This point, of little importance had it not been obscured by malignity, is readily ascertained: but of the dispositions, principles, and attainments of the parents who nurtured one who played so conspicuous a part, we have no authentic record. It is a singular fact, that until a diligent inquiry was made, with a view to the compilation of these Memoirs, a degree of obscurity existed, even with regard to the birthplace of the Duchess. Archdeacon Coxe explicitly declares that she was born at Sandridge; but, on examining the parish registers of that place, no mention of that fact, nor indeed of the birth of any of the Jennings family, is to be found in them; nor are there in the church, as it now stands, any monuments inscribed with that name. Neither does there appear to have been any house on the estate at Sandridge, of nearly sufficient importance to have been the residence of the Jennings family.[7] It appears, however, from indisputable testimony, that Sarah Jennings was born on the twenty-ninth day of May,[8] in the year 1660, at Holywell, a suburb of St. Albans, and in a small house, very near the site of the spacious mansion afterwards erected there by her husband, John Duke of Marlborough. It is to be regretted that a reference to the registers of the Abbey of St. Albans will not assist in establishing this point: in the fire which broke out in that noble building in 1743, a portion of those valuable memorials was burnt. But tradition, corroborated by probability, has satisfied the minds of those most qualified to judge, that at Holywell, the future “viceroy,” as she was sarcastically denominated, first saw the light.[9] This celebrated woman was one of five children, all of whom, excepting Frances Duchess of Tyrconnel, she survived. Her brothers Ralph and John died young; and one of her sisters, Barbara, who married a gentleman of St. Albans, named Griffiths, died in London in 1678, in the twenty-seventh year of her age.[10] By the early demise of these relatives, the Duchess acquired that hereditary property which became afterwards her home. At a very early age, however, she must have left Holywell, to enter upon the duties of a courtier. She was preceded in the service of Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, by her eldest sister Frances, the celebrated _La Belle_ Jennings, who graced the halls in which the dissolute Charles and James held carousal, and who followed the destinies of the exiled James to a foreign land.