Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

Only a few months previously, Louis's great conqueror had received two startling messages, telling him, in heart-breaking tones, of the transient nothingness of life. His two lovely daughters, the Countess of Bridgewater and the Countess of Sunderland, were cut off in the flower of their beauty, by almost sudden deaths, within a few days of each other. These events pierced him to the heart. Two years afterwards, having, during the interval, experienced various warnings, he was struck with palsy, which deprived him for a time of both speech and resolution. He recovered sufficiently, in a few months' time, to be capable of removal to the country, for the benefit of change of air and of scene. He visited Blenheim; and on going through such of the rooms as were finished, was shown a picture of himself at the battle of Blenheim. He turned away with a mournful air, saying only--but in memorable and significant words--"Something _then_!--but _now_!"[46]

[46] ALISON, ii. p. 305.

He continued, on earnest solicitation, to hold his high military office and discharge its duties for five years, living also in the tranquil enjoyment of domestic happiness, superintending the education of his grandchildren, and taking special delight in the rising architectural grandeur of Blenheim, down even to the period of his death. He made his last appearance in the House of Lords on the 27th November 1721, but in June following had a severe and fatal attack of paralysis. It at once prostrated his physical without impairing his mental powers. To a question of his Duchess, whether he heard the prayers which were being read as usual at night in his apartment, he replied, "Yes; and I joined in them!" These were the last words of this great man, who expired calmly a few hours subsequently, in the seventy-second year of his age. He who thus joined in prayers[47] on his deathbed had, with solemn reverence, joined in them on the eves of Blenheim and of Malplaquet with his whole army; and, amidst all the bloody horrors of war, had, in like manner, remembered his God on every occasion, joining precept with example in a noble spirit of piety. Let us hope that the prayers of the dying warrior were heard and accepted by Him who heareth prayer, and that he quitted life in a spirit different from that of Peter the Great, who said on his death-bed, "I trust that, _in respect of the good I have striven to do my people_, God will pardon my sins!"[48] Mr Alison "charitably hopes that these words have been realised"--he might have lamented the fallaciousness of Peter's reliance.

[47] Marlborough had received the sacrament with great solemnity
at the midnight preceding the day of the battle of Blenheim; and
shortly before, divine service had been performed at the head of
every regiment and squadron in the Allied army. After the battle
he said, that "he had prayed to God more frequently during its
continuance than all the chaplains of both armies put together which
served under his orders."--_Ibid._ vol. i. p. 166.

[48] _Ibid._ ii. 100.

Marlborough's funeral obsequies were celebrated with extraordinary magnificence, and all ranks and all parties joined in doing him honour. On the sides of the car bearing the coffin, shields were affixed containing emblematic representations of his battles and sieges. Blenheim was there, and the Schellemberg, Ramilies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet; Ruremonde and Liege, Menin and Dendermonde, Antwerp and Brussels, Ostend and Ghent, Tournay and Lille, Mons and Bouchain, Bethune, St Venant, and Aire. "The number, and the recollections with which they were fraught, made the English ashamed of the manner in which they had used the hero who had filled the world with his renown."[49]

[49] _Ibid._ p. 307.

Thus lived, and thus died, and thus was buried, John Duke of Marlborough, of whom Lord Mahon[50] takes leave in a strain of solemnity and dignity befitting the occasion:--

"England lost one of her noblest worthies in John Duke of
Marlborough. His achievements do not fall within my limits,
and his character seems rather to belong to the historians of
another period. Let them endeavour to delineate his vast and
various abilities--that genius which saw humbled before it the
proudest mareschals of France--that serenity of temper which
enabled him patiently to bear, and bearing to overcome, all the
obstinacy of the Dutch deputies, all the slowness of the German
generals--those powers of combination so provident of failure,
and so careful of details, that it might almost be said of him,
that before he gave any battle he had already won it! Let them
describe him in council as in arms, not always righteous in his
end, but ever mighty in his means!"

[50] _History of England_, ii. 41, 42.

There was grandeur in the words with which the Garter-King-at-Arms closed the ceremonial at the tomb:--"Thus it has pleased Almighty God to take out of this transitory world, into his mercy, the most high, mighty, noble prince, John Duke of Marlborough." He has passed to his great account, and must stand hereafter before the Searcher of Hearts, to give an account of the deeds done in the body, and be judged accordingly. It becomes us, shortsighted and fallible as we are, to deal cautiously and tenderly with the memory of the illustrious departed. There may have been many palliating circumstances in the case of Marlborough's desertion of James which have never yet been taken into account, and which now, probably, never will. Could we hear his own explanation of his conduct towards James, that explanation might greatly change our estimate of his fault, and mitigate the asperity of our censures. No one can venture to justify Marlborough's conduct towards James, in remaining in his service, apparently devoted to his interests--then one of the most confiding masters whom man ever had--after he had irrevocably committed himself to that master's enemy, and effectually secured the downfall and destruction of one who had actually saved the life of his treacherous servant, and showered upon him every possible mark of affection and distinction. That Marlborough was conscientiously attached to the cause of Protestantism while he thus acted, we have no doubt whatever; nor that he cherished that attachment to the last moment of his life, and respected it as the star by which he steered throughout his career. We must remember that he had done everything in his power to divert James from his purpose of re-establishing Popery. "My places, and the King's favour," said he, in 1687, "I set at nought, in comparison of being true to my religion. In all things but this the King may command me; and I call God to witness that even with joy I should expose my life in his service, so sensible am I of his favours--I being resolved, though I cannot live the life of a saint, if there be occasion for it, to live the life of a martyr." This he said to William, then Prince of Orange. And during the same year he had thus sternly addressed James himself, when remonstrating with him for "paving the way for the introduction of Popery." He spoke with great warmth, and thus--"What I spoke, sir, proceeded from my zeal for your Majesty's service, which I prefer above all things, next to that of God; and I humbly beseech your Majesty to believe that no subject in the three kingdoms will venture farther than I will to purchase your favour and good liking. But as I have been bred a Protestant, and intend to live and die in that communion, and as above nine out of ten in England are of that persuasion, I fear, from the genius of the people, and their natural aversion to the Roman Catholic worship, some consequences which I dare not so much as name, and which I cannot contemplate without horror."[51] That he said this to his infatuated master is indisputable; but it was his duty to have at once quitted the service of that master, on finding that he could not conscientiously continue in it. "Had he done so," says Mr Alison, "and then either taken no part in the Revolution, or never appeared in arms against him, the most scrupulous moralist could have discovered nothing reprehensible in his conduct." That course Marlborough did not take; and that which he did must have entailed upon his sensitive mind unspeakable misery and mortification throughout life. He must also have foreseen the blot which that conduct would fix for ever on his fair fame--a reflection which must have dimmed the splendour of his greatest triumphs, and wrung his heart in its proudest moments of justifiable exultation. When we reflect upon his long and illustrious course of public service, the spotless purity of his private conduct in all the relations of life, as husband, father, friend; his uniform piety, his humanity, generosity, magnanimity, under the most trying circumstances in which man can be placed, we are filled with as much wonder as lamentation at this instance of treachery, this temporary oblivion of all sense of honour and loyalty. But has it not been heavily punished, and has it not been atoned for?

[51] ALISON, i. 14, 15, note.

The charge, however, of a far more damning character than that of his conduct towards the Stuarts--that of having prolonged the war for his own selfish ends--is annihilated, after having been reiterated with almost fiendish malignity and perseverance. Mr Alison has placed this matter in the clearest possible light, and accumulated such an overwhelming mass of disproof that it seems perfectly monstrous that any such charge should have been for a moment entertained by even the most rancorous of his enemies. It now appears, from his correspondence throughout the war, that he pined and languished for its close, in order that he might cease to be the butt of malevolence and calumny, and escape from the crushing pressure of his thankless toils and responsibilities into the repose of private life. Out of a great number of similar passages which we had marked for quotation, here is one both eloquent and affecting. He is writing to the Duchess from Flanders in 1705, and alluding to the calumnies against himself, which were reported to him from England. "This vile enormous faction of theirs vexes me so much, that I hope the Queen will after this campaign _allow me to retire_, and end my days in praying for her prosperity and making my peace with God."[52] He repeatedly supplicated to be allowed to resign his command, and only the command of the sovereign, and the importunities of his friends and of the Allies, prevailed upon him to persevere. He made the most desperate efforts to bring the war to a speedy close, but also a _safe_ one; for he never lost sight for a moment of the great objects with which it had been undertaken. He saw distinctly, from first to last, that there was no real peace for Europe, no guarantee for our own independence, and for our civil and religious liberties, but the complete prostration of the ambition and power of Louis XIV.; and if his own enlightened sagacity had not been repeatedly thwarted by the stupidity or faction of those with whom he had to deal, he would early have deprived his traducers of even the faintest pretext for their imputations upon him. "I have had to modify my opinion of Marlborough," said the late eloquent Professor Smyth,[53] "since considering the lately published 'Life' of Archdeacon Coxe. I can no longer consider him as so betrayed by a spirit of personal ambition as I had once suspected, and I have a still stronger impression of his amiable nature in domestic life. The _great_ Duke of Marlborough has been always his proper appellation, and he is only made greater by being made more known by the publication of Mr Coxe; nor can it be doubted that he would appear greater still, the more the difficulties with which he was surrounded, on all occasions, could be appreciated." This is said in a candid and honourable spirit, by a professor whose sacred duty was to give true notions of history, and of the characters figuring in it, to the students of a great university. "These difficulties," continues the professor, "may now be partly estimated; the impetuous temper and consequent imprudence of a wife, whom for her beauty, her talents, and her affection, he naturally idolised; the low narrow mind and mulish nature of the Queen he served; the unreasonable wishes and strange prejudices of the men of influence in his own country; the discordant interests and passions of different states and princes on the Continent; the pertinacity of the field-deputies of Holland, whom he could not send over into the camp of the enemy, their more proper station, and to whose absurdities it gave him the headache to listen." This pithy paragraph well groups together the leading "difficulties" with which this amazing man had to contend; and in Mr Alison's volumes a flood of light is thrown upon them all. None of his readers can fail to feel the profoundest sympathy with harassed greatness. Without compromising his own sense of what is right, or attempting to conceal or disguise the failings of his hero, Mr Alison has painted a picture, at once noble and affecting, of the Duke of Marlborough, in every aspect of his character, in every position in which he was placed. In private and in public life--as a friend, as a father, as a husband--as a diplomatist, as a statesman, as a warrior--where is his equal to be found, and how can we be too grateful to one who has placed him, in all these characters, so vividly before us? "If the preceding pages," says Mr Alison, modestly, at the close of his biography, "shall contribute in any degree to the illustration of so great a character, and to shed the light of historic truth on the actions of one of the most illustrious men whom the world has ever produced, the author's labours will not have been incurred in vain." They have not; and we doubt not that these volumes will add greatly to the well-earned reputation of the historian of the French Revolution. We repeat that the knowledge gained by Mr Alison, in preparing that work, has given him peculiar qualifications for writing the present. We had marked a great number of instances in which the events in Marlborough's campaigns, and those events which led to them and followed them, are most plenteously and instructively compared and contrasted with those of the great compaigns of Wellington and Napoleon. The resemblance is sometimes startling; but the length to which this article has run compels us to rest satisfied with referring the reader to the present work. The last chapter consists of five deeply-interesting portraits,--Marlborough, Eugene, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, and Wellington--the five great generals of modern times. The distinctive features of each are given with fidelity and force. It is, however, in the full flow of his military narrative that the peculiar excellence of Mr Alison is to be found. His battles[54] are always dashed off boldly and brilliantly, as far as effect is concerned, and at the same time with the most exact attention to details.

[52] ALISON, i. 211, note.

[53] _Lectures_, i. 143.

[54] A very happy idea is embodied in a work recently published, and
which has quickly reached a second edition--Mr Creasy's _Fifteen
Decisive Battles of the World, from Marathon to Waterloo_. The idea
was suggested by a remark of Mr Hallam, placed on the title-page
by way of motto, "These few battles, of which a contrary event
would have essentially varied the drama of the world in all its
subsequent scenes." Mr Alison frequently puts such cases, in both
_The Life of Marlborough_ and his _History of Europe_. Mr Creasy, as
a distinguished scholar and a professor of history, has acquitted
himself very ably. His fifteen battles are well selected, as
radiating centres of enduring influence upon human affairs in their
greatest crises--as so many nuclei of historical knowledge.

We are not disposed to be critical with an author who has afforded us such great gratification--

"Ubi plura nitent--uni ego paucis
Offendar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit,
Aut humana parum carit natura!"

There are, however, occasional traces of haste, involving repetitions and confused expressions, which, doubtless, will disappear in future editions. We doubt not that they will be called for; and are happy to have had this opportunity of calling attention to a new work proceeding from a gentleman standing so deservedly high with the public, and which, moreover, as we have more than once intimated, is very well timed. Let any one contemplate France at the present moment, and observe the attitude of the Romish and Protestant forms of faith throughout Europe, and in Great Britain, and he will think with no little anxiety of the days of another Louis, now on the scene of action; and perhaps inquire anxiously, with reference to the future, where is _our_ Marlborough?

MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.

BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.