the present a sufficient provision. The child's literary education
was directed by Burnet, with the title of Preceptor. Marlborough was
appointed Governor; and the London Gazette announced his appointment,
not with official dryness, but in the fervid language of panegyric.
He was at the same time again sworn a member of the Privy Council from
which he had been expelled with ignominy; and he was honoured a few days
later with a still higher mark of the King's confidence, a seat at the
board of Regency.

Some persons imagined that they saw in this strange reconciliation
a sign that the influence of Portland was on the wane and that the
influence of Albemarle was growing. For Marlborough had been many years
at feud with Portland, and had even--a rare event indeed--been so much
irritated as to speak of Portland in coarse and ungentlemanlike
terms. With Albemarle, on the other hand, Marlborough had studiously
ingratiated himself by all the arts which a mind singularly observant
and sagacious could learn from a long experience in courts; and it is
possible that Albemarle may have removed some difficulties. It is hardly
necessary, however, to resort to that supposition for the purpose of
explaining why so wise a man as William forced himself, after some delay
caused by very just and natural resentment, to act wisely. His opinion
of Marlborough's character was probably unaltered. But he could not help
perceiving that Marlborough's situation was widely different from what
it had been a few years before. That very ambition, that very avarice,
which had, in former times, impelled him to betray two masters, were now
sufficient securities for his fidelity to the order of things which had
been established by the Bill of Rights. If that order of things could be
maintained inviolate, he could scarcely fail to be, in a few years, the
greatest and wealthiest subject in Europe. His military and political
talents might therefore now be used without any apprehension that they
would be turned against the government which used them. It is to be
remembered too that he derived his importance less from his military
and political talents, great as they were, than from the dominion which,
through the instrumentality of his wife, he exercised over the mind of
the Princess. While he was on good terms with the Court it was certain
that she would lend no countenance to any cabal which might attack
either the title or the prerogatives of her brother in