obtain a battering train land and attack Lille, which had been in French hands since 1667, was strongly fortified, and occupied by a garrison of nearly fifteen thousand men under Boufflers. The cannon and stores had been collected at Brussels, where Eugene’s army was now quartered, and the first operation was to send them with a strong convoy to the siege. Berwick had followed Eugene from the Rhine, and had been in communication with Vendôme. He now proposed a combined attack upon the convoy. Vendôme refused to leave his position at Ghent, and his immobility or the skilful arrangements of the allies enabled the convoy to reach Marlborough safely in the early part of August. Trenches were opened on 22 Aug. 1708, and Eugene commanded at the siege, while Marlborough commanded the covering army. Vendôme, leaving a flying camp near Ghent, joined Berwick and slowly approached Lille with an army of over a hundred thousand men. On 10 Sept. he confronted Marlborough from the south. Vendôme and Berwick disagreed, and in spite of orders from Louis at last declined to attack Marlborough in his strong position. A counter attack proposed by Marlborough was forbidden by the Dutch deputies, and the French fell hack behind the Scheldt, where they took up a strong position, cutting off all communication with Holland or Brussels. The siege, however, made slow progress. The engineers had promised to take the town in ten days, but after desperate assaults, in one of which (20 Sept.) Eugene was seriously wounded, little advance had been made, and stores began to fail. The French army blocked the route to Brussels. Marlborough made arrangements for a convoy from Ostend, and sent. a detachment under Webb to protect the advance. It reached him on 30 Sept. after a gallant action at Wynendal (28 Sept.), where Webb repulsed an attack by a greatly superior force, Cadogan, who had been sent to support, only reaching the field towards the close of the action. At the same time the French managed to send some supplies of powder into the town in bags carried by a force of cavalry. Vendôme made a new attempt. He moved through Ghent to the neighbourhood of Ostend, and though he fell back upon the approach of Marlborough, he opened sluices and inundated the country, causing fresh difficulties to the transport of supplies.
Soon afterwards a sudden assault from Dunkirk upon Nieuport succeeded, and cut off Marlborough’s communications with Ostend. Marlborough’s old ally, Ouwerkerk, died on 18 Oct. On 22 Oct., however, Boufflers was forced to agree to a capitulation for the town after sixty days’ siege. The citadel had still to be attacked. After again threatening Lille, Vendôme now tried to make a diversion. The elector of Bavaria, with a detachment from Mons, marched upon Brussels, and opened trenches on 24 Nov. Marlborough, by a brilliant manceuvre, passed the lines upon the Scheldt without loss below Oudenarde, and the elector, upon hearing of his approach, decamped from Brussels. At last the siege of Lille, in which Marlborough declared that he had been all along betrayed and great part of the stores embezzled, came to an end. Boufflers marched out on 9 Dec. 1708, having lost eight thousand men, while the allies had lost in sick, killed, and wounded not less than fourteen thousand. Ghent was now occupied, after a short siege, on 30 Dec. 1708, and the French, abandoning other towns, retired into their own territory.
Party struggles had continued through the summer, the main object of the who being to obtain the appointment of Somers. The junto even joined with the Jacobites to influence the Scotch elections ; Sunderland greatly offended the queen by taking part in this manœuvre. Marlborough had to be constantly writing letters to urge the duchess to restrain their son-in-law, and tried to soothe the queen’s irritation. The whigs again talked of inviting the Electress Sophia to England, though Marlborough remonstrated as well as he could. His extreme vexation, increased by ill-health, led him to a fresh offer of resignation, and the usual a peals and remonstrances. A bitter quarrel broke out between the queen and the duchess on the victory of Oudenarde because the duchess had made some arrangements about the queen’s jewels to be worn at the ‘Te Deum,' which the queen rejected, at the diabolical instigation, as the duchess supposed, of Mrs. Masham. Angry letters were followed by a vehement altercation, after which the duchess announced her resolution, judiciously applauded by her husband, of holding her tongue for the future. The death of tie Prince of Denmark (28 Oct. O.S. 1709) brought about a temporary improvement. The troublesome Admiral Churchill lost his seat and was succeeded by Lord Pembroke at the board; Somers became lord president, and Wharton lord-lieutenant of Ireland. The queen, in her depression, was for a time softened towards the duchess, though Mrs. Masham’s favour at court still continued and strengthened. Webb’s name had been omitted by oversight in the gazette which described the action of Wynendal. The omission, however, was ascribed to Marlborough’s jealousy. Marlborough gave the credit to Webb in his despatches to Sunderland (Despatches, iv. 243) and Godolphin (Coxe,
