nce of the paradoxical nature of his character, he was intensely
devoted to his wife. He was the true lover of Sarah Jennings, who
afterwards became Duchess of Marlborough. A man of the most undaunted
courage in the presence of the enemy, he was his wife's obedient,
patient, timid slave. He lived more absolutely under her control than
Belisarius under the government of his unscrupulous helpmate. Sarah
Jennings was, in her way, almost as remarkable as her husband. She was
a woman of great beauty. Colley Gibber, in his "Apology," pays devoted
testimony to her charms. He had by chance to attend on her in the
capacity of a sort of amateur lackey at an entertainment in Nottingham,
and he seems to have been completely dazzled by her loveliness. "If so
clear an emanation of beauty, such a commanding grace of aspect, struck
me into a regard that had something softer than the most profound
respect in it, I cannot see why I may not without offence remember it,
since beauty, like the sun, must sometimes lose its power to choose,
and shine into equal warmth the peasant and the courtier." He quaintly
adds, "However presumptuous or impertinent these thoughts may have
appeared at my first entertaining them, why may I not hope that my
having kept them decently a secret for full fifty years may be now a
good round plea for their pardon?" The imperious spirit which could
rule Churchill long dominated the feeble nature of Queen Anne. But
{26} when once this domination was overthrown, Sarah Jennings had no
art to curb her temper into such show of respect and compliance as
might have won back her lost honors. She met her humiliation with the
most childish bursts of passion; she did everything in her power to
annoy and insult the Queen who had passed from her haughty control.
She was always a keen hater; to the last day of her life she never
forgot her resentment towards all who had, or who she thought had,
injured her. In long later years she got into unseemly lawsuits with
her own near relations. But if one side of her character was harsh and
unlovely enough, it may be admitted that there was something not
unheroic about her unyielding spirit--something noble in the respect to
her husband's memory, which showed itself in the declaration that she
would not marry "the emperor of the world," after having been the wife
of John, Duke of Marlborough.

[Sidenote: 1714--Bolingbroke]

Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, was in his