e one who, at
Court, should be, as it were, the advanced sentinel of the Whigs,
attached to the interests of Austria, and who would hinder from
penetrating, or at any rate prevailing therein any other interest than
theirs. This precaution was so much the more indispensable that Queen
Anne's feeling towards the Whigs was purely official, and not a genuine
sympathy. To these zealous partizans of Parliament and liberty, to these
avowed heirs of those who had made the revolution of 1640, she secretly
preferred the Tories. Amongst them she found admirers of the absolute
order of government that Louis XIV., lord of France instead of being
legislator of it, had for too long a time substituted for the too much
contemned troubles of the Fronde. And the rather as they might be
termed, under that relation, a veritable French party, did she lean
towards them, because they were the defenders of the royal prerogative.
The exactions, the delays, the innumerable formalities of constitutional
monarchy, wearied her to such an extent, that more than once the rumour
ran that she was willing to treat for the recall of her brother, the
ex-King James the Third. These reports were not without foundation, as
the Duke of Berwick tells us in his "Memoirs"; the desire alone of
preventing civil war, to which fresh endeavours on the part of that
prince would give rise, was alleged as the generous motive for
relinquishing a design which the disgust of a too-limited power had
inspired. The Whigs well knew how to conjure that peril. But they had
always to dread that whilst continuing to wear the crown, Anne might not
so much consider the welfare of England as that of her own pleasure,
where such welfare interfered with her peculiar sympathies; and lest in
turning to the side of the Tories she might carry away from the Archduke
Charles the support of England, in other words his chief reliance. The
question was how to guarantee themselves from that untoward eventuality?
One means devised--and it was not the less available in this case of
royalty exercised by a woman--was to secure to Queen Anne the adhesion
of the Mistress of the Robes, Lady Churchill, the clever wife of the
brilliant soldier, afterwards Duke of Marlborough.

This remarkable woman, who, without possessing great talents, and with
the disadvantage of an imperious and capricious temper, exercised for so
long a period such exceptional influence over public affairs, was the
second of the thre