CHAP. nated it; and there is scarcely one of his private letters, X. during his long career, which does not speak of his anxious 1714. longings for peace and repose. He was not averse to peace in general, but to that kind of peace which the Tories supported, which sacrificed all the objects for which the war had been undertaken. Even during his life, those who knew him best were aware how little the alleged love of money really affected his character. "He was so very great a man," said Bolingbroke, "that I forgot he had that vice." But, in truth, he had not the vice. He had the prudent habits which generally distinguish those who have had in early life their fortune to make; and he incurred the reputation for love of money which those in general do, among the great, who are not running in debt. Mankind can seldom bear success in their equals in two different lines at once: they can tolerate fortune in a merchant and fame in a general, but fortune in a famed general is utterly insupportable. In great things, however, he had the same magnanimity in money transactions that he had in everything else. He repeatedly refused the government of the Netherlands, with its emoluments of £60,000 a-year, lest the appointment should distract the harmony of the Alliance; he spent £100,000 on Marlborough House, in London; he bequeathed £50,000 to complete the buildings at Blenheim. His liberality to his children and relations was unbounded; his economy was all on himself. Nor was it confined to his relations only. On 1 Warton's one occasion, a young man, an entire stranger, came to Essay on Pope, ii. him for a commission, and when asked for the money, son's Duch- blushing confessed he had it not to produce.1 "I cannot," said the Duke, "give you the commission for nothing, 303. Thom ess, ii. 349, 350. but here are the means of purchasing it," presenting him, at the same time, with a cheque for a thousand pounds. We recommend his detractors to go and do likewise. CHAP. X. 1714. 71. life and for- death of the long Marlbo Duchess of rough. Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, long survived her illustrious husband, and died in 1744, at the advanced Subsequent age of eighty-four. Her brilliant talents, great tune, and undiminished beauty, rendered her, after his death, the object of impassioned admiration to a variety of suitors. One of the most ardent of these was Thomas, Earl of Coningsby, who had been a devoted swain even before Marlborough was committed to the tomb, but whose passion, even though his correspondence with her had long been on the hazardous confines of friendship and love, had never exceeded the limits of platonic attachment. His letters often spoke of his "dearest, dearest Lady Marlborough," but his actions had never transgressed the bounds of decorum; and the reputation of the Duchess through life was never assailed by the breath of calumny.* Another suitor was the Duke of Somerset, who also kept up an amatory correspondence with the Duchess in the most impassioned terms, when she had already reached the advanced years of sixty-two, and he that of sixty-five; but, like Coningsby, was never permitted to aspire to the honour of her hand. She lived during the remainder of her life chiefly at Windsor Lodge, superintending the works at Blenheim, and completing the splendid undertakings there, in which her husband had taken "But I live in hopes that the great and glorious Creator of the world, who does and must direct all things, will direct you to make me the happiest man upon the face of the earth, and enable me to make my dearest, dearest Lady Marlborough, as she is the best and wisest, the happiest of all women." ---Lord Coningsby to Duchess of Marlborough, Nov. 20, 1722; CoxE MS., vol. xliii. 71; and THOMSON, ii. 367. CHAP. X. 1714. such interest, and great part of which was finished by funds advanced by herself for that purpose. To a serious proposal of the Duke of Somerset, then in his sixty-fifth year, she replied with a worthy spirit,— 1 Coxe, vi. "If I were young and handsome as I was, instead of Thomson's old and faded as I am, and you could lay the empire of the world at my feet, you should never share the heart and hand that once belonged to JOHN DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH."1 392, 393. Duchess of Marlborough, ii. 360-363. CHAPTER XI. THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. CHAP. XI. 1714. 1. racter of the Marlbo wars. THE wars in which the Duke of Marlborough was engaged were not contests produced merely by the ambition of kings, or the rivalry of ministers. They were not waged for the acquisition of a province, or the Moral chacapture of a fortress. They were not incurred, like Duke of those of Frederick, for the gain of Silesia, or impelled rough's to, like those of Charles XII., by the thirst for glory. Great moral principles were involved in the contest. The League of Augsburg, which terminated in the peace of Ryswick, and first put a bridle on the ambition of France, was the direct and immediate consequence of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and the exile of the persecuted Protestants by Louis XIV. The War of the Succession arose unavoidably from his selfish ambition, and desire to appropriate the whole magnificent spoils of the Spanish monarchy, which he had won by diplomatic astuteness, for the aggrandisement of the house of Bourbon. But, in addition to this, the great interests of religious freedom and national independence were at stake in the struggle. Freedom of thought, emancipation from Romish tyranny, liberty in the choice of worship, the preaching CHAP. XI. of the Gospel to the poor, were borne aloft on Marlborough's banners; national independence, death to the 1714. Bourbons, hatred to France, were inscribed on those of Opposite in- Eugene. The Church of Rome, indeed, had few more 2. terests and causes for faithful subjects than the house of Hapsburg; but parties con- dread of the ambition of Louis XIV., and the glittering which the tended. prospect of the Spanish succession, had brought her 1 |