he was one of
the great men of England, high in the state, high in the army. He
had been created an Earl. He had a large share in the military
administration. The emoluments, direct and indirect, of the places
and commands which he held under the Crown were believed at the Dutch
Embassy to amount to twelve thousand pounds a year. In the event of a
counterrevolution it seemed that he had nothing in prospect but a garret
in Holland, or a scaffold on Tower Hill. It might therefore have been
expected that he would serve his new master with fidelity, not
indeed with the fidelity of Nottingham, which was the fidelity of
conscientiousness, not with the fidelity of Portland, which was the
fidelity of affection, but with the not less stubborn fidelity of
despair.

Those who thought thus knew but little of Marlborough. Confident in his
own powers of deception, he resolved, since the Jacobite agents would
not seek him, to seek them. He therefore sent to beg an interview with
Colonel Edward Sackville.

Sackville was astonished and not much pleased by the message. He was a
sturdy Cavalier of the old school. He had been persecuted in the days of
the Popish plot for manfully saying what he thought, and what every body
now thinks, about Oates and Bedloe. [64] Since the Revolution he had
put his neck in peril for King James, had been chased by officers with
warrants, and had been designated as a traitor in a proclamation to
which Marlborough himself had been a party. [65] It was not without
reluctance that the stanch royalist crossed the hated threshold of the
deserter. He was repaid for his effort by the edifying spectacle of such
an agony of repentance as he had never before seen. "Will you," said
Marlborough, "be my intercessor with the King? Will you tell him what
I suffer? My crimes now appear to me in their true light; and I shrink
with horror from the contemplation. The thought of them is with me day
and night. I sit down to table; but I cannot eat. I throw myself on my
bed; but I cannot sleep. I am ready to sacrifice every thing, to brave
every thing, to bring utter ruin on my fortunes, if only I may be free
from the misery of a wounded spirit." If appearances could be trusted,
this great offender was as true a penitent as David or as Peter.
Sackville reported to his friends what had passed. They could not but
acknowledge that, if the arch traitor, who had hitherto opposed to
conscience and to public opinion the same cool and