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
