Then the palace doors opened for that “good,” and certainly weak, Queen Anne, whose name is so intimately associated with what is called “the Augustan age” of English letters, and whose personal characteristics have already been subjects of mention. She was hardly recovered from her grief at the death of her prince-boy, and was supported at her advent upon royalty by that conspicuous friend of her girl years and constant associate, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. It would be hard to reach any proper understanding of social and court influences in Anne’s time, without bringing into view the sharp qualities of this First Lady of her Chamber. Very few historians have a good word to say for her. She was the wife of that illustrious general, John of Marlborough, whom we all associate with his important victories of Blenheim and of Ramillies; and in whose honor was erected the great memorial column in the Park of Woodstock, where every American traveller should go to see remnants of an old royal forest, and to see also the brilliant palace of Blenheim, with its splendid trophies, all given by the nation--at the warm urgence of Queen Anne--in honor of the conquering general. You know the character of Marlborough--elegant, selfish, politic, treacherous betimes, brave, greedy, sagacious, and avaricious to the last degree. He made a great figure in William’s time, and still greater in Anne’s reign; his Duchess, too, figured conspicuously in her court. She was as enterprising as the Duke, and as money-loving--having smiles and frowns and tears at command, by which she wheedled or swayed whom she would. She did not believe in charities that went beyond the house of Marlborough; in fact, this ancestress of the Churchills was reckoned by most as a harpy and an elegant vampire. Never a Queen was so beleaguered with such a friend; she was keeper of the privy purse, and Anne found it hard (as current stories ran) to get money from her for her private charities; hard, indeed, to dispose of her cast-off silken robes as she desired. Why, you ask, did she not blaze up into a flame of anger and of resolve, and bid the Duchess, once for all, begone? Why are some women born weak and patient of the chains that bind them? And why are others born with a cold, imperious disdain and power that tells on weaklings, and makes the space all round them glitter with their sovereignty? When this Sarah of Marlborough was first in waiting upon the Princess Anne, neither Duke nor Duchess (without titles then) could count enough moneys between them to keep a private carriage for their service; and before the Duke died their joint revenues amounted to £94,000 per annum.