sula, and which, if adopted, might have changed the fate and
ultimate issue of the war. Neither the Emperor nor the court of Madrid,
however, would consent to this arrangement; the former, because he
feared to lose that great general in Italy, the latter because they
feared to gain him in Spain. Marlborough, meanwhile, embarked for
England on the 7th November, where his presence had now become
indispensably necessary to arrest the progress of court and
parliamentary intrigues, which threatened to prove immediately fatal to
his influence and ascendancy.

The origin of these intrigues was to be found not merely in the asperity
of party feeling which, at that time, owing to the recent Revolution,
prevailed to a degree never before paralleled in English history, and
the peculiar obloquy to which Marlborough was exposed, owing to the part
he had taken in that transaction; but to another cause of a private
nature, but which, in all courts, and especially under a female reign,
is likely to produce important public results. During Marlborough's
absence from court, owing to his commanding the armies in Flanders, his
influence with the Queen had sensibly declined, and that of another
materially increased. Queen Anne had become alienated from her former
favourite, the Duchess of Marlborough, and, what is very remarkable, in
consequence of the growing ascendancy of a person recommended by the
duchess herself. Worn out with the incessant fatigue of attendance on
the royal person, the duchess had recommended a poor relative of her
own, named Abigail Hill, to relieve her of part of her laborious duties.
This young lady, who possessed considerable talents, and a strong desire
for intrigue and elevation, had been educated in High Church and Tory
principles, and she had not been long about the royal person before she
began to acquire an influence over the Queen's mind. Harley, whose
ambition and spirit of intrigue were at least equal to her own, was not
slow in perceiving the new source of influence thus opened up in the
royal household, and a close alliance was soon established between them.
These matters are not beneath the dignity of history; they are the
secret springs on which its most important changes sometimes depend.
Abigail Hill soon after bestowed her hand on Mr Masham, who had also
been placed in the Queen's household by the duchess, and, under the name
of MRS MASHAM, became the principal instrument in Marlborough's fall,
and