Yet the Countess’s ascendency over her Majesty, great as it was, proved not sufficiently strong to overcome those obstinate, though it must be acknowledged, honest prejudices by which the Queen was governed. Queen Anne had, as the Duchess observes, “been taught to look upon all Whigs, not only as republicans who hated the very shadow of legal authority, but as implacable enemies to the Church of England.” Prince George carried this dislike of the popular party even to a greater length; and, having received many indignities from a Whig ministry in the former reign, he threw into the scale against them all his resentments. Even Lord Marlborough and Lord Godolphin, though open to conviction, and having (so says the Duchess) “the real interest of the nation at heart,” were, from education and early associations, partially Tories, and of “the persuasion that the high church party were the best friends to the constitution, both of Church and State; nor were they perfectly undeceived,” remarks the gifted instrument of the conversion of these great men, “but by experience.”[373] The Countess of Marlborough had, therefore, almost invincible obstacles to encounter, before she could hope to compass that which she avowedly had at heart, the establishment of the Whig party in the royal councils. But to so determined a spirit as hers, impediments based upon the wills and opinions of those whom she was wont to govern, only heightened her ardour in the cause which she espoused. From natural disposition, an enemy to all false pretensions, and to everything that resembled hypocrisy or cant, the clamorous zeal for religion boasted by the Tories was peculiarly disgusting to her frank temper. She detected, through the outcry raised against the Whigs, the workings of self-interest, not the fervour of attachment to the sacred Liturgy, and to the purified ordinances which had been so lately rescued from impending destruction. The plea set forth for “safety of the church” she regarded merely as a plausible means of working upon weak minds, and blinding others to the selfish motives of personal ambition. For many years a secure looker-on, almost in a private station, Lady Marlborough had probably seen sufficient of the leaders of both parties to be fully aware that men of all political opinions are actuated by mixed motives, and that whilst we witness many transactions which are of “good report,” we must not seek for “whatsoever is honest, whatsoever is pure,” from the principal actors in a political faction. It was Lady Marlborough’s lot chiefly to observe the higher orders of society, whose immediate interests were affected by the success of those opinions which they maintained, and she could not, from experience, be aware that it is the middling classes who really and earnestly cherish certain notions, in the importance of which to the public good they firmly believe. Public opinion is composed of