Like all busy, violent women, especially if their ardent dispositions have a bias to politics, Lady Marlborough seems to have been peculiarly obnoxious to the other sex. There is not an historian who praises her without some reservation; and the majority of those who touch upon the notorious influence which she exercised, mingle admiration for her talents with marked dislike to her personal qualities. Yet, amid the conflicting interests by which even the placid Anne was harassed, Lady Marlborough proved a firm, zealous, and judicious friend, regardless of her own advancement in court favour, and of her husband’s military aggrandisement, for which a weaker mind would have trembled, ere it had boldly ventured upon interference in political intrigues. The first cause of discord between the Queen and the Princess of Denmark was upon a subject of domestic convenience. Upon such themes the spirit of Lady Churchill was peculiarly excitable. In order to understand precisely the nature and merits of a quarrel and a dispute which would have been summarily, and perhaps peaceably settled, had men, instead of women, been immediately concerned in adjusting it, it is necessary to explain the sort of residence which Anne, in common with other brandies of the royal family, was obliged at that time to adopt. It has already been stated that the Princess Anne resided at the Cockpit, Westminster, in apartments which were allowed to her at the time of her marriage, by her uncle, Charles the Second. Concerning these well-situated accommodations, a perpetual irritation, a continual negociating, intriguing, and consequent ill-will, seems to have been excited. Some description of the localities, and of the advantages which Anne derived from the appropriation of the Cockpit to her use—advantages which sorely vexed her royal sister—may not, therefore, be deemed impertinent. The ancient Palace of Whitehall, situated beyond Scotland Yard, and on the same side of the street, was obtained by Henry the Eighth, from Wolsey, in 1529, and, until consumed by fire in 1697, was the residence of several of our monarchs, who found their account in thus living in the centre of the metropolitan world, and at the same time in a healthy and airy situation. In very few years after Henry the Eighth had obtained possession of Whitehall, he procured, in addition to its immediate precincts, the inclosure of the St. James’s Park, which he received from the Abbot and Convent of Westminster in exchange for other property, and appropriated to the improvement of the noble structure of Whitehall Palace. One portion of the inclosure he converted into a park, another into a tennis-court, a third into a bowling-alley, and a fourth into a cockpit.