Both Marlborough and Godolphin loudly and vehemently protested against the line of conduct which Anne had adopted in slighting their counsels, whilst she, with characteristic sturdiness, refused to listen to their reproofs and entreaties. Wyon gives a letter from Godolphin to the Queen on the subject of the appointment of the Duke of Shrewsbury (the 'King of Hearts') _vice_ the Marquis of Kent, as Chamberlain--the like of which, he thinks, can scarcely ever before have been addressed to a sovereign by one of her subjects, observing that 'He reproached her in round terms for permitting herself to be directed by a private ministry. Her conduct, he said, would draw ruin upon herself and the kingdom, and would force every man in the Council, except the Duke of Somerset, to run from it as he would from the plague. He put it to her what effect an entire change of Ministers was likely to have upon her allies abroad, and whether the war was likely to be carried on well by people who had been averse to it from the beginning.' Nevertheless, Godolphin loyally assured the Queen that, whatever course she determined to adopt, never would he in any way offer the least obstruction to her or to her Ministers. Need it be added that after passages such as these the star of Godolphin paled? To what avail was it that, in 1706, he had been made Earl of Godolphin and Viscount Rialton? His life was a burden to him, as we have already seen; he was sick of the popularity which Sacheverell's[166] violent diatribes against the Government had secured for him; and he was weary of the intrigues of the discontented Whigs, and the taunts and sneers of the ultra-Tories. His nerves were shattered from constantly walking among many pitfalls; his mind was distracted by the irksome dilemmas with which he had for so long a time been compelled to deal; and he could no longer brook the black, unforgiving looks of his royal mistress. Yet he might have truly exclaimed, as Sir Robert Walpole did of himself afterwards, 'My crime is my long continuance in office: in other words, the long exclusion of those who now combine against me.' Was it a greater relief to him or to her when, in August, 1710, the Queen dismissed Godolphin from his post, and desired him, according to one account, that 'instead of bringing the Staff of Office to her, he would _break_ it, as easier to them both.' Swift says that in doing so, the Earl flung the pieces into the fire, an act which greatly annoyed the Queen. And with Godolphin fell his son--then Cofferer to the Household--and his son's wife, the Lady Henrietta, one of the Ladies of the Queen's Bedchamber.