when they act contrary to their interests; and though my dutiful behaviour to your Majesty in the worst of times, for which I acknowledge my poor services much overpaid, may not be sufficient to incline you to a charitable interpretation of my actions; yet I hope the great advantage I enjoy under your Majesty, which I can never expect in any other change of government, may reasonably convince your Majesty and the world that I was actuated by a higher principle, when I offered that violence to my inclination and interest, as to desert your Majesty at a time when your affairs seem to challenge the strictest obedience from all your subjects; much more from one, who lives under the greatest obligations imaginable to your Majesty. This, Sir, could proceed from nothing but the inviolable dictates of my conscience, and a necessary concern for my religion, which no good man can oppose, and with which I am instructed nothing ought to come in competition...

"Heaven knows, with what partiality my dutiful opinion of your Majesty has hitherto represented those unhappy designs, which inconsiderate and selfinterested men have framed against your Majesty's true interest and the Protestant Religion; but, as I can no longer join with such to give a pretence by conquest to bring them to effect, so I will always with the hazard of my life and fortune, so much your Majesty's due, endeavour to preserve your royal person and lawful right with all the tender concern and dutiful respect, that becomes

Your Majesty's, &c."

Lord Churchill was graciously received by the

Prince of Orange: and through his Lordship's solicitations principally, Prince George of Denmark is supposed to have embraced the same party; as his consort, the Princess Anne, did soon afterward, by the advice of Lady Churchill. In this critical conjuncture, he was entrusted by his new employer first to re-assemble his troop of guards in London, and subsequently to reduce some lately-raised regiments and to new-model the army; for which purpose, he received the rank of Lieutenant General.

Lord Churchill was, likewise, one of the Peers, who voted that the throne was vacant;' and upon the accession of William and Mary was sworn of their Privy Council, appointed one of the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber to his Majesty, and raised to the dignity of Earl of Marlborough in the county of Wilts.

Soon after the coronation he was made Commander in Chief of the English forces sent over to Holland,* commanded at the battle of Walcourt fought in August 1689, and exhibited such extraordinary proofs of military skill during the engagement, that the Prince of Waldeck declared to King William,' he saw more into the art of war in a day, than some generals in many years.'

The following year James having withdrawn himself from Ireland, Marlborough, who would never appear in the field against that Monarch, accepted the command of a body of English forces, destined to act in conjunction with the German and Dutch auxiliaries in reducing Cork and some other places

* King William commanded, this year, in Ireland.

of importance; in all which he so highly distinguished himself that his royal master observed, upon his return to court, he knew no man so fit for a General, who had seen so few campaigns.' The year following he passed with William on the Continent, and distinguished his sagacity by detecting the enemy's design of besieging Mons, in which the Dutch deputies were deceived.

All these services, however, did not prevent his being suddenly disgraced in 1692. Having, as Lord of the Bedchamber in waiting, introduced Lord George Hamilton at court, he was followed to his own house by that nobleman with the laconic message, that the King had no farther occasion for his services." The cause of this dismissal is not, even at present, certainly known; but it is supposed to have proceeded from his attachment to the interest of the Princess Anne, whom their Majesties wished to retain in a state of dependence upon themselves; and for whom, in opposition to that wish, he and his Countess had by their joint interest procured from Parliament a settlement of 50,000l. per ann.

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This unexpected blow was followed by an event still more extraordinary: the Earl and several other noblemen, upon a false charge of high treason, were committed to the Tower. The accusation was grounded upon a paper, said to have been an association entered into by these Peers against the government: but, upon an examination of the document and other evidences at the Council Board, the whole was asserted to be a forgery; the suspected Lords were released, and their false accusers were set in the pillory and publicly whipped.

Though the affair however was enveloped in mystery at the time, from Macpherson's State Papers' it appears highly probable, that there really existed a correspondence between Marlborough and his connexions on one part, and the exiled King on the other, which had for it's object a counter-revolution : that the Princess Anne had been influenced by her favourite, the Countess of Marlborough, to feel sincere compunction for her hostility toward her father, and to entreat by letter his forgiveness; and, lastly, that Churchill had betrayed to James the secret councils of King William, and requested instructions how he might best promote his service. It is even said that, by a base act of treachery to his country, he' apprised the Ex-monarch in 1694 of a design formed to attack the harbour of Brest, and to destroy the ships of war lying in that port.'

Upon the death of Queen Mary, when the interests of the two courts were brought to a better agreement, William recalled the Earl of Marlborough to his Privy Council; and in 1698 appointed him governor to the Duke of Gloucester, saying, "Make him but what you are, and my nephew will be all I wish to see him." This important duty the Earl discharged in a manner equally satisfactory to the Sovereign and the nation, and sanguine hopes were conceived of his royal pupil; when in 1700 he was seized with a fever, occasioned by over-heating himself on his birthday, which in five days carried him off, in the eleventh year of his age. Being the last surviving child of the Princess Anne, who had previously lost three others, the crown upon her death by the Act of Succession descended to the illustrious house of Hanover.

Soon afterward, the Earl of Marlborough was appointed Commander in Chief of the British forces in Holland, and Embassador Extraordinary to the States General: this was the last mark of honour which he received from King William, if we except the recommending of him to the Princess Anne, as 'the person most proper to be entrusted with the command of an army destined to protect the liberty of Europe.'

In March 1702, upon the accession of the new Sovereign, he was elected Knight of the Garter; declared Captain General of all her Majesty's forces, and sent a second time to the Hague, with the same diplomatic character as before. The States concurred with him in all his proposals, and made him Captain General of their forces, with an appointment of one hundred thousand florins per ann.

On his return to England, he found the Queen's council already divided; some wishing to carry on the war merely as auxiliaries, others to declare immediately against France and Spain as principals. The Earl of Marlborough, joining with the latter, enabled them to carry their point.

He now proceeded to take upon himself the command, having previously secured an essential point, in procuring the appointment of his son-in-law Godolphin to the head of the Treasury, and perceiving that the States were made uneasy by the places which the enemy held on the frontiers, began with reducing them. A single campaign made him master of the castles of Gravenbroeck and Waerts; the towns of Venlo, Ruremond, and Stevenswaert; and the city and citadel of Liege, which last he entered sword in hand.