that I had often despised interest, in comparison of serving her faithfully and doing right? and whether she did not know me to be of a temper incapable of disowning anything which I knew to be true? "You desired no answer, and you shall have none.' This usage was severe, and these words so often repeated were so shocking, (being an utter denial of common justice to me, who had been a most faithful servant, and now asked nothing more,) that I could not conquer myself, but said the most disrespectful thing I ever spoke to the Queen in my life, and yet, what such an occasion and such circumstances might well excuse, if not justify and that was, that I was confident her Majesty would suffer for such an instance of inhumanity. The Queen answered, • That will be to myself." "*

"Thus," observes the Duchess, "ended this remarkable conversation, the last that I ever had with her Majesty. I shall make no comment on it. Yet," she adds, with her inherent magnanimity, "the Queen always meant well, however much soever she may be blinded or misguided." And she adds to this temperate observation a passage from a letter of her husband's, the Duke, written about eight months before, in which she says,

See another account of this scene, in Private Correspondence of the Duke of Marlborough, vol. i. p. 295.

"There is something so pertinent to the present occasion, that I cannot forbear transcribing the passage.

"It has always been my observation in disputes, especially in that of kindness and friendship, that all reproaches, though ever so just, serve to no end but making the breach wider. I cannot help being of opinion that, however insignificant we may be, there is a Power above that puts a period to our happiness or unhappiness. If anybody had told me eight years ago, that after such great success, and after you had been a faithful servant for twenty-seven years, that even in the Queen's lifetime we should be obliged to seek happiness in a retired life, I could not have believed that possible."

* Conduct, p. 244.

CHAPTER IX.

Final separation between the Queen and the Duchess --- Some anecdotes of Dr. and Mrs. Burnet-Dr. Burnet remonstrates with the Queen-The Queen's obstinacy-Dismissal of Lord Godolphin-Letter from the Duchess to the Queen -1710.

THE Queen and the Duchess never met again. But, in the midst of enemies, there were not wanting friends, faithful to the Duchess, and true to the Queen and constitution, who ventured to remonstrate with her Majesty upon the hazardous change in her counsels which her whole demeanour augured.

Amongst those who privately and earnestly pointed out the impending dangers and difficulties, was the Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. Burnet, who has done ample justice to the " economy and fidelity of the Duchess to the Queen, and justice to those who dealt with the crown," which

VOL. II.

the Duchess of Marlborough manifested in her brilliant, but arduous career.

*

Dr. Burnet had been assimilated with the Duchess in political, and in what was then considered almost as the same thing, religious, opinions. A close intimacy existed between the Duchess and the exemplary and third wife of the excellent prelate, the last of his three consorts, all of whom had been distinguished either in rank, in piety, or attainments. Mrs. Burnet took an active part in the concerns of the Duchess, who frequently communicated with her, and received letters in return, discussing the topics which then agitated the world, within the precincts of the court. At this time a staid matron of nineand-forty, Mrs. Burnet could well remember the agitated times of James the Second, during whose reign she had retired with her first husband, Mr. Berkley of Spetchley Castle, Worcestershire, to Holland, to avoid the calamitous scenes which she expected to witness, and had remained at the Hague until the Revolution. Distinguished for piety, benevolence, and virtue, it was the lot of Mrs. Berkley, after a happy union with her first husband, to be left an opulent widow, in the prime of life. It was her choice to devote herself,

* Burnet's History, b. iv. vol. vi. p. 314.

for the seven years of that isolated, but possibly not dreary state, to works of charity, and to studies which would have adorned the leisure of the learned lords of creation. By her exertions, schools for the poorer classes, then little regarded in general, were established in the neighbourhood of Worcester and Salisbury. By her superior, although not classical attainments, she obtained the friendship of Dr. Stilling fleet, who declared that he knew not in England a more considerable woman than Mrs. Berkley. In his union with this amiable woman Bishop Burnet was eminently happy. Her influence in society tended, as that of every woman should, to make virtue throw its beams "far in a naughty world;" to elevate domestic, sober qualities in the eyes of men, by proving them to be compatible with the highest attainments; to be the counsellors as well as the solace of those whose vocation leads them to dive into the troubled waters of life.

The Bishop, who proved to all his wives an excellent husband, left to this, his last and his best, the disposal of her own fortune, and the entire charge of his numerous family. Mrs. Burnet, it is evident from many passages in the Duke of Marlborough's letters, was not only the intimate associate and correspondent of the Duchess, but the object of respect and esteem to all the great