perceived she was uneasy. She stood all the while I was with her, and looked as coldly on me as if her intention was that I should no longer doubt of my loss of her affections. Upon observing what reception I had, I said 'I was sorry I had happened to come so unseasonably.' I was making my courtesy to go away, when the Queen, with a great deal of disorder in her face, and without speaking one word, took me by the hand. And when, thereupon, I stooped to kiss hers, she took me up with a very cold embrace, and then, without one kind word, let me go. So strange a treatment of me, after my long and faithful services, and after such repeated assurances from her Majesty of an unalterable affection, made me think that I ought, in justice to myself, as well as in regard to my mistress's interest, to write to her in the plainest and sincerest manner possible, and expostulate with her upon her change to me, and upon the new counsels by which she seemed to be wholly governed." The letter addressed on this occasion by the Duchess to the Queen was truly characteristic of the honest mind by which it was framed. There is neither flattery nor violence, in the simple declaration of wounded feeling, expressed in the Duchess's forcible language; and Queen Anne appears to have been touched by the direct appeal to her best dispositions, which it contains.* For some days, indeed, no notice was taken of this remarkable epistle; but after a short time had elapsed, an answer was presented to the Duchess, who found in it symptoms of a relenting spirit in her altered sovereign; and, anxious on account of others, as well as for her own comfort, to avoid an open rupture, "she endeavoured once more to put on as easy an appearance as she could."† Upon a review of the circumstances which attended this notable quarrel, the character of the Duchess appears in a much more favourable light than, from the many defects of her ill-governed mind, could reasonably have been expected. In the first instance, she was generous to her kinswoman, confiding, and lenient. Slow in being aroused to suspicion, her conduct was straightforward and judicious when the truth was forced upon her unwilling conviction. She acted with sincerity, but not with address; and feelings too natural for a courtier to indulge were betrayed in the course of those altercations in which the character of Abigail is displayed in the worst colours. Artful and plausible, yet daring and insolent, according to circumstances-shameless in her ingratitude, the mean and despicable *See Appendix. + Conduct. tool of others, with few advantages of education, that abject but able woman acquired an ascendency over the mind of Anne that was truly astonishing. The poor Queen is to be pitied-we dare not say despised-for her subserviency, her little artifices, her manœuvres in closets and the back stairs, her degrading connivance at duplicity, her thirst for flattery, or for what she termed friendship. Her confidence and affection, thus extended towards an unworthy object, henceforth weakened rather than adorned her character. It is remarkable, that when she learned to dispense with the friendship of the Marlborough family, the Queen ceased to be great abroad and respected at home. CHAPTER VI. Vexations and disappointments which harassed the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough Vacillations of Anne Her appointment of Tory bishops. - THE ensuing five or six years of the life of the Duchess of Marlborough present little else than annals of party rivalries and of court dissensions. Those who once envied her had now their revenge. To thirst still for power, and to be bowed down ever and anon by a secret but allpervading influence; to witness one day the altered countenance of her royal mistress, and to experience, the next, relentings of her sovereign's weak mind; to suffer the sneers of her adversaries, and to encounter the still more grating pity of her friends; to be blamed by all parties, and even reviled by almost all the Whig leaders, save the devoted and moderate Marlborough, or the faithful Godolphin,-these were the trials of the Duchess's middle age. That her temper was soured by these vicissitudes. of hope and fear, and by the excitement of all those angry passions which disappointment kindles, cannot be doubted. From the great age which she attained, and from the clearness of her intellect until the close of her existence, there is no reason to suppose that her health, or even her spirits, were eventually impaired by the everlasting contentions of which she was the centre. For a while, after her explanatory letter to the Queen, and her Majesty's reply, "the great breach," as the Duchess calls it, was not made public.* It was some time before Marlborough and Godolphin could be convinced of the secret influence which Harley exercised, or that the former, especially, could be induced to take the matter seriously to heart. The Duchess in vain importuned him to revenge her wrongs, and harassed him until he was heart-sick with the details of all that her enemies performed and projected. "You may be sure," writes the Duke to her from Helchin, on Sept. 19, 1707, “I shall never mention Mrs. Masham, either in letter or discourse. I am so weary of all this sort of management, that I think it is the greatest folly in the * Conduct. |