After the revolution, Marlborough had exerted his influence to assist Sunderland in exile and distress. When Marlborough fell into disgrace, Lord Sunderland had pleaded his cause, and adhered to him with a grateful constancy; advocating with the King the expediency of placing Marlborough in the office of preceptor to the young Duke of Gloucester. The warm attachment between the two Countesses sometimes aroused even the jealousy of the Princess Anne, who considered Lady Sunderland as her rival in the affection of the spoiled and flattered Lady Marlborough,[321] and envied the terms of equality which rendered the friendship of the two Countesses a source of mutual happiness. Not devoid of romance in her early years, though in her latter days she degenerated into coarseness of mind and vulgarity of manners, Anne felt, it seems, the insuperable barrier which her exalted rank had placed between her and the delights of a true, disinterested friendship. Charles Lord Spencer, the only son of the Earl and Countess of Sunderland, reported to have been famed alike for “his skill in negociations and his rapid equestrian movements,”[322] was the object to whom the ambition of his parents now pointed, as a probable bond of union between their family and the powerful houses of Marlborough and Godolphin. The lovely Lady Anne was god-daughter to the Countess of Sunderland. Her beauty, her accomplishments, and the favour which she already enjoyed with the Princess Anne, were all cogent reasons for promoting the match, in the eyes of the veteran courtier and statesman, Sunderland. The first proposals in the affair seem to have originated on his side. In one of the letters written on the subject he says:[323] “If I see him so settled, I shall desire nothing more in this world but to die in peace, if it please God. I must add this, that if he can be thus happy, he will be governed in everything, public and private, by Lord Marlborough. I have particularly talked to him of that, and he is sensible how advantageous it will be to him to do so. I need not, I am sure, desire that this may be a secret to every one but Lady Marlborough.”