she spent in lodgings while the parsonage was being rebuilt.
The Rector was away during a great part of the first year spent by his wife and family in the new house. His busy brain was never allowed to rust or vegetate, and he was, of course, glad to earn whatever he could by his pen.
Events of considerable political importance were taking place in London during 1709, and, from various causes, the Duke of Marlborough was losing his popularity. The nation was getting tired of the war with France, which Dean Swift declared had cost "six millions of supplies and almost fifty millions of debt"; and Marlborough, who had long been in the position of a "Tory man bringing in Whig measures," as Lord Beaconsfield puts it, was accused of continuing the struggle with Louis Quatorze for his own enrichment and aggrandisement. The Tories regarded him as a traitor to his party, and aggravated every little incident that could strengthen their own power. Dr. Henry Sacheverell, rector of St. Saviour, Southwark, was a popular and prominent High Church clergyman of the day, narrow-minded and violent, especially against Dissenters. At the summer assizes at Derby he preached a very exciting sermon before the judges, and on the 5th of November, in St. Paul's Cathedral, he declaimed in a most inflammatory manner against toleration and the Dissenters, who were evidently his pet aversion; declared that the Church was in danger from avowed enemies and false friends; and altogether raised such a commotion that his sermons, which were published under the protection of the Lord Mayor and were widely circulated, were complained of to the House of Commons as containing positions contrary
