1. It is the impression of her descendant, Earl Spencer, that the Duchess was born at Holywell: and the facts which are stated in chapter i. p. 10 of the first volume, and for which the Authoress is indebted to the kindness of Mr. Nicholson, abundantly prove that conviction to be just.
2. Life of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, 1745, p. 61.
3. Collins’s Baronage, art. Churchill.
4. The letter, now amongst the papers of John Bennet Lawes, Esq., the descendant of Sir John Wittewronge, Bart., is too much mutilated to be copied or inserted in the appendix. The Duchess, from the vicinity of Sandridge to Rothamsted Park, was probably early acquainted with the family of Wittewronge. She bought some land from Sir John Wittewronge.—See her Grace’s will.
5. A Letter from the Duchess. Private Correspondence of the Duke of Marlborough. Colburn, 1837, vol. ii. p. 112.
6. For a more detailed account of the Jennings or Jennyns family, see Appendix I.
7. Sandridge is a straggling and by no means picturesque village, in the vicinity of St. Albans. The property once belonging to the Jennings family descended to the favourite grandson of the Duchess, Lord John Spencer, (commonly called “Jack Spencer,”) and was sold by the present Lord Spencer to John Kinder, Esq., who has built a handsome house on the estate.
The manor of Sandridge, at the time of the dissolution, formed part of the possessions of the Abbot of St. Albans, and is thus described in the Domesday Survey. “It answered for ten hides. There is land to thirteen ploughs. The Abbot himself holds Sandridge. Three hides are in the demesne, and there are two ploughs here, and a third may be made. Twenty-six villanes here have ten ploughs Meadow for two ploughs. Pasture for the cattle. Pasturage for three hundred hogs. The whole value is 18l. When received 12l. And the same in King Edward’s time.”—Clutterbuck’s Hist. of Hertfordshire, p. 216.
Upon the dissolution, this manor came to the crown, and was granted by charter, anno 32 Henry VIII., to Ralph Rowlat, whose sister married Ralph Jennings, the grandfather of Richard Jennings.
8. With the day of her birth I have been assisted by the kindness of a friend. Coxe mentions merely the year.
9. I am enabled, by the kindness and intelligence of the Rev. Henry Nicholson, rector of the Abbey of St. Alban’s, to give the corroborating evidence to this fact. A member of the highly respectable family of a former rector of St. Albans distinctly recollects that it used to be the boast of her aunt, an old lady of eighty, not many years deceased, that she had herself been removed, when ill of the small-pox, to the very room in the house where Sarah Duchess of Marlborough was born. This was a small building since pulled down, and its site is now occupied by a summer-house, between what is called Holywell-street and Sopwell-lane in St. Alban’s, and within the space afterwards occupied by the pleasure-grounds of the great house at Holywell. Holywell is said by tradition to have been so called, because in it was a well, marked in an old map of St. Albans, where the nuns of Sopwell used to dip their crusts, too hard to be eaten without such a process.
10. Clutterbuck’s History of Hertfordshire, p. 57.
11. Bishop Burnet’s Hist. of His Own Times, vol. v. p. 53.
12. Granger, art. M. B.
13. Macpherson’s Hist. of Great Britain, vol. i. p. 174.
14. Macpherson, p. 177.
15. Life of James II., edited by Macpherson, vol. i. p. 73.
16. Hist. Brit., vol. i. p. 178.
17. See Archdeacon Coxe’s Life of John Duke of Marlborough, vol. i. Introduction, p. 45; also Lediard’s Life of Marlborough. For a further account of the Churchill name and lineage, see Appendix II.
18. See Coxe, p. 47 and 49.
19. See Grammont.
20. This early exploit was the result of a wager of Turenne’s. “I will bet a supper and a dozen of claret,” said the general, “that my handsome Englishman will recover the post with half the number of men commanded by the officer who has lost it.” The wager was accepted and won.—Lediard, vol. i.
21. Coxe, p. 9.
22. Lord Chesterfield’s Letters, 136.
23. For a specimen of the errors, in this respect, imputed to the Duke, see Appendix, No. I., in an extract from the newspapers of his time.
24. “Divi Britannici; being a Remark on all the Kings of this isle, from the year of the world 2855 unto the year of Grace 1660.”—General Biography, art. Churchill.
25. Coxe, p. 1, 2.
26. See Life of Zarah, p. 2.
27. Life of Zarah, p. 3.
28. Collins’s Baronage, vol. ii. p. 131.
29. Collins’s Baronage, art. Churchill.
30. Coxe, i. 13.
31. Chesterfield’s Letters, p. 136.
32. Bishop Burnet alludes to this intrigue between Marlborough and the Duchess. “The Duchess of Cleveland, finding that she had lost the king, abandoned herself to great disorders; one of which, by the artifice of the Duke of Buckingham, was discovered by the king in person.”—Hist. of his own Times, vol. i. p. 370.
33. Burnet, vol. i. p. 129.
34. Grammont, vol. ii. p. 284.
35. Chesterfield’s Letters, p. 136.
36. From 1675 to 1678. See Coxe, vol. i. 15.
37. Life of John Duke of Marlborough, p. 39.
38. See Coxe, 14, 15.
39. Continuation of Lord Clarendon’s Life, p. 167.
40. Ibid., p. 148.
41. Granger.
42. Lediard, p. 32.
43. Echard’s Hist. Revolution, p. 113.
44. Coxe, vol. i. p. 15.
45. Coxe.
46. Lediard.
47. Coxe.
48. Coxe, vol. i. p. 18.
49. Coxe, vol. i. p. 18.
50. See Coxe, from Lives of Marlborough and Eugene, vol. i. p. 15.
51. Dalrymple, Appendix, p. 239.
52. Lediard, p. 39, 40.
53. Coxe, vol. i. p. 19.
54. Coxe.
55. Coxe.
56. Lediard.
57. Boyer, p. 36.
58. Granger.
59. Macpherson’s Hist. England, p. 365.
60. Boyer.
61. Granger, vol. i. p. 8.
62. Ibid.
63. Private Correspondence of the Duchess of Marlborough, vol. ii. p. 116.
64. Priv. Correspondence.
65. Granger, art. Anne.
66. Boyer, p. 716.
67. Ibid.
68. Four last Years of Queen Anne’s Reign, vol. xii. p. 11.
69. Granger.
70. Four last Years, p. 11.
71. Conduct.
72. Conduct, p. 11–15.
73. Conduct, p. 10.
74. Lord Wharncliffe’s edition of Lady M. W. Montague’s Works, vol. i.
75. The Life of Colley Cibber.
76. Burnet’s History of his own Times, vol. i. p. 756.
77. Conduct, p. 11.
78. Ibid., p. 20.
79. Conduct, p. 13.
80. Conduct, p. 15.
81. Coxe, 27.
82. Conduct, p. 13.
83. Conduct, p. 12.
84. Coxe, 28.
85. Dalrymple, i. 104.
86. Ibid.
87. Life of St. Evremond. See Notes to Grammont, vol. ii. p. 351.
88. Brian Fairfax’s Life of the Duke of Buckingham, quoted in Grammont.
89. Macpherson, vol. i. p. 384.
90. Grammont, ii. 190.
91. Burnet, vol. i. p. 368.
92. See Notes to Grammont, vol. i. p. 329.
93. Ibid. 261.
94. See Opinions of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough. Edit. 1784, p. 4.
95. £20,000 a year.
96. Ibid. p. 6.
97. Boyer’s Life of Anne, p. 3.
98. See letters from the Princess of Denmark to the Princess of Orange in Dalrymple’s Mem. vol. ii. Appendix.
99. Conduct, p. 16.
100. Coxe, i. 33.
101. Conduct.
102. Coxe, 34.
103. Conduct, p. 16.
104. Tindal, vol. xv. p. 150.
105. Four Last Years of Queen Anne, p. 10.
106. See Oliver’s Pocket Looking Glass, printed 1711, p. 25.
107. Coxe, p. 34.
108. Dalrymple, book v. p. 215.
109. Dalrymple, book v. p. 215.
110. Dalrymple, 228, book v.
111. See Coxe, Lediard.
112. Macpherson, ii. 479; Clarendon’s Diary, Nov. 9, 1688.
113. Conduct.
114. Tindal, xv. p. 200.
115. Before the Princess had sent to declare her distress.
116. Conduct, p. 16.
117. Tindal, p. 75, vol. xv. See Appendix.
118. Dalrymple, b. vi. p. 230.
119. Life of Colley Cibber, p. 48.
120. The Other Side of the Question, in a Letter to Her Grace the Dowager Duchess of.... By a Woman of Quality. Ed. London, 1742, p. 5.
121. Conduct, p. 19.
122. Life of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, 1746, p. 6.
123. Life of John Duke of Marlborough, by Lediard.
124. Other Side of the Question, p. 11.
125. Other Side of the Question, 11.
126. Dalrymple, b. vi. p. 232.
127. Macpherson, i. p. 516.
128. Burnet, iv. 193.
129. Noble’s edition of Granger, vol. i. p. 13.
130. Burnet.
131. Macpherson, vol. i. p. 308, apud d’Avaux.
132. Dalrymple, Burnet, Tindal, Macpherson.
133. Dalrymple, b. vi. p. 269.
134. Tindal, vol. xv. p. 280.
135. Macpherson.
136. Dalrymple, b. vi. p. 270.
137. Dalrymple, b. vi. p. 270.
138. Dalrymple, b. vi. p. 270.
139. Conduct, p. 22.
140. Conduct, p. 22.
141. Dalrymple, b. i. p. 90.
142. Granger. Edited by Noble. art. Russell.
143. Dalrymple.
144. Burnet, vol. iv. p. 196.
145. Ibid.
146. Ibid.
147. Dalrymple, b. ii. p. 113.
148. Ibid. b. vii. p. 272.
149. Dalrymple, b. vi. p. 238.
150. Conduct.
151. Dalrymple, b. vii. p. 276.
152. Macpherson, vol. i. p. 512.
153. Burnet, v. 69.
154. Burnet.
155. Conduct, p. 25.
156. Doctor Birch’s Notes from the Princess Anne’s Letters to her Sister. See Sir John Dalrymple’s Memoirs.
157. Dalrymple, vol. ii. part ii. b. i. p. 305.
158. In 1708 the hinges of the portcullis were remaining.
159. Among others, those near the water were occupied by the late Duchess of Portland.—Smith’s Antiquities of Westminster, vol. i. p. 19.
160. Conduct, p. 29.
161. See Dalrymple.
162. Conduct, p. 28.
163. Conduct, p. 30.
164. Boyer, p. 6.
165. Coxe, vol. i. p. 60.
166. Conduct, p. 30.
167. Conduct, p. 32.
168. See Private Correspondence.
169. He was called in Ireland, when he was appointed by Anne lord lieutenant, Polyphemus, or Ireland’s Eye.—Noble’s Granger, vol. i. p. 51.
170. Conduct.
171. Tindal, vol. xvi. p. 502.
172. Conduct, p. 35.
173. Ibid. 37.
174. Ibid.
175. Noble’s edition of Granger, vol. ii. p. 18.
176. Macpherson.
177. Noble, art. Godolphin.
178. Dean Swift’s Four Last Years of Queen Anne, p. 12.
179. Boyer, p. 17.
180. Ibid.
181. Swift, p. 12.
182. Four Last Years, p. 12.
183. Swift.
184. Conduct, p. 37.
185. Conduct, p. 38.
186. Macpherson.
187. Letter written soon after the Revolution, by Daniel Finch, Esq. of Nottingham. Dalrymple’s Mem. vol. ii. p. 79.
188. Boyer, p. 357.
189. Conduct, p. 38.
190. Ibid.
191. Correspondence, vol. i. p. 44.
192. Ibid. p. 27.
193. Coxe, vol. i. 4to. p. 18.
194. Lediard.
195. Coxe.
196. Lediard, p. 103.
197. Dalrymple.
198. Dalrymple, part II. b. i. p. 300.
199. Dalrymple, part ii. b. i. p. 300.
200. Tindal, Dalrymple, Burnet.