SARAH DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.

BY DR. W. C. TAYLOR.

WITH A PORTRAIT.

Ir has been said that women possess most influence in countries guided by the Salic law, and that mistresses rule where princesses are not permitted to reign. In England we rarely find ladies exercising any direct political influence: those who have done so owed their ascendancy to ability rather than favouritism; and while the lives of female politicians on the continent are almost an unvarying record of profligacy, the biographies of the few who have mixed largely with public affairs in England scarcely contain an incident which would raise a blush. There was, probably, never a lady in Great Britain who, from youth to age, while a simple subject, possessed so much of the power of a sovereign as the first Duchess of Marlborough. Her life was "one warfare upon earth;" her temper endangered whatever her talents won. Inflexible in pursuit of her ends, she defeated herself by her recklessness in the use of her means; her passions were always at variance with her intelligence, and her sense confounded by the capriciousness of her sensi

bilities..

Sarah," the viceroy over Queen Anne," as she was popularly designated, was the daughter of a country gentleman named Jennings, at whose seat, near St. Alban's, she was born May 29th, 1660. Her family had long been attached to the court, and at an early age she was received into the household of the Duchess of York, to whom her sister, the celebrated Duchess of Tyrconnel, acted as lady of honour. Sarah Jennings was engaged as an attendant and playmate of the Princess Anne; and the friendship thus formed in youth survived for some years the accession of the latter to the throne.

While the charms of Sarah Jennings were the pride of the little circle formed round the Duchess of York, John Churchill, gentleman of the bed-chamber to the Duke, was not less celebrated for his personal at tractions and elegance of manner among his compeers. An attachment was soon formed between him and Sarah, which was warmly encouraged by their royal patrons. She refused the admired Earl of Lindsay, after wards Marquis of Ancaster, to link her fate with a young adventurer, who had scarce any inheritance but his sword; while Churchill had to resist the most urgent representations from his family to enrich himself by marriage with some heiress.

The youthful pair followed the Duke and Duchess of York, when the jealousies of the people of England, raised to a kind of madness by the calumnies and perjuries of Titus Oates, compelled them to go into a kind of voluntary exile. Their fidelity was rewarded by a peerage when the Duke ascended the English throne as James II., and Lord Churchil was regarded as one of the most rising statesmen of his age. He, how ever, was more anxious to retire into privacy, and enjoy domestic feli city with his beautiful wife, than to pursue the dangerous paths of ambition; but Lady Churchill, who had renewed her intimacy with the Princess Anne, detained him at court, and involved him in the compli

cated intrigues which finally led to the Revolution. Such was the friendship between Lady Churchill and the Princess, that, to avoid the encumbrance of title, they resolved to correspond under feigned names, her Royal Highness assuming the name of Morley, and Lady Churchill that of Freeman.

It is not necessary to dwell upon the misconduct and impolicy by which James II. alienated from his cause all parties in the British nation; nor to show how all parties, deceiving themselves and each other, brought public affairs into what the Americans call such " a pretty particular fix," that their only means of extrication was the elevation of William III. to the throne,—a political necessity to which all submitted, but which nearly all most cordially detested. Lady Churchill on this occasion induced the Princess Anne to desert the cause of her royal father. The ladies fled from their apartments at the Cockpit; and, having obtained the escort of that eminent member of the church militant, Compton, Bishop of London, proceeded to Nottingham, and thence to Chatsworth, the residence of the Earl of Devonshire. The prelate, who had in his early life been an officer of dragoons, rode before their carriage, with pistols at his saddle-bow and a drawn sword in his hand. Colley Cibber, who formed part of the escort that brought the ladies to Chatsworth, and afterwards waited upon them at table, records in his Memoirs that the beauty and grace of Lady Churchill made an impression on his mind which the lapse of fifty years had not effaced.

Though William created Lord Churchill Earl of Marlborough, he viewed that nobleman with mingled suspicion and dislike, feelings which were aggravated by the quarrel between Queen Mary and the Princess Anne. Marlborough and his wife adhered to the cause of the Princess; and the firmness with which she acted at the crisis was generally attributed to the spirited advice of the high-minded Countess. King William himself stood in awe of Lady Marlborough, whose cutting sarcasms were the more effective, from the consciousness of their being merited; and at length he had recourse to the harsh measure of forbidding her the court. The Princess Anne accompanied her injured favourite into retirement. They were received by the Duke of Somerset at SionHouse, and had leisure to reflect on the ingratitude of the monarch, whom they had helped to raise to the throne. Under these circumstances, Marlborough renewed his communications with the deposed King, and projected a confederacy to secure his restoration. The plot was discovered before it reached maturity. Marlborough was arrested, and sent to the Tower; but, as no evidence could be obtained against him, he was soon released. On the death of Queen Mary, King William was outwardly reconciled to his sister-in-law; the Princess Anne was invited to reside at St. James's, and the Earl of Marlborough was appointed chief preceptor to her son, the Duke of Gloucester, heirapparent to the crown. On the death of this Prince, the coolness between William and Anne again became manifest, and rapidly ripened into hostility. The result might have been a civil war in England, had not the death of King William placed Anne peacefully on the throne of England.

Marlborough, placed at the head of the English army during the war of the Spanish succession, soon reached a height of military glory to which only one other English general ever attained. But while he was winning honours abroad, the imperious temper of his wife was over