During the summer the queen quarrelled with the Duke of Marlborough, because she desired to appoint colonels in the army, and he justly believed that he was more capable than she could possibly be of judging what, men had deserved promotion. The prime reason for this dispute was that Prince George had some favorites for whom he desired places, and the queen was anxious to gratify him; but the Duke of Marlborough was so angry that he wrote a very severe letter of reproof to his brother, George Churchill, who forthwith showed it to her majesty, and excited a great deal of displeasure. Meanwhile the duchess kept hammering at Abigail Ma-sham, until at last she got hold of a subject for attack. One of the court spies had taken pains to inform her that her cousin had grand apartments at Kensington Palace, where she received her friends in style whenever they called. After duly turning this piece of news over in her mind, the duchess came to the conclusion that the apartments referred to must be those that King William had fitted up for his favorite, Keppel, and that Queen Anne had subsequently allotted to her. To be sure, she had never occupied them, and probably never would do so; but she was determined that no one else should enjoy them, least of all Abigail Masham. So, in high dudgeon, she posted off to Kensington to inquire into the matter. Prince George was so ill from gout and asthma, and had grown so excessively fat, that he could not get up or down stairs without a great deal of suffering; therefore he was lodged on the ground-floor of the palace, whence he could {470}walk out in the grounds and enjoy the air whenever he felt able. The queen shared his apartments, and as he often required care at night to prevent his suffocating during his paroxysms of coughing, the bed-chamber women were placed in the adjoining rooms, so they could be summoned in case of need. [Illustration: 0476] On arriving at the palace, the duchess ordered the housemaid to open her suite of apartments, and moved towards those on the ground-floor, although part of them were situated on the one above. The maid replied that she could not do so, because they were divided between Mrs. Masham and the bed-chamber women in waiting. That was just what the irate duchess had come to find out; so she immediately {471}made an indignant complaint to the queen, which resulted, after too much absurd wrangling to be worthy of recital, in the removal of the royal household to a house in Windsor Forest, which her majesty had purchased in the days when she was forbidden by Queen Mary to appear at court. In this quiet retreat she watched over her sick husband and sought to relieve his sufferings; but the duchess declared that the reason Queen Anne spent the summer in that place, "which was as hot as an oven," was to enable Mrs. Masham to admit such persons as desired secret interviews with her majesty, and they could be let in from the park without anybody being the wiser.