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1714.

CHAP. taining emblematic representations of the battles he had X. gained, and the towns he had taken, surmounted by the words "Bello hæc et plura." Blenheim was there, and Schellenberg, Ramilies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet ; Ruremonde and Liege, Menin and Dendermonde, Antwerp and Brussels, Ostend and Ghent, Tournay and Lille, Mons and Bouchain, Bethune, St Venant, and 1 Hist. de Aire. The number, and the recollections with which 521, 522. they were fraught, made the English ashamed of the manner in which they had used the hero who had filled the world with his renown.1

Marlb. iii.

Coxe, vi. 386.

60.

interment

in West

minster

at last at

The Duke of Montague, his son-in-law, who acted as His place of chief mourner, was supported by the Earls of Sunderland and Godolphin. Eight dukes and four other earls bore Abbey, and the pall. The procession was closed by a long array of the carriages of the nobility and gentry, including those of the King and the Prince of Wales. The cavalcade moved from Marlborough House, where he died, along St James's Park to Hyde Park Corner, and thence by Piccadilly and Pall Mall, by Charing Cross, to Westminster Abbey. Immense crowds filled the streets where the procession moved along; the very roofs of the houses were thronged with spectators. The Horse and Foot Guards formed part of the pageant in their splendid uniforms; but a yet more moving spectacle was afforded by the numerous veterans, most of them now in plain clothes, but whose service in the field might be known. by their uncovered heads, and the tears which trickled down their cheeks, as their beloved chief was borne to his last resting-place. The body was received at the west door by the dignitaries of the cathedral in their splendid habiliments, and the venerable pile blazed with tapers and torches in every quarter.

"Through the courts at deep midnight the torches are gleaming,
In the proudly-arched chapel the banners are beaming;
Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming,
Lamenting a chief of the people should fall."

CHAP.

X.

1714.

The funeral service, beginning with the words "I am the resurrection and the life," was read with impressive solemnity by Bishop Atterbury, and at its close, the Garter- King-at-Arms, after reciting the titles of the deceased, pronounced the words, "Thus it has pleased Almighty God to take out of this transitory world, into His mercy, the most high, mighty, noble Prince, John Duke of Marlborough." The body was lowered into the grave, in the vault at the east end of the tomb of Henry VII.; but that was not its final resting-place. It was afterwards removed to the chapel of Blenheim, where it was finally deposited in a splendid mausoleum, erected by the pious care of the Duchess. But the traveller who visits that sacred fane, and casts his eyes 1 Coxe, vi. on the monuments of a nation's gratitude which surround Hist. de it, will give it a wider mausoleum,1 and pronounce the 528, 529. well-known words

"Si monumentum quæris, circumspice."

385-387.

Marlb. iii.

rough's for

will.

The Duke of Marlborough, during his long and 61. splendid career, accumulated a very large fortune, the Marlboresult partly of the deserved munificence of his sove- tune and reign in the days when her favour lasted, and partly of the great emoluments which in his day belonged to the generals at the head of armies. The time had not then arrived when popular jealousy was to starve down the remuneration of public servants to the lowest point consistent with the discharge of their duty, and when a man who had his fortune to make, and wished to leave his family independent, was obliged to enter the service of a merchant or a manufacturer, and not that of his

X.

CHAP. country. He left in land and money about £40,000 a-year. His will, which was made in November 1720, 1714. provided amply for all his relatives. To the Duchess, whom he had ever loved with the most passionate devotion, he left a jointure of £15,000 a-year. The sum of £50,000 was bequeathed to her, to aid in completing the works at Blenheim. The residue of his fortune was settled on his eldest daughter, Henrietta, Countess of Godolphin, and her heirs-male, with a reversionary entail on the heirs-male of his other daughters in succession. To Lord Godolphin he assigned an annuity of £5000 a-year, if he survived his wife; and to Lord Rialton, his eldest son, one of £3000 per annum. His executors were directed to obtain an act of Parliament, settling on the future representatives of his titles all the landed estates which they might purchase with the interest of his personal estate.1

1 Coxe, vi. 389, 390.

62.

the title and

estates.

On the decease of the Duke, the title and estates Descent of descended to his eldest daughter, Lady Godolphin, who became Duchess of Marlborough. That line, however, became extinct in 1733, by the demise of her only son, the Marquess of Blandford, without issue. The title and estates, in terms of the entail, therefore devolved on the Sunderland branch, the next in the order of succession, from whom the present noble family of Marlborough is descended. Henrietta, second Duchess of Marlborough, left two daughters, the eldest of whom married Thomas Holles, Duke of Newcastle; the second, Thomas, Duke of Leeds, from whom the present and sixth Duke of Leeds is descended. Mary, the fourth daughter of the Duke of Marlborough, who married the Duke of Montague, had three sons who all died in infancy-and three daughters, Eleanor, Mary, and Isabella. Eleanor died unmarried;

X.

Isabella married the Duke of Manchester, and was CHAP. celebrated as one of the greatest beauties of her day. By the Duke she had no issue; but, after his decease, 1714. she married Edward Hussey, Esq., who was afterwards created Earl of Beaulieu, which line is now extinct. Her daughter married Lord Bolingbroke, and thus united the blood of these rivals in politics in that noble family. Mary, the youngest daughter of John, Duke of Montague, married George, fourth Earl of Cardigan, who in 1766 was created Duke of Montague. Their only son died in 1771, unmarried; but their surviving daughter, Elizabeth, having married Henry, Duke of Buccleuch, became 1 Coxe, vi. the parent of a numerous line of descendants, who Hist. de united the blood of Monmouth with that of Marlborough 547. in that noble family.1

391, 392.

Marlb. iii.

63.

a descen

Marlbo

the battle

noy.

At the battle of Fontenoy in 1745, when the English and French Guards approached each other, three officers Anecdote of of the former stepped out of the ranks, and, taking off dant of their hats, exclaimed, -"Messieurs de la Garde rough at Française, tirez!" The French commander, the Comte of Fonted'Anteroche, replied, "Messieurs de la Garde Anglaise, tirez vous-même, nous réponderons." The English fired accordingly, and "the discharge brought down," says the French historian, "six hundred of the French Guards, and annihilated another regiment. Thus the regard of reciprocal politeness preceded the most frightful carnage; and the example was afforded of two rival nations preceding a bloody action by an example of generosity, with which the Greeks and the Romans would not have failed to ennoble their history." One of these three English was Lord Albemarle; the second, Hist. de Captain Charles Hay; and the third, Captain Churchill, 546. son of a natural son of the Duke of Marlborough.2 If

Marlb. iii.

CHAP. experience has shown that intellectual powers generally X. come from the mother's, it tells equally that the heroic come from the father's side. *

1714.

64. Remark

able kind

position in Marlbo

rough.

A very imperfect idea would be formed of the character of the Duke of Marlborough, if it were rested

ness of dis- solely on his public actions, great and glorious as they were. It is in private life that the feelings of the heart are fully proved, and there his disposition appeared in the brightest colours. He was the kindest and most affectionate of men; and in addition to these feelings, in himself he possessed in the highest degree the courtesy and benignity of manner which most strongly awaken similar feelings in others. He won the hearts, not only of men of his own disposition, but of the most opposite characters and selfish propensities. All yielded to the gentle atmosphere which impregnated the very air he breathed. The ambitious Sunderland, the unimaginative Godolphin, were alike influenced by it. He was not merely respected, but loved by his friends; and loved for his own sake, irrespective of the fame he had acquired, or the influence he wielded. It was the charm 395. Thom- of his manner, the gentleness of his temper, the suavity ess of Marl- of his disposition, which won every heart, as it does in 343. every age with those who are blessed with such a

1 Coxe, vi.

son's Duch

borough, ii.

65.

ter as a husband,

heavenly temperament.1

This gentle and affectionate disposition appeared in His charac- all the relations of life, and in none so much so as in those in which it is usually least conspicuous. If it be true that no man is a hero to his valet-de-chambre, certainly no man approached the character so nearly as

father, and friend.

Coxe says that the officer was the grandson of Charles Churchill, the brother of Marlborough. At all events, he was of the same blood and parental descent.-CoxE, vi. 392.

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