and besides what is in foreign banks;
and yet this man could neither pay his workmen their bills, nor his
architect his salary.

"He has given his widow (may a Scottish ensign get her!) 10,000_l._ a
year _to spoil Blenheim her own way_; 12,000_l._ a year to keep herself
clean and go to law; 2000_l._ a year to Lord Rialton for present
maintenance; and Lord Godolphin only 5000_l._ a year jointure, if he
outlives my lady: this last is a wretched article. The rest of the heap,
for these are but snippings, goes to Lord Godolphin, and so on. She will
have 40,000_l._ a year in present."

Atossa, as the quarrel heated and the plot thickened, with the
maliciousness of Puck, and the haughtiness of an empress of Blenheim,
invented the most cruel insult that ever architect endured!--one
perfectly characteristic of that extraordinary woman. Vanbrugh went to
Blenheim with his lady, in a company from Castle Howard, another
magnificent monument of his singular genius.

"We staid two nights in Woodstock; but there was an order to the
servants, _under her grace's own hand, not to let me enter Blenheim_!
and lest that should not mortify me enough, she having somehow learned
that my _wife_ was of the company, _sent an express the night before we
came there_, with orders that if _she_ came with the Castle Howard
ladies, the servants should not suffer her to see either house, gardens,
or even to enter the park: so she was forced to sit all day long and
keep me company at the inn!"

This was a _coup-de-theatre_ in this joint comedy of Atossa and
Vanbrugh! The architect of Blenheim, lifting his eyes towards his own
massive grandeur, exiled to a dull inn, and imprisoned with one who
required rather to be consoled, than capable of consoling the enraged
architect!

In 1725, Atossa still pursuing her hunted prey, had driven it to a spot
which she flattered herself would enclose it with the security of a
preserve. This produced the following explosion!

"I have been forced into chancery by that B. B. B. the Duchess of
Marlborough, where she has got an injunction upon me by her friend the
late good chancellor (Earl of Macclesfield), who declared that I was
never employed by the duke, and therefore had no demand upon his estate
for my services at Blenheim. Since my hands were thus tied up from
trying by law to recover my arrear, I have prevailed with Sir Robert
Walpole _to help me in a scheme which I proposed to him, by which I got
my money i