into an intellectual and physical decadence: worthy chastisement of a life, a singular mixture of great power of mind and moral baseness, of cold calculation and violent passions, of glory and of ignominy. {152} Attacked by paralysis, in May, 1716, Marlborough expired on the 16th of June, 1722, and was interred, with royal honors in Westminster Abbey. "I was a man then," said the invalid Duke, when contemplating his portrait in a picture which represented the battle of Blenheim. He left an immense fortune, the results of the great offices which both he and the Duchess had held, as well as the exactions that his extreme avidity for money had led him into. "I have heard his widow say," said Voltaire, "that after the division made to four children, there still remained to her, without thanks to the court, a revenue of £70,000." National gratitude had contributed its share to this enormous accumulation of wealth. It is to the honor of England that she has always recompensed her great servants magnificently. Parliament, on its own authority, and by a legitimate exercise of its power, now took an important step. The experience of the last twenty years of triennial legislative elections had convinced many sound thinkers that an agitation so frequently renewed was dangerous to the electors, as well as to the liberty of action of those elected. It was remembered that William III. had once refused his assent to the bill, which was subsequently imposed upon him. A new law decided that the duration of the parliaments should henceforth be seven years. Usage has often abridged this term by a year, but it has remained, notwithstanding frequent infractions, the regular limit for legislatures. About the same time, and in spite of serious obstacles, that clause of the act of Establishment which formerly forbade the sovereigns to leave the soil of Great Britain, was repealed by the houses. The desire of George I. to visit his hereditary states became irresistible; he had long been detained by the jealousy which he felt regarding his son. {153} It was with regret and upon the formal advice of his ministers, that he decided to confide the government to the Prince of Wales during his absence. "This family has always been quarrelsome," said Lord Carteret, one day, to the full Council, "and it will quarrel always, from generation to generation."