Courting Her Highness

THE END OF THE FAVOURITES

Sarah was making a busy life. The houses at St. Albans and Windsor as well as Marlborough House in London were always full of young people, and she was already planning grand marriages for her grandchildren. John’s health was a continual anxiety, for shortly after the first stroke he had another which was even more severe than the first, and yet Sarah nursed him through it. He found it difficult now to speak but he still clung to life. He must, Sarah told him, for what would she do without him?

He would sit in his chair and listen to the talk of his grandchildren whom he loved as devotedly as they did him. Sarah never had their affection. They were afraid of her. The only one to whom she showed real tenderness was Anne’s youngest Diana, whom she called Lady Dye. Lady Dye was her favourite and reminded Sarah frequently of her mother; moreover, the child had her mother’s temperament which made it so much easier for them to get on together. This was particularly noticeable because Lady Dye’s elder sister, Anne, had a touch of Sarah’s temper. This was certain to make for trouble and it was not possible to have such a temper duplicated in one household, so Lady Anne Spencer was sent away when her father married again.

This was another source of fury to Sarah. Only a year and a half after the death of her beloved Anne, Sunderland took another wife! He had left his Irish post and become Secretary of State which was all the more reason, Sarah believed, why he should have consulted her. She quarrelled violently with him over his marriage—to a nonentity, she declared. She could not bear it when any of the family escaped from her orbit; and she considered even son-in-laws, of whom she was not particularly fond, as part of her family.

In addition to these family troubles, she was involved in a series of quarrels with Sir John Vanbrugh over the building of Blenheim. She was a fury, said Vanbrugh, and an impossible woman. No one could hope to work with her or for her and enjoy any harmony. She was suing the Earl of Cadogan, who had been a great friend of John’s and his comrade-in-arms through many campaigns, for misappropriation of funds which John had entrusted to him; Vanbrugh had written to her that he could no longer continue to work on Blenheim for her accusations were far-fetched, mistaken and her inferences wrong. He would give up, he wrote, unless the Duke recovered in health sufficiently to shield him from her intolerable treatment.

Blenheim was not yet completed although vast sums had been spent on it; it was going to cost £300,000 pounds before it was finished and although the country supplied four fifths of this sum the remaining fifth had to come from the Marlboroughs. This gave Sarah the firm belief that she had every right to dictate what should and what should not be done.

So quarrelling with Vanbrugh, Cadogan, Sunderland and her grandchildren Sarah found her days lively. John had no idea of all the strife which was going on about them; as for Sarah, she constantly assured him that all was well; she would not have him disturbed in any way and on the occasions when he suffered relapses she remained in the sick room day and night.

Nor did she neglect her grandchildren. They were now growing up and much entertainment took place at her various houses. It was amusing to act plays—for the Duke loved to watch his grandchildren performing, and they played for his benefit All for Love and Tamerlane.

Even so she must expurgate the plays before she allowed the children to perform them.

“I will allow no bawdy words to be spoken in my house,” she warned them. “And I shall have no unseemly fondling and embracing in my house even though you tell me it comes in the play.”

So they argued together and often the sound of high words would come to the Duke’s ears as he sat in his chair. There must be these quarrels wherever Sarah was, and he had to accept this. It was part of her nature. And he would rather hear her voice raised in anger than not hear it at all.

She was alternately triumphant because of some conquest over an enemy or wildly vituperative. She would not have a friend left in the world, he feared, when he was dead. She quarrelled incessantly; her two daughters were on bad terms with her; this upset her but she could not curb her violent tongue—and nor could they; moreover they were not of an age now to fear her. She had her favourites among her grandchildren but there was trouble with them too—and there would be more as they grew up.

She was as fond of money as he was. He wondered if he had taught her that. They were rich and growing richer. When the South Sea Bubble exploded Sarah was one of the few who sold out in time. While others lamented that ruin had come upon them Sarah was boasting that out of her adventure in speculation she had made £100,000. Yes, they were rich now, but that could not make Sarah happy.

She lived in constant anxiety for John and although her assiduous care for him was such a comfort to him, even he, who loved her devotedly, was made uncomfortable by her. If she disagreed with doctors she would threaten to pull off their wigs and drive them from the apartment. They were incompetent ninnies, she told them, when she fancied that John did not respond to their medicines.

Her daughter Henrietta, Lady Godolphin, and Mary, Duchess of Montague—neither of them having the sweet tempers of Elizabeth and Anne—decided that they would no longer allow her to bully them and made a point of visiting their father when Sarah was not at home.

John reasoned with them; their mother would be hurt, he pointed out.

“Dearest father,” replied Henrietta, “it is no use. We are not children any longer and we will not be treated as such.”

“Your mother has nothing but your good at heart.”

Mary kissed him. “You are the sweetest man on earth and where she is concerned the blindest. She makes it so unpleasant for us that frankly we have no wish to be with her.”

But seeing how such remarks distressed him they allowed him to tell them how good their mother was, while they promised that they would try to understand her.

But even for his sake they could not tolerate her interference in their lives and whenever they were with her flew into rages almost as violent as hers.

The Duke was aware of the atmosphere of his home and thought how characteristic of his life it had become. He had married the woman he loved and his love for her had been like a thread of gold running through the dark web of his life; she was with him now at the end which he knew could not be far off and her devotion and care for him was all he could have asked; and yet there must be this continual strife in his home—and not only in his home but in all his affairs. The building of Blenheim, the dismissal of Vanbrugh, the trouble with Cadogan … the quarrels with Sunderland.… But these belonged to Sarah and wherever she was there would be tempest.

As he sat in his chair he would hear the sound of family quarrels. Sarah’s shrill voice arguing with her daughters or expressing her contempt for her grandchildren. Lady Dye seemed the only one who was not at some time or other in the cloud of Sarah’s displeasure.

As the spring of the year 1772 passed into summer John felt himself growing weaker and tried to keep this from Sarah. His tenderness for her was as great as it had been in the days of their courtship and his greatest concern now that he knew death to be near was for her future. He knew that he had held her back from even greater recklessness; he admired her; she was in his eyes brilliant, but he could not be blind to the fact that she made trouble for herself and everyone around her.

Without him to restrain her what would become of her? Her daughters could help her—if they would. But she would never accept help from them; nor did they love her sufficiently to give it.

Whenever they came to see him he would turn the conversation to their mother; he tried hard to make them see her virtues.

“You have the best mother in the world,” he told them.

Mary, the franker of the two, replied that they had the best of fathers and that was all they could expect.

Their love for him pleased him but he would have transferred that devotion to Sarah if he could have done so.

He sighed. His daughters were as strong-willed as their mother—or almost; and he knew that he was too tired and sick to attempt to bring peace between them.

He would lie in his chair listening to Sarah discussing his case with Sir Samuel Garth, a doctor whom she respected, or sneering at Dr. Mead, whose methods she described as useless; he knew that there was trouble about a rumour concerning Sarah’s support of the Pretender; she would always have her enemies. It was very troubling and, most of all, the knowledge that he could do nothing about it.

It was June and from his window in Windsor Lodge he could see the green of the forest and hear the bird song. Everything fresh and renewed, and he so old and tired! He was seventy-two. A good age for a man who had lived such a life as his; and something told him that the end was very close.

Sarah found him lying on his bed and she knew the worst.

“John, my dearest love,” she whispered.

And he looked at her unable to speak but the devotion of a lifetime was in his eyes.

“What shall I do without him?” she murmured.

Then she was all briskness. Send for Garth. Where was that fool Mead? The Duke had had another stroke.

Henrietta and Mary came and waited in an ante-room, and Sarah left the sickroom while they were there.

“We want no quarrels over his death-bed,” said Sarah.

It was too late for him now to plead with them; he was failing fast. His daughters took their last farewell of him and Sarah came to be with him to the very end, which was what he would wish.

On the 16th June in the year 1722 the great Duke of Marlborough died.

He lay in state at Marlborough House and was later buried with military honours in Westminster Abbey.

Sarah gratified at the honours done him, for none, as she repeated frequently, deserved them more, faced the world with a defiant glare, but inwardly she felt that her life was over, for what could it mean to her without him?

The news of Marlborough’s death came to Langley Marsh bringing back old memories.

The affairs of the Marlboroughs were often discussed at the table when guests were invited. Abigail would amuse the company with stories of Sarah’s antics; but as the years passed they seemed more like her imaginings of some fictitious creature than truth. But when news of Sarah’s latest adventures came, Abigail realized that she had not exaggerated.

Now the Duke was dead, and Sarah would no longer be supported by that wonderful devotion on which Abigail had built an ideal. Sarah had lost her most precious possession, and Abigail could even feel sorry for her.

She ceased to think of Harley now who, when he had been taken from his prison in the Tower and faced his judges, had been acquitted, though forbidden to come to Court or to go to the House of Lords. This meant that he was cut off from any hope of continuing his political career and passed into obscurity.

She occasionally heard stories of Bolingbroke, how he had married his French mistress, after the death of his wife and continued to live in France.

So they, who had been so close once, were widely separated to live lives of their own.

She was content with hers.

It was two years after the death of Marlborough when news reached her of Robert Harley’s death. He was at his house in Albemarle Street when he had been taken ill.

Memories came flooding back as they did when such events occurred. John, her brother, who had been a constant visitor to them since they had lived at Langley Marsh, kept talking of the past.

“It brings it all back,” he said. “It’s odd how you forget … until something like this happens.”

But John forgot more easily; he went off riding with young Samuel who was a favourite with him and was doubtless telling him stories of the old days when he had a command in the Army, and how he had lost it when the Germans came. Abigail remembered how she had fought for John against Marlborough—and lost. It was natural that when Anne was dead and Marlborough high in favour that John should lose his command.

But he was reconciled. He was not rich but he had a comfortable income and that would go to young Samuel in due course.

But as Abigail went about her duties she was thinking of the house in Albemarle Street and how she had gone there in secret to warn, to advise … and to hope.

She thought of Harley often during the months that followed, asking herself whether she would ever be completely rid of this nostalgia for the past which was like a physical pain. But when in October of that year her youngest daughter Elizabeth, who was only fifteen, was taken ill, she nursed her night and day and all past longings were obliterated in fear for the present.

Elizabeth died; and Abigail’s grief overwhelmed her; but it taught her one thing: her life, her emotions, her loyalties were there in Langley Marsh.

Sarah had not realized, until she lost him, how deeply she had loved her husband. He had been the one to show affection; she had accepted it as her right; she had stood fiercely by him, she had schemed for his sake; but only now did she know how much she needed him.

There was no one in the world who could take his place. The Earl of Coningsby tried. He was a man she and John had known for many years and six months after the funeral he wrote to Sarah offering her marriage.

Sarah read his letters through with astonishment. That anyone could think to take the place of Marl—and so soon! But she wrote to him gently, declining.

It was shortly afterwards that she received another proposal. This amused her because it came from the Duke of Somerset, whose wife had been that lady who had shared the Queen’s favour with Abigail Hill. Moreover, the Duke was a man obsessed by his nobility; he was known as the Proud Duke and some of the court wits had said that his pride in his birth amounted almost to mental derangement. Of course he was one of the premier dukes, sharing that honour with Norfolk; but it was rumoured that even his own children had to stand in his presence and one of them who thought he was asleep, daring to sit, was immediately “fined” £20,000 which was cut out of her inheritance.

Sarah, therefore, reading his dignified offer, was flattered; he must have a very high opinion of her, for one thing she had to admit she lacked was noble birth. Of course as Duchess of Marlborough she stood as high as any, and she would have everyone know it; but such a man as Somerset would certainly consider the Jennings’s and Churchills very humble folk.

Sarah took some pleasure in her reply. “If I were young and handsome as I was, instead of old and faded as I am, and you could lay the empire of the world at my feet, you should never have the heart and hand that once belonged to John, Duke of Marlborough.”

Having despatched this reply she went to John’s study; her thoughts were back to the past and the terrible sense of loss was as strong with her as it had ever been.

She decided that she could no longer delay sorting out his belongings and as she went through the treasures he kept in his cabinet she came upon a package; and when she opened this her own golden hair fell out.

She stared in astonishment. Her hair! Then she remembered that occasion when in a fury she had cut it off and thrown it on his desk. So he had gathered it up and preserved it.

She discovered that she was crying—not the tempestuous sobbing which was characteristic of her—but quietly, heartbrokenly.

She put the hair back into the packet and went to her room. There she lay on her bed, quietly weeping.

“Marl,” she murmured, “why was it so? You should never have left me. We should have gone together. For of what use is life to me without you.”

She continued to battle her way through life—but much of the old zest was gone. Life had little meaning without Marl. But she was the same Sarah—bellicose, furious, quarrelsome, impulsively going to battle. She had a new name now. “Old Marlborough.” And she was old; she had been sixty-two when the Duke died.

She might have found some contentment in those last years. She was an extremely rich woman—and she had always loved money. She had only two daughters it was true but many grandchildren. But she could never live in harmony with them. She could never resist meddling—neither in the affairs of the country nor those of the family.

She would not be excluded from the country’s affairs and since she had always sought for her opponents in the highest quarters chose the Prime Minister Robert Walpole as her number one enemy and Queen Caroline, wife of George II—who had now succeeded his father—as the second. Nor did she neglect her own family. Mary, who was perhaps more like herself than any of the others, could never forget how her mother had prevented her marrying the man she believed she had loved. It was true she had been little more than a child at the time, but the memory of that romance remained with her and all through her unsatisfactory marriage she thought of what might have been and blamed her mother.

“You are an ill wife, a cruel daughter and a bad mother,” Sarah screamed at her daughter. “I married you to the chief match in England and if it hadn’t been for me you might have married a country gentleman with nothing more than two thousand a year.”

Mary turned on her mother and cried: “You are an interfering old harridan. You interfered in our lives when we were unable to stop you. You shall not do so now.”

Mary stalked out of her mother’s house and declared she would never enter again.

And Sarah went about the house complaining to everyone who listened—and none dared do otherwise—that she had the most ungrateful daughter in the world. “And as to Montague her husband, he’s a fine specimen of man, I declare!” she shouted. “He behaves as though he’s fifteen although he’s all of fifty-two. He thinks it fun to invite people to his house and into his garden where he squirts them with water. And in his country house he puts vermin in his guests’ beds to make them itch. There’s the Duke of Montague—my daughter Mary’s husband!”

No one pointed out to her that shortly before she had been boasting of marrying Mary to the chief match in England; no one had ever dared point out anything to Sarah, except her daughters, and she quarrelled with them, or her husband, and he was dead.

Nor were her relations any better with Henrietta, who had become the Duchess of Marlborough on the death of her father, for it had been agreed that since the Duke had no sons the title should go to his daughter.

Henrietta was causing quite a scandal. She had always been fond of play-acting and play-actors and had long ago formed a very close friendship with William Congreve, the playwright. She took him into her house, for her husband, Lord Godolphin, gave way to her in all things and when Henrietta went to Bath, Congreve went with her. Henrietta was brought to bed of a girl and it was rumoured that she was Congreve’s daughter.

“A pleasant scandal,” commented Sarah, “for one who bears the proud title of Duchess of Marlborough.”

But there was little she could do about that, for when she called on her daughter she was informed that she was not at home, although Sarah was certain that she was.

She had tried to make Henrietta’s son William, now Lord Blandford, her favourite; and for a time succeeded in doing so. He was affectionately known as Willigo and Sarah fancied she saw a resemblance in him to his grandfather. But only in features. Willigo quickly became known as Lord Worthless, for he loved gay company and was too fond of the bottle. His mother disliked him, although she doted on her youngest daughter—Congreve’s! said Sarah—and consequently Sarah sought to win the affection which he might have given to his mother. But there was little comfort from Willigo. He met a burgomaster’s daughter when he was on the Continent and married her before Sarah could forbid the match.

Still eager not to lose him, Sarah met the girl and even found her charming.

But a year after the marriage Sarah was overcome with grief when Willigo died in a drunken fit. As usual her emotions were manifested in rage.

“I hope the Devil is picking the bones of the man who taught him to drink!” she cried.

She was growing more and more aware of loneliness.

To be old and lonely—it was a sad fate. There was only one member of the large family who had any real regard for her; and was it due to pity on Lady Dye’s part? Sarah never stopped to consider. She was always right, she believed; and any who disagreed with her was wrong. She told Dye she would call her Cordelia for that was a name most fitting, because she saw herself as a Lear who was driven near to madness by the ingratitude and cruelty of those about her. She could not forbear to meddle, and occupied herself with matchmaking for her grandchildren; and with some difficulty married off Harriet Godolphin to the Duke of Newcastle. She produced Dukes for six of her granddaughters, though for her darling Lady Dye she had looked higher and had selected none less than the Prince of Wales. This was an amazing feat and she almost succeeded in bringing the affair to a successful climax. There were so many points in her favour. Frederick was unpopular and hated his parents, and Sarah and he had this hatred in common for she was at this time deep in her quarrel with Walpole who was supported by the Queen. It was a daring plan. Lady Dye to become a Princess and the royal family to be discountenanced all in one stroke. Frederick had many debts and Sarah was reputed to be the richest woman in England, so there was much to recommend such a marriage.

Such a victory, Sarah believed, would have equalled that of Blenheim. What would Marl think if he could look down from Heaven and see his granddaughter Princess of Wales?

Alas for Sarah! Robert Walpole, the enemy, heard of Sarah’s plans and put an end to them. And Sarah had to be content with the Duke of Bedford for Dye.

And when Dye was married she could not stop herself interfering, telling her granddaughter what was wrong with her town house, what improvements should be made, and quarrelling fiercely with her husband.

It was twelve years after the death of Marlborough when death came again to Langley Marsh.

Abigail lay in her bed, her family about her and her mind drifted back and forth from past to present. Her son Samuel knelt by her bed. Her husband was there too with her brother John and her sister Alice.

She knew she was dying; and as she looked at her sister and her brother she was reminded of the day Sarah Churchill had called and how they had received her, trembling with awe and expectation.

Alice was plump and unmarried still; she had lived well and contentedly during the years; John was an old man, his life behind him, and for her and Samuel there were the children.

If Sarah Churchill had not come to them, if she had not given them a helping hand, where would they all be now? No one had had a greater effect upon her life than Sarah—or perhaps than she on Sarah’s.

She saw her coming into the shabby house—resplendent in her power and beauty.

“The beginning …” she whispered.

And those about the bed looked at each other significantly.

Abigail had left them forever.

Sarah lived on for another ten years. Eighty and as vigorous as ever in mind if not in body, she continued to harry those about her.

Lady Dye had died when she was only twenty-five after only four years of marriage; next to the death of Marlborough that was the greatest blow of Sarah’s life.

It occurred to her then that she was living too long; that too many of those she loved were going on before her.

She thought little of the past; she did however write her memoirs which was an account of how she had first governed the Queen and then been ousted from her favour by Abigail Hill.

Momentarily she recalled all the venom she had felt for that whey-faced creature whom she had taken from a broom.

If I had never taken pity on her, if I had never found a place for her in the Queen’s bedchamber … everything might have been so different. She was the true enemy. She with her quiet ways, her respectful curtsies and her “Yes, Your Grace!”

“No, Your Grace!” Who would have thought that one so plain, so insignificant … such a nothing … such an insect … could have made so much mischief in the life of people such as herself and the great Duke of Marlborough!

That gave her pause for thought … for a while. But she was never one to brood on the past.

Occasionally she took out John’s letters to her and read them through and wept over them.

“I should destroy them,” she said. “They can give me nothing but pain now.”

But she could not destroy them. She took out the coil of golden hair which he had kept and which she had discovered in his cabinet and she wept into it.

Then resolutely she put away these souvenirs of the past which so bitterly recalled his love for her; and went once more into battle.

But she was old; and even she could not live for ever.

She was in her bed and the doctors were there, whispering … waiting for her to die.

“She must be blistered or she will die,” they murmured.

But she lifted herself from her pillows and shouted: “I won’t be blistered and I won’t die.”

Nor did she … just then.

But even she could not stave off death for ever; nor did she wish to.

There was nothing in her life now to make her cling to it even if she was the richest woman in England.

Deliberately she made plans for her burial. She would be buried in Blenheim chapel where she had had John’s body brought from Westminster Abbey.

“It is meet and fitting that we should lie together,” she said.

“Old Marlborough is dying.” The news spread through the Court. No one cared. She was a tiresome old woman who was amusing because she was continually making trouble, nothing more.

And on an October day in the year 1744, twenty-two years after the death of the Duke, Sarah died.

She was buried as she had wished; and although the members of her family attended her funeral, there was no one to mourn her.