That yearning for the fulfilment of his dearest hopes—hopes cruelly deferred—was, at length, gratified. Marlborough, the slave of his country, the instrument and the controller at once of states and allied armies,—Marlborough, at length, was free,—at length he was permitted, even constrained, to return to the ordeal of private life; for to all men who have played a conspicuous part on the great theatre of the busy world, a domestic sphere must prove an ordeal which few, so situated, sustain with credit. Since the first years of their early marriage, the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough had scarcely passed a year of uninterrupted conjugal enjoyment. The youth and beauty of the Duchess had been the ornament of the court, in the absence of her husband, and had been the source of his pride, augmenting his anxiety to return home to one who was pre-eminently formed to fascinate the imagination. They were now reunited; but the Duchess was no longer the youthful beauty whose very errors charmed, and whose slightest word of kindness enraptured the doating heart of her fond husband. She was a disappointed woman: morose, captious, and, though not penurious, yet to an excess fond of wealth. The cares of a numerous family had proved temptations, not incentives to virtue and exertion. Her children loved her not; and her later days were passed in family differences, which wring the tender heart, and bow down the feeble spirit; but which aroused all the ardour of a fiery and unrelenting temper, such as that which the once lovely Duchess, now “old Sarah,” displayed.[193] She was one of those persons whom misfortunes chasten not. It is related of her, that even during the Duke’s last illness, the Duchess, incensed against Dr. Mead, for some advice which she did not approve, _swore_ at him bitterly, and following him down stairs, wanted to pull off his periwig.[194] Dr. Hoadley, Bishop of Winchester, was present at this scene. The violence of her temper is incontestibly proved; her affection for the Duke has been doubted. But, however she may have tried the deep-felt, and, even to the last, ardent attachment of the incomparable Marlborough, there is every reason to conclude that she honoured, she even loved, the husband whom she often grieved in the waywardness of her high spirit. No man can retain a sincere, a strong attachment for a wife who loves him not. Conjugal affection, to endure, must be reciprocal. There must be a fund of confidence, that, in spite of temper, in defiance of seeming caprice, assures a real kindness beneath those briery properties. Marlborough knew that he was beloved.