It is not necessary for our purpose to enter into those changes of ministry which first temporarily consolidated the Marlborough interest and afterward wrought its destruction, nor into the intrigues by which Harley and St. John gradually secured the reins of state. It is not to be supposed that these fluctuations were wholly owing to the influences brought to bear upon the queen; but that her prevailing disposition to uphold the party which to her represented the church kept the continuance of the war and the foreign policy of the country in constant danger, there can be no doubt. It is only in 1707, however, that we are made aware of the entry of a new actor upon the scene, in the person of a smooth and noiseless woman, always civil, always soft-spoken, apologetic, and plausible, whose sudden appearance in the vivid narrative of her great rival is in the highest degree dramatic and effective. This was the famous Abigail who has given her name, somewhat injuriously to her own position, to the class of waiting-women ever since. She was in reality bedchamber-woman to the queen--a post now very far removed from that of a waiting-maid, and even then by no means on a level, notwithstanding the duchess’s scornful phrases, with that of the class which ever since has been distinguished by Mrs. Hill’s remarkable name. Her introduction altogether, and the vigorous _mise en scène_ of this new episode in history, are fine examples of the graphic power of Duchess Sarah. Her suspicions, she informs us, were roused by the information that Abigail Hill, a relation of her own, and placed by herself in the royal household, had been married without her knowledge to Mr. Masham, who was one of the queen’s pages; but there are allusions before this in her letters to the queen to “flatterers,” which point at least to some suspected influence undermining her own. She tells us first in a few succinct pages who this was whose private marriage excited so much wonder and indignation in her mind. Abigail and all her family owed their establishment in life to the active exertions of the duchess, who had taken them in their poverty upon her shoulders--or rather had succeeded in passing them on to the broader shoulders of the public, which was still more satisfactory. Thus she had been the making of the whole band, henceforward through other members besides Abigail to prove thorns in her flesh. Harley, who was at this time secretary of state, and aiming at higher place, was related in the same degree on the father’s side to Mrs. Abigail; so that, first cousin to the great duchess on one hand and to the leader of the House of Commons on the other, though it suits the narrator’s purpose to humble her, Mrs. Hill was no child of the people. It is curious to remark here that Harley too came to his first advancement by Marlborough’s patronage.