Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 71, No. 436, February 1852

We have taken the trouble of being thus particular, out of justice to Mr Alison; for without this detail, neither the value nor the extent of his labours could have been appreciated by the reader; who, if he share our fate, will be carried evenly and rapidly along, from the beginning to the end of these two eloquent volumes, charmed with the result, but never adverting to the laborious and praiseworthy process. And we repeat that all this is thoroughly tanti– as a matter of even justice to the sedulously-slandered illustrious dead, in this respect sharing the fate of a prophet, who is not without honour, save in his own country, (for abroad, Marlborough's memory is radiant with imperishable glory,) and also because, as we have intimated, there is a portentous resemblance between Marlborough's time and our own. He was the great champion of Protestantism, in its tremendous encounter with Popery, of which Louis XIV. was the worthy and formidable exponent. "The siege of Lille," says Mr Alison, at the close of his first volume, "one of the most memorable and glorious of which there is any mention in history, like those of Troy and Carthage in ancient, and Malta and Jerusalem in modern times, was not merely the theatre of contest between rival powers, but of struggle between contending principles and rival faiths. The great contest between the Romish Church and the Reformation ultimately issued, as all such schisms in belief must issue, in a terrible war. Louis was the head of the ancient, Marlborough the champion of the new, faith. The circumstance of the Spanish Succession was but an accident, which brought into the field forces on either side, previously arranged under these opposite banners. It was the great division of men's minds which drew them forth, in such strength, into the field of war."9 Now let any thinking person of 1852 survey the existing attitudes of these fearful and implacable belligerents, as exhibited in their relations, both in this country and on the Continent, and in certain recently-developed political conditions, which they are rapidly moulding, and arranging with a view to action on a scale such as the world has perhaps never witnessed; and the "boldest may hold his breath for a time." He will at length, probably, ask, not without anxiety – Where are we to look for our Marlborough by and by? and perhaps he may add, with an indignant sigh, We would not treat him as our fathers treated theirs!

The romance of the Life of Marlborough begins with the very beginning of that life. He bursts upon us a beautiful boy, fascinating everybody by his charming manners – the little heir to the all but ruined fortunes of an ancient and loyal family, which, on the father's side, had come in with the Conqueror, while in his mother's veins ran the blood of the illustrious Sir Francis Drake. He had an only sister, who, a victim to the licentiousness of the times, became mistress of the future James II., the great patron of her brother, and to whom she bore a son: who, as Duke of Berwick, was destined, almost single-handed, to uphold the tottering throne of Louis XIV. against the terrible sword of her brother! That son, commanding the forces of France and Spain during the War of the Succession, almost counterbalanced, by his military genius, his uncle's victories in Germany and Flanders! Lord Bolingbroke said of the nephew, that "he was the best great man that ever existed" – and of the uncle, that "he was the perfection of genius, matured by experience – the greatest general and greatest minister that our country, or any other, has produced." These two great personages were signalised by the same grand qualities of military genius, of humanity in war, of virtuous conduct in private life: would, however, we could say that the elder hero had no bar sinister on his moral, as the younger had on his heraldic, 'scutcheon! Forgetting, however, for a moment, that solitary blot – would we could forget it for ever! – let us concur with Mr Alison in noting so singular and interesting a coincidence, that "England has equal cause to be proud of her victories, and her defeats, in that warfare; for they both were owing to the military genius of the same family, and that, one of her own."10 There was a difference of twenty years between them; and it is again singular, that each, at the same early age, fifteen, showed a sudden irrepressible ardour for arms, impelling them, at the same age, to quit the seductive splendour of the court of Charles II. for foreign service – the uncle, as a volunteer in the expedition to Tangiers, against the Moors; the nephew, twenty years afterwards, against the Turks, under Charles, duke of Lorraine, in Hungary. It is indeed a most extraordinary fact, already adverted to, that, while the uncle all but subverted the throne of France by his Flemish campaigns, and, but for infamous domestic faction, would have done so, his nephew, single-handed, preserved that of Spain for the house of Bourbon! If this be the first step in this romance of reality, the next is one profoundly suggestive to a contemplative mind. We have spoken of a splendid Decennium in the Duke of Marlborough's campaigns – that from 1702 to 1712. But what a preceding Quinquennium– that from 1672 to 1677 – have we here, for a moment, before us! The "handsome young Englishman" – an idol among the profligate beauties of the court of Charles II. – had made at length a conquest of his celebrated and favourite mistress, the Countess of Castlemaine, afterwards Duchess of Cleveland. To remove so dangerous a rival in her fickle affections,11 Charles gave him a company in the Guards, and then sent him to the Continent —proh pudor– to aid Louis XIV. in subduing the United Provinces. There he sedulously learnt the art of war under Louis's consummate generals, Turenne, Condé, and Vauban: thus acquiring, under Louis's own auspices, that masterly knowledge of the science of war, which was destined to be wielded so soon afterwards, with triumphant and destructive energy, against himself! How little was such a contingency dreamed of, when Louis XIV. publicly, at the head of his army, thanked the handsome young hero for his services, and afterwards prevailed on his brother sovereign, Charles, to promote him to high command! And here is suggested the first of several deeply interesting and instructive parallels to be found in this work, between our own incomparable Wellington, and his illustrious predecessor: that Wellington went through the same practical course of study, but in inverse order – his first campaign being against the French, in Flanders, and his next against the bastions of Tippoo, and the Mahratta horse, in Hindostan. Shortly after his return occurred that event which is of great importance in the lives of all men to whom it happens – marriage; but which to the young soldier was pregnant, for both good and evil, with immense influence upon the whole of his future career, and also upon his personal character. He married the beautiful lady in attendance on the Princess Anne – Miss Sarah Jennings, of spotless purity of character, and like himself, of an ancient and ruined Royalist family. He was then in his twenty-eighth, she in her eighteenth year: and, to anticipate for a moment, after a fond union of forty-four years' duration, he died in his seventy-second year; she, twenty-two years afterwards, in her eighty-fourth! Want of fortune for some time delayed their union, which, however, an enthusiastic declaration of his passion at length accelerated. She married, in the young and already celebrated general, a man of not only transcendent capacity, but gentle and generous feelings, and a magnanimity which displayed itself on a thousand trying occasions. Their hearts were passionately true to each other, through every moment of their protracted union. Her fair fame was never, even in those days of impunity, tarnished by the momentary breath of slander. She possessed great talents, but was also of a haughty ambitious temper, bent upon aggrandisement, and grievously avaricious; and to the ascendency over her husband, which she maintained unabated from first to last, may perhaps be attributed the development of those features in his character which have excited the grief of honourable posterity, and afforded scope for the foulest misrepresentations of his conduct and motives to contemporary and succeeding traducers, rabid with the virus of political hostility. Though impatient to quit the topic, but only for the present, we shall here advert to Marlborough's inexcusable conduct towards James II., for the purpose of citing a passage in the Duchess's own Vindication, on which Mr Macaulay relies, as conclusively demonstrating the mercenary motives influencing Marlborough. That passage, however, does not necessarily sustain the imputation made by Mr Macaulay, though it may justify a suspicion of the sort of motives which she might have been in the habit of urging on her confiding husband: – "It were evident to all the world that, as things were carried on by King James II., everybody, sooner or later, must be ruined who would not become a Roman Catholic. This consideration made me very well pleased at the Prince of Orange's undertaking to rescue me from such slavery."12

That Marlborough should be in high favour with William III. may be easily conceived; for he not only essentially facilitated the enterprise of William, but actively supported him in all those critical measures necessary to consolidate his power and strengthen his novel and splendid position. He acquitted himself so admirably in the Netherlands in 1689, in Ireland in 1690, and again in Flanders in 1691, where he served under William himself, that he was on the way to almost unbounded power with William. But behold! to the consternation of the whole country, almost immediately after his return with William, early in 1692, he was suddenly arrested and committed to the Tower, on a charge of high treason, in having entered into an association for bringing about the restoration of James II.! As the charge, however, could not be legally substantiated – and was indeed proved to have been supported by fabricated evidence13– he was liberated, but not restored for a considerable time to his former position, there being good reason for believing him, at all events, no stranger to a clandestine correspondence with the exiled family. Well, indeed, may Lord Mahon lament his "perseverance in these deplorable intrigues."14 We concur with Mr Alison in his remark, that, with all the light subsequently thrown on Marlborough's history, upon this portion of it there still rests a mystery: and moreover, within five years afterwards he was completely reinstated in William's confidence; and in June 1698 the King positively intrusted his recently-discarded servant with the all-important function of tutor to the young Duke of Gloucester, William's nephew, and heir-presumptive to the throne! – saying, on apprising him of the appointment, "My lord, make my nephew to resemble yourself, and he will be everything which I can desire!" When William's stern and guarded character is borne in mind, this transaction becomes exceedingly remarkable. Marlborough continued ever after to rise higher and higher in the confidence of his sovereign, who thrice named him one of the Lords Justiciars, to whom the administration of affairs in this country was intrusted, during William's absence in Holland; and also appointed him, in 1701, ambassador-extraordinary at the Hague, and commander-in-chief of the Allied forces in Flanders. This double appointment, observes Mr Alison, in effect invested Marlborough with the entire direction of affairs civil and military, so far as England was concerned, on the Continent. And even yet further, previously to his unexpected death shortly afterwards, William enjoined on his successor, the Princess Anne, that she should intrust Marlborough with the supreme direction of the affairs of the kingdom, both civil and military! Three days after her accession, accordingly, she made him a Knight of the Garter, Captain-general of the English forces at home and abroad, Master-general of the Ordnance, and Plenipotentiary at the Hague; Lady Marlborough, Mistress of the Robes and Ranger of Windsor Forest; and her two daughters Ladies of the Bedchamber. He instantly went over to the Netherlands to assume the command of the Allied army, sixty thousand strong, then lying before Nimeguen, threatened by a superior French force; and, after displaying infinite skill, succeeded in constructing that famous Alliance which was soon to work such wonders in Europe. Here commences the lustrous decennium of which we have spoken; and, most fortunately, here also, as we have seen, commence the Despatches so recently recovered. Here he became invested with that unsullied and imperishable glory, which dazzled all eyes but those of his rancorous and inveterate detractors; who were probably influenced not only by venomous jealousy, the canker of little minds, but also, in no slight degree, by his having extinguished all their fond hopes of his co-operation in restoring the discarded Stuarts.

From this point Mr Alison starts brilliantly on his course of chequered and exciting narrative, military and political; revelling amidst marches, counter-marches, feints, surprises, stratagems, sieges, battles; intercalating vivid glimpses of domestic tenderness, grief, and joy; then the plots and counter-plots of tortuous faction and intrigue, in the senate, in the cabinet, and even in the palace. And with all this, the interest ever centres in one object —

"In shape and gesture proudly eminent,"

John Duke of Marlborough: not because the author appears to wish it, but because of his faithfulness; he has almost unconsciously exhibited his hero, equally whether off his guard or on his guard, manifesting the full power and intensity of a grand character impressing its will upon men and affairs, irresistibly, and in defiance of agencies capable of annihilating one only a single degree inferior to the energy which in Marlborough mastered everything, everybody. "To write the life of Marlborough," said the late eloquent Professor Smyth of Cambridge,15 "is to write the history of the reign of Queen Anne;" let us add – and also, to write it in light. Mr Alison makes a similar observation in the preface to his present work. He intimates that Marlborough was so great that his Life runs into general history: exactly as he who undertakes to write the history of the French Revolution will soon find his narrative turn into the biographies of Wellington and Napoleon, so he who sets about the Life of Marlborough will ere long find that he has insensibly become engaged in a general history of the War of the Succession. Well, be it so, if only because that war it is of infinite importance to have better known than in fact it is.

If Mr Alison's object, in the work before us, were to produce a biography, to delineate character, and so to group events as to illustrate individuality– he has eminently succeeded; but his very success renders it difficult for those in our position to allow him to speak for himself, as copiously as doubtless he, and also our readers, would wish. As he has mastered his subject, so have we mastered his treatment of it, as, at least, we suppose; and as he took his own course, so shall we; wishing that we could give our readers the pleasure which his book has afforded ourselves. In order, however, to attain that object, they must read the book itself; and to induce them to do so, we proceed to indicate its leading characteristics in our own words, using his own, as far as is consistent with our space and our object.

To appreciate the mighty doings of Marlborough, let us glance for a moment at the position in which he found, and the position in which he left, the redoubtable Louis XIV. – him whose memory is for ever rendered detestable by his revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and his bloody exterminating persecution of the Protestants. Marlborough found him the centre of a galaxy of glory of almost every description of military, political, and intellectual distinction. He was blazing in the zenith of his power and success: he was making France the world, and installing the Roman Catholic religion in a black and bloody predominance. "Unbroken good fortune," says Mr Alison, "had attended all his enterprises, since he had launched into the career of foreign aggrandisement." But how did Marlborough leave him? Let the dying monarch speak for himself. When he felt death approaching, he ordered his infant heir, afterwards Louis XV., to be brought to his bedside; and placing his lean and withered hand16 on the head of the child, said with a firm voice, – "My child, you are about to become a great king; but your happiness will depend on your submission to God, and on the care which you take of your subjects. To attain that, you must avoid as much as you can engaging in wars, which are the ruin of the people: do not follow in that respect the bad example which I have given you. I have often engaged in wars from levity, and continued in them from vanity. Do not imitate me, but become a pacific prince." Thus he had learned, at last, a great lesson through the tremendous teaching of Marlborough!17

That great man seems to have fathomed the character and the purposes of Louis, in all their depth and comprehensiveness, from the first, with an intuitive sagacity; and the patient determination with which he carried out, under circumstances of unparalleled difficulty, his own great conceptions, exhibits perhaps the grandest spectacle that history can point to, in the case of a single individual. The reader of these volumes will frequently boil over with indignation at the obstacles which were thrown in the way of Marlborough, by envy, faction, selfishness, and stupidity interposing, with a fell punctuality, at almost every great crisis during his career, and blighting the most splendid prospects of success. One only a little inferior in magnanimity to Marlborough would have broken down on many different occasions, and fled from the scene of action in disgust and despair. With him, however, it was not so; and yet he was a man of keen sensibility, and has left on record various traces of heart-wrung anguish. Here are one or two, among many scattered over these volumes: – "The unreasonable opposition I have met with has so heated my blood that I am almost mad." – "I am, at this moment, ten years older than I was four days ago!" – "My spirits are so broke, that whenever I can get from this employment, I must live quietly, or die." – "My crosses make my life a burthen to me." All this while, nevertheless, the great warrior-statesman was steadily, yet rapidly, demolishing the vast fabric of French power and glory, and building up in massive proportions that of his own country. "More, perhaps, than to any other man," justly observes Mr Alison at the close of his work, "Marlborough was the architect of England's greatness; for he at once established on a solid basis the Protestant succession, which secured its religious freedom, and vanquished the formidable enemy which threatened its national independence. His mighty arm bequeathed to his country the honour and the happiness of the eighteenth century – the happiest period, by the admission of all historians, which has dawned upon the world since that of the Antonines in ancient story."18

Let us now take a very hasty view of his radiant career, remembering the while that he ever bore about with him that which hung like a millstone round his neck – his indefensible conduct towards James II., the recollection of which must have galled and chafed the sensitive spirit of a soldier infinitely more than was known to any human being.

Mr Alison opens with a very imposing picture of the state of public affairs, both in this country and on the Continent, when Marlborough commenced his campaigns; and also delineates with truth and force the characters of the leading actors, all remarkable personages. Louis XIV. stands foremost, and is sketched with freedom and power.19 Then come James II., William III., Queen Anne, Charles XII., Prince Eugene, and last of all Marlborough, who, at the close of his first campaign, was regarded, both at home and abroad, as "The Man of Destiny, raised up by Providence to rescue the Protestant religion and the liberties of Europe from the thraldom of France."20 It is impossible to conceive any conjuncture of circumstances more critical and perilous than those of this country at the period in question. Not only our religion, but our independence as a nation, and the very existence of social order, were at stake. If one may use such an expression, the odds were immensely against us – against all who were opposed to the giant energy of Louis XIV. The first step to be taken was to form an alliance against him – and it was undertaken by Marlborough with consummate ability; then to induce the British Cabinet to take its right place as "the very soul of the Grand Alliance" – in that, also, he at length succeeded; and then came the trumpet-sound of war against France, which was forthwith proclaimed at London, the Hague, and Vienna. Yet still a practical difficulty remained – one of peculiar delicacy – for the post of commander-in-chief of the allied forces was greatly coveted by several powerful candidates. Marlborough's own sovereign, Queen Anne, so strongly supported one of them – Prince George of Denmark, her husband – that she even protested she would not declare war unless he was appointed. The Dutch government, however, were resolute on behalf of Marlborough, as the only man equal to sustain the fearful responsibility; and thus Marlborough became invested with the chief direction, both civil and military, of the forces of the coalition. And it was not difficult to foresee the interminable anxieties and vexations which were in store for him, derived from the jealousies and jarring interests of the various states, their ministers and generals, who were under the guidance of Marlborough. The plan of operations on the part of Marlborough and Louis XIV. was as follows: —

"A German army, under Louis, Margrave of Baden, was to be collected on the Upper Rhine, to threaten France from the side of Alsace; a second corps, 25,000 strong, composed of Prussian troops from the Palatinate, and Dutch under the Prince of Sarbruck, was to undertake the siege of Kaiserworth; the main army, under the orders of the Earl of Athlone, 35,000 strong, was destined to cover the frontier of Holland from the Rhine to the Meuse, and at the same time cover the siege of Kaiserworth; a fourth body of 10,000, under Cohorn, the celebrated engineer, was collected near the mouth of the Scheldt, and threatened the district of Bruges.

"The preparations on the part of the French were not less vigorous; and from the more concentrated position of their troops, and unity of action among their commanders, they, in the first instance, were enabled to bring a preponderating force into the field. On the Lower Rhine, a force, under the Marquis Bedmar and the Count de la Motte, were stationed opposite to Cohorn, to protect the western Netherlands from insult; Marshal Tallard was detached from the Upper Rhine, with 13,000 men, to interrupt the siege of Kaiserworth; while the main army, under the command nominally of the Duke of Burgundy, really of Marshal Boufflers, a veteran and experienced officer, was stationed in the bishopric of Liege, resting on the strong fortresses with which that district of Flanders abounded. Not only were the forces under his command superior by a third to those that Athlone had at his disposal, the latter being 45,000, the former only 35,000 strong, but they had the immense advantage of being in possession of the whole strong places of Brabant and Flanders, which were all garrisoned by French or Spanish troops, forming not only the best and most secure possible basis for offensive operations, but an iron defensive barrier, requiring to be cut through in successive campaigns, and at an enormous expenditure of blood and treasure, before by any road the frontiers of France could be reached."21

Such as it was, however, says Mr Alison, the barrier required to be cut through; and Marlborough resolved to commence it with the siege of Kaiserworth, a place of very great importance. He took it – but at a cost of 5000 men; and then took Venloo, and finally Liege – all places, of extreme importance, and desperately defended; and with these feats he concluded the brief but brilliant, campaign which laid the foundation of all his future victories. It stripped the French of many of the chief advantages with which they had opened the war. He had broken through their line, so formidable for offensive and defensive war; he had "thrust his iron gauntlet," says Mr Alison, "into the centre of their resources." And the entire merit was his own, as Lord Athlone, his rival and second in command, thus nobly testified: – "The success of the campaign is entirely owing to its incomparable commander-in-chief; for I, the second in command, was, on every occasion, of an opposite opinion to that which he adopted!" His success was like a bright burst of sunshine over a long-troubled land! But here an incident occurred which might have ruined all. While dropping down the Meuse, on his return to England at the conclusion of the campaign, he was positively taken prisoner by a small French force, – whose commander, however, ignorant of the prize which was within his reach, and skilfully misled by a sagacious device of Marlborough's servant, suffered him to depart! The peril in which he had been spread consternation everywhere, equalled only by joy at his escape, which was powerfully expressed to him by the Pensionary Heinsius. "Your captivity was on the point of causing the slavery of these provinces, and restoring to France the power of extending her uncontrollable dominion over all Europe. No hope remained, if she had retained in bondage the man whom we revere as the instrument of Providence to restore independence to the greater part of the Christian world!" On what apparently trivial incidents often depend the greatest events that can happen to mankind! Marlborough was received with transports in England, and raised to the dukedom of Marlborough. The difficulties which the Dutch deputies had thrown in his way during the first campaign, owing, says Mr Alison, to timidity, ignorance of the military art, personal presumption, and the spirit of party, on several great occasions thwarted the most decisive measures of Marlborough, – but proved only a foretaste of what was in store for the harassed commander. Mr Alison gives an interesting letter which Marlborough wrote to his Countess, immediately on his arrival at the Hague. It is full of the passionate fondness of a lover to his mistress; yet was written by a man of fifty-two to a wife to whom he had been married twenty-three years! There are innumerable other instances, in these volumes, of the romantic fervour of their attachment. Such was Marlborough's first campaign, the herald of a long series of resplendent successes, many of them marked by features similar to those of the first. "He never," indeed, "fought a battle which he did not gain, nor sat down before a town which he did not take; and – alone of the great commanders recorded in history —never sustained a reverse! On many occasions throughout the war he was only prevented, by the timidity of the Dutch deputies, or the feeble co-operation of the Allied powers, from gaining early and decisive success; and as it was, he broke the power of the Grand Monarque, and if his hands had not in the end been tied up by an intrigue at home, he would have planted the British standards on Montmartre, and anticipated the triumphs of Blucher and Wellington." Here is the key to his position, from first to last – an inkling of the tortures which wrung that great soul throughout his career.