been applauded and encouraged under the whigs was now to be decried; everything which had been kept down was to be set on high. The war, which had humbled Louis XIV. and defended the protestant interests abroad, was now—not on that account, but merely because it reflected glory on the whigs—to be denounced and deprecated. He who had won so many victories over the proud, grasping, and persecuting French monarch, was to be systematically maligned. The crime of the country was, that nothing was judged on the basis of true policy and true morality, but as it had been approved and promoted by one party or the other. There was much to blame in the policy of England mixing itself up in the continental wars, but, having done it, and having won great credit by our conduct of it, it was a base principle in the tories now to attempt to destroy that national glory, merely because it had been achieved by the whigs. Marlborough might justly be accused of many grave faults, of much avarice, much embezzlement, much desire to continue the war for his own gain and reputation when opportunities presented of putting a fair end to it; but Marlborough had, with all these faults, displayed the abilities of a great general, and by his victories wonderfully exalted the fame of England for martial bravery. He had humbled the proudest and most aggressive monarch of Europe, the perpetual disturber of its quiet, the wholesale and implacable persecutor of protestantism, and it now required only a little persistence in the course so long pursued to force from him everything for which we had fought. But the tories could never forgive the whigs for having originated and conducted this war, which, however expensive and destructive of human life, was eminently successful in its great object—the humiliation and enfeebling of the tyrant Louis; nor Marlborough for having, by going over to the whigs, conveyed all this glory to them. Everything now was to be, therefore, reversed, whatever the consequences to the fame or interests of England, in order to abase the whigs; and Marlborough was to be systematically humbled and mortified as their military representative.
When he, therefore, arrived during the Christmas holidays, it was to a most cold reception. There were no longer popular acclamations, and lords and commons hurrying to offer him thanks and eulogies for his eminent services. The public mind had been carefully indoctrinated on this head, and the great commander landed in a most expressive silence. He waited, as was his duty, on the queen, was admitted to about half an hour's audience, and the next morning attended a meeting of the privy council. But both in the presence and the council chamber reigned the same ominous and freezing silence. The queen plainly told him that he was now no longer to expect the thanks of parliament as formerly; and she added that, notwithstanding, she trusted he would act in harmony with her ministers. Marlborough showed no outward signs of resentment. He was anxious still to continue the command of the army, and to put the finish to his successes by compelling a satisfactory peace from Louis, now reduced to the most terrible straits.
On the 2nd of January, 1711, the queen announced to parliament the disasters in Spain, the surrender of our army under general Stanhope, and the necessity of raising fresh troops to continue the struggle. This was a fine opportunity for breaking loose on the whig ministry, who had led us into the war in Spain. It was contended that we never ought to have undertaken a war in the interior of that country. From Spain the discussion spread over the whole theatre of the war; and Marlborough, who had been for years so extravagantly eulogised, was now as extravagantly attacked in both houses. He was accused of all sorts of faults and crimes; his very generalship and even his personal courage were denied. These detractions resounded through both houses of parliament, and were diffused over the whole nation by tory attacks in the public journals and in pamphlets. Swift, who was now become the literary tool of Harley and St. John, and whose abilities were only excelled by his savage and unprincipled calumnies, spared neither Marlborough nor his wife in the "Examiner." "My lord treasurer," says the duchess, "has thought fit to order the 'Examiner' to represent me in print as a pickpocket all over England; and for that honest service, and some others, her majesty has lately made him a dean."
The indomitable duchess was not to be thus libeled without having her "last word;" and it is amusing to see how she defends herself by showing that, in nine years, she had saved the country ninety thousand pounds alone in the queen's clothes! She showed that queen Mary, Anne's immediate predecessor and sister, had expended from eleven thousand pounds to twelve thousand pounds a year in dress; but that she had for nine years dressed the queen for thirty-two thousand pounds, or for considerably less than four thousand pounds a year. The duke saw that though it was desirous that he should keep his command if possible, it was time for the duchess to resign her offices. Every day some fresh insult was offered to Marlborough as a great whig commander, and it was good policy to withdraw both himself and his impetuous duchess from notice. As if to outrage, in the most flagrant manner, Marlborough's ideas of military fitness, the same incompetent Jack Hill, the brother of Mrs. Masham, was appointed commander of an expedition for the arduous service of the conquest of Canada. The queen had repeatedly insisted to Marlborough that the duchess should deliver up the gold keys, the token of her offices of groom of the stole and mistress of the robes; but that resolute woman refused to comply. Marlborough, unable to obtain the keys, endeavoured to mollify the queen's anger at the delay, by praying her patience, representing himself as "the meanest of her majesty's instruments—a mere worm—her majesty's humblest creature;" that he was neither covetous nor ambitious, at which avowal, the queen told her tory minister, that if she could have turned round, she should have laughed; and that "he was worn out with age, fatigues, and misfortunes." This pathetic appeal, however, did not decrease the queen's impatience, and Marlborough imperatively demanded the keys from his wife. For some time she vehemently refused to part with them, but after a violent and stormy altercation, according to Cunningham, she finished by flinging them at his head. The duke snatched them up and hurried to the palace with them, where, says the same authority, the queen received them with far greater pleasure than if he had brought her the spoils of the army; at which, he says, "the duchess flew
