Parliament met on the 25th November; and Marlborough, in the end of the year, returned to London. But he soon received decisive proof of the altered temper both of government and the country towards him. In the Queen's speech, no notice was taken of the late successes in Flanders, no vote of thanks for his services in the campaign moved by ministers; and they even contrived, by a sidewind, to get quit of one proposed, to their no small embarrassment, by Lord Scarborough. The Duchess, too, was threatened with removal from her situation at court; and Marlborough avowed that he knew the Queen was "as desirous for her removal as Mr Harley and Mr Masham can be." The violent temper and proud unbending spirit of the Duchess were ill calculated to heal such a breach, which, in the course of the winter, became so wide, that her removal from the situation she held, as mistress of the robes, was only prevented by the fear that, in the vehemence of her resentment, she might publish the Queen's correspondence, and that the Duke, whose military services could not yet be spared, might resign his command. Libels against both the Duke and the Duchess daily appeared, and passed entirely unpunished, though the freedom of the press was far from being established. Three officers were dismissed from the army for drinking his health. When he waited on the Queen, on his arrival in England, in the end of December, she said--"I must request you will not suffer any vote of thanks to you to be moved in Parliament this year, _as my ministers will certainly oppose it_." Such was the return made by government to the hero who had raised the power and glory of England to an unprecedented pitch, and in that very campaign had cut deeper into the iron frontier of France than had ever been done in any former one.[24]