Lord Coningsby, when he offered his hand and fortunes to the Duchess, did not degrade her by the addresses of a man unknown to distinction. Not only their old friendship, and a correspondence bordering all along upon the line which separates friendship from love,[302] but a high reputation for courage and abilities, might authorise his lordship not, at least, to expect a contumacious rejection. Early in life he had signalised himself at the battles of Aughrim and the Boyne; and, upon the latter occasion, had the honour to be near his Majesty King William the Third, when slightly wounded in the shoulder, and the good fortune to be the first to apply a handkerchief to his Majesty’s hurt.[303] For his services on this occasion, Coningsby was elevated by William to the peerage of Ireland; and in 1715 the honour was extended by George the First, and he was created Earl of Coningsby, with his title in remainder to his eldest daughter Margaret. Lord Coningsby having thus graced an ancient name by well-merited distinction, acquired the confidence and good-will of his political friends by his consistency as an advocate for the Protestant succession, and by the solidity of his judgment upon all parliamentary affairs. It appears to have been the desire of Godolphin and Marlborough, frequently, to consult one who had taken an active share in the settlement of the great national question at the time of the Revolution. “Upon all parliamentary affairs,” says Godolphin, writing to Marlborough in 1708, “I value very much Lord Coningsby’s judgment and experience.” Lord Coningsby, at the time of Marlborough’s death, having been twice married, his eldest daughter by his second marriage[304] was created, in her father’s lifetime, Baroness and Viscountess Coningsby of Hampton Court, in the county of Hereford. Besides this favoured daughter, Lord Coningsby had four others, two of whom appear still to have been unmarried, and residing under his parental care, at the time of his lordship’s singular correspondence with the Duchess of Marlborough. Scarcely four months after the death of the Duke,[305] we find, by a letter preserved among the Coxe Papers in the British Museum, that the Earl of Coningsby had begun his invasion upon the Duchess’s new state of independence, and had commenced his siege like a skilful pioneer. He begins by expressing the most poignant apprehensions on account of her grace’s health. The letter is dated London, Oct. 8, 1722.[306] “When I had the honour to wait on your grace at Blenheim, it struck me to the heart to find you, the best, the worthiest, and the wisest of women, with regard to your health, and consequently your precious life, in the worst of ways.