While at this cottage, the victory of Oudenarde was announced to her majesty. When she heard that it had been won at the cost of two thousand lives, she exclaimed: "O Lord! when will all this dreadful bloodshed cease?" Nevertheless, etiquette required her to write a letter of congratulation and thanks to the victorious Duke of Marlborough, which she did at once. Public thanksgiving for the victory took place in the usual way at St. Paul's Cathedral on the nineteenth of August. As her husband was the victor, the Duchess of Marlborough considered herself the heroine of the day, and bustled about to make herself as important as possible. Her office of mistress of the robes imposed upon her several duties, and among others, the arrangement of the queen's jewels as she chose to have them worn. When the royal cortège was approaching the cathedral, the duchess chanced to cast her eyes over the costume of her majesty, and observed that the jewels were absent. This was a mark of disrespect that she would not stand, so she began scolding in such way that the queen lost her temper, and the two ladies quarrelled and abused each other until they got inside the church, when the duchess angrily bade the {472}queen "to hold her tongue." This was too much. Her majesty had borne a great deal from her friend, but such an insult aroused her indignation. Perhaps the duchess repented of her hasty speech; for a day or two later she took occasion to send the following humble note with a letter from her husband:-- "I cannot help sending your majesty this letter to show how exactly Lord Marlborough agrees with me in opinion that he has now no interest with you, though when I said so in the church last Thursday you were pleased to say it was untrue." "And yet, I think he will be surprised to hear that when I had taken so much pains to put your jewels in a way that I thought you would like, Mrs. Masham could make you refuse to wear them in so unkind a manner; because that was a power she had not thought fit to exercise before. "I will make no reflections on it, only that I must needs observe that your majesty chose a very wrong day to mortify me when your were just going to return thanks for a victory obtained by my Lord Marlborough!" No doubt the queen thought, as anybody might, that a great deal of fuss had been made about a trifling matter, for she sent the following reply:-- "After the _commands_ you gave me on the thanksgiving day not to answer, I should not have troubled you with these lines; but, to return the Duke of Marlborough's letter safe into your hands, and for the same reason, I do not say anything to that or to yours which enclosed it."