Lady Sunderland had a more distinguished, and, as far as we may judge, a more arduous part in life to act, than either of her sisters. Unlike Lady Rialton, afterwards Lady Godolphin, and the Duchess of Manchester, she retained the affection of her imperious mother, even through political turmoils, in which the Duke of Sunderland often differed from the Duchess, and displeased the Duke of Marlborough. The Countess was one whom remarkable worldly advantages could not withdraw from a consciousness that this state, however blessed, is only a preparatory process by which the human heart is to be purified. She lived in the world uncorrupted; uninjured by admiration, which pursued her, from friend or foe; untainted by ambition, the besetting failing of her family; beautiful, but nobly aspiring to be somewhat more than the beauty paramount of the day; accomplished, yet humble; of a lively imagination, yet of unimpeached prudence, and of sound judgment. Station, fashion, and, yet more, the conscious influence of her fascinating qualities, were enjoyed by her in safety; for she had that within, a pure and devout heart, which kept her unspotted from the world. Lady Sunderland had been much at court, until, upon the Queen’s dismissal of her mother, she resigned her offices. Her social reputation was such, and her power in consequence so acknowledged, that Swift, who stood watching which way the gales of royal favour blew, was not ashamed to own his adulatory advances towards her, on one occasion when the Queen’s indecision left him in considerable doubt as to which party would prevail. “I was to-day at court,” writes the double and obsequious divine, in 1711, “and resolved to be very civil to the Whigs, but saw few there. When I was in the bedchamber talking to Lord Rochester, he went up to Lady Burlington, who asked him who I was, and Lady Sunderland and she whispered about me. I desired Lord Rochester to tell Lady Sunderland, I doubted she was not as much in love with me as I was with her, but he would not deliver my message.”[248] After the return of the Duke and Duchess to England, it was the arduous office of the Countess of Sunderland to interpose her mild influence between the hasty temper of her husband and the overbearing spirit of her mother. She was the only one of “Marlborough’s daughters” who could brook the maternal authority, exercised even over her grown-up children with unsparing rigour; and Marlborough regarded this dutiful and forbearing child with peculiar affection, on that very account. Yet it was evident, after her decease, that she both respected and loved her mother, since to her care she confided those whom she herself most loved.[249]