His parents were deeply, but differently affected by their calamity. The high spirit of the Duchess was subdued, and the best dispositions of her heart were touched, by this bereavement: but ambition soon regained its ascendency over her soul, and the chastening hand was forgotten in the busy interests of the day, the hour. Marlborough, on the contrary, though quickly summoned to a fresh campaign, carried about with him the yearning tenderness, the mournful, though no longer poignant regrets, which a sensitive mind retains for a beloved and lost object. After the first bitter pangs had been assuaged, he set off for the seat of war; but in the heart of enterprize, amid the busiest scenes in which he was engaged, the father recalled all that he had hoped and planned for his lost son. In a letter to Lord Godolphin, written from Cologne, he says: “I have this day seen a very great procession; and the thoughts how pleased poor Lord Churchill would have been with such a sight, have added very much to my uneasiness. Since it has pleased God to take him, I do wish from my soul I could think less of him.”[482] Alas! how many parents may utter the same natural but fruitless wish! The Duchess, unfortunately for those who feel an interest in probing the long since tranquillized emotions of her turbulent spirit, imposed upon the Duke a condition, with which, in the true spirit of honour, he complied, (though, as he states himself, with regret,) of burning the letters which she wrote to him. She seems, however, to have written in a kind and consolatory manner, and we may infer from the lively gratitude of her husband, that such was not always her custom. What a picture of real attachment is presented in the following passage of the Duke’s answer! “If you had not positively desired that I would always burn your letters, I should have been very glad to have kept your dear letter of the 9th, it was so very kind, and particularly so upon the subject of our living quietly together, till which happy time comes, I am sure I cannot be contented; and then I do flatter myself I should live with as much satisfaction as I am capable of. I wish I could recal twenty years past, I do assure you, for no other reason but that I might in probability have longer time, and be the better able to convince you how truly sensible I am at this time of your kindness, which is the only real comfort of my life; and whilst you are kind, besides the many blessings it brings me, I cannot but hope we shall yet have a son, which are my daily prayers.”[483] His earnest solicitude on the subject of her health seems to have been fully shared by the Duchess with respect to him. Marlborough, like many men whose minds are tasked to the utmost of their bodily strength to bear, suffered severely from the headache. How that over-wrought frame and intellect at last broke down, it is melancholy to reflect.