older patron hindered
Churchill from corresponding with the Prince of Orange, from promising
Anne's sympathy to William's effort, or from deserting the ranks of the
king's army when it faced William in the field. His desertion proved
fatal to the royal cause; but great as this service was it was eclipsed
by a second. It was by his wife's persuasion that Anne was induced to
forsake her father and take refuge in Danby's camp. Unscrupulous as his
conduct had been, the services which Churchill thus rendered to William
were too great to miss their reward. On the new king's accession he
became Earl of Marlborough; he was put at the head of a force during the
Irish war where his rapid successes at once won William's regard; and he
was given high command in the army of Flanders.

[Sidenote: Churchill and William.]

But the sense of his power over Anne soon turned Marlborough from
plotting treason against James to plot treason against William. Great as
was his greed of gold, he had married Sarah Jennings, a penniless beauty
of Charles's court, in whom a violent and malignant temper was strangely
combined with a power of winning and retaining love. Churchill's
affection for her ran like a thread of gold through the dark web of his
career. In the midst of his marches and from the very battle-field he
writes to his wife with the same passionate tenderness. The composure
which no danger or hatred could ruffle broke down into almost womanish
depression at the thought of her coldness or at any burst of her violent
humour. To the last he never left her without a pang. "I did for a great
while with a perspective glass look upon the cliffs," he once wrote to
her after setting out on a campaign, "in hopes that I might have had one
sight of you." It was no wonder that the woman who inspired Marlborough
with a love like this bound to her the weak and feeble nature of the
Princess Anne. The two friends threw off the restraints of state, and
addressed each other as "Mrs. Freeman" and "Mrs. Morley." It was on his
wife's influence over her friend that the Earl's ambition counted in its
designs against William. His subtle policy aimed at availing itself both
of William's unpopularity and of the dread of a Jacobite restoration.
His plan was to drive the king from the throne by backing the Tories in
their opposition to the war, as well as by stirring to frenzy the
English hatred of foreigners, and then to use the Whig dread of James's
return to