A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Marlborough. Sarah, Duchess of
MARLBOROUGH. SARAH, DUCHESS OF,
Was the daughter of Mr. Jennings, a country gentleman of respectable lineage and good estate. She was born on the 26th. of May, 1660, at Holywell, a suburb of St. Albans. Her elder sister, Frances, afterwards Duchess of Tyrconnel, was maid of honour to the Duchess of York; and Sarah, when quite a child, was introduced at court, and became the playfellow of the Princess Anne, who was several years younger than herself. Sarah succeeded her sister as maid of honour to the Duchess of .York; which, however, did not prevent her having constant intercourse with the princess, who lived under the same roof with her father, and who at that early age showed the greatest preference for her.
In 1677, Sarah Jennings married, clandestinely, the handsome Colonel Churchill, favourite gentleman of the Duke of York. Both parties being poor, it was an imprudent match; but the Duchess of York, whom they made the confidant of their attachment, stood their friend, and offered her powerful assistance. She gave her attendant a handsome donation, and appointed her to a place of trust about her person. The young couple followed the fortunes of the Duke of York for some years, while he was a sort of honourable exile from the court; but when the establishment of the Princess Anne was formed, she being now married, Mrs. Churchill, secretly mistrusting the durability of the fortunes of her early benefactress, expressed an ardent wish to become one of the ladies of the Princess Anne, who requested her father's permission to that effect, and received his consent. The early regard evinced by the Princess Anne for Mrs. Churchill, soon ripened into a romantic attachment; she lost sight of the difference in their rank, and treated her as an equal, desiring a like return. When apart, they corresponded constantly under the names, chosen by the princess, of Mrs. Morley and Mrs. Freeman.
No two persons could be less alike than the princess and Sarah Churchill; the former was quiet, somewhat phlegmatic, easy and gentle, extremely well bred, fond of ceremony, and averse to mental exertion; the latter, resolute, bold, inclined to violence, prompt, unwearied and haughty. Swift, who was, however, her bitter enemy, describes her as the victim of "three furies which reigned in her breast, sordid avarice, disdainful pride, and ungovernable rage." The Duchess of Marlborough's strongest characteristic appears to have been a most powerful will. Much is said of the ascendency which a strong mind acquires over a weak one; but in many instances where this is thought to be the case, the influence arises from strength of will, and not from mental superiority. In the present instance, this was not altogether so; for the Duchess of Marlborough was undoubtedly greatly superior to Queen Anne in mind, but if her sense and discretion had been properly exercised, in controlling that indomitable will, which foamed and raged at everything which obstructed her path or interfered with her opinions, her influence might have been as lasting as it was once powerful.
On the accession of James the Second, Churchill was created a baron; but, attaching himself to the Protestant cause, when the Prince of Orange landed, he deserted his old master and joined the prince; Lady Churchill meanwhile aiding the Princess Anne in her flight and abandonment of the king her father. On the accession of William and Mary, 1692, to the throne, Churchill was rewarded for his zeal by the earldom of Marlborough, and the appointment of commander-in-chief of the English army in the Low Country. Afterwards, falling into disgrace with the king and queen, Lord and Lady Marlborough were dismissed the court. Princess Anne espoused the cause of her favourite, and retired also; but, upon the death of Queen Mary, they were restored to favour. The accession of Anne to the "throne on the death of William, placed Lady Marlborough in the position which her ambitious spirit coveted; she knew her own value and that of her gallant husband. She knew that Anne not only loved but feared her; that she would require her aid, and have recourse to her on all occasions of difficulty; and she felt equal to every emergency. A perusal of the letters of the queen to Lady Marlborough at this period, is sufficient evidence of the subjection in which she (the queen) was held by her imperious favourite; the humility which they express are unworthy of her as a sovereign and as a woman. That Anne was already beginning to writhe under this intolerable yoke, there can be no doubt. From the commencement of her reign, a difference in politics between herself and her favourite was manifested. Lady Marlborough had a strong leaning to the whig side, while the queen was always attached to the tory party; and dissensions soon arose as to the ministers who were to surround the throne. Since the advancement of Lord Marlborough, his lady had lost much of the caressing devotion which she had hitherto manifested for the queen; and exhibited to her some of that overbearing arrogance with which she treated the rest of her contemporaries. It is not astonishing that the queen, under these circumstances, should have sought for sympathy in one near her person who had suffered from the same overbearing temper. Abigail Hill, a poor relation of Lady Marlborough's, whom she had placed about the queen as bed-chamber woman, was the prudent and careful recipient of her mistress's vexations, and gradually acquired such influence with her as eventually to supersede her powerful relative as favourite. Much has been said of the ingratitude of Mrs. Masham to her early benefactress As there is no evidence that she had recourse to Improper or dishonourable means to ingratiate herself with the queen, this charge cannot be substantiated. The queen's favour was a voluntary gift. Lady Marlborough alienated her mistress by her own arbitrary temper; and the queen only exercised the privilege which every gentlewoman should possess, of selecting her own friends and servants. Meanwhile, the brilliant successes of Lord Marlborough obliged the queen to suppress her estranged feelings towards his wife, and bound her more closely to the interests of his family. In 1702, Lord Marlborough was created a duke; and in 1705, after the battle of Blenheim, the royal manors of Woodstock and Wootton were bestowed upon him, and the palace of Blenheim was erected by the nation at an enormous cost.
The Duchess of Marlborough's favour waned rapidly. She began to suspect Mrs. Hill, and remonstrated angrily with the queen on the subject, as if regard and affection were ever won back by reproaches! The secret marriage of Abigail Hill with Mr. Masham, a page of the court, which the queen attended privately, finally produced an open rupture. After a protracted attempt to regain her influence, during which period the queen had to listen to much "plain speaking" from the angry duchess, she was forced to resign her posts at court, and with her, the different members of her family, who filled nearly all the situations of dignity and emolument about the queen.
The duchess followed her husband abroad soon after her dismissal, where they remained till the death of Queen Anne. George the First restored the Duke of Marlborough at once to his station of captain-general of the land forces, and gave him other appointments; but he never regained his former political importance. The Duchess of Marlborough was the mother of five children; her only son died at the age of seventeen, of that then fatal disease, the small-pox. Her four daughters, who inherited their mother's beauty, married men of distinction, two of whom only survived her. Lady Godolphin, the oldest, succeeded to the title of the Duchess of Marlborough.
The duchess survived her husband twenty-three years. Her great wealth brought her many suitors, to one of whom, the Duke of Somerset, she made the celebrated reply, "that she could not permit an emperor to succeed in that heart which had been devoted to John, Duke of Marlborough."
In her eighty-second year she published her vindication against all the attacks that in the course of her long life had been made against her. She also left voluminous papers to serve for the memoirs of her husband, as well as many documents since used in compiling her own life. Much of the latter part of her life was spent in wrangling and quarrelling with her descendants, with some of whom she was at open war. She is said to have revenged herself upon her grand-daughter. Lady Anne Egerton, by painting the face of her portrait black, and inscribing beneath it, "She is blacker within."
The Duchess of Marlborough, in a corrupt age, and possessed of singular beauty, was of unblemished reputation. She had many high and noble qualities. She was truthful and honourable, and esteemed those qualities in others. Her attachment to her husband was worthy of its object, and of the love he bore her. A touching anecdote of the duke's unfading love for her is upon record, as related by herself. "She had very beautiful hair, and none of her charms were so highly prized by the duke as these tresses. One day, upon his offending her, she cropped them short, and laid then., in an ante-chamber through which he must pass to her room. To her great disappointment, he passed and repassed calmly enough to provoke a saint, without appearing conscious of the deed. When she sought her hair, however, where she had laid it, it had vanished. Nothing more ever transpired upon the subject until the duke's death, when she found her beautiful ringlets carefully laid by in a cabinet where he kept whatever he held most precious. At this part of the story the duchess always fell a crying." The Duchess of Marlborough died in October, 1744, at the age of eighty-four, leaving an enormous fortune.