Marlborough

by Richard Holmes

  8 Churchill Marlborough I p.126. Mary, as James II’s daughter, had opposed him in 1688 and accepted the throne jointly with her husband William. This fell some way short of honouring her father.

  9 Sarah Jennings to Colonel John Churchill, undated, BL Add Mss 61427 f.12.

  10 Sarah Jennings to Colonel John Churchill, undated, BL Add Mss 61427 f.21.

  11 Colonel John Churchill to Mrs Elizabeth Mowdie, undated, BL Add Mss 61427 f.25.

  12 Sarah Jennings to Colonel John Churchill, undated, BL Add Mss 61427 f.38.

  13 Colonel John Churchill to Sarah Churchill 3 September 1678, BL Add Mss 61427 ff.75–6.

  14 Keith Feiling A History of England (London 1959) p.555.

  15 Ailesbury I p.20.

  16 Richard Talbot was eventually created Duke of Tyrconnell by the exiled James, but the promotion had no legal validity in the Irish peerage.

  17 Colonel John Churchill to Sarah Churchill January 1680, BL Add Mss 61427 f.105. This is the first reference I have encountered to Churchill’s headaches, discussed at length on pp. 308–9

  18 Letter 6 October 1744 in Churchill Marlborough I p.172.

  19 Laurence Hyde was second son of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, and brother of James’s late wife Anne Hyde.

  20 HMC Dartmouth XI Appendix V pp.67–8.

  21 Sir John Werden to Churchill 22 December 1681 in Churchill Marlborough I p.174.

  22 Brian Miller James II: A Study in Kingship (London 1978) p.240.

  23 Ailesbury I pp.96, 131.

  24 Miller James II p.241.

  25 Churchill Marlborough I p.191.

  26 Burnet History II p.324.

  27 Ailesbury I p.67.

  28 Churchill Marlborough I pp.176–7.

  29 Arthur Bryant Samuel Pepys: The Years of Peril (Cambridge 1935) p.378.

  30 Ibid. p.379.

  31 Barons in this context were county Members of Parliament, selected by the crown’s tenants in chief in their constituencies. Churchill’s title of baron, however, was the junior step in the peerage, ranking him with the nobles.

  32 John Churchill to Sarah Churchill 23 April 1703 in Henry L. Snyder (ed.) The Marlborough – Godolphin Correspondence (3 vols, Oxford 1975) I p.170.

  33 Sidney was the third son, and in 1667 the family baronetcy passed to his eldest brother. Sir Francis Godolphin’s second daughter married Edward Boscawen, and was the mother of the 1st Viscount Falmouth, and of two daughters, the younger of whom married Sir John Evelyn, grandson of the diarist.

  34 Evelyn Diary p.403.

  35 Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.xxi.

  36 Ibid. p.xxiii.

  37 We are often told that the Whig leader Sir Robert Walpole (1676–1745) was the first prime minister, but the expression was occasionally used in Godolphin’s time and he was, while he held power, rather better than first among equals.

  38 See C.H. Firth Cromwell’s Army (London 1962) pp.124–8.

  39 A Military Dictionary … by an Officer who served several years abroad (London 1702) p.28.

  40 Churchill Marlborough I p.183.

  41 Edward Gregg Queen Anne (London 1980) p.27.

  42 Lever Godolphin p.42.

  43 Field Favourite p.35.

  44 Ibid. p.37.

  45 Ibid. p.34.

  46 Sarah Duchess of Marlborough An Account p.6.

  47 Ibid. p.10.

  48 Ibid. p.14.

  49 Sarah Duchess of Marlborough (attrib.) A Faithful Account of Many Things, BL Add Mss.

  50 Sarah Duchess of Marlborough Correspondence II pp.121, 119.

  51 Evelyn Diary p.447.

  52 James Brydges to William Cadogan 29 October 1708, Cadogan Papers.

  53 Field Favourite p.42.

  54 Gregg Queen Anne p.36.

  55 Lord Churchill to Lady Churchill, undated but probably 1682–83, BL Add Mss 61427 f.114.

  56 Ailesbury I pp.88–90. Strictly speaking Ailesbury was Lord Bruce at this time.

  57 Evelyn Diary p.466.

  58 Burnet History III p.269.

  59 Sarah Duchess of Marlborough An Account p.14.

  60 Churchill Marlborough I p.205.

  61 ‘Mr Wade’s further information’ in Philip Yorke, Earl of Hardwicke Miscellaneous State Papers from 1501 to 1726 (2 vols, London 1778) I pp.319–20.

  62 Tincey Sedgemoor p.57.

  63 HMC Northumberland III p.99.

  64 Tincey Sedgemoor p.26.

  65 National Archives WO 5/1 f.56 15 June 1685.

  66 HMC Northumberland III p.97.

  67 Churchill Marlborough I pp.211–12, and for the sillier assertion http:/en.wikipedia. org/wiki/John _Churchill … Atkinson (Marlborough p.77) cites as evidence of this resentment Churchill’s letter of 4 July 1688 to the Earl of Clarendon. This testifies to difficult relations with Feversham and suspicion of Oglethorpe, rather than to general dissatisfaction at his supersession.

  68 HMC Northumberland III p.98.

  69 Ibid. p.96. Theoretically Somerset should have used ‘your Grace’, not ‘your Lordship’, had he been writing to Albemarle, although at the time such strict form was very often ignored. But the preremptory tone – ‘I do desire’ – would have been strong language from one ducal lord lieutenant to another. Churchill was certainly in a position to march to Somerton, but only by moving north-east and losing contact with Monmouth’s main body in the process. This was a missive best confined to an inside pocket and forgotten.

  70 Tincey Sedgemoor p.63.

  71 Wolseley Marlborough I p.306. Winston S. Churchill (Marlborough I p.216) quotes the same letter very selectively.

  72 This messenger was illegitimate, and is sometimes called, from his mother’s surname, Benjamin Newton, or even Richard Godfrey: Tincey Sedgemoor p.88.

  73 Ibid. p.92.

  74 Armies of the period generally formed up with the most senior regiment on the right, the next most senior on the left and so on, so that the most junior finished up in the centre of the line. However, at Sedgemoor the infantry deployment seems to have been, from the right, Dumbarton’s, 1/1st Foot Guards, 2/1st Foot Guards, Coldstream Guards, Trelawney’s and Kirke’s.

  75 White-Spunner Horse Guards p.90.

  76 Not all Grey’s horse was hopeless. Captain John Jones, sometime of the New Model Army, kept a sizeable handful together, found the northern plungeon and tried hard to cross it in the face of resistance from Compton’s men, now under Captain Sandys. Jones earned the respect of his adversaries, and shows what a trained and determined man might accomplish even amidst the wreckage of Monmouth’s fortunes.

  77 James II to William of Orange 13 July 1688 in Tincey Sedgemoor p.138.

  78 Stephen Saunders Webb Lord Churchill’s Coup (New York 1995) p.97.

  79 Buckingham Works (London 1775) II pp.117–24.

  80 Churchill Marlborough I p.223.

  81 Tincey Sedgemoor p.158.

  82 J.S. Clarke (ed.) The Life of James II (2 vols, London 1816) II p.278.

  83 Evelyn Diary p.492.

  84 Ibid. pp.499–500.

  85 Waller 1700 pp.266–7.

  86 Burnet History III p.88.

  87 Matthew Glozier The Huguenot Soldiers of William of Orange and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 (Brighton 2002) pp.41, 55.

  88 Walter C.T. Utt and Bryan E. Straymer The Bellicose Dove: Claude Broussan and Protestant Resistance to Louis XIV 1647–1698 (Brighton 2003) pp.28–9.

  89 Memoirs of the Marshal Duke of Berwick, Written by Himself … (2 vols, London 1774) I p.256.

  90 Harris Revolution p.236.

  91 John Childs The Army, James II and the Glorious Revolution (Manchester 1980) p.5.

  92 Ibid. p.49.

  93 Ibid. p.58.

  94 David Chandler (ed.) Military Memoirs: Robert Parker and the Comte de Mérode-Westerloo (London 1968) pp.5–6.

  95 London Gazette 11–14 March 1688.

  96 Evelyn Diary p.500.

  97 Childs The Army and the Glorious Revolution pp.110–11.

  98
Webb Lord Churchill’s Coup pp.118–23.

  99 Burnet History III p.262.

  100 Ailesbury I pp.184–5.

  101 Webb Lord Churchill’s Coup pp.132–3.

  102 The Lives of the Two Illustrious Generals p.22.

  103 Sir John Dalrymple Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland (3 vols, London 1790) II pp.107–10.

  104 White-Spunner Horse Guards p.111.

  105 Evelyn Diary p.518.

  106 Ibid. p.521.

  107 The Lives of the Two Illustrious Generals pp.19–21, put into direct speech by Churchill in Marlborough I pp.242–3. This is hearsay evidence, but certainly reflects what Churchill later told James were the reasons for his betrayal in 1688.

  108 Lady Churchill to Mary of Orange 29 December 1687 (OS) in Atkinson Marlborough p.89.

  109 Childs The Army and the Glorious Revolution p.149.

  110 Princess Anne to Mary of Orange 29 April 1686 in Beatrice Curtis Brown Letters and Diplomatic Instructions of Queen Anne (London 1968) p.16.

  111 Princess Anne to Mary of Orange 9 May 1687 ibid. p.31.

  112 Gregg Queen Anne p.51.

  113 Anne to Mary of Orange 9 July 1688 in Brown Letters p.39.

  114 Sarah Duchess of Marlborough Conduct p.18.

  115 Major General Lord Churchill to William of Orange in Churchill Marlborough I p.272.

  116 Evelyn Diary pp.520–1.

  CHAPTER 3:

  The Protestant Wind

  1 Rodger Command pp.138–9.

  2 Ibid. p.139.

  3 Churchill Marlborough I p.301.

  4 George Hilton Jones Convergent Forces: Immediate Causes of the Revolution of 1688 in England (Ames, Iowa 1990) p.172.

  5 Diane W. Ressinger (ed.) Memoirs of Isaac Dumont de Bostaquet, a Gentleman of Normandy (London 2005) pp.169, 189–92.

  6 Berwick Memoirs I p.29. There were in fact three regiments: the Blues, the Royal Dragoons and St Albans’ Horse.

  7 Burnet History III p.245.

  8 Ibid. p.337.

  9 Ailesbury I p.194.

  10 Princess Anne to William of Orange 18 November 1688 in Dalrymple Memoirs II pp.249–50.

  11 Miller James II pp.202–3.

  12 John Childs The British Army of William III 1698–1702 (Manchester 1987) p.6.

  13 Berwick Memoirs III p.31.

  14 S.W. Singer (ed.) The Correspondence of Henry Hyde, Earl of Clarendon (2 vols, London 1828) II pp.211, 214.

  15 Lord Churchill to James II, undated, in Churchill Marlborough I pp.299–300.

  16 G.K. Chesterton A Short History of England (London 1917) p.189.

  17 Glozier Huguenot Soldiers p.99.

  18 Childs Army of William III p.14.

  19 John Menzies to the Earl of Mar 4 February 1716, HMC Stuart I p.507. We must be cautious about the reports of Jacobite agents, for it was not their way to acknowledge wholesale failure. I follow DNB in styling this agent Lloyd: he is sometimes known as Floyd.

  20 The Duke of Berwick to the Duke of Mar (his Jacobite title) 4 May 1716, HMC Stuart II.

  21 Sarah’s version of the escape is in An Account pp.16–18.

  22 H.C. Foxcroft (ed.) The Life and Letters of Sir George Savile, First Marquess of Halifax (2 vols, London 1898) II pp.202–3.

  23 Sarah Duchess of Marlborough A Faithful Account BL Add Mss.

  24 Ailesbury I p.310.

  25 Ibid. pp.244–5.

  26 Childs Army of William III p.25.

  27 Ailesbury I p.245.

  28 Ibid.

  29 Churchill Marlborough II p.15.

  30 Chandler Art of Warfare p.113.

  31 Waldeck’s report to the States-General is in London Gazette 22–26 August 1689.

  32 Gregg Queen Anne p.75.

  33 Sarah Duchess of Marlborough Conduct p.25.

  34 Gregg Queen Anne p.78.

  35 Ibid. p.79.

  36 Ibid. p.82.

  37 Lever Godolphin p.87.

  38 Clarke James II II p.446.

  39 Brown Letters pp.52–3.

  40 Quotations from my own brief account of the Boyne in War Walks 2 (London 1997) pp.120–51.

  41 Churchill Marlborough II p.25.

  42 Dalrymple III Part 5 p.128.

  43 Glozier Huguenot Soldiers p.130.

  44 A masterly short account of Aughrim is in Richard Brooks Cassell’s Battlefields of England and Ireland (London 2005) pp.583–5.

  45 Atkinson Marlborough pp.120–1.

  46 Churchill Marlborough II p.47.

  47 Dalrymple III Part 2 p.247.

  48 Lives of the Two Illustrious Generals p.30.

  49 H.C. Foxcroft A Supplement to Burnet’s History of My Own Time … (Oxford 1902) pp.373–4.

  50 Wolseley Marlborough II p.263.

  51 Webb Lord Churchill’s Coup p.248.

  52 ‘Review of a late Treatise entitled an Account of the Conduct of the Dowager D______ of M______’ (London 1742) pp.36–7.

  53 Burnet History IV p.161.

  54 David Green Sarah Duchess of Marlborough (London 1967) pp.62–3.

  55 Princess Anne to Countess of Marlborough ‘Wednesday three o’clock’ 27 April 1693 in Gregg Queen Anne p.85.

  56 Ibid. p.86.

  57 Sarah Duchess of Marlborough Account of the Conduct pp.30–1, 41.

  58 Anne to Sarah undated March 1693 in Gregg Queen Anne p.88.

  59 Ibid. p.89.

  60 Ailesbury II p.200.

  61 Ibid. p.383.

  62 Brown Letters p.58.

  63 Wolseley Marlborough II pp.273–4, 283.

  64 Sarah Duchess of Marlborough Account of the Conduct pp.98–9.

  65 Ibid. p.81.

  66 Dalrymple III Part 2 p.20.

  67 Goslinga Mémoires p.35.

  68 Rodger Command p.156.

  69 To understand the contribution made by the Tollemaches to more than five hundred years of English history one must visit this delightful church. One memorial commemorates an eighteen-year-old who died before Valenciennes, his father shot in a New York duel and two uncles lost at sea. Four Tollemache boys died in the First World War. We should not, I suppose, be surprised that Thomas Tollemache went ashore with his first wave, for this was never a brood given to hanging back.

  70 William Coxe (ed.) Private and Original Correspondence of Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury (London 1821) pp.44–6.

  71 Paget New ‘Examen’ p.28.

  72 Atkinson Marlborough p.147.

  73 Webb Lord Churchill’s Coup p.253.

  74 Lever Godolphin p.99.

  75 Coxe Shrewsbury Correspondence p.47.

  76 Ibid. p.220.

  77 True Conduct BL Add Mss.

  78 Berwick Memoirs p.131.

  79 Ailesbury I p.383.

  80 Coxe Shrewsbury Correspondence p.438.

  81 J.S. Bromley (ed.) The New Cambridge Modern History: Vol VI The Rise of Great Britain and Russia 1688–1715/25 (Cambridge 1970) p.253.

  82 Rodger Command p.198.

  83 Gregg Queen Anne p.121.

  84 John Callow King in Exile (Stroud 2004) pp.300, 308.

  CHAPTER 4:

  A Full Gale of Favour

  1 Account of Baron de Montigny-Languet, 25 August 1704, in Trevelyan Select Documents pp.131–2, based on originals in François Eugène de Vault and Jean Jacques Germain, baron Pelet Mémoires relatifs à la succession d’Espagne … (11 vols, Paris 1835–62). Each of these volumes contains a narrative of the year’s campaigning, divided up by theatre, and then a digest of appropriate documents relevant to each section. They are indispensable for understanding the French side of the war, and have no British equivalent.

  2 BL Add Mss 61428 f.32.

  3 Not everything was unreasonable in Louis XIV’s France: Bostaquet’s eighty-year-old mother was pardoned on account of her age.

  4 Kane Campaigns p.33.

  5 Murray Dispatches I p.11.

  6 Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin p.103.

  7 Trevelyan Select Documents p.11.

  8 Marlborough to
Thungen 26 August 1704 in Murray Dispatches I p.433.

  9 Marlborough to Heinsius 17 December 1706 ibid. III p.254.

  10 Marlborough to the Ordnance Board 13 July 1703 ibid. I pp.11–12.

  11 Marlborough to the Ordnance Board 25 August 1707 ibid. III p.529.

  12 Drake Amiable Renegade p.51.

  13 Earl of Portmore to Duke of Somerset 9 February 1704 in HMC Somerset p.118.

  14 Kane Campaigns p.110.

  15 C.T. Atkinson (ed.) ‘A Royal Dragoon in the Spanish Succession War’ Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research No. 60 1938 p.20.

  16 Marlborough to Hedges 6 April 1704 in Murray Dispatches I p.248.

  17 Marlborough to Blathwayt 8 April 1704 ibid. p.248.

  18 Marlborough to Somerset 30 September 1709 ibid. IV p.607.

  19 Marlborough to Pennefather 30 September 1709 ibid. p.609.

  20 Marlborough to Halifax 30 September 1709 ibid. p.608.

  21 Marlborough to Mar 31 May 1708 and Marlborough to the king of Portugal 25 February 1709 ibid. pp.44, 459.

  22 Lever Godolphin p.251.

  23 Marlborough to Godolphin 19 October 1703 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.255.

  24 Life of the Duchess of Marlborough I p.137.

  25 Colin Ballard The Great Earl of Peterborough (London 1929) p.150.

  26 Patricia Dickson unpublished typescript ‘William, 1st Earl Cadogan’ p.4, Cadogan Papers.

  27 J.N.P. Watson Marlborough’s Shadow (London 2003) p.163.

  28 HMC Portland V p.257.

  29 Cadogan to Marlborough 23 February 1716, Cadogan Papers

  30 Letters Patent of 1718, Cadogan Papers. Although the patent styles the earldom ‘of’ Cadogan, William and his descendants, earls of the second creation, always used the style ‘Earl Cadogan’. The barony of Oakley was indeed allowed to revert to Cadogan’s brother Charles, an infantry officer who fought at Oudenarde and Malplaquet and eventually reached the rank of general. Charles inherited numerous debts with the title, but maintained a substantial estate in Chelsea, and his son, Charles Sloane Cadogan, was created Earl Cadogan and Viscount Chelsea in 1800. The 2nd Earl of the new creation married Mary Churchill, a cousin of the then Duke of Marlborough, but she ran off with a clergyman. The present Earl Cadogan, the 8th of his line, has delegated the running of his London estate to his heir Edward, Viscount Chelsea, to whose kindness I owe my access to the family papers.