of Ormond was forbidden to enter the royal presence, and he and Viscount Bolingbroke quitted the country in time to escape the fate of Lord Oxford, who was sent to the Tower on a charge of high treason. The two former entered the service of the Court of St. Germains, and were outlawed and attainted. They then opened up a correspondence with the Jacobites in England, and as in the last reign, secret negotiations were carried on to place the King over the water, on the throne. These endeavours resulted in the rising in Scotland, where James Stuart landed in December 1715, was proclaimed King, and made preparations for his coronation at Scone, where his royal Scottish ancestors had been crowned.

His hopes of sovereignty were brief, for the rising was quickly suppressed by the army acting under the directions of the Duke of Marlborough as Commanderin-Chief; and James Stuart, hurrying on board a French vessel, left his faithful Scottish adherents to disperse and hide themselves in the Highlands. The complete defeat of the Prince he had so often promised to support, was chiefly due to the Duke of Marlborough, whose instructions General Cadogan had carried out.

Peace was scarcely restored when a blow fell on the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, which was not the less keen because expected; for on April 15th, 1716, their daughter Anne, Countess of Sunderland, died. Her loss was the greater because she was the only one of their children who could check her mother's violent

Lady Sunderland's Dying Wisbes

553

The tact, for

temper and soften her harsh ways. bearance, and gentleness by which this was done, had often been exercised to prevent the duchess and her son-in-law from coming to an open rupture; for he was not merely aggressive and intolerant, irritable and dictatorial, but he lived with an extravagance beyond his means, and spent money at the gambling table which should have gone to make provision for his children; faults which the duchess was not likely to overlook in silence.

Though, according to Lord Dartmouth, the Earl of Sunderland was "universally odious," his patient and gentle wife loved him, as may be judged from the letter she wrote to him some six months previous to her death, which was not to be opened until that event had happened. In this she says, "I have always found it so tender a subject (to you my dear) to talk of my dying, that I have chose rather to leave my mind in writing, which, though very insignificant, is some ease to me. Your dear self and the dear children are my only concern in this world; I hope in God you will find comfort for the loss of a wife I am sure you loved too well not to want a great deal."

She continues by begging he will be careful not to live beyond his means, a matter she could not with all her care, quite prevent; and she warns him against his love of play.

"As to the children," she adds, "pray get my mother to take care of the girls, and if I leave any boys too little to go to school; for to be left to servants

is very bad for children, and a man can't take the care of little children that a woman can. For the love that she has for me, and the duty that I have ever showed her, I hope she will do it, and be ever kind to you, who was dearer to me than my life. Pray take care to see the children married with a prospect of happiness, for in that you will show your kindness to me; and never let them want education or money while they are young." Special instructions are given regarding her eldest son Lord Spencer. "I beg of you," she writes, "to spare no expense to improve him, and to let him have an allowance for his pocket, to make him easy. You have had five thousand pounds of the money that you know was mine, which my mother gave me yearly; whenever you can, let him have the income of that for his allowance, if he has none any other way. And don't be as careless of the dear children as when you relied upon me to take care of them, but let them be your care tho' you should marry again; for your wife may wrong them, when you don't mind it."

This letter was sent by Lord Sunderland to the Duchess of Marlborough, who cried bitterly on reading it, and who readily promised to carry out its requests; at the same time asking that she might have "some little trifle that my dear child used to wear in her pocket or anywhere else." In thanking the duchess for her intentions, her son-in-law said, "I thought as soon as I found that precious dear letter, I ought in justice to send it to you, that you might see the desires of