INTRODUCTION.
Had the subject of this Memoir lived in the present day, copious accounts of the part which she performed in public life would have instantly been given to the world. Her domestic habits, and her merits and demerits of every description, would have been amply discussed. With her personal qualities we should, from a thousand channels, have been familiarised. Every peculiarity of her resolute and singular character would have been unveiled to the inspection of an inquisitive and amused public: nor would there have been wanting those who would have eagerly grasped at such an opportunity of commenting upon the politics, manners, and events of the day, as that which the biography of the Duchess of Marlborough affords.
It is, nevertheless, a fact, that ninety-six years have elapsed since the death of this celebrated woman, and, as yet, no complete account of her singular career, no memoirs of her as a private individual, of any length, or of any importance in other respects, have appeared; and it is remarkable, that both the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, two persons who acquired in their lifetime as great a share of celebrity as any British subjects ever enjoyed, incurred a risk of not being commemorated, after their decease, by any connected and adequate work.
The biography of John Duke of Marlborough, undertaken by three individuals, was completed only by Lediard, who had served under the hero of Blenheim, and who may be supposed to have felt a sort of personal interest in his illustrious career. The coldness of those to whom the task was deputed, recommended as it was to their zealous attention by the promise of a considerable sum to forward its completion, proves how feebly the public called for such a production. It was not until the Duchess was on her deathbed that she began to arrange the voluminous materials of the life of her husband. It was not until two years before her death that she published her own Vindication, which she entitled “An Account of the Conduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough, from her first coming to Court, to the year 1510.”
This book, published in 1742, after provoking several replies, fell into a partial oblivion. The animadversions and discussions to which it gave rise, and the contemptuous opinion pronounced upon it by Horace Walpole, whose fiat in the fashionable world was decisive, have therefore remained unanswered. Garbled as it was, it is yet a work replete with ability, carrying a conviction of the sincerity of its authoress, and unfolding the motives by which she was actuated, with force and clearness. The following extract will afford the reader an opportunity to form a judgment of the Vindication by the Preface to the Duchess’s narrative. The just and noble sentiments which she expresses upon the acquisition of a good name, and likewise upon posthumous reputation, must prepossess the mind strongly in favour of that which is to follow these sound and well-expressed motives of action.
“I have been often told that there is a sort of philosophy, by which people have brought themselves to be indifferent, not only whether they be at all remembered after death, but whether, in case their names should survive them, they be mentioned with praise or infamy. If this be really a point of wisdom, it is infinitely beyond my reach; and I shall own further, that it seems to me too refined and sublimed to be attained by anybody who has not first got rid of the prejudices of common sense and common honesty. I will not pretend to say that the passion for fame may not sometimes be excessive, and deservedly the subject of ridicule. But surely, my lord, there never was a single instance of a person of true honour, who was willing to be spoken of, either during life or after it, as a betrayer of his country or his friend; and I am persuaded that your lordship must have observed, that all those who, at this day, declare themselves wholly careless about what the world, or the circle of their acquaintance, will say of them when they are dead, are quite as unconcerned to deserve a good character while they live.
“For my own part, I frankly confess to you, and to the world, that whatever vanity or weakness the ambition of a good name may be thought, either by philosophers or by ministers of state, to imply, I have ever felt some degree of that ambition from the moment I could distinguish between good and evil. My chief aim (if I have any acquaintance with my own heart) has been, both in public and private life, to deserve approbation: but I have never been without an earnest desire to have it, too, both living and dead, from the wise and virtuous.
“My lord, this passion has led me to take more pains than you would easily imagine. It has sometimes carried me beyond the sphere to which the men have thought proper, and, perhaps, generally speaking, with good reason, to confine our sex. I have been a kind of author. About forty years ago, having understood that the wife of the late Bishop Burnet, a lady whom I greatly esteemed, had received unfavourable impressions of me, on account of the unhappy differences between Queen Mary and her sister, I wrote a faithful narrative of that affair purely to satisfy that one person.
“And when, after my dismissal from Queen Anne’s service, I perceived how industriously malice was employed in inventing calumnies to load me with, I drew up an account of my conduct in the several offices I had filled under her Majesty. This piece I intended to publish immediately, but was dissuaded from it by a person (of great eminence at this day) whom I thought my friend. I have since imagined that he had, by instinct, an aversion to accounting. It was said, as a reason for deferring the publication of my Account, that prejudice and passion were grown too violent and stormy for the voice of reason to be heard, but that those would, after some time, subside, and that the truth then brought to light would unavoidably prevail. I followed the advice with the less reluctance, as being conscious of the power of an easy vindication, whenever my patience should be pushed to extremity.
“After this I set myself another task, to which I was partly urged by the injustice, and I may say ingratitude, of the Whigs. It was to give an account of my conduct with regard to parties, and of the successful artifice of Mr. Harley and Mrs. Masham, in taking advantage of the Queen’s passion for what she called the church, to undermine me in her affections. In this undertaking I had the assistance of a friend to whom I furnished materials. Some parts of the work were of my own composition, being such passages as nobody but myself could relate with exactness. This was not originally intended to be published until after my death.
“But, my lord, as I am now drawing near my end, and very soon there will remain nothing of me but a name, I am desirous, under the little capacity which age and infirmities have left me for other enjoyments, to have the satisfaction, before I die, of seeing that name (which, from the station I have held in the great world, must unavoidably survive me,) in possession of what was only designed it for a legacy. From this desire I have caused the several pieces above mentioned to be connected together, and thrown into the form into which I now venture to address them to your lordship. They may possibly be of some use towards correcting the folly and injustice of those who, in order to judge of the conduct of others, begin with forming to themselves characters of them, upon slight and idle reports, and then make such characters the rule by which they admit or reject whatever they afterwards hear concerning them. If any such happy effect as this might reasonably be hoped from the perusal of these papers, I should be far from making any apology for offering them to your lordship; I would not call it troubling your lordship with them. No, my lord, you will not esteem it a trouble to read them, even though you should judge them useless for the purpose I have mentioned. The friendship you favour me with will make you find a particular satisfaction in this justification of my injured character to the world. And I imagine that there is no honest mind, how much soever it may chance to be prejudiced against me, but will feel something of the same pleasure in being undeceived.
“The original letters, of which, either in whole or in part, the copies will be here found, I have directed to be preserved in my family as incontestable vouchers of the truth of what I am going to relate.”
The works which this “Account” very soon elicited, in reply to its able strictures upon persons and things, are enumerated in those chapters of this work which relate particularly to the scurrilous attacks from which the Duke and Duchess perpetually suffered. The latter, indeed, lived too short a period after her Account of her Conduct appeared, to refute the misstatements which were circulated in various pamphlets, and by other works of ephemeral celebrity. It was, perhaps, for the best, that an opportunity of acrimonious retaliation was not afforded to one who was apt, to use her own expression, to “tumble out her mind” in a manner not always either very decorous, nor very gratifying to her hearers. Those who recommended the Duchess to postpone her work were doubtless well acquainted with her peculiarities, and dreaded the violence of that explosion which must ensue. It was, probably, the wish of her friends and relations, as it is said to have been their expectation, that the Vindication should be posthumous.
The Duchess of Marlborough, in addition to her own powerful efforts, had the good fortune also to be defended by the pen of the celebrated Henry Fielding. It must, however, be acknowledged, that possibly the defence of the great novelist was not disinterested. Fielding wrote, as it is well known, many fugitive political tracts, for which he was accused of venality, and it was generally understood that they were remunerated by the party whom he espoused. It is extremely probable that a man disposed to make his talents profitable may not have been ashamed to vindicate the conduct of the wealthy and powerful Duchess, for a consideration; and there were circumstances in the family of Fielding which confirm the supposition. His father, Edward Fielding, served under the Duke of Marlborough; and his sister Sarah, the accomplished friend of Bishop Hoadly, had, through that medium, ample opportunities of introducing her brother to the Duchess. The work which Fielding published in 1742, was entitled “A Full Vindication of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough, both with regard to the Account lately published by her Grace, and to her Character in general; against the base and malicious invectives contained in a late scurrilous pamphlet, entitled ‘Remarks on the Account,’ &c. In a Letter to the noble Author of those Remarks.”
The Duchess had been dead nearly two years, when an anonymous biography, concise and meagre, entitled “The Life of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough,” was published in 1745. This small volume, for into one small volume in those days was the long life of the departed Duchess compressed, has every appearance of being written by a person amicable to the Duchess, although not in her confidence; no original letters are introduced, and the anecdotes of the Duchess, which are given, though favourable, are not so voluminous as those which one might glean in an hour, in the present day, from newspapers. The Life was, in all probability, according to the custom of the Duchess, ordered and paid for by her; perhaps the task was remunerated whilst she was alive; but, from the coldness with which it is written, it was probably completed after her death.
This little book has hitherto constituted the sole biography of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough. Her own Vindication commences and ends with her court life, and its title-page distinctly states it to be “An Account of the Conduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough, from her first coming to Court to the year 1710. In a letter from herself to my Lord ——.” The name of this favoured nobleman, Earl Cholmondeley, has been supplied by Sir John Dalrymple in his manuscript notes on the work entitled the “Opinions of the Duchess of Marlborough.”
With such scanty materials for a foundation, those who are disposed to read the work of which this Introduction forms a portion, might naturally dread that many of its details must be gleaned from report, supported by questionable authority. Fortunately, however, the Duchess, among other precise and valuable habits, had a custom, not only of preserving every letter that she had received, but of describing its contents in her own peculiar terms on each epistle. During her residence abroad with the Duke, after their reverse of favour, she composed, also, an elaborate justification of herself, in the form of a letter to Mr. Hutchinson; a narrative which supplies ample materials for compiling that period of her life to which it relates. She likewise prepared other statements, which, with her letter to Mr. Hutchinson, she was persuaded, as she says, by her friends, not to publish, until a very long time after the events to which they related were almost forgotten by the world. These she framed afterwards into the Account of her Conduct, leaving out, as Horace Walpole declared upon report, and as subsequent investigations have manifested, the most pungent, and of course the most interesting, portion of her communications.
A great portion of the Duchess’s narrative having been delivered in conversation to Hooke, the historian whom she employed to make the book intelligible, the most characteristic portion of the Account, which was suppressed by the prudence of Hooke, is of course wholly lost. In the materials which the Duchess collected to form the volume, many minute particulars which were not deemed worthy of insertion in the Account, are, however, preserved; and it has been the good fortune of the authoress of these Memoirs to supply, in some instances, the garbled passages from the Duchess’s papers, and to restore to the Vindication the Duchess’s own language; those expressive and happy phrases which, as the reader will perceive, described her own sentiments, and portrayed the characters of others, in a manner that no dispassionate historian could imitate.
Of such papers as were deemed fit for publication by the Marlborough and Spencer families, Archdeacon Coxe, in compiling his elaborate “Life of John Duke of Marlborough,” had the free use, with the privilege of making copies. In the able work of this indefatigable historian he availed himself, in some measure, of most of these valuable materials; but in the progress of his heavy task, he never forgot that he was compiling a biography of the Duke, not the Duchess, of Marlborough; that he was dealing with the enterprises, the treaties, the opinions, and the projects, of men, and not with the intrigues, the foibles, the feelings, and the quarrels of women. He has, therefore, but rarely, and incidentally, referred to the Duchess of Marlborough: hastening from the subject, as if he indeed feared that her formidable spirit might be recalled by the expressions of disapproval which he cautiously bestows upon her, by the hints which he gives of her temper, and the conclusion to which he fails not to lead the reader, that she was the source of all the Duke’s disappointments and reverses. This determination on the part of the Archdeacon, and the manifest prejudice which he had imbibed against the Duchess of Marlborough, may readily be traced, by those who are induced to examine the manuscripts which were placed in the Museum by the executors of Dr. Coxe. These papers, which formed, in part, the materials for the Life of the great General, and also for the Duchess’s “Account,” are extremely interesting, and afford a satisfactory basis for a memoir. They contain, amongst other documents, many private letters, from which a selection has been already published, with great success, under the title of “Private Correspondence of the Duchess of Marlborough.” They comprise also, not only a mass of papers relating to the Duke’s continental and political affairs, but a discussion upon the reasons for the dismissal of Lord Godolphin, the mode in which it was effected by Queen Anne, some curious correspondence relative to the building of Blenheim, the letters of Lord Coningsby to the Duchess, and her grace’s long and reiterated remonstrances with the Treasury upon various topics, passages of which develope more of her character than long pages of description could unfold.
These documents arrived at the manuscript office of the British Museum in a state of the greatest confusion, rendering it almost surprising that they had been preserved at all. By the industry and judgment of Mr. Holmes, they have been carefully arranged, in a manner well adapted to lighten the task of examining manuscripts, always, be the writing ever so legible, more or less laborious. To them, many of the details, and much of the interest, which the second volume of this work may perhaps be found to possess, are to be attributed. An author may augur somewhat confidently of interesting and pleasing a reading public, when he can make his principal characters speak for themselves. Without the aid of these manuscripts, the Memoirs of the Duchess would not have had the character of originality to which, in some degree, it is presumed, they may aspire. It is curious that in many instances the Authoress has found it desirable to extract from these documents the very passages which Dr. Coxe had most carefully rejected. In the few memorials of the Duchess to which he has referred in his work, he has passed his pen across all lively observations, as irrelevant, all detail, however illustrative of her character, as unnecessary. Everything that could cheer the reader during the recital of vexatious politics, and after the enumeration of battles, was discarded, or discussed briefly.
Such are some of the sources from which information for these Memoirs has been gleaned. The published works which have been consulted, were selected without any reference to their political bias. The merits of those famous questions which agitated this country in the reigns of James the Second, William, and Anne, have been so fully and ably treated in the histories of Dalrymple, Macpherson, Cunningham, Somerville, Swift, and by many other writers, that it would be presumptuous, inadequate to the task as the Authoress considers herself, to revive such discussions. The aim of this work is chiefly to develope private history, connecting it, by general remarks, with the leading events of the day. From a sense of her own incompetency, the Authoress has, therefore, abstained as much as possible from political discussions; conceiving also, that to the generality of readers, it is a relief to escape from subjects which provoke controversy, and to retire into the private sphere of life, where the contemplation of character, and the investigation of motives, become chiefly interesting.
These Memoirs, although they aspire not to the dignity of history, must, however, necessarily embrace various themes, and comprise descriptions of public men. The Authoress has endeavoured, in all that she has had to perform, to regard justice and moderation as her guides; to draw her portraits from the most approved sources, discarding all considerations of party, until the outlines were traced, and the colours filled in. The ferment of political strife which impeded important business, and disgraced society in the reign of Anne, subsiding during the reign of her successor and his son, is revived amongst us; and the similarity of those great topics which then came before parliament, to those which have, of late years, engaged our legislators, cannot but be obvious to such persons as are conversant with our annals.
It is singular that a degree of uncertainty prevails both with respect to the birthplace of the Duchess of Marlborough, and with regard to the place of her grace’s decease. Neither is there any record in the possession of her descendants which supplies us with an account of her last moments. Regarding this important point, the Authoress applied both to his Grace the Duke of Marlborough and to Earl Spencer for information. To her inquiries, a prompt, but unsatisfactory reply was returned by the Duke of Marlborough; namely, that he had, in compliance with the Authoress’s request, examined such documents as he possessed, relating to the Duchess of Marlborough; but that the search had been fruitless, as far as any account whatsoever of her death was concerned. His Grace expressed also uncertainty respecting the spot where his celebrated ancestor breathed her last, but stated that he believed it to have been at Holywell. To Earl Spencer a similar application was made. His lordship answered, almost in the same terms as the Duke of Marlborough, that every paper relative to the Duchess which was fit for publication had been published, and that there was nothing in such as were not deemed proper for publication, relating in any way to her last hours.
It appears singular that there should have been no record preserved, among her numerous grandchildren and relatives, of the decline and death of one who had played so conspicuous a part in life as the Duchess of Marlborough. Perhaps this deficiency may be accounted for by the dissensions which divided the Duchess from her grandchildren, more particularly Charles Duke of Marlborough, her grandson, and from his Duchess, the daughter of her enemy, Lord Trevor. On the other hand, her favourite and heir, the honourable John Spencer, was one of those reckless beings who are not likely to dwell with much attention upon the deathbed of an aged relative. With respect to the belief entertained by the present Duke, though not, as his grace expresses it, with any certainty, that the Duchess died at Holywell, the Authoress has only to offer the opposing testimony of the work before alluded to, namely, the Life of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, which states that she died at the Friary, St. James’s, Marlborough-house. There is much presumptive evidence in favour of this statement. Almost to her latest hour, as may be seen in the Coxe Manuscripts, the Duchess was in correspondence with Mr. Scrope, secretary to Mr. Pelham, who, in one of his letters, begs the honour of an interview, and names an evening. This occurred about four days before the Duchess’s demise. Now it is not probable that a man in an official station could undertake a journey to St. Albans in those days, when even the passengers by the mailcoach to Windsor rested at Staines, and dined upon the road. It seems, therefore, probable that her Grace’s earliest biographer was right, and that the worn-out frame and restless spirit of this wonderful woman ceased to exist in the great metropolis.
It is incumbent upon the Authoress to express to his Grace the present Duke of Marlborough her thanks for his prompt and polite replies to the inquiries with which she ventured to trouble his Grace. To the right honourable Earl Spencer she has to make similar acknowledgments. To several of her literary friends she also owes obligations.
It seems scarcely necessary, where anything curious is to be elicited, or any kind action to be performed, to mention the name of William Upcott. That name occurs many times in the course of this work. To Mr. Upcott the Authoress owes, besides several valuable suggestions, two interesting manuscript letters, now for the first time published in the Appendix of the second volume. The first of these completes the correspondence,—on the part of the Duchess, angry and characteristic,—between her Grace and the Duke of Newcastle; part of which is to be found in the “Private Correspondence.”
The second letter, likewise in the Duchess’s handwriting, a copy of which Mr. Upcott has allowed the Authoress to make from his valuable collection of autographs, relates to an action with which the Duchess was threatened in 1712. The Authoress is also indebted to Mr. Upcott for a fac-simile of the Duchess’s handwriting, for various anecdotes selected from the newspapers of the day, those perishable but important records; and for a perusal of several scarce tracts and books, of which ample use has been made in these volumes. She cannot, indeed, recal to mind the urbanity, liberality, and intelligence of that gentleman, without rejoicing that she has been favoured with his aid, in the performance of a task of no inconsiderable difficulty.
It is with the greatest pleasure and gratitude that the Authoress acknowledges her obligations to Mr. Holmes. Upon her application to him at the Museum, he entered with a kind and lively interest into her researches, and facilitated them in every way. To his aid, and to his intimate knowledge of the manuscripts, she owes that selection of materials which he pointed out as most remarkable.
The Authoress has expressed, in a note in the first volume of these Memoirs, her acknowledgments to the Rev. Henry Nicholson, Rector of St. Alban’s Abbey, for the important information which she derived from him, regarding the birthplace of the Duchess. Had it not been for the assistance of that gentleman, directed to the subject by the local inquiries of friends, she must have followed Dr. Coxe in erroneously stating that the Duchess was born at Sandridge.[1]
The Authoress has great pleasure in acknowledging her obligations to another gentleman of great classical and literary attainments, the Rev. I. S. Brewer, to whom she owes so many useful suggestions, that she only regrets she had not the benefit of referring to his superior knowledge at an earlier period of the work than that at which it was first obtained.
The Authoress cannot close this introduction to the latest of four historical and biographical works, without thus publicly expressing her thanks to Mr. Keats, of the British Museum, for his indefatigable attentions to her; and for the assistance which she has on many occasions derived from his endeavours to aid her researches.