Sarah Churchill Duchess of Marlborough by Ophelia Field

Author:Ophelia Field
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2016-02-01T16:00:00+00:00

When Marlborough returned to London in December 1710 he was greeted by cheering supporters in the streets. While gratifying, this was also rather embarrassing as it was considered dishonourable to use ‘the mob’ as a political lever and he did not want to confirm Tory satires that depicted him as a new Cromwell. To avoid the ‘great numbers of people who flocked about him in the streets’, he drove first with his son-in-law the Duke of Montagu to Montagu House rather than directly to St James’s.129 Sarah felt vindicated by the crowds, ‘notwithstanding all the lies the new Ministry had spread’.130

On 5 January, Dr Hamilton recorded in his diary that he had spoken with Godolphin and Marlborough that evening and acquainted them, he claimed for the first time, with the content of Sarah’s recent letters to himself and hence the Queen. He described the Duke as shocked at his wife’s continuing references to a romantic relationship between Anne and Abigail. This might have been merely a show of surprise for the doctor’s benefit, or genuine anger that Sarah had ignored his orders to remain silent. In either case, Sarah’s letters stopped immediately.

She made fair copies of several of Anne’s letters. ‘By this time I suppose the measures had been fully concerted for turning me out of my places,’ she later reflected, ‘[b]ut the apprehension the Queen had of my printing her letters in my own vindication was a great obstruction to it …’131 She pretended the letters were only for self-vindication rather than blackmail, but told Hamilton that her daughters had better be permitted to inherit her posts or ‘such things are in my power that if known by a man that would apprehend and was a right politician, might lose a Crown.’132 Several biographers have thought her threats were baseless and vaguely unhinged, not understanding that the letters revealed something more than merely what Hamilton called Anne’s ‘breaches of promise and asseverations’.

Shrewsbury was asked to send a servant to try to retrieve the letters, saying that the Queen ‘was in the utmost pain upon this account’ and it was only this, Sarah claimed, that had given her the idea of using them ‘to preserve myself by them, if I could’.133 Sarah therefore returned Shrewsbury’s servant with an answer ambiguous enough to keep Anne anxious. Unfortunately, unwilling to report his failure, Shrewsbury sabotaged her blackmail by pretending to have extracted promises from Sarah that she would not publish, making Anne ‘entirely easy about this matter’.

Marlborough’s claim to be ignorant of Sarah’s methods did not help him regain Anne’s trust. Shortly after his arrival home, when he first went to pay his respects, Sarah wrote that ‘nothing passed but such lively conversation as is usual with Her M[ajesty] about his journey, the ways, the weather etc …’ She remembered that all the Ministers welcomed the returning war hero except Harley, who just sent him a cold note. Harley was reported as having said to others at Court that Sarah was ‘the rock which all would break upon’.

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