Lady Anne Churchill, next in age to Lady Rialton, and according to Horace Walpole, “the most beautiful of all Lady Churchill’s four charming daughters,”[317] excelled her sister Henrietta in sweetness of disposition, as well as in external advantages. Her amiable manners, and the possession of mental qualities beyond her age, particularly endeared this beautiful and affectionate daughter to her parents. She was the object of admiration, as well as of affection. Lady Anne received, before her marriage, the flattering tribute of complimentary verses from Lord Godolphin, who delighted to relieve the duties of the great master of finance by the fascinating attempts of the poetaster.[318] Lord Halifax, of whose poetry, we must agree with Dr. Johnson, that “a short time has withered the beauties,”[319] celebrated also the charms of Lady Anne, in verses somewhat better, though not above mediocrity. Yet it was not the fate of this admired young lady, at first, to inspire that ardent attachment in the husband selected for her by her parents, which her beauty and her goodness of disposition merited. Amongst the most intimate of Lord Marlborough’s friends, Robert Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, secretary of state and president of the council to James the Second, had proved himself, at the time of Marlborough’s disgrace at court, the most zealous of his advocates. Sunderland, who had encountered a variety of accusations for countenancing popery to please King James, and for betraying that monarch afterwards to William, was now in high favour with the reigning sovereign, over whom he exercised a remarkable ascendency. Although beloved neither by Whig nor Tory, his ministry was more efficient than any which succeeded it in the time of William. Of disputed integrity, but of acknowledged talents, Lord Sunderland was, however, constrained to bend beneath the violence of party. He withdrew about this time from public life, notwithstanding the earnest entreaties of the King that he would remain near him; and, fearing that in the attacks made upon him by the Tories he would not be supported by the Whigs, Sunderland fled from the censures for which he felt there was too real a foundation, in his conduct during the preceding reign.[320] Between the Countess of Sunderland and Lady Marlborough there existed a friendship of an enthusiastic, almost a romantic character. This affectionate intimacy was accounted for by mutual obligations and common misfortunes, shared by the two great statesmen, the husbands of these two ladies.