Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

"The preparations on the part of the French were not less
vigorous; and from the more concentrated position of their
troops, and unity of action among their commanders, they, in the
first instance, were enabled to bring a preponderating force
into the field. On the Lower Rhine, a force, under the Marquis
Bedmar and the Count de la Motte, were stationed opposite to
Cohorn, to protect the western Netherlands from insult; Marshal
Tallard was detached from the Upper Rhine, with 13,000 men, to
interrupt the siege of Kaiserworth; while the main army, under
the command nominally of the Duke of Burgundy, really of Marshal
Boufflers, a veteran and experienced officer, was stationed
in the bishopric of Liege, resting on the strong fortresses
with which that district of Flanders abounded. Not only were
the forces under his command superior by a third to those that
Athlone had at his disposal, the latter being 45,000, the former
only 35,000 strong, but they had the immense advantage of
being in possession of the whole strong places of Brabant and
Flanders, which were all garrisoned by French or Spanish troops,
forming not only the best and most secure possible basis for
offensive operations, but an iron defensive barrier, requiring
to be cut through in successive campaigns, and at an enormous
expenditure of blood and treasure, before by any road the
frontiers of France could be reached."[21]

[19] In Sir James Stephen's _Lectures on the History of France_,
just published, there is an admirable and elaborate portraiture of
Louis XIV. If the rest of the work is equal to this portion, which
is all that we have as yet been able to examine, Cambridge has cause
to congratulate herself on the accession of so accomplished and able
a professor of modern history.

[20] ALISON, i. p. 108.

[21] ALISON, i. p. 92-3.

Such as it was, however, says Mr Alison, the barrier required to be cut through; and Marlborough resolved to commence it with the siege of Kaiserworth, a place of very great importance. He took it--but at a cost of 5000 men; and then took Venloo, and finally Liege--all places, of extreme importance, and desperately defended; and with these feats he concluded the brief but brilliant, campaign which laid the foundation of all his future victories. It stripped the French of many of the chief advantages with which they had opened the war. He had broken through their line, so formidable for offensive and defensive war; he had "thrust his iron gauntlet," says Mr Alison, "into the centre of their resources." And the entire merit was his own, as Lord Athlone, his rival and second in command, thus nobly testified:--"The success of the campaign is entirely owing to its incomparable commander-in-chief; for I, the second in command, was, on every occasion, _of an opposite opinion to that which he adopted_!" His success was like a bright burst of sunshine over a long-troubled land! But here an incident occurred which might have ruined all. While dropping down the Meuse, on his return to England at the conclusion of the campaign, he was positively taken prisoner by a small French force,--whose commander, however, ignorant of the prize which was within his reach, and skilfully misled by a sagacious device of Marlborough's servant, suffered him to depart! The peril in which he had been spread consternation everywhere, equalled only by joy at his escape, which was powerfully expressed to him by the Pensionary Heinsius. "Your captivity was on the point of causing the slavery of these provinces, and restoring to France the power of extending her uncontrollable dominion over all Europe. No hope remained, if she had retained in bondage the man whom we revere as the instrument of Providence to restore independence to the greater part of the Christian world!" On what apparently trivial incidents often depend the greatest events that can happen to mankind! Marlborough was received with transports in England, and raised to the dukedom of Marlborough. The difficulties which the Dutch deputies had thrown in his way during the first campaign, owing, says Mr Alison, to timidity, ignorance of the military art, personal presumption, and the spirit of party, on several great occasions thwarted the most decisive measures of Marlborough,--but proved only a foretaste of what was in store for the harassed commander. Mr Alison gives an interesting letter which Marlborough wrote to his Countess, immediately on his arrival at the Hague. It is full of the passionate fondness of a lover to his mistress; yet was written by a man of fifty-two to a wife to whom he had been married twenty-three years! There are innumerable other instances, in these volumes, of the romantic fervour of their attachment. Such was Marlborough's first campaign, the herald of a long series of resplendent successes, many of them marked by features similar to those of the first. "He never," indeed, "fought a battle which he did not gain, nor sat down before a town which he did not take; and--alone of the great commanders recorded in history--_never sustained a reverse_! On many occasions throughout the war he was only prevented, by the timidity of the Dutch deputies, or the feeble co-operation of the Allied powers, from gaining early and decisive success; and as it was, he broke the power of the Grand Monarque, and if his hands had not in the end been tied up by an intrigue at home, he would have planted the British standards on Montmartre, and anticipated the triumphs of Blucher and Wellington." Here is the key to his position, from first to last--an inkling of the tortures which wrung that great soul throughout his career.

In this first campaign, Marlborough had laid the basis of great operations--which, indeed, followed in such rapid succession, each eclipsing its predecessor in magnitude of result and splendour of achievement, as to throw its foregoer comparatively into the shade. In order to appreciate the greatness of Marlborough, his position--harassed daily by the jealousies and selfishnesses of the Allied forces, which he commanded--should be compared with that of Louis XIV., where all was an overwhelming _unity_ of will and purpose, perfect subordination, accompanied by immense military resources and consummate generalship. The war had, indeed, become already one of awful magnitude; for Louis XIV. and his advisers could not have failed to observe the settled determination of purpose, and forecasting sagacity, which characterised their great opponent. Louis brought all his power and resources to bear upon the plan of a second and magnificent campaign; showing that he felt the gravity of the situation, and the necessity of making commensurate efforts. "The great genius of Louis XIV. in strategy," says Mr Alison, "here shone forth in full lustre. Instead of confining the war to one of forts and sieges in Flanders and Italy, he resolved to throw the bulk of his forces at once into Bavaria, and operate against Austria from the heart of Germany, by pouring down the valley of the Danube."... "The genius of Louis," he adds, after a lucid explanation of the projected campaign, which was indeed grandly conceived, "had outstripped the march of time; and the year 1703 promised the triumphs which were realised on the same ground, and by following the same plan, by Napoleon in 1805."[22] It was all, however, in vain, though his plans were carried into execution with infinite skill and energy. Marlborough got intelligence of them; and instantly conceived a masterly counter-plan, which, but for his being thwarted, as usual, by the Dutch deputies, would have been completely successful in the first instance. The resources which Marlborough's genius displayed in this transcendent campaign were prodigious. His rapidity of perception, his far-sighted sagacity, his watchful circumspection, his prompt energy, at length triumphed over all obstacles, and eventuated in the glorious battle of Blenheim--than which none more splendid stands on record. The fearful consequences of failure were very eagerly pressed upon him by his own officers. "I know the danger," said he calmly, "yet a battle is absolutely necessary; and I rely on the bravery and discipline of the troops, which will make amends for our disadvantages."[23] Mr Alison's description of this battle is equally brilliant and impressive, and we wish we could transfer it entire into our columns. It was a fearful day for Louis XIV. The total loss of the French and Bavarians, including those who deserted during the calamitous retreat through the Black Forest, was 40,000--"a number greater than any subsequently lost by France till the still more disastrous day of Waterloo." "The decisive blow struck at Blenheim resounded through every part of Europe. It at once destroyed the vast fabric of power which it had taken Louis XIV., aided by the genius of Turenne and Vauban, so long to construct. Instead of proudly descending the valley of the Danube, and threatening Vienna, as did Napoleon in 1805 and 1809, the French were driven in the utmost disorder across the Rhine. Thus, by the operation of one single campaign, was Bavaria crushed, Austria saved, and Germany delivered ... and the Empire, delivered from invasion, was preparing to carry its victorious arms into the very heart of France! Such achievements require no comment. They speak for themselves, and deservedly place Marlborough in the very highest rank of military commanders. The campaigns of Napoleon exhibit no more decisive or important results."[24] His reception at the courts of Berlin and Hanover was like that of a sovereign prince; and, on his return home, the nation welcomed him with ecstasy. The Honour and manor of Woodstock were settled upon him; and the erection of the palace of Blenheim was commenced on a magnificent scale. Before the opening of this campaign he lost his only surviving son, in his seventeenth year--an event which occasioned him a week's paroxysm of grief. Shortly before, two of his daughters, very beautiful women, were married respectively to the Earl of Bridgewater and Lord Monthermer, whose father was subsequently raised to the rank of Duke of Montague. Another daughter had been married to Lord Sunderland, who occasioned the Duke of Marlborough intense mortification, by suddenly opposing his policy in the House of Lords. And, indeed, he seems to have suffered exquisitely during this period, from the animosities with which he was assailed at home by the Tories. He sought permission from the Queen to resign, and retire into private life; and it was only on her sending him a holograph letter, couched in terms of unusual affection, that he was induced to abstain from a step which would have been so fatal to the fortunes of his country.[25] It was in this campaign that Marlborough and Prince Eugene came together--the latter a man of great military genius, and a chivalrously noble and generous character. The intimacy and co-operation of such a man must have cheered the spirit of Marlborough in many a dark hour of trial, difficulty, and danger. They never had a difference during all the campaigns in which they acted together. "The records of human achievements can present few, if any, greater men; but beyond all question they can exhibit none in whom so pure and generous a friendship existed, alike unbroken by the selfishness consequent on adverse, and the jealousies springing from prosperous, fortune."

[22] ALISON, i. p. 125.

[23] ALISON, i. p. 159.

[24] _Ibid._ p. 187.

[25] _Ibid._ p. 141.

From this period the affairs of perplexed and convulsed Europe may be said to have rested upon the Atlantean shoulders of this marvellous man. The impression left on one's mind, after reading these volumes, is that of wonder how human faculties could sustain, and for such a length of time, so vast and constantly increasing a pressure, alike upon his heart and his intellect. Never, perhaps, was greatness so perseveringly harassed by littleness. He may have exclaimed on a thousand occasions--

"The times are out of joint! O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set them right!"

There is something at once exciting and oppressive in the following vivid picture:--

"No adequate idea can be formed of the greatness of
Marlborough's capacity, or the overwhelming load of cares
with which he was oppressed, if the other contests which, in
addition to his own, he was obliged to carry on, are not taken
into consideration. It was not merely his own campaigns, often
of the most active kind, which he was called on to direct; he
was at the same time charged with the almost entire direction
of those in every other quarter, and constantly appealed to
whenever a difficulty occurred. At the very moment when his
blood was heated by combat, and he was obliged to be ten or
twelve hours a-day on horseback with his own troops, he was
compelled to steal half the night to carry on his multiplied
correspondence with the Allied generals or cabinets in every
part of Europe. Such was the weight of his authority, the
avidity for his direction, that not only was he intrusted with
the general design of every campaign, alike in Germany, Italy,
Spain, and Flanders, but the details of their execution were
constantly submitted to him; and, what was much more vexatious,
he was continually called on to adjust by his authority, or
heal by his urbanity, the quarrels of the generals, and discord
of the cabinets to whom their direction was intrusted. His
correspondence affords ample evidence of this. Appeals were
made to Marlborough at every time, and from every side: from
the Imperial ministers against the inactivity of the Margrave
of Baden; from the Margrave against the imbecility of the
Imperial cabinet; from Lord Peterborough against the jealousy
and tardiness of the Spaniards at the court of the Archduke
Charles; from them against the irritability and eccentricity
of the English general; from the Hungarian insurgents against
the exactions and cruelty of the Imperial government; from
them against the restless and rebellious spirit with which the
Magyars in every age have been animated.

"The confidence universally reposed, not only in his wisdom
and justice, but in his conciliatory manners and irresistible
address, was the cause of this extraordinary load of important
cares with which, in addition to the direction of his own army,
he was daily overwhelmed. From Eugene alone he was assailed by
no appeals, except for such addition to his forces as might
put him in a condition to measure his strength with the enemy.
Their ideas were so identical, their minds so entirely cast in
the same mould, their military knowledge and capacity so much
alike, that it invariably happened that, what the one of his own
accord _did_, was precisely what the other of his own accord
would _have recommended_. Nor was it enough that foreign affairs
of such overwhelming magnitude daily oppressed the English
general; he had in addition the divisions of the cabinet at
home to heal, and the deadly animosity of faction, increasing
with every triumph which he won, to appease. No warrior of
modern times, not even excepting Wellington, had such a mass of
affairs, both civil and military, to conduct at the same time,
and none ever got through them with such consummate ability. The
correspondence of the Emperor Napoleon alone, since the days
of Cæsar, will bear a comparison with it; but although nothing
could exceed the energy and capacity of the French emperor,
there was this difference, and it was a vital one, between his
position and that of Marlborough--Napoleon commanded, after
he attained to greatness, everywhere as a master: he directed
his generals with equal authority on the Danube and the Tagus,
and dictated to cabinets at Vienna or St Petersburg nearly as
effectively as at St Cloud; but Marlborough had not even the
uncontrolled direction of his own army, and beyond it had no
influence but what had been extorted by exploits or won by
condescension."

The great event of this third campaign was the battle of Ramilies, where Marlborough was within a hair's-breadth of being taken prisoner on the field, and had to fight his way out from his throng of assailants, like the knights of old, sword in hand. No sooner had he succeeded in this, than he had another escape--his horse fell in leaping a ditch; and his equerry's head was carried off by a cannon-ball while holding the Duke's stirrup as he mounted another.[26] This was a very great battle, and attended by signal results--the acquisition of _nearly all Austrian Flanders_! What now was the position of Louis XIV.? After five years of continued effort, he found himself stripped of all his conquests, shorn of his external influence, and compelled to maintain at once on the frontiers of Germany, Flanders, Spain, and Italy, a contest, from his own resources, with the forces of all Europe.... His haughty spirit, long accustomed to prosperity, supported with difficulty the weight of adversity. The war, and all its concerns, was a forbidden subject at court. A melancholy gloom pervaded the halls of Versailles; and frequent bleedings of the monarch himself attested both the violence of his internal agitation and the dread which his physicians entertained of still greater dangers. Overcome by so many calamities, the fierce spirit of Louis was at length shaken, and he was prevailed on _to sue for peace_![27] After the battle of Ramilies, Marlborough was offered the government of the Netherlands, the emoluments of which were no less than £60,000 a-year; but he magnanimously refused it, from a regard to the public good, and on every subsequent offer of the same splendid and lucrative post, did the same. On his return to England he met with a rapturous reception--was thanked by Parliament--£5000 a-year was settled on him and his duchess, and their descendants--and the dukedom extended to _heirs female_, "in order," as it was finely expressed, "that England might never be without a title which might recall the remembrance of so much glory."[28] Equally indefatigable at home as abroad, in peace as in war, he addressed himself at once to his parliamentary duties, and took a leading part in the great and beneficial measure for uniting Scotland with England. His vast influence in the country, and at court, excited intense jealousy among both Whigs and Tories.

[26] ALISON, i. 247.

[27] ALISON, i. 277, 278.

[28] _Ibid._ p. 287.

The ensuing campaign (A.D. 1707) found Louis XIV. "reduced on all sides to his own resources," and thoroughly wakened from his dream of foreign conquests--seeking only, and that with anxiety and alarm, to defend his own frontier. Here, however, two new actors appear on the chequered scene--the Duke of Marlborough's nephew, the Duke of Berwick, who by his great victory of Almanza counteracted in Spain his uncle's efforts--and Charles XII. of Sweden, a "new and formidable actor on the theatre of affairs in Germany." Louis XIV. made desperate efforts to win over Charles XII., but the exquisite adroitness of Marlborough frustrated them altogether. But Louis, encouraged by the gleams of success which had been visible in Spain and elsewhere, made immense efforts to recover his lost ground. Marlborough's energies were equally divided between delicate and perilous negotiations with the various European potentates, and another decisive campaign in the field. Both he and Louis made prodigious exertions, and at length were on the point of fighting another great battle; "and, by a most extraordinary coincidence, the two armies were of the same strength, and occupied the same ground, as did those of Napoleon and Wellington a hundred and eight years afterwards!" Marlborough was eager for the fight, confident of a great victory; but, at the eleventh hour, a panic seized his old friends the Dutch deputies, and they compelled him to retire to his former position, and decline the encounter, to his unspeakable mortification. The enemy, showing no disposition to encounter him, at length retreated, Marlborough advancing, but finding it impossible to bring on a general action. Both armies were led into winter-quarters, and Marlborough repaired to England, "where his presence had become indispensably necessary for arresting the progress of public discontent, fanned as it was by court and parliamentary intrigues, and threatening to prove immediately fatal to his own influence and ascendency, as well as to the best interests of England."[29] Here we are plunged into the vortex of political intrigues,--the principal actors being Harley and St John and Mrs Masham on the one side, and on the other the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, whose ascendency over the Queen and the country, and even their own party the Whigs, is evidently beginning to give way, and rapidly. Mr Alison here shows his dispassionate character to great advantage, holding the balance evenly between all parties. His candid and luminous statement is equally interesting and instructive; and one thing he brings out in a very striking manner, though not in so many words: we mean the retributive justice with which the duke's treachery to James II. was brought home to himself, and also to the duchess--the latter being utterly incredulous of the ingratitude and treachery of Mrs Masham towards her, and the former equally so in the case of Harley and St John. How often and how bitterly may such reflections have occurred to the duke and duchess! Their position at court had become exceedingly trying; but their treatment of the Queen was highly imprudent, the Duke being doubtless greatly influenced by his imperious and intractable duchess. Mr Alison regards her as the "faithful representative of the whole Whig party," whose "arrogant domination and grasping disposition were the real causes of their fall from power, and the total change in the foreign policy of England--results not attributable exclusively to female partiality, or a bed-chamber intrigue, which were, nevertheless, the ultimate _agents_ in the change, and apparently its immediate precursors. The Whigs were haunted as incessantly by dread of a reaction as the Jacobins of France of a counter-revolution, and apprehended from a change of ministry not merely the usual subversion of their party, but serious personal consequences, in respect of the part which had been played to James II." Such is the general conclusion arrived at by Mr Alison--indicative, undoubtedly, of his candour and moderation. Early in 1708, and while Marlborough was placed in these critical circumstances, occurred the attempt of Louis XIV. to imitate, in some respect, the example of his Allied opponents, by invading Great Britain, in order to place the Pretender on the throne. Louis's terrible antagonist, however, Marlborough, was here again to confront him. As commander-in-chief, the Duke crushed the attempt, and the ambitious Chevalier was forced to creep back to Dunkirk ridiculously--the result serving only suddenly to reinstate Marlborough at the summit of popularity, and to silence all slanderous imputations upon his fidelity to the cause of the Revolution.

[29] _Ibid._ p. 330.

The precarious position of political matters in England, at this crisis, was profoundly appreciated by Marlborough, who said that any considerable reverse on the Continent, or even a campaign as nugatory as the last, would, probably, not only dissolve the Grand Alliance, and undo all that had been done, but place a new administration in power, and possibly seat another dynasty on the throne. He also surveyed, with unerring sagacity and accuracy, the whole position of Louis XIV., and saw that he was preparing for yet one more grand demonstration of force. Marlborough took his plans accordingly; and on the 12th April 1708, in concert with the incomparable Eugene, arranged the plan of operations. Marlborough resolved to use the precious opportunity yet available, before the accession of the Tory ministry, for the purpose of striking a tremendous blow. And he did what he purposed; for this campaign was signalised by most resplendent results, glorious to Marlborough almost beyond parallel, and equally disastrous to Louis XIV. Bring what forces the latter might into the field--array them under what consummate generals he pleased, and let him select his site, and mature his plan of operations as he chose--all was, as usual, in vain! Vendôme was here the directing military genius of Louis; and he succeeded in surprising Ghent and Bruges into a surrender, greatly to the vexation of Marlborough. But the latter instantly resolved on a scheme as masterly as it proved successful. He resolved to throw himself on his opponent's communication, and, by interposing between him and the French frontier, compel him to fight with his face towards Paris, and his back to Antwerp. This manoeuvre was executed with a rapidity commensurate with its importance--and Vendôme's skilful plans were entirely disconcerted. He moved of precipitately, followed by Marlborough, who resolved to force him to a decisive action; and succeeded--adding OUDENARDE to his other laurels. This was indeed a fearful affair. Both parties fought with desperation--Vendôme with eighty-five thousand men, Marlborough with eighty thousand. Nothing could resist his generalship and valour; and Vendôme was defeated, with a loss, including deserters, of fully twenty thousand men. "If I had had two hours more of daylight," said Marlborough, "the French army would have been irretrievably routed, great part of it killed or taken, and the war terminated on that day." The results of this sanguinary but glorious battle were immense, entirely altering the character and fate of the campaign. By his admirable movement in interposing between Vendôme and France, Marlborough had gained the incalculable advantage of throwing his opponent, in the event of defeat, into a corner of Flanders, and so leaving exposed the French frontier, and all its great fortresses. Marlborough's eagle eye, perceiving the capabilities of his new position, resolved to discard all minor objects, pass the whole fortified towns on the frontier, and advance direct on the capital. This daring but prudent design, says Mr Alison, was precisely that of Wellington and Blucher a century afterwards; but Marlborough was overruled--Eugene for once concurring in regarding it as too hazardous; and it was resolved to commence the invasion of the territories of the Grand Monarque, by laying siege to the inestimably-important frontier fortress of LILLE, the strongest place in French Flanders, and which could give the Allies a solid footing, a commanding position, in the territories of Louis. The undertaking, however, was most formidable--"for not only was the place itself, the masterpiece of Vauban, of great strength, but the citadel within its walls was still stronger; and, moreover, it was garrisoned by the celebrated Marshal Boufflers, with fifteen thousand choice troops, and every requisite for a vigorous defence."[30] Besides all this, Vendôme and the Duke of Berwick, at the head of more than a hundred thousand men, lay in an impregnable camp, covered by the canal of Bruges, completely fortified, between Ghent and Bruges, ready to interrupt or raise the siege. But of what avail? Marlborough sate down before Lille, and it fell. To avert that event, Vendôme and Berwick led forth their magnificent army, a hundred and ten thousand men, preceded by two hundred pieces of cannon, in the finest order, to within a quarter of a league of Marlborough--"everybody expecting the greatest battle, on the morrow, which Europe had ever seen."[31] Thus grandly they advanced; but as ridiculously retired without firing a shot! Marlborough, however, was of a different humour, and resolved to follow and fight them; and the Duke of Berwick himself has told us what the issue would have been--that Marlborough would have utterly routed his enemy, and probably finished the war that day." But--the Dutch deputies again! They interposed, and Marlborough's heart nearly burst as he beheld the foe retire unmolested. "If Cæsar or Alexander," said Eugene, "had had the Dutch deputies by their side, their conquests would have been less rapid.[32] The siege went on--a ball striking Eugene on the head, and wounding him severely, whereby the whole burthen of directing and sustaining the vast operations fell on Marlborough alone, till Eugene's recovery. After sixty days' siege, Boufflers was compelled to capitulate, being treated very nobly by his captors. Still the citadel remained--but that also fell; and so fell the strongest frontier fortress of France, under the eyes of its best generals and most powerful army! A siege perhaps the most memorable, and also one of the most bloody, in modern Europe,--standing forth, as Mr Alison elsewhere remarks, in solitary and unapproachable grandeur in European warfare. The Allies were now within reach of the very heart of France; and Louis XIV. was trembling in his halls at Versailles.[33] Before Marlborough could close his campaign, however, he recovered Ghent and Bruges. Such was the campaign of 1708, one of the most glorious in the military annals of England, and one in which the extraordinary capacity of the English general shone forth with perhaps the brightest lustre. The strife of opinion, the war of independence, was alike brought to an issue in that memorable contest, and, as far as military success could do it, to a glorious termination. "But at this moment," says Mr Alison, with a sigh, "faction stepped in to thwart the efforts of patriotism; and his subsequent life is but a record of the efforts of selfish ambition to wrest from the hero the laurels, from the nation the fruits, of victory."[34]

[30] ALISON, i. 406.

[31] _Ibid._ p. 419.

[32] _Ibid._ p. 423.

[33] _Ibid._ p. 448.

[34] ALISON, i. 448.

When the laurelled victor returned to England, he received no favour from the Queen, and was treated with studied coldness at court. Faction and intrigue had been and were then busy at their foul work. This was doubtless hard to bear; but what was the situation of the great Louis? His fortunes were desperate; his exchequer was beggared; the land was filled with lamentation; and the horrors of famine were superadded. Then Louis supplicated for peace to those whom he had so long striven to crush and annihilate: a bitter humiliation! And in his extremity he bethought himself of bribing his great conqueror; offering him, directly, no less a sum than nearly a quarter of a million sterling, as the price of his influence for the purpose of obtaining terms advantageous to France. It need not be said that the attempt was scornfully repulsed. The triumphant Allies insisted on terms of compromise which Marlborough himself, with noble disinterestedness, condemned, and Louis could do nothing but repudiate. Once again, therefore, he took the field, with an enormous army of 112,000 men, under his renowned marshal, Villars; and all France was animated, at this momentous crisis, by the conviction that then "it behoved every Frenchman to conquer or die." Marlborough commenced the campaign with 110,000 men; and great results were looked for, from "the contest of two armies of such magnitude, headed by such leaders, and when the patriotic ardour of the French nation, now raised to the uttermost, was matched against the military strength of the Confederates, matured by a series of victories so long and brilliant." So confident was Villars in the strength of his army, and his intrenched position, that he sent a trumpeter to the Allies' headquarters, to announce that "they would find him behind his lines; or, if they were afraid to attack, he would level them, to give entrance!" With consummate prudence Marlborough declined the invitation, and besieged Tournay--which he took, after a siege of almost unequalled horrors; but he gained by it a fertile and valuable province in French Flanders. Then he determined to take Mons, the next great fortress on the direct road to Paris; but for this it would be necessary to break through Villars' long lines of defence. By a dexterous movement, he succeeded in turning these formidable lines, thirty leagues in length, the results of two months' severe labour, and the subject of such vainglorious boasting by their constructor. They were now rendered utterly useless; and this great feat had been accomplished easily, and without bloodshed. Then came another terrible battle--that of MALPLAQUET, in which Marlborough, with 93,000 men, after the most bloody and obstinately contested contest that had occurred in the war, defeated an army of 95,000,--the noblest which the French monarchy had ever sent forth--strongly posted between two woods--trebly intrenched! "It was," says Mr Alison, "a desperate duel between France and England, in which the whole strength of each nation was put forth. Nothing like it had occurred since Agincourt, nor afterwards occurred till Waterloo." Both Villars and Boufflers performed prodigies of strategy and valour; but of what avail against Marlborough? Then he laid siege to, and took Mons: after which there remained only two more fortresses between the Allies and Paris! These prodigious operations, however, formed the subject of vexatious insults, paltry and presumptuous criticism, to his malignant enemies in England, with a view to lower his overwhelming influence at home. He was disgusted and disheartened, and went so far as to say to the Queen, with natural but imprudent indignation--"After all I have done, it has not been able to protect me against the malice of a bed-chamber woman!"

The affairs of the Allies becoming exceedingly critical, Marlborough, after strenuous but futile efforts at negotiation, was forced again to take the field; and projected operations on a grander scale than ever, with a view to promptly closing the war. Again he succeeded in passing immensely strong lines of defence without shot or bloodshed, and sat down before Douai, another fortress of the utmost importance, in every way, to France. Villars received imperative instructions, from the alarmed court at Versailles, to raise the siege at all hazards; and, at the head of a splendid army of upwards of 90,000 men, most ably generalled, approached, "with all the pomp and circumstance of war," to within musket-shot of Marlborough's position--around whose bayonets, however, played the lustre of Blenheim and Ramilies. Villars advanced--to retire without firing a shot, though his army greatly outnumbered that of Marlborough! _Of course_, he took Douai, after a bloody siege; and then Bethune, after thirty days of open trenches; where, says the _French_ annalist, "Vauban beat the _chamade_--the sad signal which terminated all the sieges undertaken by Marlborough!"[35] It had to sound twice more in that campaign--on the fall of St Venant, and of Aire, after severe sieges; and the trembling Louis, disarrayed of four great frontier fortresses in one campaign, now placed all his hopes on the result of base intrigues in England against Marlborough and the war ministry. "What we lose in Flanders," said his triumphant minister, Torcy, "we shall gain in England!" And there, indeed, his enemies were doing their work with the utmost skill and determination, in order to secure his speedy downfall, and the advent of a ministry which should surrender all that had been gained in the war, humble England before France, and seal the fate of Protestantism and the Succession which upheld it. Their scandalous doings almost wore out Marlborough, making him, as he said, "every minute wish to be a hermit." He nobly resolved, however, harassed and thwarted as he was, to retain his command, "as affording the only security for a good power, and the Protestant succession to the throne." His enemies in England were this time successful--the Whig ministry fell; and thus ended Marlborough's career as a statesman. And to such a deplorable depth could national meanness sink, that attempts were, made to inveigle him into _personal_ liability for the expense of prosecuting the works at Blenheim, till then carried on by the Treasury! He was received enthusiastically by the people; but neither the Queen nor the Parliament thanked him for his services and sacrifices. Mr Alison at this point presents us with a dazzling summary of these services:--

"This, therefore, is a convenient period for casting the eyes
back on what he had done during the ten years that he had
been the real head of the Alliance; and marvellous beyond all
example is the retrospect! He began the war on the Waal and the
Meuse, with the French standards waving in sight of the Dutch
frontier, and the government of the Hague trembling for the fate
of their frontier fortress, Nimeguen. He had now brought the
Allied ensigns to the Scarpe, conquered Flanders, subdued all
its fortresses, and nearly worked through the iron frontier of
France itself. Nothing was wanting but the subjugation of its
_last_ fortress, Arras, to enable the Allies to march to Paris,
and dictate a glorious peace in the halls of Versailles. He had
defeated the French in four pitched battles and as many combats;
he had taken every town to which he had laid siege; he had held
together, when often about to separate, the discordant elements
of the Grand Alliance. By his daring march to Bavaria, and
victory of Blenheim, he had delivered Germany when in the utmost
danger; by the succours he sent to Eugene, he had conquered
Italy at Turin; by his prudent dispositions he had saved Spain,
after the battle of Almanza. He had broken the power of Louis
XIV. when at the zenith of his fame; he had been only prevented
by faction at home from completing his overthrow by the capture
of his capital. He had never suffered a reverse; he had never
alienated a friend; he had conquered by his mildness many
enemies. Such deeds require no comment; they are without a
parallel in European history, and justly place Marlborough in
the place assigned him by Napoleon--at the head of European
captains."

[35] ALISON, ii. 125.

The overthrow of Marlborough effected an object quite unlooked for by his eager and shortsighted enemies. The efforts of faction, aided by a palace intrigue, showed what had been due to the greatness of one man. Instantly, as if by enchantment, the fabric of victory raised by his all-potent arm was dissolved. Spain was lost, Flanders reconquered, Germany threatened! The arch of the Grand Alliance fell to pieces. These show in brighter colours than ever the greatness and patriotism of Marlborough. Again he took the command of the Hague, though no longer possessing the confidence of the government, and intrusted with no control over diplomatic measures; and again dazzled Europe and petrified his enemies by the splendour of his first achievement. Louis, in order to prevent the irruption of his foes into France, now that almost all his fortresses had been broken through, resolved on the construction of a line of defence on a scale so stupendous as to attract universal wonder--lines subsequently paralleled only by the prodigious lines of Torres Vedras. They were supplied with abundance of cannon, and manned by ninety thousand choice troops of infantry and cavalry under the command of Villars, who at length seemed both impregnable and unconquerable. Marlborough was then in his sixty-second year, and almost worn out by long service, and intense anxieties, and incessant mortifications. "I find myself decay so very fast," he wrote to his Duchess, "that from my heart and soul I wish the Queen and my country a peace, by which I might have the advantage of having a little quiet, which is my greatest ambition."[36] But his mighty powers addressed themselves once more to a commensurate object--the devising an enterprise which should at a stroke deprive his enemy of all his huge defences, and drive him to fight a decisive battle or lose his last frontier fortress. Shortly afterwards, he was confounded by Prince Eugene being withdrawn from him, together with a large section of the army, to repair disasters in a distant part of the Continent. This rendered Villars suddenly anxious for an encounter; but Louis, his eyes intently fixed on the progress of intrigues in London, had peremptorily prohibited him from fighting. Villars vaingloriously styled his lines "Marlborough's _ne plus ultra_," a subject on which he was abundantly jocular. But Marlborough, having carefully studied them, devised a plan which very soon banished his boasts, and plunged him into consternation. We must refer our readers to Mr Alison's exciting description of this feat of strategy, by which Marlborough passed the imaginary "_ne plus ultra_" without having fired a shot, without having lost one man--frustrating by a sudden march nine months' labour, and suddenly exhibiting to Marshal Villars the palsying spectacle of Marlborough's whole army drawn up in battle array on the _inner_ side of the impregnable lines! All this was the work of Marlborough alone. The military critics of the Continent were at a loss for words adequately expressing their admiration of this great exploit:--

"Marlborough's manoeuvre," says Rousset, "covered him with
glory: it was a duel in which the English beat the French
general; the armies on either side were present only to render
the spectacle more magnificent. In battles and sieges, fortune
and the valour of soldiers have often a great share in success;
but here everything was the work of the Duke of Marlborough. To
gain the lines, they would willingly have compounded for the
loss of several thousand lives: thanks to the Duke, they were
won without the loss of one; that bloodless victory was entirely
owing to his wisdom."[37]

[36] ALISON, vol. ii. p. 185, note.

[37] _Ibid._ vol. ii. p. 194.

Marlborough instantly besieged Bouchain, another great fortress, having prevented Villars, by brilliant manoeuvring, from coming to its assistance. "The works effecting that purpose," said a Hanoverian officer engaged on the occasion, "were worthy of Julius Cæsar or Alexander Farnese, and the siege one of the prodigies of war. You could not fire a cannon-shot from the trenches without Villars seeing its smoke. He omitted nothing which could suspend or interrupt the works. Vain hope! Our general, invincible on all sides, has foreseen and frustrated all his enterprises."[38] Marlborough was then pressing on the siege of Quesnoy, the capture of which would have completely broken through the French barrier, when he suddenly found himself undermined by the intrigues secretly carrying on between the Tories and Louis XIV.; preliminaries of peace were signed between them, afterwards embodied in the execrable Treaty of Utrecht--abandoning the main object of the long, glorious, and successful war--the exclusion of the Bourbon family from the throne of Spain. And what, thinks the reader, was done by Marlborough's enemies, in order to anticipate and frustrate his opposition to these base proceedings? He was ridiculed and libelled everywhere in the bitterest terms; accused of avarice, fraud, extortion; of indolence, cruelty, ambition, and misconduct: even his courage was questioned; and he was denounced as the lowest of mankind! His magnificent passage of the French lines was ridiculed as "the crossing of the kennel;" and the siege of Bouchain stigmatised as an inexorable sacrifice of sixteen thousand men for "the capture of a dovecot!"[39] He was charged with having embezzled £63,319 of the public money during the war in Flanders, and Parliamentary commissioners were employed to investigate the charge, which the indignant warrior in one moment blew into the air. Then he was charged with having prolonged the war for his own pecuniary interests; and finally, he was charged with other pecuniary peculations to an immense amount; and the Queen, on the advice of her infamous ministers, dismissed her illustrious servant from all his employments, in order that the atrocious calumnies might be investigated. The intelligence was received with transport by the enemies of England abroad; and Louis XIV. exclaimed, rapturously, "_The dismission of Marlborough will do all we can desire_."[40] At that moment the fallen warrior-statesman's resplendent services had reduced Louis to a state of desperation, and he, with his whole kingdom, lay at the mercy of Marlborough. Louis had announced his resolve to lead the last army he could muster in person, and conquer or die; but the measures of the ministry averted the alternative, and saved his throne at the instant of its having become defenceless. The perfidious desertion of England from the Grand Alliance paralysed it. England consummated her treachery and dishonour by the peace of Utrecht, which Mr Pitt justly stigmatised as "the indelible reproach of the age," and which has entailed on her long-continuing disaster. As for Marlborough, almost every conceivable kind of insult and provocation was heaped upon him; scurrilous mercenaries haunted him with libel and ridicule; and to complete the climax of national meanness, the Treasury payments for the works at Blenheim were discontinued, and the contractors and workmen stimulated to sue the Duke for the arrears due to them, to the extent of £30,000; while a peer, in his place in Parliament, actually charged the veteran hero--John Duke of Marlborough--in his presence, with "having led his troops to certain destruction, in order _to profit by the sale of the officers' commissions_!"[41] The Duke deigned no reply, but on leaving the house sent his slanderer a challenge, which the terrified peer communicated to the proper quarter, and the Queen's interference saved him from standing at twelve paces distance from John Duke of Marlborough. To escape the torturing indignities and outrages to which he was exposed, Marlborough obtained passports and went abroad.

[38] ALISON, ii. 199, 200.

[39] _Ibid._ p. 203.

[40] _Ibid._ p. 213.

[41] _Parl. Hist._ vi. p. 1137.

The Duke of Marlborough was received on the Continent with almost the honours due to a crowned head. At Antwerp his arrival and departure were signalised by triple discharges of artillery; the governor received him outside the walls with obsequious respect; deafening acclamations resounded from the multitude as he passed through the streets, every one struggling to catch a glimpse of dishonoured greatness. "All," says Mr Alison, "were struck with his noble air and demeanour, softened, though not weakened, by the approach of age. They declared that his appearance was not less overpowering than his sword. Many burst into tears when they recollected what he had been, and what he was, and how unaccountably the great nation to which he belonged had fallen from the height of glory to such degradation." What pangs must have wrung the heart of the illustrious veteran at such a moment! "Yet was his manner so courteous, and yet animated, his conversation so simple, and yet cheerful, that it was commonly said at the time, 'that the only things he had forgotten were his own deeds, and the only things he remembered were the misfortunes of others!'"

During his absence, his shameless traducers redoubled their efforts to secure his ruin. The terror of his name, the shadow of his distant greatness, must, however, frequently have made themselves felt, if only with the effect of blinding them to the folly of their own machinations. Their calumnious charges were annihilated by him from abroad the moment they reached him; and those who had prepared such charges, ignominiously silenced by his clear and decisive representations. But Blenheim was within the power of a magnanimous people, and they caused the erection of it at the public cost to be suspended! The principal creditors sued the Duke personally for what was due to them; and ultimately Blenheim, "this noble pile, this proud monument of a nation's gratitude," would have remained a ruin to this day, but for the Duke's own private contribution of no less a sum than £60,000! One's cheek tingles with shame at the recital; but there is the humiliating fact--

"Pudet hæc opprobria nobis,
Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse repelli."

The Duke of Marlborough spent nearly two years on the Continent. Having quitted England on the 30th October 1712, he returned on the 4th August 1714; but under what circumstances? In the full splendour of the romance of history. In contact with Marlborough, every event seems to swell into great porportions, as if owning the presence and power of greatness.

While abroad, his commanding intellect engaged itself in the noblest of causes--upholding the interests of civil and religious liberty, which were bound up indissolubly with the Hanoverian succession. He might have retired for ever from the world, in stern disgust at the treatment which he had experienced; but his magnanimity would not suffer him. He knew that civil despotism, and the triumph of the Romish faith, were identified with the success of the Louis of his day, as they appear to be with a Louis of our day--the Louis, at this moment, of France. The restoration of the Stuart line was the symbol of the triumph of Popery; and Marlborough continued anxiously to watch the progress of public events, with reference to that "consummation" so "devoutly" to be deprecated. The two years referred to were those of an immeasurably momentous crisis, big with the ultimate destinies of this country. Marlborough was, throughout that crisis, as clear-sighted, resolute, energetic, and skilful in securing the Protestant succession, as he had ever been in the conduct of his wars, every one of which had direct reference to that high and glorious object. He continued the very life and soul of the good cause, which he advanced by incessant watchfulness and discreet and energetic action, carrying on a constant correspondence with his friends both at home and abroad. At length Bolingbroke reached the summit of advancement, and became virtually prime minister. Bent upon the restoration of the Stuarts, in two days' time he had organised a thoroughly Jacobite cabinet, which would unquestionably have proceeded to seat the Stuarts on the throne. But the awful hand of God appeared suddenly in the ordering of events: "The angel of death," to use Mr Alison's words, "defeated the whole objects for which the ministers were labouring so anxiously, and for which they had sacrificed the security and glory of their country." Civil war was almost in the act of breaking out, when the Queen died; having at the last moment taken a step, in nominating the Duke of Shrewsbury to be Lord-Treasurer, which annihilated the guilty hopes of Bolingbroke and his party. This was the last act of her life; and on her death the Protestant party took prompt and vigorous measures. George I. was instantly proclaimed king, and in three days' time the great Marlborough reappeared on the scene, the very guardian angel of the newly-proclaimed king. His enemies were struck with consternation. "_We are all frightened out of our wits upon the Duke of Marlborough's going to England_,"[42] wrote one of them to Bolingbroke. The illustrious personage was welcomed with enthusiasm similar to that with which he had been formerly familiar; an immense concourse of citizens attended him into the city, shouting--"Long live George I.! Long live the Duke of Marlborough!" He was at once sworn in of the Privy Council, and visited by the foreign ministers and all the nobility and gentry within reach, and in the evening appeared in the House of Lords, and took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, his old companions in arms, the Grenadier Guards, firing a _feu-de-joie_ on the auspicious occasion. "That day effaced the traces of years of injustice. The death of a single individual"--the weak, ungrateful, vacillating Anne--"had restored the patriotic hero to the position in which he stood after the battle of Blenheim!" Though he had resolved to take part no more in the conduct of affairs, he was prevailed upon to resume his post of commander-in-chief, in which great capacity his new sovereign received him with extraordinary demonstrations of satisfaction, "proud to do honour to the chief _under whom he himself had gained his first honours on the field of Oudenarde_!"[43] The discomfited Jacobites, Bolingbroke, Ormond, and Oxford, were impeached for high treason, for their conduct in seeking to overturn the Act of Settlement, and restore the Stuarts. The former two fled to France, but Oxford remained, and was prosecuted, but acquitted. Here again the character of Marlborough has been malefied, by the charge of having done all in his power to thwart the prosecution, for fear of Lord Oxford's revealing the correspondence of the Duke in early life, after the Revolution. This slander, however, is decisively refuted by two facts--that the Duke _voted in every stage of the prosecution_! and by the still more decisive fact, that he was found to have been specially exempted from the proffered amnesty published by the Pretender when he landed in Scotland.[44] This last event--the Rebellion in Scotland--must have been indeed, as Mr Alison remarks, a sore trial to Marlborough--"more severe than any he had experienced since James II. had been precipitated from the throne; for here was the son of his early patron and benefactor asserting, in arms, his right to the throne of his fathers!" But the Duke was here true as steel to his principles; and his energy and sagacity extinguished the formidable insurrection, and with it the hopes of the Stuarts. The Pretender returned humbled and ruined to the Continent, in time to witness the death of the monarch Louis XIV., whose guilty ambition had lighted the terrible conflagration, of which a spark had been thus kindled in this country, and which he had lived to see extinguished by such torrents of blood. He was then seventy-seven years of age, miserable in contemplating the wide-spread misery and ruin which he had prostituted all his greatness in order to effect, and shuddering at the recollection of his share in the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. His death-bed reflections and injunctions to his successor we have already laid before the reader.[45]

[42] ALISON, ii. 263, note.

[43] _Ibid._ p. 266.

[44] _Ibid._ p. 303.

[45] _Ante_, p. 146.