The Duchess of Marlborough was now at liberty to follow the bent of her own inclinations, and to fix her residence where she pleased. She gave up her apartments in St. James’s Palace, immediately after the surrender of her offices of state, but she retained that of Ranger of the great and little parks of Windsor, one of the grants from her sovereign that she valued most. The Lodge of the great park was, as the Duchess remarks, a very agreeable residence, and Anne had remembered, in the days of their friendship, that the Duchess, in riding by it, had often wished for such a place. The little Lodge, which was only a fit abode for the under-keepers, was given by the Duchess to one of her brothers-in-law, who laid out some five or six thousand pounds upon it; whilst her grace spent a scarcely less sum on the great lodge. The office, by virtue of which the Duchess claimed this residence, was afterwards the source of endless contentions, and of epistolary controversies, which, if they served no other purpose, exhibited the powers of mind which the Duchess possessed, in the clearest manner.[190] For some time after her retirement from court, the Duchess, however, lived at Holywell House, St. Albans: she maintained as much magnificence as any subject ever displayed, both when she resided in the country, and also when she made Marlborough House, in London, her abode.[191] That the Duke’s popularity was still considerable among the lower classes, was apparent from the reception which he met with upon his last return from Holland, on which occasion a crowd met and attended him from the city, and he had some difficulty in avoiding the acclamations which were uttered.[192] Yet it was at this time that he was greeted by that scurrilous pamphlet entitled, “Reasons why a certain general had not the thanks of either of the two Houses of Parliament, &c.” We may now presume, the storm being over, although its fury had not been weathered, that since their political career was for a time closed, the Duke and Duchess might return to private life, contented to pass together the remaining portion of their married life. The frequent separations, which war had rendered necessary, had been a perpetual source of regret to the good Duke, whose heart was framed for domestic life. In all his letters, he expresses that longing for home, that desire for an uninterrupted union with one whom he idolized, which hitherto had been precluded, both by the great general’s arduous duties, and by the necessary attendance at court, imposed on the Duchess by her offices, even during the short intervals when Marlborough was permitted to relax from his toils.