nation of William and Mary, Lord Churchill was
created Earl of Marlborough, and was sworn a member of the Privy Council
and a lord of the bedchamber. This elevation was owing to his military
talents, which no one appreciated better than the King, who however
never personally liked Marlborough, and still less his ambitious wife.
He was no stranger to their boundless cupidity, though he pretended not
to see it. He was politic, not being in a position to dispense with the
services of the ablest military general of his realm.

William III. was a remarkably wise and clearheaded prince, and saw the
dangers which menaced him,--the hostility of Louis XIV., the rebels in
Ireland, and the disaffection among the Jacobite nobility in England,
who secretly favored the exiled monarch. So he rewarded and elevated a
man whom he both admired and despised. William had many sterling
virtues; he was sincere and patriotic and public-spirited; he was a
stanch Protestant of the Calvinistic school, and very attentive to his
religious duties. But with all his virtues and services to the English
nation, he was not a favorite. His reserve, coldness, and cynicism were
in striking contrast with the affability of the Stuarts. He had no
imagination and no graces; he disgusted the English nobles by drinking
Holland gin, and by his brusque manners. But nothing escaped his eagle
eye. On the field of battle he was as ardent and fiery as he was dull
and phlegmatic at Hampton Court, his favorite residence. He was capable
of warm friendships, uninteresting as he seemed to the English nobles;
but he was intimate only with his Dutch favorites, like Bentinck and
Keppel, whom he elevated to English peerages. He spent only a few months
in England each year of the thirteen of his reign, being absorbed in war
most of the time with Louis XIV. and the Irish rebels.

William found that his English throne was anything but a bed of roses.
The Tories, in the tumults and dangers attending the flight of James
II., had promoted his elevation; but they were secretly hostile, and
when dangers had passed, broke out in factious opposition. The
high-church clergy disliked a Calvinistic king in sympathy with
Dissenters. The Irish gave great trouble under Tyrconnel and old Marshal
Schomberg, the latter of whom was killed at the battle of the Boyne. A
large party was always in opposition to the unceasing war with Louis
XIV., whom William hated with implacable animosity.

The Ear