Charles, impoverished in circumstances, and governed at this time almost wholly by the Duchess of Portsmouth, who was under the influence of France, astonished both his subjects and the foreign courts, by the alliance which he selected for his niece, the Princess Mary, at this time in her fifteenth year. It was whilst Colonel Churchill and his future wife were in all the uncertainties of suspense, that the nuptials of William of Nassau with Mary were solemnised. This young Princess is said to have owed the decision which gave her a husband to whom she was entirely subservient, to a sudden prepossession of her royal uncle in favour of the Prince. The King is reported to have said to Sir William Temple these characteristic words:—“I never yet was deceived in judging a man’s honesty by his looks; and if I am not deceived in the Prince’s face, he is the honestest man in the world, and I will trust him, and he shall have his wife; and you shall go immediately and tell my brother so, and thus it is a thing resolved on.”[42] This mode of deciding an union highly agreeable to the English, although unwelcome to the Duke of York, was adopted and carried instantly into effect, in order to avoid the importunities of the Duchess of Portsmouth, who was entirely an instrument in the interests of France. Louis the Fourteenth, when informed of the marriage being declared in council, could not help marking his resentment towards the Duke of York, through the English ambassador, Lord Darnley,—who justified James by saying that “he did not know of the King’s decision until an hour before it was proclaimed, nor did the King himself above two hours previously.” Upon which Louis uttered these prophetic words: that “James had given his daughter to his greatest enemy.”[43] In the ensuing year, 1678, the marriage of Sarah Jennings and Colonel Churchill is presumed to have taken place.[44] Secret their union certainly was, for a letter addressed by Colonel Churchill to his wife, from Brussels, April 12, 1678, is directed to Miss Jennings; but the epistle was carefully preserved by his wife, who left, in her own handwriting, these words on the back: “I believe I was married when this was written, but it was not known to any but the Duchess” (of York.) In the same year he writes to her, addressed to Mrs. Churchill, at Mintern, his father’s seat, where probably the young bride had taken up her abode in the intervals of her attendance at court; or perhaps that attendance was discontinued, and not constantly resumed until a year or two afterwards. The ceremony took place in the presence of Mary Duchess of York, who bestowed presents of considerable value on the bride; and some months afterwards the marriage was avowed.[45]