self when he imagined that he could be happy in the retirement of Althorpe.
Two short months served to undeceive him; and we find him, in the month of March, preparing the way for his return to the King's service. He writes-—"My judgment and my inclinations are still the same, but I submit both to the King, who was more displeased and angry at what I did than I imagined, and took it with less indifferency in relation to his affairs than I could have thought without presumption, which obliged me, who owe him so much, to be disposed of as he pleases, provided that he gives me leave to serve him as a Privy Councillor only without a place, which would now be insupportably ridiculous, after having quitted one so lately."[1] He came to London in July; but, so far from finding that encouragement from his old friends, the Whigs, which he expected, the animosity of every party immediately revived, and was carried to such a height, that William, who had just returned from the continent, requested him to retire again into the country, though anxious to remain in London on account of the approaching marriage of his son with Lady Anne Churchill, the second daughter of the Earl of Marlborough.
- ↑ Letter to the Duke of Shrewsbury.—Shrewsbury Papers. 535.
