr. Secretary Harley to lord treasurer and myself, but that your majesty is pleased to countenance and to support him to the ruin of your own business at home. I am very much afraid it will be attended with the sorrow and amazement of all Europe as soon as the noise of it gets abroad. And I find myself obliged to have so much regard to my own honour and reputation, as not to be every day made a sacrifice to falsehood and treachery, but most humbly to acquaint your majesty that no consideration can make me serve any longer with that man.Add. 61101, ff. 109-10.
The brief power struggle which followed was essentially resolved at the cabinet meeting on 8 Feb. before which Godolphin, Marlborough and his wife all threatened to resign, whereupon a number of lords indicated their refusal to serve with Harley by declining to do business in their absence. In response, on the 9th the Commons let the supply bill lie on the table and in the Lords, ‘after a warm report that the queen was not to be prevailed on by the duke of Marlborough and lord treasurer’s united requests to part with Secretary Harley’, Wharton ‘made a motion to enquire into the matter of [Harley’s office clerk] Greg’s condemnation’.
No sooner had Marlborough departed than Robert Walpole†, the future earl of Orford, wrote to him on 30 Mar. of difficulties in the Commons over army recruitment. Nor did the duke obtain much respite from Godolphin, who as early as 5 Apr. was reminding him of his plans to return for a short visit later in the month. The exigencies of the war demanded a visit to the Elector of Hanover instead.
The Election of 1708 and the turn to the Whigs
The implication of Maynwaring’s analysis was clear: a turn to the Whigs was necessary, and to most observers this meant an office for Somers. Maynwaring was relieved to find that Marlborough was not blocking his return to office: ‘I am very glad to find so plainly that there is nothing imputed to my lord duke upon the business of Lord Somers, because I will endeavour to convince some people of that’.
With electioneering in full spate, Marlborough told the duchess on 25 Apr. 1708 that he ‘liked so well’, Defoe’s Advice to the Electors of Great Britain that ‘I have read it twice’. At St Albans, George Churchill was narrowly defeated for the second seat by Joshua Lomax‡, while Gape topped the poll. Marlborough was no doubt ‘vexed’ by the failure of his brother to be returned (although he was elected for Portsmouth), and by the failure to remove Gape from the Hertfordshire bench, for which he blamed Essex. However, he had resolved ‘to meddle as little as possible’ in the election, and not to spend any money.
As a peer of Scotland Marlborough was entitled to participate in the election of representative peers and he was canvassed for his vote. On 27 Apr. 1708 he informed Godolphin that he had promised Lady Orkney to endeavour to get her husband, George Hamilton, earl of Orkney, elected, and asked him to speak to Queensberry, Sunderland, Boyle and Cowper to help effect it. By virtue of being on campaign, Marlborough had to exercise his rights by proxy; on 7 May James Ogilvy, earl of Seafield [S], wrote a detailed letter of instruction to ensure that he followed the correct form in disposing of his proxy.
The election had returned a clear Whig majority, and Godolphin’s apprehensions of the forthcoming Parliament should the queen not include more Whigs in office, meant that as early as 13 June, he had written to Marlborough to request his arrival at least 15 days before it sat.’
Given the struggle to obtain the appointment of more Whigs to office, Marlborough continued to affirm to the queen his desire to be free of domestic politics, ‘to serve you in the army, but not as a minister’.
it is utterly impossible for you ever to have more than a part of the Tories, and tho you could have them all, their number is not capable of doing you good, no more than their inclination, they can do you hurt by making the Whigs jealous and uneasy, and that is their great aim, for they know that must have the consequence of dividing the Whigs, and by that means, enabling them to cast the balance on the side of those who are and will always be, in opposition to your majesty’s administration and government.Add. 61101, ff.135-36.
On 22 July Marlborough wrote to Sarah that ‘I will always be in the interest of 89 [Whigs]’, but ‘at the same time, for their sakes and that of the public, as well as my own reputation, I must be master of judging of my actions towards 39 [the queen]’.
Although Marlborough believed that the Tories had got possession of the queen through Mrs. Masham, the queen was not to blame other than ‘by being too fond’ of her, ‘who imposes on her’. The queen of course refused to acknowledge such an influence, writing on 6 Aug. ‘I am very sorry to find you persist in your resolution of not advising me concerning my home affairs… there being nobody but 40 [Marlborough], and 10 [Godolphin], that I do advise with nor can rely on’. On 27 Aug., with a scheme of parliamentary management becoming urgent, the queen put it to Marlborough that ‘I think things are come [to the point] whether 17 [the queen], shall submit to the five tyrannizing lords [the Junto Whigs Orford, Sunderland, Halifax, Somers and Wharton], or they to me… let me know your thoughts of what may be the best expedient to keep 17 from being thrown into the hands of the five lords.’ Meanwhile, Marlborough was tactfully attempting to prevent his wife from making the situation worse: hoping that since she had observed that the queen ‘is not capable of being changed by reason’, so ‘you would be quiet till the time comes in which she must change’. As he re-assured his wife in November, so long as the queen was governed by the cabinet in ‘affairs of consequence’, and Godolphin was ‘well with the queen’, then Masham could only ‘vex, but never do mischief’.
To maintain the pressure, the Whigs signalled their intention to attack the admiralty, and specifically Marlborough’s brother, who was thought to influence Prince George and hence the queen. Marlborough remained loyal to his brother, but under no illusions as to his political failings as ‘a very indiscreet’ Tory, with ‘so little judgment that he is capable of any indiscretion’, although ‘I am very sure he would not say or do anything that he thought might prejudice the queen’.
Despite his absence, Marlborough maintained a close watch on one of the topics of perennial interest to him, namely the legislation governing the recruitment of soldiers. Heavy losses had led to an urgent need to augment the number of troops, especially as his plans for the following campaign involved the invasion of France.
Meanwhile, on 13 Dec. Bromley had shown ‘as much malice as he could’ while disparaging Marlborough in the Commons in support of a vote of thanks to general John Richmond Webb‡ for his role in the victory at Wynendael. Marlborough was ‘uneasy’ at this ‘barbarous proceeding’, believing the promoters of the motion were encouraged by Mrs. Masham.
On 24 Jan. 1709 Marlborough wrote to Heinsius concerning the address of the Commons for information regarding the number of effective troops in Spain and Portugal, ‘the ill affected intending to take advantage of being angry at the seven regiments now at Antwerp, they being part of those establishments’.
Marlborough left Brussels on 24 Feb. and arrived at London on 1 March.
Malplaquet, Mrs Masham and Sacheverell, 1709-10
Marlborough’s plans to return to Holland may have been disrupted slightly by family concerns. The death of the duke of Montagu on 9 Mar. 1709, coupled a few hours later by the birth of a son to the new duchess saw Marlborough ‘stopped for a few days upon this occasion’.
It was probably during one of his sojourns in England early in 1709 that Marlborough first asked to be made captain-general for life. On 20 May Craggs reported an unsuccessful search among government records for a precedent and the lord chancellor’s opinion that it was ‘a new instance and liable to a malicious construction’. Cowper confirmed the absence of precedents himself in a letter of 23 June. Undaunted, Marlborough tried again in September, only to be rebuffed.
On campaign in the spring and summer of 1709, Marlborough had to deal with not only with military matters and the linked negotiations for a peace and a Barrier Treaty for the Dutch, but with growing pressure from the Junto for the admission of Orford to office in order to facilitate parliamentary management in the next session.
Towards the end of May the French rejected the peace preliminaries, relieving Marlborough, who bemoaned the ‘good-natured turn of some of my countrymen’. Maynwaring and Sarah agreed on Marlborough’s dilemma: ‘if he should have ill success in war, it will be said that he might have had a good peace, and if he had made any other peace than what was proposed, it would have been said that he might have had a better’. In August Marlborough made clear his objection to the Barrier Treaty: ‘as soon as they [the Dutch], have obtained their desires in the Barrier, they can have no other thoughts or interest but that of making peace as soon as possible’. On 18 Aug. he explained that its promoter, Townshend, was ‘a very honest man, but he has not been long enough in 110 [Holland], to judge of their tempers, so that he will certainly mislead 5 [Somers]’. Marlborough thought that the cabinet should take responsibility for the treaty, and refused to acknowledge any role in its negotiation, leaving Townshend to sign it alone in October.
Even victory in the ‘very obstinate’ battle of Malplaquet, on 31 Aug. did not enable Marlborough to feel secure.
I have for some time, with the greatest mortification imaginable, observed your majesty’s change from Lady Marlborough to Mrs. Masham, and the several indignities Mrs. Masham has made her suffer, of which I am much more sensible than of any misfortune that could have befallen myself, which has made me take the resolution of retiring as soon as this war shall be ended. I was assured last winter of what I am convinced is true, that Mrs. Masham has assured Mr. Harley and some of his wretches that let my services or successes be what they would from thence forward I should receive no encouragement from your majesty, which she was very confident must oblige me to resign. In order to know how far your majesty’s inclinations were with this project, I acquainted you with the desire I had of desiring that mark of your favour that my commission might be for my life. You were pleased to judge it not proper.
On 25 Oct. the queen defended the decision as her own, and blamed Sarah for his criticisms of Abigail, noting that ‘I believe nobody was ever so used by a friend as I have been by her ever since my coming to the crown. I desire nothing but that she should leave off teasing and tormenting me and behave herself with that decency she ought both to her friend and queen, and this I hope you will make her do, and is what I am sure no reasonable body can wonder I should desire of you’.
Marlborough remained committed to changing the admiralty, writing on 22 Sept. that ‘I am very desirous that 104 [the admiralty] should be changed entirely to the satisfaction of 89 [the Whigs] and consequently that 15 [Orford], should be at the head of it’. As early as 27 Sept. Godolphin informed Marlborough that Parliament was due to sit on 15 November. Marlborough was being pressed to remain at Brussels until relieved by Prince Eugene, but to Godolphin this was ‘wholly impossible if you would have anything go on here… all is undone if you don’t come over as soon as your campaign is ended’. On 10 Oct. Marlborough anticipated being in England ‘sometime before the meeting of the Parliament’, adding that Cardonnel would ‘bring with him an exact account of the extraordinaries of the last year and of this, so that you may take just measures of what you are to lay before the Parliament’. On the same day he discussed with the duchess tactical considerations in the Lords, noting that if Sunderland and Somers could ‘have the power with’ Somerset ‘to make his mob as you call them, to act with their friends, it would very much help the carrying everything’ in the House’.
By 4 Nov. Marlborough was at The Hague awaiting ‘only a fair wind’ to embark for England. He landed at Aldeburgh, Suffolk, on the 8th and arrived at St James’s on the 10th, where he dined with Godolphin.
Marlborough left London again for the country on 1 Dec., returning on the 5th. On 10 Dec. it was reported that he had been admitted ‘extraordinary to the Kitcat Club’ at Sir Henry Furnese’s‡. Shortly afterwards, on 20 Dec. it was reported that ‘some time since’, the impeachment of Sacheverell had been decided upon at the Kitcat, ‘where my Lord Marlborough himself they say was present, assented to it, and has actually entered himself a member of that detestable society’.
A political crisis erupted over filling the places of constable of the Tower and the colonelcy of dragoons left vacant by the death of Essex on 10 Jan. 1710. Rivers requested the post of constable from Marlborough, who referred him to the queen, confident that she would consult him, and that he would then be able to appoint his favoured candidate. Instead the queen appointed Rivers. To compound matters, she also promised the regiment to John Hill‡, Abigail’s brother. The disposition of these posts brought into question Marlborough’s authority in the army, and when he asked the queen to reconsider, she refused. An enraged Marlborough retired to Windsor on 15 Jan., to consider how to retrieve the situation.
Some of the more zealous Whigs, such as Maynwaring, were pleased that the queen remained obstinate because her ‘monstrous folly and stupidity’ would force Parliament to enquire why Marlborough was absent and call him back by removing those who obstructed him.
Marlborough had complained to the queen about those who had tried to persuade her that an attempt was being made to get the Commons to address for Abigail’s removal; ‘he had moved it to her majesty as what he thought would be for her service, and for the ease of her ministry, but it never entered into his thoughts to stir up Parliament to prescribe to her what servants she should keep about her person’. The contrary was, though, widely believed, possibly because although against an address, Sarah was in favour of a confrontation, believing the long-term consequences of leaving Abigail in post to be fatal; ‘everything is hazarded, nay sure to be lost, if this evil is not cured’.
Marlborough attended on 26 days of the session, 28 per cent of the total, being named to two committees. He last attended on 16 Feb. 1710, on which day the Lords agreed to join the Commons in addressing the queen for the duke’s immediate departure for Holland, in order to assist in any peace negotiations and to hasten the preparations for an early campaign. This was sponsored by the Whigs in accordance with Marlborough’s wishes, for he wanted to avoid involvement in further political battles.
Although abroad, Marlborough remained engaged in local politics. On 8 Mar. he wrote to the duchess, ‘I am more concerned at our want of interest in Oxfordshire’, than worrying about Somerset’s designs, ‘for I had much rather end my days quietly with my neighbours than be great at court, where I desire no more power, than that of being able to persuade 42 [the queen] not to hurt themselves [sic]’.
The 1710 Election and the dismissal of Godolphin
Marlborough was not consulted before the appointment of Shrewsbury as lord chamberlain on 14 Apr. 1710. He was disconcerted, fearing that Shrewsbury came in at Harley’s instigation, and that it signified ‘that they have another scheme than what would be approved on by us’. In response, ‘the chiefest care’ should be to maintain the current Parliament, ‘for if that can’t be obtained, which I very much doubt, nothing will be worth the managing. Of all things 89 [the Whigs] must be sure to be of one mind’.
The general promotion of army officers proposed by Marlborough in advance of the 1710 campaign stopped short of John Hill among the brigadier-generals and Samuel Masham, the future Baron Masham, among the colonels. The queen insisted on their inclusion, and although Walpole defended Marlborough’s decision on the grounds that ‘to take in the whole year would make it a very great promotion and more than I thought your grace designed’, he felt that the queen had been primed being ‘very ready about the affair of Colonel Masham, and asked me how many more would be affected with the order about brevets besides him… She was of opinion at first that they should all be made brigadiers, but I prevailed with her to let me write to your grace first’. Given all this, Walpole felt the matter not worth disputing ‘especially now ’tis put in this method to come from your grace.’ Marlborough complied, being fully aware that stopping Hill’s promotion gave a ‘great handle’ for Rivers and Somerset to disparage him to the queen.
In May 1710 a memorandum by Harley indicated the line of argument he employed with the queen against Marlborough; the ‘temper’ of the duchess and ‘victories’ of the duke had ‘made them intolerable.’ ‘Their pride, avarice, insolence and falsehood’ had rendered them ‘odious and unpardonable’.
Though faced with the ‘dismal prospect’ of affairs in England’, Marlborough reassured Godolphin on 1 June 1710 about future prospects, at least ‘as long as I am obliged to be at the head of this army, that you will struggle with the difficulties and not quit, and I shall follow your directions of not being provoked’. He also observed that ‘the noises made in England of the great changes that are to be made, are more likely to encourage the enemy to continue the war than to make reasonable offers of peace’. Even before the dismissal of Sunderland on 14 June, Marlborough had warned the duchess that matters would not rest there, ‘for the ruin of 89 [the Whigs], and a new 88 [Parliament], is most certainly the scheme’. Godolphin urged him not to resign and was supported by a veritable barrage of letters arguing the same point. A joint letter signed on 14 June by Godolphin, Cowper, Somers, Newcastle, Devonshire, Orford, Halifax and Boyle summed up the attitude of the Whig ministry, and other persuasive letters were sent by Townshend, Heinsius, and the Emperor. Marlborough complied with their wishes, although he felt that it would not prevent Parliament from being dissolved. He also warned his wife to ‘be careful of her behaviour, for she is in a country amongst tigers and wolves’. As he wrote to Godolphin on 24 June: ‘I hope she will not be prevailed upon to come to town; for in my opinion the intercourse of letters between 42 [the queen] and herself has no other end than making things worse’. A month later he wrote to advise her that she ‘should keep yourself in the country, and quiet as much as is possible till my return. For whatever you say or do, will in this unjust time be turned to your disadvantage’.
Marlborough hoped to retrieve his situation in two ways. There was always the chance of military successes, and the failure of the peace talks at Gertrudenberg suggested that he might retain his command.
The dismissal of Godolphin on 8 Aug. presented Marlborough with a stark choice: either to resign or find a way of reconciling himself to the ministerial changes. He was not short of advice, particularly from Sunderland, who intimated that he should ‘for the sake of the whole, have yet patience, tho I believe nobody’s was ever more tried’, and continue in command of the army.
As early as 5 Aug. 1710 Marlborough’s own thoughts had turned to local electoral politics. He wrote to the duchess that ‘there be no alteration made in the election of Woodstock’. As he expected Cadogan and Stanhope to assist him by their presence in the Commons he asked her to inform Godolphin so as to ensure Stanhope got a seat. As an afterthought, on 4 Sept. he mentioned to Godolphin ‘to fix’ Boyle a seat in the Commons, ‘for if such men will not act, how is it possible to expect any good success?’
As for Marlborough’s role in the election for Scottish representative peers, as early as 21 Aug. 1710 he had promised Godolphin that he would send his proxy to Seafield. His chosen agent was Stair, who had a letter from him for Seafield, ‘who will take measures with the said earl, as to the elections.’ On 4 Sept. Godolphin informed Marlborough that as well as himself, both Stair and Orkney, ‘having taken the oaths in Parliament, and being abroad in the queen’s service… are qualified to give your proxies as soon as you hear the proclamation is out’.
Having retained his command at the unanimous desire of the Whig leaders, and having approached the elector of Hanover at their behest, Marlborough was ‘resolved of doing nothing but in concert with them’, so that he would not act with the Tories. He maintained a watching brief from the campaign, but wrote to Walpole on 25 Sept. that ‘you may believe our chief attendance is on what is doing on your side’. Nor did the new ministry wish to provoke a precipitous departure, Shrewsbury using Craggs in September as an intermediary to advise Marlborough not to resign.
Marlborough and the Tories: the Session of 1710-11
Harley could not have been unaware of the risks involved in dismissing Marlborough. On 28 Oct. John Drummond‡ informed him of Heinsius’s view that Marlborough be retained in command of the army, because ‘the whole alliance was easy under his conduct, that the States were used to him, and though they knew his faults as well as his virtues, that there was nobody they would either prefer or equally desire with him’. On 1 Nov. Drummond addressed the need for an accommodation between Harley and Marlborough; he felt Marlborough was ‘sensible of the intolerable measures which others encouraged him to go into. I know he hates some of their leaders very heartily, and I believe he would abandon his old friend [Godolphin] so far as never to desire to have him in play again’. Drummond felt the peace was hindered by French hopes of divisions in England and Marlborough’s retirement, ‘who they know has been no less instrumental in keeping the allies together as in his success in the field’. Despite Marlborough’s covetousness gaining him ‘much reproach and ill will’ in Holland, ‘his success in the field, his capacity or rather dexterity in council or the cabinet, and his personal acquaintance with the heads of the alliance and the faith they have in him make him still the great man with them’.
On 29 Oct. Marlborough told the duchess that he ‘would be governed by’ the Whigs ‘from whose principle and interest I will never depart’. They may previously have suspected him of acting out of self-interest when they had a large majority in the Commons, ‘but now they must do me the justice to see that it is my inclination and principle which makes me act’.
sometimes I think it by the discourse of him that they think it of too much consequence and danger to put him out after such successes, but they print millions of lies in case it happens to quiet those that would not like it. But I believe what they wish most is that he should act with them till he has lost every friend he has and then they may be at liberty to hang him by some contrivances for a reward for all his good services.Add. 61464, ff. 16-20.
The latter option seemed to accord more with St John’s view that if Marlborough ‘should engage, though never so artfully and covertly, in the measures of those people to whom of late he has so closely linked himself, it is impossible to say how high the ferment would rise, and into what dangers he would run himself’.
Two days before Parliament assembled, The Examiner of 23 Nov. 1710 set out to attack Marlborough for the rewards he had received from the queen. Marlborough was still at The Hague, having arrived there on 17 November. He remained there for over a month. Meanwhile, on 28 Nov. Scarbrough’s motion for an address of thanks to Marlborough was apparently not concerted with the Whig leadership, and allowed to drop rather than face an embarrassing defeat.
the more he will be convinced of the necessities he lies under to submit himself to the queen’s pleasure and the measures which her majesty and her ministers think most for her honour and satisfaction. He has faithfully promised both to the Grand Pensionary and to ours, that he is resolved to live with you if you will make it practicable or possible for him; he will not enter into the heats of party debates, but will go heartily and sincerely into all measures that may be esteemed proper for carrying on the war, but for other votes he will be at his free liberty.HMC Portland, iv. 634.
On 28 Nov. St John outlined to Drummond a scheme of reconciliation. Favour would be restored ‘if he comes home and disengages himself from the Whigs; if he puts a stop to the rage and fury of his wife, in short, if he abandons all his new and takes up with all his old friends.’
Marlborough landed at Sole Bay on 26 Dec. 1710, arriving in London on the 28th.
Marlborough first attended the 1710-11 session on 3 January. On 6 Jan. after the Lords, in committee of the whole, had examined Galway and Charles O’Hara, Baron Tyrawley [I], over the campaign in the Spanish peninsula, Marlborough felt constrained to tell the Lords that ‘it was somewhat strange, that generals who had acted to the best of their understanding, and had lost limbs in the service, should be examined like offenders, about insignificant things’. In the committee of the whole on 9 Jan. Marlborough backed Tyrawley, noting that ‘he could not perceive the tendency of such enquiries, but if they designed to censure persons, who had acted to the best of their understandings, they would have nobody to serve them’. Later he moved that Galway and Tyrawley be formally told that they were not accused and that ‘the council in Valencia was only to give light into the subsequent operations of the campaign’, although no vote was taken. Marlborough again intervened in the debate to suggest that Tyrawley ‘had answered fully to the question that was put to him’. On 11 Jan. Marlborough contradicted Peterborough over the proposed expedition to Toulon, explaining that it failed not for want of men, but ‘for want of time and other accidents’. Also on 11 Jan. he entered his protest against the resolution to reject the petitions of Galway and Tyrawley concerning the conduct of the war in Spain and against the resolution to agree with the resolution of the committee of the whole that the defeat at Alamanza had been occasioned by the opinions of Galway, Tyrawley and Stanhope. On 12 Jan. he intervened again to contradict Peterborough. As Mungo Graham‡ put it, Marlborough told the House that the earl ‘knew no more of the design on Toulon than the man in the moon did’, before declaring that ‘if men are to be censured when they give their opinions to the best of their understandings, I must expect to be found fault with as well as the rest’. Galway had done his duty and the whole council of war were for fighting before reinforcements could be supplied by the enemy.
On 10 Jan. 1711 Marlborough and Harley ‘had their first conference together’ which ‘lasted a pretty while’. Harley ensured that Marlborough understood that Sarah’s resignation was a necessary requirement for an agreement between them, the queen being implacable over her removal. On 16 Jan. Marlborough wrote to Heinsius that since his return he had been ‘always very uneasy in my mind’, although he had ‘assured her majesty of my readiness of finishing this war if she thinks me of any use’. Despite a submissive letter from his wife, and a personal appeal to the queen from Marlborough on 17 Jan. the duchess was forced to resign on the 18th. On that day Peter Wentworth observed that Marlborough was ‘very submissive and complaisant to everybody. Last Wednesday Mr. Harley and he had a meeting and he visit[ed], all the ministry’.
Wentworth was in the Lords on 22 Jan. 1711, where he found the Spanish ‘enquiry begins to cool a little there’, because the House agreed to a proposal from Marlborough and Godolphin ‘that the establishment and the non-effectives should be referred to a select committee’. Wentworth also mentioned Marlborough’s denial of the allegation made by Argyll that several regiments appeared on the Spanish establishment which were never sent there. The duke suggested that it was the sense of the House that it be referred to the select committee, only adding that it was false to talk of the Spanish theatre being starved in favour of Flanders. From Buckingham’s giving thanks for this information, Wentworth surmised that ‘the ministry is willing to make the duke… easy in his command in the army, if he does not trouble himself to advise who shall be employed here at home’.
In St John’s assessment, Marlborough had nothing to reproach the ministers with: his wife, Godolphin and himself had ‘thrown the queen’s favour away’; he needed to secure his wife’s removal from office as ‘irreconcilable’ to the queen; and he must begin on ‘a new foot’. Marlborough had promised to comply, but St John felt ‘the exterior is a little mended; but at heart the same sentiments remain, and these heightened and inflamed by what he calls provocations’. The implied threat was that if he left office and then lost the protection of the court, ‘such scenes will open as no victories can varnish over’.
On 3 Mar. 1711, one of Robert Wodrow’s correspondents thought ‘there is also some ground to believe that there is a good understanding betwixt Marlborough and Harley’.
While on campaign, Marlborough kept his ear to the ground about developments in England. Brydges proved to be a useful source of intelligence, particularly as he remained paymaster. On 26 Feb. Brydges wrote ‘I have been to wait on the gentleman you recommended me to, and we have agreed to consult often together, and impart to one another what we hear in order that your grace may have all the intelligence we can meet with’.’
With Harley incapacitated by Guiscard’s assassination attempt, St John cultivated Marlborough, hoping ‘never to see again the time when I shall be obliged to embark in a separate interest from you’.
Marlborough disassociated himself from the Whig pamphlet Bouchain: in a Dialogue between the Medley and the Examiner and ‘a villainous answer to it’, probably by Mrs. Manley, noting that ‘whilst these barbarous proceedings are in fashion, it were to be wished that we should never appear in print’.
The session of 1711-12: the peace and dismissal
Before Marlborough’s return to England, he was joined at The Hague by the Hanoverian envoy, Baron Bothmer, and the two men landed at Greenwich on 17 Nov. 1711. Bothmer brought with him a memorial from the elector against the peace, which was presented to the secretary of state on 28 November.
The ministry had made other preparations in case Marlborough came out against the peace, apart from priming the commission of accounts. Jonathan Swift’s The Conduct of the Allies was published on 27 Nov., a devastating critique in which the war was portrayed as a scheme whereby Marlborough (and others) got rich at the expense of the public purse. Marlborough attended the prorogation also on 27 November. On that day Wentworth was at Marlborough’s ‘levee… his house is very fine, but tis not filled so much with company as when he was in lodgings’. Ralph Bridges had made the same point the previous day, when he reported on a recent visit made by Bishop Compton to Marlborough at his new residence in St James’s ‘and found that formerly great man all alone’.
About December Marlborough was listed by Nottingham on what may be a list of supporters for his attack on the ministry’s peace proposals or for his occasional conformity bill. This was the result of a meeting between Marlborough, Godolphin and Nottingham which laid the grounds for an agreement between Nottingham and the Whigs, whereby the earl would oppose the peace in return for Whig backing for a bill against occasional conformity.
Marlborough was present when the House sat on 7 December. During the debate on the Address, Arthur Annesley, 5th earl of Anglesey, ‘arraigned in general terms those who had carried on the war and said they might have had a peace, a good one too, after the battle of Ramilles’. Marlborough replied ‘like a Roman general’, defying ‘the world to charge him with having concealed the most minute thing that past on that occasion from the queen’ and that he was ‘so far from wishing to prolong the war that he would crawl on all fours to the queen’s feet to beg she would consent to peace, but not a peace that must ruin both herself, her subjects and all the world about her’.
On 14 Dec. Ralph Bridges thought that when Nottingham moved the bill against occasional conformity on the following day, he was to be seconded by either Marlborough or Wharton. Although the honour went to Wharton, according to Raby, Marlborough had ‘the intelligence of the Whigs and actually knew of Lord Nottingham’s design above a fortnight before the Parliament met’.
Meanwhile the attack on Marlborough was gathering pace in the lower House. On 11 Dec. the Commons asked for the report of the commissioners of accounts. On 19 Dec. Cowper, at Marlborough’s request, wrote to Sir Peter King in order to arrange a meeting at Sir Richard Onslow’s‡ to organize Marlborough’s defence.
The ministry’s authority was restored by the creation of 12 peers and the dismissal of Marlborough. On 31 Dec. 1711, the queen told the Cabinet that she ‘thought fit to dismiss him from all his employments that the matter might undergo an impartial investigation’.
On 9 Jan. 1712, Cadogan sent to Marlborough ‘Cardonnel’s certificates and attestations concerning the business of the bread’, which showed that for the previous 35 years ‘it was an established custom to present the general commanding in chief with a considerable annual gratification in proportion to the number of troops the army was composed of’.
On 25 Jan. 1712 Marlborough wrote to Sweet ‘to desire of you the friendly part of securing what is due to me, so that I may have nothing to do with anybody but yourself. Let me see you before anybody when you come to London, and believe me that you shall always find me your friend.’ He added on 28 Feb. ‘I desire you will continue in sending over the balance of the account, and what else may have been received on my account... You must never write to me but by a sure hand, and pray let me know some time before you return.’ On 21 Apr. Sweet assured Marlborough that he ‘may depend that I will sooner lose my life than discover any transaction that your grace has been pleased to entrust me with, although I think it signifies nothing if all the world knew it.’
Further proceedings against Marlborough were threatened. On 16 Feb. 1712 Swift reported to Archbishop King that although nobody had said anything about the queen exercising her prerogative in dismissing Marlborough, an impeachment might have raised awkward questions: ‘I believe it is wisdom to stop where things are as to him’.
While all this manoeuvring was going on, Marlborough continued to play a role in the Lords. On 4 Mar. 1712, James Berkeley, 3rd earl of Berkeley, registered his proxy with Marlborough. With the House adjourning for Easter on 15 Apr. Marlborough then left for Windsor Lodge on the 16th.
On 28 May Marlborough seconded Halifax’s motion for an address to the queen for the ‘restraining orders’ to be laid before the House and for Ormond to be ordered ‘to act offensively in concert with the allies’.
When the Lords returned to the matter of the peace, on 7 June 1712 Marlborough spoke in the debate on an address thanking the queen for her speech on the progress of the peace negotiations. He noted that ‘the measures entered into and pursued in England for this year past were contrary to her majesty’s engagements with the allies; did sully the triumphs and glories of her reign, and would render the English name odious to all other nations’. He also protested against the loss of an amendment to the address asking the queen to take measures in concert with the allies to induce them to join in a mutual guarantee of the peace.
Retirement and exile, 1712-14
Marlborough retired to St Albans in July, where he entertained using his campaign tent pitched on the bowling green.
It seems probable that Marlborough wished to use his contacts and reputation in order to promote intervention by the allies against the ministry, or in readiness for a struggle over the succession. The French feared his intervention at Utrecht against the Peace. The French secretary of state, De Torcy, informed Shrewsbury in February 1713 that he had received reliable information that Marlborough had secretly met the Emperor and Prince Eugene to hatch a plan to continue the war and support a conspiracy in England. Marlborough may indeed have planned an invasion of Hanoverian troops in Dutch ships hired under cover of the Empire to ensure a ministry capable of ensuring the Protestant Succession, but all the parties rejected the plan.
Having seen a printed version of the peace treaty and the treaty of commerce, Marlborough wrote to Craggs in June, ‘I could wish they had been more to our advantage; for instead of the great advantages we were made to expect, in comparing the treaties that of Holland seems to be more for their advantage, than any care that has been taken for England, for not only the loss of our woollen manufactures in the treaty of commerce, the 9th article in the treaty of peace does in a very plain manner restore Dunkirk to France’.
Marlborough wrote to Oxford from Frankfurt in May or June 1713 of his surprise at being ‘charged with mismanagement of the public money in the report of the commissioners of accounts on pretence of the subject troops having been mustered complete during the war, and the foreigners not being mustered at all’. Such things were easily misrepresented, thereby giving ‘the greatest falsehoods an air of truth by suppressing of circumstances, by relating facts by halves, by reporting only parts of answers, by confounding of times, and drawing conclusions from innuendos and suppositions’.
The queen’s sudden illness in December 1713 persuaded Oxford to appease Marlborough.
In March 1714 there were rumours that Marlborough would soon return to England. On 24 Mar. Bateman reported that ‘Marlborough will soon be here, with the queen’s permission, which Lady Sund[erland] asked and obtained about ten days ago’. Although this proved to be false, family illness did provide an excuse for Marlborough to return to England. Early in 1714, his grandchildren, William Godolphin‡, styled Viscount Rialton (later styled marquess of Blandford) and his sister caught smallpox, and although they recovered, in March the countess of Bridgwater contracted the disease and died. The shock of her death caused the countess of Sunderland to miscarry, with almost fatal consequences.. Even so, Marlborough rejected the suggestion that he needed to request permission to return from the queen.
Rumours abounded as to Marlborough’s intentions. In late May Vanbrugh told Marlborough that Anglesey, one of the leaders of the Hanoverian Tories, held Marlborough ‘in strong suspicion of having wholly embarked in the Pretender’s interest and that you are to bring him over. I cannot say that any of them directly believe it but him I have named, but I know he is wild enough to credit it’.
The ministry was certain that Marlborough soon be back: on 11 June, Prior told Bolingbroke that Marlborough was returning to England. Both Oxford and Bolingbroke sought to enlist him in their fight for control of the ministry. Oxford opened negotiations through Cadogan in mid-April. Oxford’s duplicity in telling the Whigs that the elector would be invited to England, while he sent letters to Hanover arguing the opposite, was revealed to Marlborough by the electress, and subsequently published in London on 1 July. Bolingbroke opened negotiations with Marlborough in mid-July through Craggs senior, and an agreement appears to have been reached between them whereby Marlborough would resume his offices and Bolingbroke would be reconciled to Hanover.
Return to England and final years
On 9 July Bateman, in London, had picked up that ‘the duke of Marlborough’s baggage is put aboard in order for his coming hither by permission, at the instance of Lord B[olingbro]ke, which still forebodes more to the disadvantage of [the] lord treasurer.’ He added on 14 July that Marlborough ‘is not yet arrived, nor any changes yet made. But all agree that the white staff is to be given up and succeeded by a commission’.
Auditor Edward Harley‡ suspected Marlborough of being at the centre of the machinations which led to the fall of Oxford. Marlborough ‘was to be at the head of it’, and Cadogan and Somerset were ‘engaged in the new plan that was forming by the Lord Bolingbroke’.
L’Hermitage reported Marlborough’s arrival on 1 Aug. and the reception he received at Dover: being saluted by cannon from the town, but not the castle.
Although Marlborough had been named as one of the electress’s regents, as recorded by Rivers on one of his trips to Hanover (probably in 1710), subsequently the list had been changed and he was not on the list opened on the queen’s death. This may have prompted Marlborough to allow the City to make a fuss.
Marlborough met the new king when he arrived at Greenwich on 18 Sept. 1714, the king saying ‘my lord duke, I hope your troubles are now over’.
Although Marlborough was restored to his offices, he did not gain pre-eminence in the ministry. At the end of December 1714, according to Bonet, Marlborough was seen as a crucial figure along with Townshend and Bothmer and Bernsdorff, but in reality it was Townshend who wielded most influence.
Interpretations of Marlborough have been many and varied. To Burnet he was ‘one of the greatest men the age has produced’. The Dutch field deputy, Sicco van Goslinga agreed, referring to ‘the rare gifts of this truly great man’, although for him he had many defects: ‘the duke is a profound dissembler, all the more dangerous that his manner and his words give the impression of frankness itself. His ambition knows no bounds, and an avarice which I can only call sordid, guides his entire conduct.’
In domestic politics, Marlborough tried to avoid much of the incessant management involved, and therefore took few initiatives that were not devised by his political associates.
Marlborough’s role in the Lords ranged from being a brooding oppositionist in William’s reign, which saw him engaged quite heavily in the business of the House, to a busy, pivotal political figure during the reign of Anne, when the time available for parliamentary activity was much diminished. As his correspondence with Godolphin reveals, his presence or absence often determined the timing of a session, and his military demands could often dominate the financial business of the lower House. For Godolphin, as lord treasurer, his presence made the queen more susceptible to his arguments; and his prestige (and negotiating skills) made Parliament, not just the Lords, more amenable to the executive’s demands.