since 1710, the duchess, acting during the duke's infirmity, tried her hardest to divert the responsibility upon Vanbrugh. Fortunately for him, Godolphin's warrant of 1705 was held to exonerate him from such liability, and this judgment was confirmed upon appeal by House of Lords. Thereupon, with a view of defaming the architect's character, the duchess caused to be printed and privately circulated the ‘Case of the Duke of Marlborough and Sir John Vanbrugh,’ ‘the only architect in the world who could have built such a house, and the only friend in the world capable of contriving to lay the debt upon one to whom he was so highly obliged.’ In his ‘Justification of what he Deposed in the Duchess of Marlborough's late Tryal’ (London, 1718, folio) Vanbrugh retorts by reciting the court favour he had lost by espousing the duke's interest; while, instead of reward for his labours and his difficulties with the treasury and the workmen, he complains that his authority was ridiculed and his just claims repudiated. In June 1722, when the Duke of Marlborough died, Vanbrugh commented bitterly upon his vast properties (‘greater even than was expected’) and his inability to pay either his workmen or his architect.
Vanbrugh's own dues as an architect amounted to some 2,000l., and he had practically resigned all hopes of recovering the sum, when in 1725 Walpole interfered in his behalf, and succeeded (by means to which no clue is afforded) in extorting the money from the duchess. In the meantime the long wrangle had told heavily upon his equanimity and even upon his health. The duchess succeeded in completing the building in strict accordance with his plans, but without his aid, in 1724. When, shortly before its completion, Vanbrugh took his wife to inspect his architectural chef d'œuvre, the duchess sent special orders to her servants that Lady Vanbrugh was not to be admitted within the limits of the park (see The Secret History of the Building of Blenheim, ap. D'Israeli, Lit. Curiosities, 1840, pp. 411–414; the Blenheim Castle building accounts are among the ‘Marlborough Papers’ in Brit. Mus. Addit. MSS. 19592–605).
The verdict of Vanbrugh's literary rivals as to the architectural merit of Blenheim was wholly unfavourable. In the minds of less prejudiced critics there has been great divergence of opinion; but it must be conceded that Vanbrugh hardly rose to his opportunities. The general plan of a grand central edifice, connected by colonnades with two projecting quadrangular wings, and of the approaches (including the ‘Titanic bridge’), is admirable in its way. The sky-line is broken in a picturesque fashion, and the light and shade are balanced and contrasted in a manner which evoked the enthusiastic eulogy of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Uvedale Price, Allan Cunningham, and other connoisseurs of scenic effect. On the other hand, the ornament, when not positively uncouth, is unmeaning, and there is a sensible coarseness in matters of detail throughout the work. Voltaire remarked upon Blenheim that if the rooms were as wide as the walls were thick, the château would be convenient enough. The last thing that Vanbrugh had in his mind was personal comfort of his clients. Provided he made his effect, he was satisfied (detailed elevations are given in Campbell, Vitruvius Britannicus, and a good idea of the general effect can be gathered from the five engraved views in Neal's Seats, 1820, vol. iii.; cf. Addit. MSS. 9123, 19591, and 19618; Fergusson, Hist. of Architecture, 1862, iii. 282; Gwilt, Encyclopædia, 1867, pp. 216–17; Neal, Hist. of Blenheim, 1823; Marshall, Woodstock, 1873; Blomfield, Renaissance Architect. in England, 1898).
Vanbrugh's peculiar style was ill adapted to works less than the largest size of palace, yet from 1706 onwards, though preoccupied with Blenheim, he was busily employed upon a number of lesser houses. However small the commission, his endeavour was the same—namely, to convey the majesty of stupendous size, and this aim fitted in well with the ideas of his clients. He wrote to his friend the Earl of Carlisle in 1721 that all the world was ‘mad on building as far as they can reach’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. App. vi.). In 1707 he restored Kimbolton Castle for the Earl of Manchester, of whom, as of most noblemen with whom he came into contact, he made a steady friend (see Manchester, Court and Society from Elizabeth to Anne, ii. 224 seq.). In 1710 for the Earl of Clare (afterwards Duke of Newcastle) he built Old Claremont House at Esher, ‘where nature borrows dress from Vanbrook's art’ (Garth, Claremont, 1715, p. 5; cf. Brayley, 1841, ii. 440; Stowe MS. 748, f. 9). Garth further compared the architect to Apollo, or rather Amphion, at the touch of whose lyre ‘stones mount in columns, palaces aspire.’ In 1711, in conjunction with Nicholas Hawksmoor [q. v.], he built the ‘Clarendon Printing Office,’ that is, the old ‘Clarendon Building,’ in Broad Street, Oxford (see Ackermann, Coll. of Oxford, 1814, ii. 238; Blomfield, ii. 206). In 1713 he erected the seat of King's Weston, near Bristol (Gloucestershire Notes and Queries, 1884, ii. 359); in
