Blenheim: Battle for Europe

Arabella Churchill captivated the Duke of York. Their romance started when she fell from her horse in a royal riding party. As she struggled amidst her petticoats, attempting to regain her dignity, James noticed her unexpectedly fine legs. The duke, who had already shown mild interest in Arabella, was now full of lustful resolve, and it was not long before Miss Churchill became his mistress. This was ‘not one of his numerous casual affairs; it was the chief affair of his life, lasting ten or twelve years.’[fn4] During this time Arabella bore James four illegitimate offspring. One was given the title of Duke of Berwick and was a great favourite of James’s: the king later contemplated installing his natural son as the Catholic ruler of Ireland. When James lost his English throne, Berwick joined him in exile. After his father’s death Berwick became one of the more successful of Louis’s later marshals, thus confirming the Churchills’ genetic gift for the military.

Of more immediate benefit to Arabella’s family was the favour that now fell on her younger brother. After studying at St Paul’s, in London, John became a page of honour to the Duke of York. Hostile historians have criticised John for benefiting from his sister’s courtesan status. However, impoverished gentry during the Stuart Age had few scruples about the method of their advancement.

Having become a trusted servant, young Churchill took advantage of his master’s favour to progress from Court life to soldiery. One day, when watching a parade of troops in London, James asked his page what he would most like in the world. ‘A pair of colours’ was the immediate reply, his words a euphemism for an ensign’s commission. James approved of this ambition and in 1667 the seventeen-year-old Ensign Churchill was gazetted to the King’s Regiment of Foot Guards.

In 1668, Churchill served in the Governor’s Regiment in Tangier, where Moors were the enemy. This outpost had come to Britain as part of Catharine of Braganza’s dowry when she married Charles II. Although the garrison cost over £100,000 per year to maintain, the king valued Tangier highly. It was certainly a useful training ground for Charles’s soldiers, toughening them up and introducing them to new methods of warfare: in 1663, the Tangier Regiment was the first English unit to employ the bayonet.

Returning to London in 1671, John embarked on an affair with his cousin, Barbara Castlemaine. Almost a decade John’s senior, she was one of King Charles’s more promiscuous mistresses. Her passion for Churchill was intense and the king, in a surprise visit, caught the pair in a tryst. Heading a court heaving with licentious behaviour, it is strange to think of Charles as a sentimental man. However, he was reportedly hurt by Barbara’s infidelity, for he had genuine feelings for the mother of five of his illegitimate tribe. The king showed magnanimity, though, dismissing the young gallant with an avuncular chiding: ‘Go. You are a rascal, but I forgive you because you do it to get your bread.’[fn5]

Charles’s comment showed an awareness of Churchill’s precarious financial position. Perhaps a consequence of relative childhood poverty, Churchill displayed an unattractive relationship with money throughout his life. It later brought him ridicule and contempt, for the rich and powerful were expected to display their wealth magnanimously. Avarice was a character flaw that John Churchill never defeated, although with his famed meanness came astute management of his personal finances. This was an important skill for the ambitious young man: without it, the prospects for future advancement were limited, for Court positions and army ranks were bought and sold as commodities. When the infatuated Barbara Castlemaine gave her young lover the astonishing gift of £5,000 — enough, at the time, to have bought a colonelcy in the Foot Guards — most of it was squirreled away to become the foundation of Churchill’s later extraordinary wealth and position.

A return from Court life to soldiery brought Churchill action and advancement in the early 1670s. It was soon clear that this was an officer of the highest potential. When life was breathed into Charles II’s secret Treaty of Dover, in 1672, the English joined Louis against the Dutch. The Duke of York kept his protege close to him, on board his flagship, the Royal Prince. The vessel was involved in the bloody Battle of Sole Bay, which was fought off the Suffolk town of Southwold within sight of a huge crowd. Churchill’s conduct has not been recorded, yet it was conspicuous enough to merit a rare double-promotion, to the rank of captain.

Churchill was transferred at the end of the year to fight on land for France. Serving as a volunteer under the Duke of Monmouth, Churchill distinguished himself at the siege of Maastricht. Several notable men were present during this action, including Count d’Artagnan, the musketeer later immortalised by Alexandre Dumas; while Claude-Louis-Hector Villars, Churchill’s most able military opponent in later life, fought alongside him here. Louis XIV, a proponent of siege warfare, was in the trenches as John joined in three French charges against the Dutch defences, the last of which was successful. Churchill is credited with raising the French standard on the captured parapet, as well as with saving Monmouth’s life while countering a daring but doomed Dutch counter-attack.

The taking of Maastricht was a bloody affair, the garrison of 6,000 inflicting heavy casualties on a French force that outnumbered it by eight to one. D’Artagnan was one of many attacking officers slain, shot through the head at the age of fifty-three. Churchill was among the numerous wounded. However, the capture of this fortress on the River Meuse was a significant French success, whose English participants shared the military glory. It seems ironic in retrospect that the king singled out Churchill for congratulations, allegedly thanking him at the head of Monmouth’s small force for his bravery in the cause of France. Louis wrote to Charles II recommending that he promote his brave and able captain. It was an act of patronage that Louis was later to regret.

*

Churchill’s next posting was with Marshal Turenne. In an age that favoured the gentle pace and structured format of siege warfare over the uncertainty and expense of pitched battle, Turenne was unorthodox. His bold dictum was: ‘Make few sieges and fight plenty of battles; when you are master of the countryside the villages will give us the town.’[fn6] It is a small step from this maxim to Churchill’s philosophy when a commander: winning a battle, the Englishman stated, was ‘of far greater advantage to the common cause than the taking of twenty towns.’[fn7]

Turenne also showed Marlborough the importance of using infantry firepower to maximum effect. This ran counter to the accepted bias that engagements were won or lost by the cavalry. The matchlock muskets of Turenne’s era were desperately slow and unreliable, taking more than a minute to reload and frequently misfiring. They had a range of 100 yards, but were inaccurate even at that distance: they had no sights to assist their aim and were often discharged not from the shoulder, but from the chest. However, the marshal was confident that, if used efficiently, they offered the commander the edge over chaotic infantry blocs: intermingling of pike-men and musketeers need not ape the clumsy deployments of the Middle Ages. Indeed, the trend towards larger armies in the second half of the seventeenth century resulted in the recruitment of far more foot soldiers than cavalry. This was essentially because of the cavalry’s greater expense. When Turenne was first a general, his army was one-third infantry to two-thirds cavalry; but by 1675, when he died, the ratio was three to one in favour of the foot soldier. The marshal’s ability to accept this development and adapt his tactics accordingly, made a lasting impression on his English apprentice.

Turenne’s military talents reached their zenith in 1674, when he was in his mid-sixties. ‘In that year’s campaign Turenne displayed his powers both in tactics and in strategy at their highest and to have served such a campaign under him was for Churchill a great good fortune.’[fn8] Churchill continued in Louis’s service, even though his country had agreed peace with the Dutch early in the year. The opportunities for advancement and action, neither of which Churchill ever knowingly shirked, were obvious. Aged only twenty-four, Churchill was placed in charge of a battalion of Turenne’s infantry.

There were three major battles during the campaign. It remains unclear whether Churchill fought at the first, Sinzheim, where Turenne’s flair and resolve upset a larger Imperial army: the marshal’s deft blending of foot soldiers, dragoons and cavalry reminded Europe of the great Swedish warrior Gustavus Adolphus at his peak. English infantrymen helped to hold Turenne’s flanks as the French cavalry advanced to engage Count Caprara’s Imperialist force. Intense fighting led to 2,000 deaths on each side, but France claimed victory when the enemy retreated.

We know that Churchill took part in the Battle of Enzheim, near Strasbourg. Turenne, his lines of communication already vulnerable, was forced to attack a superior enemy expecting reinforcements. His unorthodox tactics included an early morning advance over a river that the Imperialists had adjudged a secure defensive barrier. There was a massive exchange of artillery fire and Turenne sustained significant casualties in attaining his goal. Half of the officers in Churchill’s battalion were killed or wounded at Enzheim. Turenne praised the officer he liked to call his ‘handsome Englishman’ in his report to Louis. He admired the young man’s style, courage and readiness to learn.

Churchill’s experiences at Enzheim proved to be of crucial importance. Thirty years afterwards, he was to attempt an aggressive river crossing under circumstances that mirrored those facing Turenne. Artillery would have a vital role in the action, and losses would have to be borne in an assault on a well-ensconced enemy. The similarities between Enzheim and Blenheim were significant. ‘I durst not brag much of our victory’, Churchill wrote in 1674, ‘but we have three of their cannon, several of their colours and some prisoners.’[fn9] Even the reports of victory echoed one another. The main difference lay in the composition of forces: at Enzheim the French were his allies, while at Blenheim they would be the enemy.

It had been an extraordinary campaigning season for Turenne and he extended his good run, taking the Imperialists by surprise in their winter quarters and then defeating them at Turkheim, in January 1675. This campaign was a powerful finale by one of the great soldiers of the seventeenth century, played out in view of one who was to dominate the first decade of the eighteenth. Turenne died six months after Turkheim, felled by a cannon ball while reconnoitring an enemy gun emplacement. Churchill, having acquitted himself with distinction, returned to England an experienced, respected, young colonel, full of promise.

*

Resuming his place at court, Churchill was made a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to the Duke of York. His fine looks attracted much attention in a milieu where the appeal of the physical often eclipsed the cerebral. What choice of bride would this increasingly influential man make? His father, so impoverished that he had. asked John to return his share of the Churchill inheritance, encouraged a financially advantageous match. Katherine Sedley, an heiress cousin, and one of the Duke of York’s plain mistresses, was Sir Winston’s recommendation. For once, though, John overcame avarice and followed his heart.

Sarah Jenyns was the extremely pretty daughter of an impoverished Hertfordshire gentleman. She had followed her beautiful sister Frances to serve as an adornment at Court. The Jenynses were among many families who were prepared to despatch their daughters to the licentious world of the ‘Merry Monarch’, hoping that such a move might lead to an advantageous marriage which would pluck them from the ranks of the distressed gentry. Maybe their daughter would bring home to St Albans a wealthy, titled, son-in-law?

Sarah’s role was lowly: when the Duke of York married Mary of Modena at the end of 1673, having lost his first wife Anne to breast cancer, Sarah became Maid of Honour to the new duchess. She must have met John Churchill soon afterwards, and she cannot have been immune to his charms. Contemporaries found Churchill extraordinarily good-looking. A Dutch contemporary, while commenting on a frightening ambition and a suspicious charm, recorded his admiration for the Englishman’s physical attributes: ‘He is about the middle height, and has the best figure in the world; his features are without fault, fine, sparkling eyes and good teeth. In short, apart from his legs, which are too thin, he is one of the handsomest men ever seen.’[fn10] It is easy to see why the teenaged Sarah found the dashing colonel, ten years her senior, intriguing.

Allied to his looks and potential was an easy manner, which was soon engaged in earnest courtship. Initially wary of the man who was so scandalously associated with Barbara Castlemaine, Sarah found she could not resist her suitor, whom she declared ‘handsome as an angel’. John’s emotions have largely remained impenetrable, despite the copious correspondence that has survived him. It is clear, though, that he found Sarah’s uncompromising and forthright nature utterly bewitching. She was an auburn-haired beauty, yes; but beyond this the ambitious, calculating soldier was dazzled by the thrilling freeness of Sarah’s spirit. The courtship was tempestuous, but the chemistry between John and Sarah eventually drew a line under the Churchill and Jenyns families’ ambitions. They were quietly married in the winter of 1677-8, in the Duchess of York’s apartments; a suitable venue for the solemnisation of a partnership that was to reach the zenith of its power through royal favour, before being dashed by the same capricious force.

The couple’s relationship remained intense, in a marriage whose roles were clearly defined and rigidly adhered to: Sarah was passionate and wilful, often painfully so, while John was devoted and necessarily patient. He was afflicted with migraines throughout his life, many triggered by the stress of his wife’s behaviour. In early 1679, Sarah wrongly accused John of having an affair while in Scotland, causing him severe headaches, and evincing from him fervent protest: ‘I am not so unreasonable as to expect you should not be concerned if I were coquet, and made love to any other woman, but since I do not, and love only you above my own life, I can’t but think you are unjust, and unkind, in having a suspicion of me.’[fn11] Churchill blamed Sarah’s unfounded suspicions on his enforced absence from home. John’s counter to this was to write openly of the depth of his feelings for his wife: ‘Although I believe you love me, yet you do not love so well as I, so that you can not be truly sensible how much I desire to be with you. I swear to you the first night in which I was blessed in having you in my arms, was not more earnestly wish’d for by me, than now I do, to be again with you, for if ever man loved woman truly well I now do you, for I swear to you were we unmarried, I would beg you on my knees to be my wife, which I would not do, did I not esteem you, as well as love you.’[fn12]

The Churchills were diligent and loving parents, Sarah bearing seven children between 1679 and 1690, five of whom (‘four daughters and a son, all like little angels’[fn13]) survived infancy. John wrote to his wife of the huge enjoyment he derived from fatherhood: ‘You can not imagine how I am pleased with the children; for having nobody but their maid, they are so fond of me, that when I am at home, they will always be with me, kissing me and hugging me.’ Such parental tenderness was a reflection of profound adoration of his wife: ‘Miss [Henrietta, the eldest daughter] is pulling me by the arm, that she may write to her dear Mamma, so that I will say no more, only beg that you will love me always so well as I love you, and then we can not but be happy.’[fn14] His delight in family life was only accentuated by the demands of a career that was to take him overseas for increasingly extended periods.

In 1678 Churchill was entrusted with an apparently important piece of statecraft. He was sent on a diplomatic mission with his lifelong friend Sidney Godolphin, a Cornishman whom he met while both were Pages of Honour to the Duke of York. They were instructed to sound out the Dutch and the Spanish about the possibility of combining forces with England against France. It came to nothing; indeed, it is doubtful whether Charles II intended any other outcome, given his links with Louis XIV. However, the choice of Churchill for this task confirms his growing importance at Court, which was mirrored in his military career. On his return to England he was given command of a new regiment of Foot. By the end of 1678 he was promoted to brigadier-general.

Churchill was by now among the group of courtiers favoured not only by the Duke of York, whose creature he was seen to be, but also by the king. He, Godolphin, and Feversham (a Huguenot nephew of Turenne’s) made up the group which played ‘much at tennis’ with Charles II, the quartet being ‘all so excellent players that if one beat the other ‘tis alternately.’[fn15]

Religious and political tensions temporarily displaced the Churchills from their positions at Court, but not from royal friendship: after the Roman Catholic ‘Popish Plot’ against his life, Charles reluctantly bowed to Whig demands, and sent his brother James into exile. The Churchills loyally followed the ducal Court to Belgium and Scotland, their steadfastness being rewarded with a Scottish peerage; in 1682 they were created Baron and Baroness Churchill of Aymouth. After the exile had been repealed, Lord and Lady Churchill returned to London to even greater royal favour. The Duke of York’s second daughter, Anne, had nursed a schoolgirl crush on Sarah since childhood. The dowdy, plodding and neglected princess was entranced by Sarah’s glamour, confidence, and beauty. G. M. Trevelyan poeticised the cruel contrast between the women: ‘Anne’s mind was slow as a lowland river, Sarah’s swift as a mountain torrent.’[fn16] Anne married the stolid Prince George of Denmark, in 1683, after which she was allowed a modest, but independent, household. Sarah was encouraged by her husband to apply for the post of the princess’s Lady of the Bedchamber. Anne’s Tory relatives on her maternal side resisted this, fearing the effect of Sarah’s Whig sympathies on her mistress. Sarah told Anne how saddened she was by such a lack of trust, prompting an abject letter from the princess: ‘Oh, dear Lady Churchill, let me beg you once more not to believe that I am in fault: do not let this take away your kindness from me, for I assure you ’tis the greatest trouble in the world to me, and I am sure you have not a faithfuller friend on earth that loves you better than I do. My eyes are full, I cannot say a word more.’[fn17] Such was the balance of power when Sarah was installed in Anne’s affections, and her Court. These were positions of influence that Sarah was to exploit on her own and her husband’s behalf for quarter of a century.

*

The death of Charles II, in February 1685, brought John Churchill’s patron to the English throne. The new king, James II, chose him to travel to France to tell Louis XIV formally of the succession. While on this mission, Churchill was instructed to negotiate a continuation of the secret ‘pension’ that Louis had paid Charles. If possible, an increase was to be secured.

Although the people had greeted his coronation with enthusiasm, this was an uncertain time for James. Monmouth’s invasion came in the first summer of his reign. Churchill seized the moment and immediately moved against the man who had been his commanding officer at the siege of Maastricht. As soon as he heard that Monmouth had landed at Lyme (which was in his father’s, Sir Winston’s, parliamentary constituency), Churchill set out to head off the threat. With him went only a small column of foot and an inconsequential body of horse. However, Churchill’s march echoed the approach of his mentor, Marshal Turenne, by relying on speed and decisiveness to surprise the enemy. He appreciated that the key to defeating Monmouth was to harry him. The renegade duke must not be allowed to settle, since he could then become a focal point to which the disaffected could rally. Churchill forged ahead with his cavalry, moving from London to Bridport in just two days, purloining horses, oxen and wagons along the way, his confiscations causing resentment but gaining him speed.

Monmouth’s forward planning was thrown into confusion when, within a week of his arrival, Churchill appeared at his heels. The royal force lacked the manpower to attack, but Churchill reported to London that he would ‘press the rebels as close as ever I can’,[fn18] until reinforcements arrived. Otherwise, he told James, the West Country would be lost to Monmouth. He was further convinced of this by the conduct of militia drawn from the men of Devon and Somerset. Sent to tackle the invaders, they instead showed themselves sympathetic to their cause: many happily switched allegiance, proclaiming their support for ‘King Monmouth’.

Churchill harried the rebels continuously with his professional troops, seeking to contain the invasive bacillus rather than allow the contagion to spread. Monmouth later conceded that he had not enjoyed a moment’s peace between his arrival in England and his capture. It was Churchill’s terrier force that did most to deprive him of composure or hope. Under constant pressure, the duke’s campaign lost focus. Monmouth would have had more chance of success if he had ignored the attentions of Churchill’s cavalry and pushed ahead. If he had captured Gloucester, for instance, he could have established a bridgehead over the River Severn. From there he could have struck out from the south-west, into the belly of England. However, wrong-footed by Churchill, and suspecting in any event that his venture was doomed, Monmouth’s impetus stalled. He persuaded himself that stretching out for such a prize would leave him more vulnerable to his former colleague’s needling attacks.

Its momentum lost, the invasion gradually turned in on itself. Monmouth drew back to the south, followed by Churchill’s men, who had been joined by reinforcements. The royal cavalry pared away at the slow and the doubtful, till the duke was left with just the buffeted kernel of an increasingly despondent army. If he was to have a chance, Monmouth knew he must risk battle. By now significantly outnumbered, he elected to stake his success on that most uncertain of manoeuvres, a night attack.

The Earl of Feversham commanded the king’s army as it camped at Sedgemoor. An unexceptional general, Feversham owed his position to his friendship with James. His involvement in the sub-sequent battle was secondary to Churchill’s, who appears to have anticipated Monmouth’s plan, and was immediately on site to lead a steely defence against the rebels. The duke’s 4,000 men, some armed with nothing more than improvised agricultural implements, others toting guns but little ammunition, were brave and determined. However, the English standing army was disciplined, holding the initial attack before hurling it back on itself. Monmouth must have regretted his time as de facto captain-general of the English army a decade earlier: one of his legacies was a standardisation of the musket drill. The steadiness of James II’s infantry fire, combined with Churchill’s deft use of the artillery, destroyed the rebel cause that night at Sedgemoor. It was to be the last battle to be fought between Englishmen on English soil.

James II showed no mercy for the defeated. He sanctioned the execution of Monmouth, and several hundred of his followers. (Monmouth had a particularly grisly end, the executioner’s axe striking seven times before his head was severed.) Churchill had hoped to garner real advancement from what was essentially his victory, but Feversham received the chief plaudits. However, Churchill was promoted to major-general. He also received the lasting respect of those who had served him at Sedgemoor and in the weeks leading up to the battle. The London Gazette reported that Churchill had ‘performed his part with all the courage and gallantry imaginable’. He was now, in his late thirties, established as one of the foremost soldiers in England’s tiny army.