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

"The confidence universally reposed, not only in his wisdom and justice, but in his conciliatory manners and irresistible address, was the cause of this extraordinary load of important cares with which, in addition to the direction of his own army, he was daily overwhelmed. From Eugene alone he was assailed by no appeals, except for such addition to his forces as might put him in a condition to measure his strength with the enemy. Their ideas were so identical, their minds so entirely cast in the same mould, their military knowledge and capacity so much alike, that it invariably happened that, what the one of his own accord did , was precisely what the other of his own accord would have recommended . Nor was it enough that foreign affairs of such overwhelming magnitude daily oppressed the English general; he had in addition the divisions of the cabinet at home to heal, and the deadly animosity of faction, increasing with every triumph which he won, to appease. No warrior of modern times, not even excepting Wellington, had such a mass of affairs, both civil and military, to conduct at the same time, and none ever got through them with such consummate ability. The correspondence of the Emperor Napoleon alone, since the days of Cæsar, will bear a comparison with it; but although nothing could exceed the energy and capacity of the French emperor, there was this difference, and it was a vital one, between his position and that of Marlborough – Napoleon commanded, after he attained to greatness, everywhere as a master: he directed his generals with equal authority on the Danube and the Tagus, and dictated to cabinets at Vienna or St Petersburg nearly as effectively as at St Cloud; but Marlborough had not even the uncontrolled direction of his own army, and beyond it had no influence but what had been extorted by exploits or won by condescension."

The great event of this third campaign was the battle of Ramilies, where Marlborough was within a hair's-breadth of being taken prisoner on the field, and had to fight his way out from his throng of assailants, like the knights of old, sword in hand. No sooner had he succeeded in this, than he had another escape – his horse fell in leaping a ditch; and his equerry's head was carried off by a cannon-ball while holding the Duke's stirrup as he mounted another. 26 26 Alison, i. 247. This was a very great battle, and attended by signal results – the acquisition of nearly all Austrian Flanders ! What now was the position of Louis XIV.? After five years of continued effort, he found himself stripped of all his conquests, shorn of his external influence, and compelled to maintain at once on the frontiers of Germany, Flanders, Spain, and Italy, a contest, from his own resources, with the forces of all Europe… His haughty spirit, long accustomed to prosperity, supported with difficulty the weight of adversity. The war, and all its concerns, was a forbidden subject at court. A melancholy gloom pervaded the halls of Versailles; and frequent bleedings of the monarch himself attested both the violence of his internal agitation and the dread which his physicians entertained of still greater dangers. Overcome by so many calamities, the fierce spirit of Louis was at length shaken, and he was prevailed on to sue for peace ! 27 27 Alison, i. 277, 278. After the battle of Ramilies, Marlborough was offered the government of the Netherlands, the emoluments of which were no less than £60,000 a-year; but he magnanimously refused it, from a regard to the public good, and on every subsequent offer of the same splendid and lucrative post, did the same. On his return to England he met with a rapturous reception – was thanked by Parliament – £5000 a-year was settled on him and his duchess, and their descendants – and the dukedom extended to heirs female , "in order," as it was finely expressed, "that England might never be without a title which might recall the remembrance of so much glory." 28 28 Ibid. p. 287. Equally indefatigable at home as abroad, in peace as in war, he addressed himself at once to his parliamentary duties, and took a leading part in the great and beneficial measure for uniting Scotland with England. His vast influence in the country, and at court, excited intense jealousy among both Whigs and Tories.

The ensuing campaign (A.D. 1707) found Louis XIV. "reduced on all sides to his own resources," and thoroughly wakened from his dream of foreign conquests – seeking only, and that with anxiety and alarm, to defend his own frontier. Here, however, two new actors appear on the chequered scene – the Duke of Marlborough's nephew, the Duke of Berwick, who by his great victory of Almanza counteracted in Spain his uncle's efforts – and Charles XII. of Sweden, a "new and formidable actor on the theatre of affairs in Germany." Louis XIV. made desperate efforts to win over Charles XII., but the exquisite adroitness of Marlborough frustrated them altogether. But Louis, encouraged by the gleams of success which had been visible in Spain and elsewhere, made immense efforts to recover his lost ground. Marlborough's energies were equally divided between delicate and perilous negotiations with the various European potentates, and another decisive campaign in the field. Both he and Louis made prodigious exertions, and at length were on the point of fighting another great battle; "and, by a most extraordinary coincidence, the two armies were of the same strength, and occupied the same ground, as did those of Napoleon and Wellington a hundred and eight years afterwards!" Marlborough was eager for the fight, confident of a great victory; but, at the eleventh hour, a panic seized his old friends the Dutch deputies, and they compelled him to retire to his former position, and decline the encounter, to his unspeakable mortification. The enemy, showing no disposition to encounter him, at length retreated, Marlborough advancing, but finding it impossible to bring on a general action. Both armies were led into winter-quarters, and Marlborough repaired to England, "where his presence had become indispensably necessary for arresting the progress of public discontent, fanned as it was by court and parliamentary intrigues, and threatening to prove immediately fatal to his own influence and ascendency, as well as to the best interests of England." 29 29 Ibid. p. 330. Here we are plunged into the vortex of political intrigues, – the principal actors being Harley and St John and Mrs Masham on the one side, and on the other the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, whose ascendency over the Queen and the country, and even their own party the Whigs, is evidently beginning to give way, and rapidly. Mr Alison here shows his dispassionate character to great advantage, holding the balance evenly between all parties. His candid and luminous statement is equally interesting and instructive; and one thing he brings out in a very striking manner, though not in so many words: we mean the retributive justice with which the duke's treachery to James II. was brought home to himself, and also to the duchess – the latter being utterly incredulous of the ingratitude and treachery of Mrs Masham towards her, and the former equally so in the case of Harley and St John. How often and how bitterly may such reflections have occurred to the duke and duchess! Their position at court had become exceedingly trying; but their treatment of the Queen was highly imprudent, the Duke being doubtless greatly influenced by his imperious and intractable duchess. Mr Alison regards her as the "faithful representative of the whole Whig party," whose "arrogant domination and grasping disposition were the real causes of their fall from power, and the total change in the foreign policy of England – results not attributable exclusively to female partiality, or a bed-chamber intrigue, which were, nevertheless, the ultimate agents in the change, and apparently its immediate precursors. The Whigs were haunted as incessantly by dread of a reaction as the Jacobins of France of a counter-revolution, and apprehended from a change of ministry not merely the usual subversion of their party, but serious personal consequences, in respect of the part which had been played to James II." Such is the general conclusion arrived at by Mr Alison – indicative, undoubtedly, of his candour and moderation. Early in 1708, and while Marlborough was placed in these critical circumstances, occurred the attempt of Louis XIV. to imitate, in some respect, the example of his Allied opponents, by invading Great Britain, in order to place the Pretender on the throne. Louis's terrible antagonist, however, Marlborough, was here again to confront him. As commander-in-chief, the Duke crushed the attempt, and the ambitious Chevalier was forced to creep back to Dunkirk ridiculously – the result serving only suddenly to reinstate Marlborough at the summit of popularity, and to silence all slanderous imputations upon his fidelity to the cause of the Revolution.