NOTES

AUTHOR’S NOTE

1  Amiable Renegade: The Memoirs of Captain Peter Drake (Stanford, California 1960) p.58.

2  The Private Papers of William First Earl Cowper (Eton 1833) pp.1, 3, 59.

3  Continuation of the review of a late treatise … (London 1742) bound in with Marlborough Account pp.67–8.

4  ‘Gregory King’s Tables 1688’ in Charles Davenant Works (London 1771) II p.184.

5  G.M. Trevelyan English Social History (London 1948) pp.312–13.

6  Drake Amiable Renegade pp.136, 141.

7  ‘Account Book of Isabella, Duchess of Grafton’ in The Correspondence of Sir Thomas Hanmer Bart (London 1838).

8  Major R.E. Scouller The Armies of Queen Anne (Oxford 1966) pp.131–2.

9  Drake Amiable Renegade p.312.

10  B.R. Mitchell Abstract of British Historical Statistics (Cambridge 1962) p.468.

11  Maureen Waller 1700: Scenes from London Life (London 2000) p.253.

12  Sir William Beveridge et al. Prices and Wages in England from the Twelfth to the Nineteenth Century (London 1939) pp.199, 292, 313.

13  Robert Latham (ed.) The Shorter Pepys (London 1985) p.923.

14  The Wentworth Papers (London 1883) pp.47, 64, 147.

15  Frederick Shobel (ed.) Memoirs of Prince Eugène of Savoy Written by Himself (London 1811) p.xl.

INTRODUCTION:

Portrait of an Age

1  John Keegan and Andrew Wheatcroft Who’s Who in Military History (London 1976) pp.216–17.

2  Winston S. Churchill Marlborough: His Life and Times (6 vols, New York 1938) VI p.652. I use this author’s middle initial (as he himself preferred to do) to avoid confusion with Winston Churchill, my subject’s father.

3  H.J. and E.A. Edwards A Short Life of Marlborough (London 1926) pp.299–300.

4  W.A. Coxe Memoirs of the Duke of Marlborough (3 vols, London 1896) III p.437.

5  J.W. Fortescue A History of the British Army (20 vols, London 1910) I p.590.

6  Ibid. p.591.

7  Sir John Fortescue ‘A Junior Officer of Marlborough’s Staff’ in Historical and Military Essays (London 1928) p.184.

8  Fortescue History I p.590.

9  Charles Spencer Blenheim: Battle for Europe (London 2004) p.341.

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

11  Sir Tresham Lever Godolphin, His Life and Times (London 1952) p.127.

12  G.M. Trevelyan England Under Queen Anne: Blenheim (London 1946) p.182.

13  Ibid. p.178.

14  Thomas Babington Macaulay History of England (8 vols, London 1858) Vol. II passim.

15  John Paget The New ‘Examen’ (London 1934) p.31.

16  I would not wish to seem churlish to my old mentor, who wrote in a ‘military commanders’ series. But the notion is still a preposterous one.

17  Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough Private Correspondence of the Duchess of Marlborough (2 vols, London 1838) II pp.119–20.

18  David Chandler and Christopher L. Scott (eds) ‘The Journal of John Wilson …’ in David Chandler et al. (eds) Military Miscellany II (Stroud, Gloucestershire 2005) p.43.

19  David Chandler (ed.) A Journal of Marlborough’s Campaigns … by John Marshall Deane, Private Sentinel in Queen Anne’s First Regiment of Foot Guards (London 1984) p.7.

20  Frances Harris ‘The Authorship of the Manuscript Blenheim Journal’ in Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research LV 1982.

21  Tallard to Chamillart 4 September 1704 in G.M. Trevelyan (ed.) Select Documents from Queen Anne’s Reign Down to the Union with Scotland (Cambridge 1929) pp.120, 122.

22  Baron de Montigny-Languet ibid. p.133.

23  Sicco van Goslinga Mémoires relatifs à la Guerre de Succession de 1706–1709 et 1711 (Leeuwarden 1857) p.44.

24  Edwin Chappell (ed.) The Tangier Papers of Samuel Pepys (London 1935) p.311.

25  William Bray (ed.) The Diary of John Evelyn Esq FRS from 1641 to 1705–6 (London 1890) p.586.

26  Ibid. p.598.

27  Margaret Whinney and Oliver Millar English Art 1625–1714 (Oxford 1957) p.174.

28  Donald Adamson (ed.) Rides Round Britain: John Byng, Viscount Torrington (London 1996) p.161.

29  Arthur Symonds (ed.) Sir Roger de Coverly and other essays from The Spectator (London 1905) p.vii.

30  John Tincey Sedgemoor 1685: Marlborough’s First Victory (Barnsley 2005) p.110.

31  Evelyn Diary p.268.

32  Bishop Burnet’s History of His Own Times (6 vols, Oxford 1833) III p.62.

33  Symonds Sir Roger de Coverly p.7.

34  The Spectator 13 July 1711.

35  Drake Amiable Renegade p.319.

36  Ibid. p.49.

37  Ibid. p.83.

38  John Childs The British Army of William III (Manchester 1979) pp.45–6.

39  Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research Vol. 4 1925 pp.11–12.

40  Sir George Murray (ed.) Letters and Dispatches of John Churchill … (5 vols, London 1845) IV p.499. See, in contrast, some desperate Marlburian stonewalling in his letter to Sir John Shaw of 16 December 1708 in Murray V p.359. There is no doubt where the duke’s sympathies lay, and one wonders how Sinclair ‘found means to get away’. He later received a royal pardon, but joined the Jacobite rebellion in 1715, was attainted and never succeeded to the peerage.

41  Evelyn Diary p.52.

42  The Craftsman Collected Edition (London 1737) Vol XI p.16.

43  Whinney and Millar English Art p.331.

44  Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough An Account of the Conduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough from her first coming to court to the year 1710 (London 1742) pp.180–1.

45  Sarah Duchess of Marlborough Private Correspondence II p.81.

46  Wentworth Papers p.197.

47  Ibid. p.121.

48  Ibid. p.165.

49  Ibid. pp.198–9.

50  Memoirs of Thomas, Earl of Ailesbury (2 vols, London 1890) I p.23.

51  The Earl of Dumbarton’s Regiment, lineal ancestor of the 1st of Foot, the Royal Scots.

52  Ailesbury I p.20.

53  Ibid. p.87.

54  Pepys Diary p.847.

55  This unlovely cul de sac culminates in the back entrance to my club, and often eludes even those knowledgeable folk of the London licensed cab trade.

56  Ailesbury I p.215.

57  Marlborough Account of the Conduct p.110.

58  Peerages of Great Britain appeared after the Union with Scotland.

59  Oxford was restored to his offices after the fall of James. He died without male heirs, leaving his ancient title extinct, but his daughter Diana married Charles Beauclerk, Earl of Burford and Duke of St Albans.

60  Ailesbury I p.286.

61  Mark Bence-Jones and Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd The British Aristocracy (London 1979) p.22. In 1799 Richard, Earl of Mornington, the future Duke of Wellington’s elder brother, was created Marquess Wellesley for his services as governor-general of India. It was an Irish peerage, and he referred to it scornfully as ‘my double-gilt potato’. But his earldom was Irish, so the promotion was not wholly unreasonable.

62  John Laffin Brassey’s Battles (London 1986) p.42.

63  G.M. Trevelyan England Under Queen Anne: The Peace and the Protestant Succession (London 1946) pp.197–8.

64  Lever Godolphin p.269.

65  A member of the great ducal house of Northumberland, and thus very much a lady in her own right.

66  Lt Gen the Hon Sir James Campbell of Lawes ‘A Scots Fusilier and Dragoon under Marlborough’ Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research No. 58 (summer 1936).

67  Cadogan to Marlborough 23 February 1716, Cadogan Papers.

68  Letters Patent in the Cadogan Papers.

69  Historical Manuscripts Commission MSS of the Duke of Somerset, the Marquess of Ailesbury … (London 1888) p.188.

70  HMC Somerset pp.191, 195–6, 204.

71  Ibid. p.105.

72  Quoted in Trevelyan Blenheim pp.195–6.

73  Private Correspondence I p.xix.

74  Trevelyan Blenheim p.190.

75  Trevelyan, with scrupulous fairness, initially suspected that the accusation that Wharton had ‘indecently profaned a church’ was the work of Tory pamphleteers. He later concluded that the story – based on an incident when Wharton led a group of late-night revellers into Barrington church, Gloucestershire – was in fact true.

76  Tim Harris Revolution: The Great Crisis of the British Monarchy, 1685–1720 (London 2006) p.16.

77  The Spectator 20 July 1711.

CHAPTER 1:

Young Cavalier

1  For Churchill genealogy see Kate Fleming The Churchills (London 1975) and G. Cokayne et al. (eds) The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom … (13 vols, London 1910–59) VII p.491.

2  Peter Young (ed.) ‘The Vindication of Richard Atkyns’ in Military Memoirs: The Civil War (London 1967) p.23.

3  Churchill Marlborough I p.22.

4  A.L. Rowse The Early Churchills (London 1956) p.11.

5  See http:www.stirnet.com/HTML/genie/british/dd/drake 01/htm. This suggests that an Elizabeth Drake married Winston Churchill: elsewhere her name is given as Ellen, Elinor and Helen. In the contemporary way, her mother’s maiden name is sometimes spelt Butler.

6  Churchill Marlborough I p.17.

7  Ibid. p.27 and Louisa Stoughton Drake The Drake Family in England and America 1360–1895 (Boston 1896) and Coxe Marlborough I p.1 are among those favouring Ashe House. For a contrary view see W.G. Hoskins Devon (London 1954), currently supported by the Devon Libraries Local Studies Service.

8  Churchill Marlborough I p.26 suggests that there were twelve children in all; my figure is from Burke’s Peerage and http://www. thepeerage.com/p100559.htm

9  Anon. The Lives of the Two Illustrious Generals (London 1713) p.18.

10  Ophelia Field The Favourite: Sarah Duchess of Marlborough (London 2002) p.6

11  Lady Drake’s sister was married to James Leigh (or Ley), 1st Earl of Marlborough of the first creation: James, the royalist admiral, was the 3rd Earl, and William, who died in 1679, the last of that creation.

12  ‘The Declaration of Breda’ in S.R. Gardiner (ed.) Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution 1625–1660 (Oxford 1962) pp.465–7.

13  Pepys Diary pp.52–3.

14  Evelyn Diary p.165.

15  Gardiner Constitutional Documents p.lxiii.

16  Churchill Marlborough I p.44.

17  ‘Flavius Vegetius’ in Gérard Chaliand (ed.) The Art of War in World History (Berkeley, California 1994) p.217. Flavius Vegetius Renatus probably lived in Constantinople in the late fourth century AD, and dedicated his Epitoma rei militaris (its proper title) to the Emperor Theodosius.

18  Pepys Diary pp.476, 556, 1006–7.

19  Catharine MacLeod and Julia Marciari (eds) Painted Ladies: Women at the Court of King Charles II (London 2001).

20  Burnet History I p.273.

21  Pepys Diary p.320.

22  Henry Hanning The British Grenadiers (London 2006) p.13.

23  John Childs The Army of Charles II (London 1976) p.196.

24  In practice the cabal was not a unified ministry, for its members, though loyal servants of the king, rarely agreed with one another.

25  ‘The English Brigade in French Service 1672–8’ Appendix D to Childs Army of Charles II.

26  The Diary of Dr Edward Lake (London 1846) p.vi. Charles was actually being even more bawdy than we might think. In contemporary parlance ‘to ride the St George’ was the precise opposite of the missionary position, and Charles may have believed that the weedy-looking William would be well advised to surrender himself to the rather sturdier Mary.

27  Norman Tucker (ed.) ‘The Military Memoirs of John Gwyn’ in Military Memoirs: The Civil War (London 1967) pp.99–100.

28  Anthony Bruce The Purchase System in the British Army 1660–1871 (London 1980) p.6.

29  Ibid. p.20. Officer ranks began with ensign in the infantry and cornet in the cavalry: these gentlemen, with the lieutenants, who took seniority immediately above them, were, then as now, termed subalterns. Captains, the next rank up, commanded troops in the cavalry or companies in the infantry: thus ‘to buy a company’ meant to purchase the rank of captain. During and after the Civil War the next rank up was formally styled sergeant major, and its holder was the regiment’s principal drillmaster. A Devon militia commission of 1677, for instance, appointed ‘Edward Greenwood, gentleman, ensign of the militia, in the company of foot of which Arthur Tremayne, sergeant major, is captain, and of which Sir Edward Seymour, Bart, is colonel’. The rank was more generally known as major tout court, and a generation later the sergeant major emerged as the senior non-commissioned member of the regiment. The lieutenant colonel deputised for the colonel, who might have weighty duties elsewhere which kept him away from the practical exercise of regimental command, or who might (like the Duke of Grafton with 1st Foot Guards) not really know much of what he was about. In the British service at this time most regiments had a single battalion, and battalions might be combined into brigades commanded by the senior colonel, sometimes styled brigadier by courtesy, or given a formal commission as brigadier general.

Major generals confusingly ranked beneath lieutenant generals: the latter were, as the title of their rank suggests, expected to stand in for their general, just as lieutenants could take their captain’s place and lieutenant colonels deputised for colonels. The rank of field marshal did not then exist in the British service, but the army’s overall commander enjoyed the title of captain general. This being the British army, there were numerous exceptions and variations, notably in the Life Guards, to understand whose rank system one must consult Barney White-Spunner’s majestically produced Horse Guards (London 2006).

All of the above held a commission signed by the monarch, the captain general, or (for militia officers) the lord lieutenant of their county, and at the time were styled ‘commission officers’. Non-commissioned officers were corporals and sergeants, appointed by their colonels.

30  Liza Picard Restoration London (London 1997) p.3.

31  Lever Godolphin p.45.

32  Evelyn Diary p.465.

33  Ibid.

34  Burnet History II p.482.

35  Whinney and Millar English Art pp.322–3.

36  Churchill Marlborough I p.52.

37  See The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (Oxford 1996) p.446. There are many versions of this quotation, but there will be few soldiers reading these lines who do not understand precisely what the lady meant.

38  Coxe Marlborough I p.3.

39  Pepys Tangier Papers p.90.

40  Ibid. p.93.

41  Ibid. p.96.

42  Childs Army of Charles II p.142.

43  Churchill Marlborough I p.56. Roger Palmer was created Baron Limerick and Earl of Castlemaine in December 1661, with a remainder limited to his heirs male by Barbara, ‘the reason whereof everybody knows’, muttered Pepys.

44  Ibid. p.57.

45  For contrasting views see Childs Army of Charles II p.72 and N.A.M. Rodger The Command of the Ocean (London 2004) p.129.

46  Sir Charles Lyttelton to Christopher Hatton 21 August 1671, in E.M. Thompson (ed.) Correspondence of the Family of Hatton … (2 vols, London 1878) I p.66.

47  S. Wynne ‘The Mistresses of Charles II and Restoration Court Politics, 1660–1685’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Cambridge 1997) p.32.

48  Pepys Diary pp.353–4.

49  Maurice Ashley Charles II (London 1973) p.150.

50  S.M. Wynne ‘Palmer, Barbara’ in The New Dictionary of National Biography.

51  Rowse Early Churchills p.144.

52  Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, Letters (5 vols, London 1892) I p.232.

53  Ashley Charles II p.161, Churchill Marlborough I p.61, Bryan Bevan Marlborough the Man (London 1975) pp.26–7.

54  Philip W. Sergeant My Lady Castlemaine (London 1912) pp.207, 214, 271.

55  John B. Wolf Louis XIV (New York 1968) pp.218–19.

56  For a scintillating glimpse of Louis and his ladies see Antonia Fraser Love and Louis XIV (London 2006).

57  Wolf Louis XIV pp.213–15.

58  Evelyn Diary p.210.

59  The best account is Anne Somerset The Affair of the Poisons (London 2003).

60  Nancy Mitford The Sun King (London 1966) p.72.

61  Fraser Love and Louis XIV p.259.

62  Rodger Command pp.82–3.

63  Churchill to Richmond 15 October 1692, BL Add Mss 21948.

64  David Chandler The Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough (London 1976) p.234.

65  Captain George Carleton Military Memoirs (London 1929) p.49.

66  Ian A. Morrison ‘Survival Skills: An Enterprising Highlander in the Low Countries with Marlborough’ in Grant G. Simpson (ed.) The Scottish Soldier Abroad (Edinburgh 1992) p.93.

67  Carleton Memoirs p.50.

68  ‘That’s ripe, that’s nice and ripe.’

69  Chandler Art of Warfare pp.245–6.

70  Richard Kane Campaigns of King William and Queen Anne … (London 1745) pp.26–8. For the Danish account see J.H.F. Jahn De danske Auxiliairtropper (2 vols, Copenhagen 1840) II pp.29, 150ff. I am indebted to Dr Kjeld Galster for this reference.

71  Alington to Arlington SP 78/137 f.142. As if the names of the writer and the addressee are not perplexing enough, in the original Villiers is spelt ‘Villars’, which often gives rise to confusion. He was probably the Hon. Edward Villiers, Lord Grandison’s son, and so Barbara Castlemaine’s brother: he died as a brigadier in 1690. The fact that his family name was easily mistaken for that of Louis Hector de Villars (also present at the siege as a French officer, and later commander of the army that Marlborough beat at Malplaquet) meant that it is probably Edward’s brother who was nicknamed ‘the marshal’. D’Artagnan was the real-life model for the hero of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers.

72  Christopher Duffy The Fortress in the Age of Vauban and Frederick the Great (London 1985) p.10.

73  Burnet History III p.55.

74  Childs Army of Charles II p.246. Churchill’s amalgamated regiment was apparently given seniority over the existing Royal English Regiment, which had Monmouth as its colonel in chief and Robert Scott as its commanding officer, because many of its recruits had been drafted in from Guards regiments. However, more work needs to be done on these British regiments in French service.

75  Historical Manuscripts Commission Le Fleming Papers (London 1890) p.108.

76  Field Marshal Viscount Wolseley The Life of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough … (2 vols, London 1894) I p.146.

77  J. Laperelle Marshal Turenne (London 1907) pp.318–19.

78  Ibid. p.331.

79  Raguenet Vie de Turenne pp.259, 268.

80  C.T. Atkinson Marlborough and the Rise of the British Army (New York 1921) p.53, Churchill Marlborough I pp.108–9. For a French view see Capt. J. Revol Turenne: Essai de Psychologie militaire (Paris 1910) pp.319–22.

81  Atkinson Marlborough pp.57–8.

82  Troops of horse, the equivalents of companies of infantry, continued to carry their own standards long after infantry companies had ceased to have their own colours. In this passage Churchill actually calls the standards ‘colours’, an easy enough slip for an infantry officer to make.

83  Laperelle Turenne p.340.

84  Coxe Marlborough I p.8. As Winston S. Churchill points out, the dates do not quite add up: the widow thanks Churchill for his kindness ‘thirty-four years ago’, whereas Turenne’s devastation actually took place thirty-seven years before.

CHAPTER 2:

From Court to Coup

1  Sarah and some of her contemporaries actually spelt her surname ‘Jenyns’, which is probably how they pronounced it.

2  Churchill Marlborough I p.116.

3  Ibid. p.118.

4  Colonel John Churchill to Sarah Jennings, undated, BL Add Mss 61427 f.13.

5  Colonel John Churchill to Sarah Jennings, undated, BL Add Mss 61427 f.33.

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

7  John Childs lists Churchill as the lieutenant colonel commanding his regiment. Monmouth was colonel in chief of his own regiment, and its commander was styled (in a direct read-across from French practice) the colonel lieutenant. The post that Churchill was being canvassed for was that of colonel lieutenant of Monmouth’s Royal English, in place of the rapacious Robert Scott, Churchill’s own regiment having apparently been amalgamated with Monmouth’s in May 1775. The job in fact went to Justin MacCarthy, later Lord Mountcashel, who had served with Churchill at the siege of Maastricht. Churchill does not seem to have served with the French army after the winter of 1674–75. He was in Paris, probably on a diplomatic mission, in August 1675, and in September the following year sat on the court-martial which tried Lieutenant Morris for assaulting the governor of Plymouth.

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.

31  Dickson ‘Cadogan’ p.39.

32  Ibid. p.40.

33  Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.237.

34  Cadogan to Marlborough 22 April 1709, Cadogan Papers.

35  Cadogan to Marlborough 10 April 1710, Cadogan Papers.

36  Cadogan to Marlborough 15 February 1711, Cadogan Papers.

37  Cadogan to unknown correspondent 12 August 1710, Cadogan Papers.

38  Patricia Dickson ‘Lieutenant General William Cadogan’s Intelligence Service, Part I 1706–1715’, offprint of unknown source, Cadogan Papers p.1.

39  Ibid. p.3.

40  Ibid. p.2.

41  Ibid. p.17.

42  Cadogan to Raby 16 June 1710 in BL Add Mss 22196 f.79.

43  Unsigned note in BL Add Mss 4747 f.25.

44  Sir John Fortescue ‘A Junior Officer of Marlborough’s Staff’ in Historical and Military Essays (London 1928) pp.180–1, 184, 186.

45  Cadogan to Marlborough 28 February 1716, Cadogan Papers.

46  Cadogan to Marlborough 26 June 1710, Cadogan Papers.

47  Cardonnel to Ellis 30 July 1703, BL Add Mss 28918 f.194.

48  Cardonnel to Stepney 25 May 1706, BL Add Mss 7063 f.199.

49  London Gazette 8–11 March 1711.

50  London Gazette 27–29 November 1711.

51  London Gazette 12–15 January 1711.

52  London Gazette 9–12 October 1704.

53  Marlborough to Lady Marlborough May 1702, BL Add Mss 61427 f.134.

54  Marlborough to Lady Marlborough 10 July 1703 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.221.

55  Lady Marlborough to Marlborough, undated (1701–02), BL Add Mss 61427 f.134.

56  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 16 August 1710 in Life of the Duchess of Marlborough I p.363.

57  Marlborough to Godolphin 16 August 1702 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.104.

58  Marlborough to Godolphin 2 July 1702 ibid. p.80.

59  Marlborough to Heinsius 20 July 1702 in B. van ’T Hoff The Correspondence 1701–1711 of John Churchill and Anthonie Heinsius (The Hague 1951) p.19.

60  David Chandler and Christopher L. Scott (eds) ‘The Journal of John Wilson, an “Old Flanderkin Sergeant” of the 15th Regiment …’ in David Chandler et al. (eds) Military Miscellany II (Stroud 2005) p.35.

61  Ibid.

62  Ibid. p.36.

63  Chandler Robert Parker p.20.

64  Marlborough to Godolphin 10 July 1702 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.90.

65  16 August Old Style, for Marlborough and Godolphin were then corresponding by the English calendar. In Continental New Style the missed opportunity was on 26 August 1702. During the Blenheim campaign Marlborough took to dating his letters ‘according to the custom of the country’.

66  Marlborough to Heinsius 4 September 1702 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.28.

67  Chandler Robert Parker p.22.

68  HMC Coke III p.16.

69  Marlborough to Godolphin 14 September 1702 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.115.

70  Chandler Robert Parker p.25.

71  Marlborough to Nottingham 23 October 1702 in Murray Dispatches I p.47.

72  Chandler Robert Parker p.25.

73  De Vault and Pelet II p.613,

74  Berwick Memoirs I p.181.

75  Chandler Robert Parker p.25.

76  Ailesbury II p.542.

77  Murray Dispatches V p.580.

78  Queen Anne to Lady Marlborough 22 October 1702 in Brown Letters p.97.

79  Sarah Duchess of Marlborough Conduct p.304.

80  Marlborough to Lady Marlborough 4 November 1702 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.142.

81  Marlborough to Lady Marlborough 6 November 1702 ibid. p.143.

82  Gregg Queen Anne p.165.

83  Coxe Marlborough I p.106.

84  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 18 February 1703 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.150.

85  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 18 February 1703 ibid. p.151.

86  Cardonnel to Heinsius 23 February 1703 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.58.

87  Ailesbury II p.558.

88  Marlborough to Godolphin 9 April 1703 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.165.

89  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 9 March 1703 ibid. p.253.

90  Queen Anne to Duchess of Marlborough 18 and 19 February 1703 in Gregg Queen Anne pp.168–9.

91  Ibid. p.169.

92  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 9 March 1703 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.200.

93  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 17 May 1703 ibid. p.186.

94  I owe this insight to Ophelia Field in The Favourite.

95  Queen Anne to Duchess of Marlborough 22 May 1703 in Brown Letters p.125.

96  Chandler Mérode-Westerloo p.147.

97  Marlborough to Heinsius 5 January 1703 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.46.

98  Marlborough to Heinsius 21 April 1703 ibid. p.61.

99  Marlborough to Godolphin 9 April 1703 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.165.

100  Marlborough to Heinsius 27 April 1703 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.63.

101  Overkirk (1640–1708) came from an illegitimate line of the Orange-Nassau family, and had saved William of Orange’s life at the siege of Mons in 1678. Promoted general in 1701, he replaced Athlone as the Estates-General’s field marshal when the latter died in February 1703.

102  Chandler Robert Parker p.26.

103  Marlborough to Opdam 19 May 1703 in Murray Dispatches I p.102.

104  Marlborough to Coehoorn 23 May 1703 ibid. p.105.

105  Marlborough to Godolphin 31 May 1703 NS in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.188.

106  J.W. Sypesteyn (ed.) Het leven van Menno baron van Coehoorn (Leeuwarden 1860) p.209.

107  Marlborough to Heinsius 17 June 1703 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.75.

108  Marlborough to Heinsius 22 June 1703 ibid. p.76.

109  Marlborough to Opdam 28 June 1703 in Murray Dispatches I p.125.

110  Marlborough to Heinsius 2 July 1703 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.78.

111  Marlborough to Godolphin 2 July 1703 NS in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.209.

112  Hop to the Estates-General 1 July 1703 in Murray Dispatches I p.129.

113  Chandler Mérode-Westerloo p.152.

114  Marlborough to Godolphin 5 July 1703 NS in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.211.

115  Marlborough to Heinsius 21 July 1703 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.83.

116  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 4 July 1703 NS in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.212.

117  Marlborough to Godolphin 30 July 1703 NS ibid. p.223.

118  Notes on the Council of War 24 August 1703 in Murray Dispatches I pp.165–6.

119  Marlborough to Godolphin 27 August 1703 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.235.

120  Marlborough to Godolphin 6 September 1703 ibid. p.239.

121  Marlborough to Heinsius 26 August 1703 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.89.

122  Marlborough to Heinsius 11 October 1703 ibid. p.95.

123  Marlborough to Berwick 23 October 1703 in Murray Dispatches I p.203.

CHAPTER 5: High Germany

1  Marlborough to Heinsius 8 June 1704 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.109.

2  Eugène Memoirs p.34.

3  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 18 January 1704 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I pp.260–1.

4  Churchill Marlborough III p.283.

5  Marlborough to Godolphin 8 February 1704 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.269.

6  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 4 February 1704 ibid. p.268.

7  Marlborough to Hedges 12 January 1704 in Murray Dispatches I p.234.

8  Cadogan to Raby 17 February 1704, Cadogan Papers.

9  Marlborough to Heinsius 7 and 14 March 2004 in Marlborough – Heinsius pp.101–2.

10  Eugène Memoirs p.82.

11  Marlborough to Godolphin 14 April 1704 OS in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.277.

12  Marlborough to Godolphin 18 April 1704 ibid. p.279.

13  Cadogan to Raby 5 May 1705 NS in BL Add Mss 22196 f.17r.

14  Marlborough to Heinsius from Kuhlseggen, just west of Bonn, 21 May 1704 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.105.

15  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough, two undated letters of April 1704 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.273.

16  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 11 April 1704 OS? ibid. p.276.

17  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 24 April 1704 ibid. pp.286–7.

18  J.M. Brereton History of the 4th/7th Dragoon Guards (Catterick 1982) p.57.

19  Marlborough to St John in Murray Dispatches I pp.260–1.

20  Kane Campaigns p.45. The regiment of the Electoral Prince of Hesse was, as Marlborough made clear to the Estates-General on 27 May (Murray Dispatches I p.282), in the king of Prussia’s service, though paid for by English gold.

21  Cadogan to Raby 27 August 1703, Cadogan Papers.

22  Cardonnel to Ellis 14 May 1704, BL Add Mss 28918 f.271.

23  De Vault and Pelet IV pp.18–23.

24  Ibid. p.420.

25  Cardonnel to Robethon 19 and 26 June 1704, BL Stowe Mss 222 ff.243, 248.

26  J.F. Dutems Histoire du Jean Churchill … (3 vols, Paris 1808) II p.293.

27  Churchill Marlborough III pp.337–8.

28  Marlborough to the Elector of Mainz 26 May 1704 in Murray Dispatches I p.282.

29  Chandler Robert Parker p.31.

30  Wilson Journal p.40.

31  Marlborough to Godolphin 24 May/4 June 1704 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I pp.310–12.

32  The Life and Diary of Lieut. Col. J. Blackader of the Cameronian Regiment … (Edinburgh 1724) p.197. Blackader spelt his name thus, and I follow his good example.

33  The Memoirs of Captain George Carleton and the Life and Adventures of Mrs Christian Davies, commonly called Mother Ross … (London 1840) p.288.

34  Chandler Journal of Marlborough’s Campaigns … by John Marshall Deane p.5.

35  Marlborough to Charles Churchill 22 June 1704 in Murray Dispatches I p.321.

36  Derek McKay Prince Eugène of Savoy (London 1977) p.206.

37  Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research No. 36 1958 Vol IV p.162.

38  Nicholas Henderson Prince Eugène of Savoy (London 1964) p.71.

39  Ibid. p.xii.

40  Churchill Marlborough III p.354.

41  Sandby Journal in BL Add Mss 9114.

42  Marlborough to the Prince of Hesse 10 June 1704 in Murray Dispatches I p.303.

43  Marlborough to Hedges 15 June 1704 ibid. p.309.

44  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 29 June 1704 NS in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.326.

45  HMC Coke III p.38.

46  Anne-Marie Cocula (ed.) Mémoires de Monsieur de la Colonie, Maréchal de Camp des Armées de l’Electeur de Bavière (Paris 1992) p.258.

47  Marlborough to Godolphin 3 July 1704 NS in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.327.

48  De la Colonie Mémoires p.264.

49  Wilson Journal p.43.

50  De la Colonie Mémoires p.264.

51  ‘The Letters of Samuel Noyes, Chaplain of the Royal Scots 1703–4’ in Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research No. 37 1959 pp.130–1.

52  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 3 July 1704 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.327.

53  Deane Journal pp.7–8.

54  Noyes Letters p.131.

55  Marlborough to Harley 4 July 1704 in Murray Dispatches I p.341.

56  Deane Journal p.7 fn 10.

57  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 23 July 1704 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.342.

58  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 30 July 1704 ibid. p.344.

59  De la Colonie Mémoires pp.288–9.

60  Wilson Journal p.47.

61  Davies Life and Adventures p.294.

62  Trevelyan Blenheim p.369.

63  James Falkner Great and Glorious Days: Marlborough’s Battles 1704–9 (London 2002) p.53.

64  Marlborough to Heinsius 31 July 1704 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.121.

65  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 10 August 1704 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.348.

66  Marlborough to Heinsius 10 August 1704 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.124.

67  Marlborough to Harley 10 August 1704 in Murray Dispatches I p.387.

68  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 13 July 1704 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.336.

69  Marlborough to Harley 14 August 1704 in Murray Dispatches I p.391.

70  Montingy-Languet in Trevelyan Select Documents p.130.

71  Tallard to Chamillart 4 September 2004 ibid. pp.118–24.

72  For a useful discussion of relative strengths see Ivor F. Burton The Captain-General (London 1968) p.67.

73  Kane Campaigns pp.111–12.

74  J.A. Houlding Fit for Service: The Training of the British Army 1715–1795 (Oxford 1981) p.174.

75  For infantry tactics of the age see David Chandler at his best in Art of Warfare pp.114–24.

76  Michael Orr Dettingen 1743 (London 1972) p.65.

77  Ibid. p.64.

78  Mérode-Westerloo p.164.

79  Sandby Journal in BL Add Mss 9114.

80  Tallard to Chamillart 4 September 1704 in Trevelyan Select Documents p.122.

81  Sandby Journal in BL Add Mss 9114.

82  Deane Journal p.11.

83  Falkner Great and Glorious p.69.

84  Tallard to Chamillart 3 December 1704 in Trevelyan Select Documents p.126.

85  Unnamed French officer to Chamillart ibid. p.128.

86  Baron de Montigny-Languet 24 August 1704 ibid. p.133.

87  Cardonnel Mss circular describing Blenheim in BL Add Mss 28918 f.288.

88  Millner Journal p.55.

89  H.H.E. Craster (ed.) ‘Letters of the First Lord Orkney’ in English Historical Review XIX 1904 p.311

90  Mérode-Westerloo p.169.

91  Anonymous officer in Trevelyan Select Documents p.128.

92  Chandler Robert Parker p.42.

93  Trevelyan Blenheim p.387.

94  Cardonnel to Ellis 17 August 1704, BL Add Mss 28918 f.294.

95  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 13 August 1704 in Marlborough – Godolphin I p.349. Virginia-born Dan Parke was rewarded with a diamond-set picture of the queen and a thousand guineas. He was appointed governor of the Leeward Islands the following year, and murdered there by rebels in 1710: there is no armour against fate.

CHAPTER 6:

The Lines of Brabant

1  Queen Anne to Duchess of Marlborough 10 August 1704 OS in Coxe Marlborough II p.38.

2  Sarah Duchess of Marlborough Account of the Conduct p.146.

3  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 20 October 1704 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.385.

4  Gregg Queen Anne p.193.

5  Ibid.

6  Marlborough to Godolphin 9 July 1705 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.455.

7  Sarah Duchess of Marlborough Private Correspondence I p.181.

8  Ailesbury II pp.523, 586.

9  Gregg Queen Anne p.195.

10  Blenheim Palace (Norwich 2006) p.5.

11  Marian Fowler Blenheim: Biography of a Palace (London 1989) p.59.

12  Gregg Queen Anne p.329.

13  Fowler Blenheim p.60.

14  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 25 August 1702 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.358.

15  Marlborough was formally invested with the principality on 24 May 1706, and in 1713 Mindelheim was exchanged for the county of Mellenburg (then created a principality) in Upper Austria.

16  Murray Dispatches V p.154.

17  Gregg Queen Anne pp.195–6.

18  Kane Memoirs p.57.

19  Cardonnel to Ellis 7 November 1704, BL Add Mss 28918 f.323.

20  Marlborough to Godolphin 3 November 1704 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.391.

21  Marlborough to Harley 28 November 1704 and attached Mémoire de My Lord le Duc de Marlborough in Murray Dispatches I pp.545–6.

22  Eric Gruber von Arni Hospital Care and the British Standing Army 1660–1714 (Aldershot 2006) pp.126–7.

23  These are the words I learnt as a boy, though there are many versions, some of which call the soldier ‘Billy’ or ‘Willie’. Polly decides not to follow her man, but curses the events that ‘pressed my Harry from me, and all my brothers three/And sent them to the cruel war in High Germany’. The date of the song is conjectural, though it is certainly eighteenth-century, and the title suggests an early date, for ‘Low Germany’ was a more usual stamping ground for the redcoat later in the century.

24  Gruber von Arni Hospital Care p.131.

25  Scouller Armies of Queen Anne p.235.

26  British officers and sergeants carried staff weapons and swords for the rest of the century, though the demands of soldiering in North America told against the practice. Nevertheless, on either side of the Grand Entrance to Old College at RMA Sandhurst are racks designed to hold the sergeant’s half-pike that replaced the halberd at the end of the century and did not itself disappear till the 1830s.

27  Gruber von Arni Hospital Care pp.209–10.

28  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 14 April 1705 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.415.

29  I am grateful to Dr Christopher Everett and Dr Hugh Bethell for their long-range diagnosis of Marlborough. The former also deserves my thanks for having preserved me from the terminal hypochondria which threatened my early career.

30  Marlborough to the Margrave of Baden 25 April 1705 in Murray Dispatches II p.23.

31  Marlborough to Harley ibid. p.55.

32  Cardonnel to Ellis 2 June 1704, BL Add Mss 28918 f.355.

33  Marlborough to Godolphin 16 June 1705 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I pp.442–3.

34  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 16 June 1705 ibid. pp.443–4.

35  Marlborough to Heinsius 18 June 1705 in Marlborough – Heinsius pp.184–5.

36  Blackader Life and Diary p.247.

37  Marlborough to St John 9 July 1704 in Murray Dispatches II p.159.

38  ‘Letters of the First Lord Orkney’ in English Historical Review April 1904 p.311.

39  Goslinga Mémoires pp.1–2.

40  Jacques Louis, comte de Noyelle en Falaise, was French-born but had entered Dutch service in 1674, commanded an infantry regiment and was promoted general in 1704. Marlborough had a high regard for him, and would have liked to see him command in Spain, where he died as adviser to the Hapsburg claimant to the throne.

41  Atkinson Marlborough p.259.

42  Millner Journal p.59.

43  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 19 October 1703 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.256.

44  Orkney ‘Letters’ in English Historical Review April 1904 p.313.

45  Ibid.

46  Blackader Life and Diary p.249.

47  Deane Journal p.26.

48  Marlborough to Galway 21 July 1705 in Murray Dispatches II p.183. There is some doubt about the number of guns: Deane says that they took ten, but Chandler’s note to Deane Journal p.27 suggests eighteen.

49  Deane Journal p.27.

50  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 18 July 1705 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.459.

51  London Gazette 23–27 August 1705.

52  HMC Portland IV p.253.

53  Churchill Marlborough IV p.215.

54  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 20 July 1705 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.460.

55  Marlborough to Godolphin 27 July 1705 ibid. p.462.

56  Marlborough to Godolphin 20 July 1705 ibid. p.458.

57  Goslinga Mémoires pp.136–8.

58  Marlborough to Heinsius 2 August 1705 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.199. Normally Marlborough seems to have kept no copies of his correspondence with Heinsius, but the fact that this appears in Murray Dispatches II p.197 demonstrates that copies were kept, suggesting that the issue of command had now become a live political matter.

59  The issue is dealt with at length in A. Legrelle La Diplomatie Française et la Succession d’Espagne (6 vols, Paris 1892) IV pp.364–75.

60  Marlborough to Berwick 30 October 1708 in Trevelyan Select Documents p.397.

61  Deane Journal p.28.

62  Marlborough to Godolphin 19 August 1705 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I pp.473–4.

63  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 24 August 1705 ibid. p.476.

64  Portland to Marlborough 1 August 1705 OS, BL Add Mss 61153 f.218.

65  Eugène to Marlborough 13 September 1705 in Coxe Marlborough I p.322.

66  Queen Anne to Marlborough 6 September 1705 ibid. p.321.

67  Bulletin of 19 August 1705 in Murray Dispatches II p.224.

68  Marlborough to Heinsius 19 August 1705 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.203.

69  Chandler Robert Parker p.56.

70  Hare Journal in BL Add Mss 9114.

71  Coxe Marlborough I p.313.

72  An alternative has him refuse the duty on the grounds that the place was beneath his dignity: in either case his refusal left him wrong-footed.

73  London Gazette 6–10 September 1705.

74  Deane Journal p.30.

75  Chandler Robert Parker p.57.

76  London Gazette 16–20 August 1705.

77  Marlborough to Godolphin 9 September 1705 in Coxe Marlborough I p.320.

78  Marlborough to Heinsius 14 September 1705 in Marlborough – Heinsius pp.211–12.

79  Marlborough to Godolphin 24 September 1705 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.496.

80  Marlborough to the emperor 19 July 1705 in Murray Dispatches II pp.178–9.

81  Marlborough to Louis of Baden 3 September 1705 ibid. p.251.

82  Marlborough to Lady Oglethorpe 17 September 1705 ibid. p.268.

83  Marlborough to Godolphin 6 July 1705 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.454.

84  Marlborough to Duchess of Tyrconnell 5 September 1705 in Murray Dispatches II p.254.

85  Marlborough to the queen 6 July 1707 in Coxe Marlborough II pp.131–2.

86  Gregg Queen Anne p.203.

87  Queen Anne to Marlborough 13 November 1705, BL Add Mss 61101 f.89.

88  Marlborough to Godolphin 8 December 1705 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.511.

89  Burton Captain-General pp.94–5.

90  Marlborough to Heinsius 26 March 1706 in Marlborough – Heinsius pp.229–30.

91  Marlborough to Godolphin 9 May 1706 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I pp.532–3.

92  De Vault and Pelet VI pp.30–1.

93  Marlborough to Godolphin 15 May 1706 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I pp.535–6.

94  Marlborough to Godolphin 9 May 1706 ibid. p.542.

95  Marlborough to Harley 20 May 1706 in Murray Dispatches II p.518.

96  Coxe Marlborough I p.375.

97  Deane Journal p.34.

98  Chandler Robert Parker p.59, Deane Journal p.34.

99  Drake Amiable Renegade p.78. It seems likely that not all tents were struck: David Chandler, too good a Marlburian scholar to be brushed aside, suggests that reserves later became ‘entangled amidst the unstruck tents of the French camp behind Ramillies’ (Deane Journal p.36 fn 223).

100  Goslinga Mémoires pp.12–13.

101  De la Colonie Mémoires pp.393–4.

102  Chandler Robert Parker p.60.

103  De la Colonie Mémoires p.397.

104  Mérode-Westerloo p.197.

105  Letter 24 May 1706 in English Historical Review April 1704 p.315. The formal ‘Ramillies Order of Battle’ reproduced as Plate XII in Kane’s Campaigns follows representational convention rather than tactical fact by placing all the Allied horse on the flanks of the foot: we know, for instance, that Lumley’s horse were actually behind Orkney’s foot, not on their flank as the map suggests.

106  De la Colonie Mémoires p.395.

107  Orkney in English Historical Review April 1904 p.315.

108  A. Wykes The Royal Hampshire Regiment (London 1968) p.29.

109  Ibid. p.30.

110  Blackader Life and Diary p.280.

111  Chandler Robert Parker p.61.

112  De la Colonie Mémoires p.399.

113  Chandler Robert Parker pp.60–1.

114  Orkney in English Historical Review April 1904 p.315.

115  Marlborough to Godolphin 24 May 1704 and Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 24 May 1704 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I pp.545–6.

116  HMC Portland IV p.309.

117  Orkney in English Historical Review April 1904 p.315.

118  Chandler Robert Parker p.60.

119  Wykes Royal Hampshire Regiment p.29.

120  Deane Journal p.35.

121  Chandler Robert Parker p.61.

122  Drake Amiable Renegade p.79.

123  There was a long-running feud between Picardie and the Royal Scots, senior regiment of the British line and ‘Pontius Pilate’s bodyguard’ by nickname. Had they been on duty that first Easter, maintained some of the Scotsmen, there would have been no sleeping sentries and no Resurrection.

124  Orkney in English Historical Review April 1904 p.316.

125  Davies Life and Adventures pp.311–12.

126  Deane Journal pp.39, 41.

127  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 27 May 1706 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.553.

128  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 31 May 1706 ibid. pp.555–6.

129  Marlborough to Godolphin 4 October 1706 ibid. II p.693.

130  Villeroi to Louis XIV 3 June 1706 in De Vault and Pelet VI p.41.

131  Marlborough to Harley 12 August 1706 in Murray Dispatches III p.78.

132  Marlborough to Godolphin 1 November 1706 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II p.727.

133  Godolphin to Marlborough 8 April 1707 ibid. p.746.

134  Godolphin to Marlborough 25 September 1706 ibid. p.694.

135  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 7 October 1706 ibid. p.695.

CHAPTER 7:

The Equipoise of Fortune

1  Gregg Queen Anne p.231.

2  Ibid. pp.232–3.

3  Sarah Duchess of Marlborough Life I p.415, II p.131.

4  Gregg Queen Anne p.275.

5  Godolphin to Marlborough 5 June 1706 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.576. Charles, Lord Mohun, Whig, rake and duellist, was to kill (and be killed by) George, Duke of Hamilton (father of Marlborough’s unacknowledged grandson by Lady Barbara Palmer) in 1712.

6  Sarah Duchess of Marlborough Life II p.140.

7  Gregg Queen Anne p.237.

8  There is still no readily available account of this battle in English: I rely here on Fortescue History I pp.487–9.

9  Stanhope to Marlborough 3 May 1707 in Murray Dispatches III pp.352–3.

10  Marlborough to Heinsius 17 December 1706 in Marlborough – Heinsius pp.286–7.

11  See Bromley New Cambridge Modern History VI p.432 and R.M. Hatton Charles XII of Sweden (London 1968) p.232.

12  Marlborough to Heinsius 15 May 1707 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.310.

13  Eugène to Marlborough 13 July 1707 in Murray Dispatches III p.483.

14  Marlborough to Godolphin 27 July 1707 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II pp.850–1.

15  Chetwynd to Marlborough 14 August 1707 in Churchill Marlborough V p.283.

16  Simon Harris Sir Cloudesley Shovell: Stuart Admiral (Staplehurst, Kent 2001) p.325.

17  Eugène Memoirs pp.105–6.

18  Rodger Command pp.171–2.

19  Marlborough to Godolphin 25 August 1707 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II p.880.

20  Godolphin to Marlborough 9 September 1709 ibid. p.908.

21  Marlborough to Heinsius 17 September 1707 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.345.

22  Marlborough to Godolphin 30 May 1707 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II pp.785–6.

23  Cadogan to Raby 16 June 1707, Cadogan Papers.

24  Marlborough to Heinsius 5 December 1707 in Marlborough – Heinsius pp.355–6.

25  Sir John Cropley to the Earl of Shaftesbury n.d. [19 February 1708] in Geoffrey Holmes and William Speck ‘The Fall of Harley in 1708 Reconsidered’ in English Historical Review LXVI 1965 pp.695–6.

26  Gregg Queen Anne p.264.

27  Marlborough to Heinsius 27 February 1708 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.374.

28  Godolphin to Marlborough 19 April 1708 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II p.957.

29  Rodger Command p.201.

30  Marlborough to Godolphin 10 September 1705 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin I p.487.

31  Marlborough to Godolphin 11 July 1707 ibid. II p.837.

32  Scouller Armies of Queen Anne p.310.

33  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 16 August 1706 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II p.645.

34  Cadogan to Raby 18 August 1706, BL Add Mss 22196 f.33.

35  Marlborough to Godolphin in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II p.645 and fn 2.

36  Cadogan to Raby 29 December 1707 and 19 January 1708, Cadogan Papers.

37  Cadogan to Raby 19 January 1708, Cadogan Papers.

38  Marlborough to Cadogan 17 February 1708 in Murray Dispatches III pp.680–1.

39  Louis XIV to Vendôme 20 and 21 May 1708 in De Vault and Pelet VIII pp.9, 17.

40  Marlborough to Godolphin 3 May 1708 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II p.960.

41  Ailesbury II p.602.

42  Marlborough to Heinsius 22 April 1708 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.382. The admirable Major J.N.P. Watson is wrong to suggest that ‘no British writer’ has mentioned this ‘plot’. It is referred to in both The Cambridge Modern History and Ivor Burton’s Captain-General.

43  A.J. Veenendaal Het Engels – Nederlands Condominium in de Zuidelike Nederlanden … (Utrecht 1945) pp.187–8.

44  De Vault and Pelet VIII p.11.

45  Chandler Marlborough p.213.

46  Marlborough to Boyle 5 July 1708 in Murray Dispatches IV p.96.

47  Goslinga Mémoires p.45.

48  Ibid.

49  ‘Journal of March of the Confederate Army …’ in London Gazette 8–12 July 1708.

50  Sergeant John Millner A Compendious Journal (London 1733) p.212.

51  Hare Journal in BL Add Mss 9114.

52  Goslinga Mémoires p.49.

53  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 9 July 1708 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II p.1023.

54  Goslinga Mémoires p.50.

55  Eugène Memoirs p.14.

56  Churchill Marlborough V p.397.

57  Grumbkow to Frederick William I, 9? July 1708 in K.W. von Schöning (ed.) Das General-Feldmarschalls Dubsilaw Gneomar von Natzmer Leben und Kriegshaten (Berlin 1838) p.286.

58  Marlborough to Murray 8 July 1708 in Murray Dispatches IV p.101.

59  Marlborough to Godolphin 9 July 1708 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II p.1022.

60  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 9 July 1708 ibid. p.1023.

61  Marlborough to Heinsius 10 July 1708 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.390.

62  Louis XIV to Burgundy 11 July 1708 in De Vault and Pelet VIII pp.30–1.

63  Vendôme to Saint-Frémont 10 July 1708 ibid. p.33.

64  Marlborough to Godolphin 9 July 1708 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II p.1023.

65  Marlborough to Boyle 9 July 1708 in Murray Dispatches IV p.102.

66  Schöning Natzmer p.288.

67  Deane Journal p.59.

68  Churchill Marlborough V p.407.

69  Goslinga Mémoires pp.53–4.

70  Eugène Memoirs p.113.

71  D’Artaignan’s account in De Vault and Pelet VIII p.386.

72  Schöning Natzmer p.289.

73  Chandler Robert Parker p.73.

74  Churchill Marlborough V p.418.

75  Eugène Memoirs p.114.

76  Schöning Natzmer p.293.

77  Goslinga Mémoires p.59.

78  Blackader Life and Diary p.318.

79  Vendôme to Louis XIV 19 July 1708 in De Vault and Pelet VIII p.391.

80  Eugène Memoirs p.116.

81  Blackader Life and Diary p.320.

82  Deane Journal p.62.

83  Matthew Bishop The Life and Adventures of Matthew Bishop of Deddington in Oxfordshire (London 1744) p.160.

84  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 12 July 1708 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II p.1024.

85  Marlborough to Godolphin 12 and 16 June 1708 ibid. pp.1025, 1026.

86  Goslinga Mémoires p.72.

87  Eugène Memoirs p.118.

88  Goslinga Mémoires p.68.

89  Churchill Marlborough V p.442.

90  Saint-Simon V p.64.

91  Eugène Memoirs p.117.

92  Bishop Life and Adventures p.162.

93  De Vault and Pelet VIII p.89.

94  Marlborough to the Earl of Manchester 15 July 1708 in Murray Dispatches IV p. 109.

95  Marlborough to Cadogan 31 July (twice) and 1 August 1708 ibid. pp.139–41.

96  Marlborough to Cadogan 2 August 1708 ibid. p.144.

97  Marlborough to Eugène 16 August 1708 ibid. p.173.

98  De Vault and Pelet VIII p.91.

99  Marlborough to Godolphin 20 September 1709 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II p.1100.

100  Marlborough to Boyle 23 August 1708 in Murray Dispatches IV p.184.

101  Marlborough to Boyle 3 September 1708 ibid. pp.203–4.

102  Marlborough to Galway 10 September 1708 ibid. pp.218–19.

103  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 17 September 1708 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II p.1097.

104  Blackader Life and Diary pp.327–8.

105  Marlborough to Godolphin 20 September 1708 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II p.1099.

106  Marlborough to Godolphin 24 September 1708 ibid. p.1100.

107  Marlborough to Heinsius 24 September 1708 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.402.

108  Marlborough to Earle 24 September 1708 in Murray Dispatches IV p.236.

109  Marlborough to Earle 24 September 1708 ibid. p.240.

110  This is the French version from ‘Projet pour secourir Lille’ in De Vault and Pelet VIII pp.454–6. See also Churchill Marlborough V p.506.

111  Marlborough to Godolphin 27 September 1708 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II p.1104.

112  Lamotte ‘Détail du combat de Wynendaele’ in De Vault and Pelet VIII pp.444–9.

113  London Gazette 20–23 September 1708.

114  Marlborough to Webb 29 September 1708 in Murray Dispatches IV p.242.

115  Marlborough to Godolphin 1 October 1708 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II p.1107.

116  Godolphin to Marlborough 14 December 1708 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II p.1175.

117  Kane Campaigns p.79.

118  Duffy The Fortress p.38.

119  Marlborough to Sunderland 19 October 1708 in Murray Dispatches IV p.269.

120  Marlborough to Pascal 7 November 1708 ibid. p.293.

121  Marlborough to Boyle 27 November 1708 ibid. p.323.

122  Churchill Marlborough V p.523.

123  Marlborough to Stair 10 November 1708 in Murray Dispatches IV pp.298–9.

124  ‘Articles pour la citadelle de Lille’ 9 December 1708 in De Vault and Pelet VIII p.661. There were minor modifications to these terms: for instance, the Allies thought that ten rounds per man was quite enough. The inclusion of the ‘matches burning’ condition implies that there were still matchlocks in use by the French army, though equally it may simply be a formal survival from an even more smoky age.

125  Goslinga Mémoires p.96.

126  Marlborough to Godolphin 6 and 28 November 1708 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II pp.1141, 1151.

127  Marlborough to Godolphin 3 December 1708 ibid. p.1155.

128  Marlborough to Godolphin 6 December 1708 ibid. p.1159.

129  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 17 December 1708 ibid. p.1171.

130  Davies Life and Adventures pp.329, 340–1.

131  Deane Journal p.74.

132  Marlborough to Godolphin 3 January 1709 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II p.1184.

CHAPTER 8:

Decline, Fall and Resurrection

1  Gregg Queen Anne p.277.

2  Ibid. p.279.

3  Godolphin to Duchess of Marlborough 25 and 22 October 1708 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II pp.1139, 1137.

4  Godolphin to Marlborough 26 October 1708 ibid. pp.1139–40.

5  Godolphin to Marlborough 29 October 1708 ibid. p.1142.

6  Prince George to Marlborough 28 May 1706 in BL Add Mss 61001 f.94.

7  Marlborough to Boyle 27 November 1708 in Murray Dispatches IV p.323.

8  Sarah Duchess of Marlborough Private Correspondence II pp.412–13; Brown Letters p.263.

9  Gregg Queen Anne pp.282–3.

10  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 25 May 1709 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III p.1255.

11  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 19 May 1709 ibid. pp.1250–1.

12  Wolf Louis XIV p.565.

13  Cadogan to Marlborough 6 December 1709, Cadogan Papers.

14  C. Sturgill Marshal Villars and the War of the Spanish Succession (London 1965) p.85.

15  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 9 June 1709 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III pp.1268–9.

16  Sarah Duchess of Marlborough Private Correspondence I p.120.

17  Henry L. Snyder ‘The Duke of Marlborough’s Request of his Captain-Generalcy for Life: A Re-examination’ in Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research Vol. 45 1967 p.69.

18  Marlborough to Queen Anne 10 October 1709 ibid. pp.73–4.

19  Queen Anne to Marlborough 25 October 1704 in BL Add Mss 61101 f.163.

20  Gregg Queen Anne p.297.

21  Godolphin to Marlborough 20 and 21 March 1710 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III p.1440.

22  Snyder ‘Duke of Marlborough’s Request’ p.80.

23  Scouller Armies of Queen Anne p.272.

24  Marlborough to Walpole 25 July 1709 in Murray Dispatches IV p.551.

25  Cadogan to Marlborough 22 April 1709, Cadogan Papers.

26  Marlborough to Major General Palmes 23 April 1709 in Murray Dispatches IV p.485.

27  Wolf Louis XIV p.565.

28  Marlborough to Godolphin 20 June 1709 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III p.1280.

29  Godolphin to Marlborough 10 June 1709 ibid. p.1281.

30  Marlborough to Godolphin 24 June 1709 ibid. p.1283.

31  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 27 June 1709 ibid. p.1286.

32  Deane Journal p.81.

33  Goslinga Mémoires p.105.

34  Burton Captain-General p.146.

35  Louis to Villars 2 July 1709 in De Vault and Pelet IX p.49.

36  Marlborough to Heinsius 10 July 1709 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.444.

37  Marlborough to Heinsius 24 July 1709 ibid. p.448.

38  Marlborough to Godolphin 30 July 1709 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III p.1317.

39  Marlborough to Queen Anne 29 July 1709 in Murray Dispatches IV p.556.

40  Deane Journal p.84.

41  Kane Campaigns p.83.

42  Wilson Journal p.75.

43  Marlborough to Heinsius 2 September 1709 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.462.

44  Goslinga Mémoires p.100.

45  Godolphin to Marlborough 25 June 1706 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin II pp.598–9.

46  Marlborough to Godolphin 6 July 1706 ibid. p.600.

47  Churchill Marlborough VI p.132.

48  Orkney in English Historical Review April 1904 p.317.

49  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 10 September 1709 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III p.1359.

50  De Vault and Pelet IX p.343.

51  Orkney in English Historical Review April 1904 p.317.

52  Burton Captain-General p.159.

53  De la Colonie Mémoires p.442.

54  Orkney in English Historical Review April 1904 p.319.

55  De la Colonie Mémoires pp.443–5.

56  Wilson Journal p.78.

57  Deane Journal p.94.

58  Davies Life and Adventures pp.364–6.

59  Chandler Robert Parker pp.88–9.

60  Deane Journal p.94.

61  Atkinson Marlborough p.402.

62  Marlborough to Godolphin 13 September 1709 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III p.1363.

63  Chandler Marlborough p.261.

64  Boufflers to Louis 11 September 1709 in De Vault and Pelet IX p.45.

65  Orkney in English Historical Review April 1904 p.319.

66  Ibid. p.320.

67  Drake Amiable Renegade p.167.

68  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 26 September 1709 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III p.1377.

69  Orkney in English Historical Review April 1904 pp.320–1.

70  Blackader Life and Diary pp.351–2.

71  Bishop Life and Adventures p.214.

72  Marlborough to Godolphin 13 September 1709 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III p.1365.

73  Marlborough to Boyle 13 September 1709 in Murray Dispatches IV p.597.

74  Marlborough to Villars 13 September 1709 ibid. p.596.

75  Boufflers to Louis 11 September 1709 in De Vault and Pelet IX p.44.

76  Marlborough to Godolphin 11 September 1709 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III p.1360.

77  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 13 September 1709 ibid. p.1364.

78  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 26 September 1709 ibid. pp.1377–8.

79  Marlborough to Heinsius 12 December 1709 OS in Marlborough – Heinsius pp.475–6.

80  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 2 and 5 June 1710 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III pp.1505, 1507.

81  Queen Anne to Marlborough 25 October 1709 in Gregg Queen Anne p.294.

82  M. de la R. Manley Secret Memoirs and Manners of Several Persons of Quality of both sexes from the New Atlantis, an Island in the Mediterranean Vol IV (London 1741) pp.30–2.

83  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 7 October 1709 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III p.1387.

84  London Gazette 15–17 November 1709.

85  Maynwaring to Duchess of Marlborough 18 November 1709 in Sarah Duchess of Marlborough Private Correspondence I p.270.

86  Watson Marlborough’s Shadow p.105.

87  Marlborough to Stepney 6 December 1706 in Murray Dispatches III p.245.

88  Cadogan to Marlborough 26 June 1710, Cadogan Papers.

89  A.J. Veenendaal ‘The opening phase of Marlborough’s campaign of 1708 in the Netherlands’ in History February 1950 p.45.

90  Cadogan to Brydges 28 April 1707 in Dickson Cadogan p.34.

91  Cadogan to Raby 7 July 1707 ibid. p.38.

92  Ibid. p.154.

93  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 24 June 1709 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III p.1283.

94  Philip Rambaut ‘A study in misplaced loyalty: Louis de Duffort-Duras, Earl of Feversham’ in M. Glozier and D. Onnekink (eds) War, Religion and Service (Aldershot 2007) p.57.

95  Trevelyan The Peace and the Protestant Succession p.37.

96  Rodger Command p.177.

97  Trevelyan The Peace and the Protestant Succession p.20.

98  Burnet History V p.454.

99  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 26 June 1710 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III pp.1530–1.

100  Marlborough to Godolphin 27 June 1710 and Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 29 June 1710 ibid. pp.1533, 1535.

101  Lever Godolphin p.241.

102  Maynwaring to Duchess of Marlborough September or October 1710 in Sarah Duchess of Marlborough Private Correspondence I p.395.

103  Lever Godolphin p.251.

104  Godolphin to Marlborough 8 August 1710 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III p.1596.

105  Queen Anne to Marlborough 8 August 1710 in Gregg Queen Anne p.320.

106  Godolphin to Marlborough 9 August 1710 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III pp.1597–8.

107  Gregg Queen Anne p.323.

108  Godolphin to Marlborough 30 June 1710 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III p.1552.

109  Marlborough to Villars 31 August 1710 in Murray Dispatches V p.122.

110  Marlborough to Godolphin 14 September 1711 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III p.1679.

111  Marlborough to Heinsius 13 October 1710 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.527.

112  Marlborough to Pulteney and Marlborough to Hern 11 September 1710 in Murray Dispatches V p.136.

113  B. Cadogan to Marlborough 15 February 1711, Cadogan Papers. The tone of this barely legible letter suggests that it was written by the widow of a regimental colonel killed at Malplaquet, and its content, author’s name and present location suggest a Cadogan family connection. I have, however, been unable to discover the lady’s identity.

114  Cadogan to Raby 5 December 1707, Cadogan Papers.

115  Scouller Armies of Queen Anne p.75.

116  Marlborough to St John 16 July 1711 in Murray Dispatches V pp.412–13.

117  Marlborough to Sweet 20 December 1710 ibid. p.245.

118  Marlborough to Halifax 13 September 1710 ibid. p.139.

119  Marlborough to Bothmar 17 September 1710 ibid. p.143.

120  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 10 November 1710 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III p.1654.

121  Lever Godolphin p.257.

122  Philip Roberts (ed.) The Diary of Sir David Hamilton 1709–14 (Oxford 1975) pp.22–3.

123  Lever Godolphin pp.259, 261–2.

124  Hamilton Diary p.25.

125  Burnet History VI p.33.

126  Ibid. p.34.

127  Hamilton Diary p.27.

128  Burnet History VI p.33.

129  Sarah Duchess of Marlborough Conduct p.279.

130  Gregg Queen Anne p.329.

131  Marlborough to Godolphin 5 July 1710 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III p.1543.

132  Colyear had joined his father’s regiment in Dutch service in 1675, and risen to command it: his English was now so rusty that Marlborough wrote to him in French.

133  Marlborough to Godolphin 9 November 1710 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III p.1652.

134  Marlborough to Godolphin 27 October 1710 ibid. p.1648.

135  Marlborough to Raby 10 November 1710 in Murray Dispatches V p.218.

136  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 16 April 1711 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III p.1662.

137  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 18 May 1711 ibid. pp.1666–7.

138  Burton Captain-General p.180.

139  Marlborough to Heinsius 11 June 1711 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.547.

140  Marlborough to Heinsius 25 June 1711 ibid. p.550.

141  Churchill Marlborough VI pp.410–11.

142  Ibid. p.418.

143  Kane Memoirs p.90.

144  Marlborough to Godolphin 27 July 1711 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III p.1673.

145  William, Viscount Rialton to Marlborough 9 August 1711 in BL Add Mss 61368 f.41.

146  Kane Memoirs pp.91–2.

147  Marlborough to Godolphin 30 July 1711 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III p.1674.

148  Chandler Robert Parker pp.100–1.

149  Ibid. pp.101–3.

150  Deane Journal p.133.

151  Marlborough to Heinsius 13 August 1711 in Marlborough – Heinsius p.558.

152  Chandler Robert Parker p.108.

153  Marlborough to Godolphin 14 September 1711 in Snyder Marlborough – Godolphin III p.1679.

154  Trevelyan The Peace and the Protestant Succession p.207.

155  Marlborough to Oxford 8 October 1711 in BL Add Mss 61125 f.129.

156  Churchill Marlborough VI p.483.

157  Cadogan to Marlborough 20 January 1712, Cadogan Papers.

158  Burton Captain-General p.188.

159  Marlborough to Albemarle 28 January 1712 in Murray Dispatches VI p.574.

160  Marlborough to Wheate 4 March 1712 ibid. p.579.

161  De Vault and Pelet XI p.463.

162  Chandler Robert Parker pp.119–20.

163  Bishop Life and Adventures p.235.

164  Kane Memoirs p.102.

165  Churchill Marlborough VI p.530.

166  Ibid. p.569.

167  Ibid. p.571.

168  Ibid. p.575.

169  Oxford to Maynwaring 31 October 1712 in Coxe Memoirs III p.325.

170  Churchill Marlborough VI p.575.

171  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 21 January 1713 ibid. pp.579–80.

172  Marlborough to Duchess of Marlborough 5 February 1713 ibid. p.580.

173  Quoted in Frances Harris A Passion for Government: The Life of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough (Oxford 1991) p.193.

174  Sarah Duchess of Marlborough Letters … from the originals at Madresfield Court (London 1875) pp.32–3.

175  HMC Bath I pp.37–8.

176  Coxe Memoirs III pp.341–3. For confirmation of the exchange see Cokayne et al. The Complete Peerage (13 vols, London 1910–59) VIII p.493.

177  Churchill Marlborough VI p.589.

178  Ibid. p.584.

179  Duke of Berwick to Marlborough 8 September 1703 in BL Add Mss 61270 f.1.

180  Sir Archibald Alison Life of John, Duke of Marlborough (2 vols, London 1852) II p.247.

181  Gregg Queen Anne p.375.

182  Marlborough to Maynwaring 9? June 1714 in Coxe Memoirs III pp.360–1.

183  Marlborough to Robethon 9 July 1714 in Macpherson Original Papers II p.632.

184  Churchill Marlborough VI p.623.

185  Cadogan to Marlborough 30 October 1715, Cadogan Papers.

186  Harris Passion for Government p.210.

187  William Matthews (ed.) The Diary of Dudley Ryder 1715–1716 (London 1939) p.363.

188  Harris Passion for Government p.120.

189  Ibid. p.219. All three children of the marriage died in infancy, and Sunderland himself died in 1722.

190  Christopher Hibbert The Marlboroughs (London 2001) p.314.

191  Churchill Marlborough VI p.645.

192  Ibid. pp.646–7.

193  Hamilton to Marlborough 5 June 1718 in HMC Stuart VI p.534.

194  Hibbert Marlboroughs p.318.

195  Ibid. pp.319–20.

196  Ibid. pp.321–2. Sadly, the last quote seems apocryphal.

197  Ibid. p.325.

198  Iris Butler Rule of Three: Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and her Companions in Power (London 1967) p.325.

199  Hibbert Marlboroughs pp.348–9.

200  Sarah Duchess of Marlborough Letters at Madresfield Court p.xviii.

201  Harris Passion for Government p.348.

202  V.G. Kiernan ‘George Macartney’ in New Dictionary of National Biography Vol. 35 p.25.

203  Ingoldsby to Marlborough 31 December 1706 in BL Add Mss 61157 ff.44–6.

204  Colonel Hugh Boscawen ‘Over the Hills and Far Away: Marlborough: Blenheim and Ramillies – A Reconnaissance’ in British Army Review No. 142 Summer 2007 p.81.

205  Chandler Robert Parker p.115.

206  Harris Passion for Government p.107.

207  Bevan Marlborough p.294.