On the twenty-eighth of May, 1716, not two months after his beloved daughter Anne had been removed from him, the Duke was attacked by palsy, which for some time deprived him of speech and of recollection. He was attended on this occasion by Sir Samuel Garth, who not only managed his disease with skill, but attended him with the devoted zeal of a partial friend.[269] The Duke slowly recovered to a condition not to be termed health, unless a man on the edge of a precipice can be said to be in safety. As a public man he was, indeed, no more; but it is satisfactory to the admirers of this great man to recollect that his last military counsels had been as judicious and as effective as those which he had originated on former occasions. His latest act as commander-in-chief was to concert those measures for defeating the rebellion which proved so successful; his latest prognostic with respect to public affairs was, that that rebellion would be crushed at Preston.[270] From the first attack of the Duke’s disorder, to his release from a state of debility, though not, as it has been represented, of imbecility, a gloom hung over his existence. His bodily and mental sufferings are said to have been aggravated by the Duchess’s violent temper, and petulant attempts to regain power.[271] The assertion cannot surprise those who have observed, under various circumstances, characters which are not regulated by high and firm principles. The Duchess had kind and generous impulses, but no habit of self-government. The arbitrary spirit of an indulged wife had now become an unlimited love of sway; her affection for the Duke was not strong enough to teach her to quell for his sake the angry passions, or to check the bitterness of her satirical spirit, because the stings which she inflicted might wound the enfeebled partner of her youthful days. After some weeks of indisposition, Marlborough was enabled to remove to Bath, where he was recommended to try the waters. When he entered that city, he was received with honours which he was little able to encounter. A numerous body of nobility and gentry hailed his approach, and the mayor and aldermen came, with due formalities, to greet him. It appears that he must very soon have recovered some portion of his former activity, if the following anecdote, related by Dr. William King, a contemporary, and principal of St. Mary Hall, Oxon, be credited.