“If you think the knowledge of this may be of any satisfaction to my Lady Marlborough, pray tell her what you hear; and (if you think it proper) as from yourself, I could wish you to say what you know to be true, that whether I am quite convinced or not of my having been so much in the wrong in my behaviour to her as she is pleased to think me, yet, while she does think me so, I can’t but set the greatest value upon her _generosity in urging my Lord Marlborough in my favour_. I must own to you, at the same time, that her notion, that I had not done what I did, but upon her declining at court, has been no small inducement to me to expose myself so frankly as I have done in my Lord Duke’s and her particular cause; for though I could have borne she should have thought me a _brute_, I could not endure she should think me a _rascal_.” At his decease, the Duke left, as has been stated, “ten thousand pounds a year” to the Duchess, according to Sir John Vanburgh, “to spoil Blenheim her own way; and twelve thousand pounds a year to keep herself clean and go to law.” Be that as it may, the Duchess had the credit and satisfaction of completing the palace, which was nothing like an habitation in Marlborough’s time, at the cost of half the sum which had been entrusted to her out of his estates for the purpose. The triumphal arch, and the column on which the statue of Marlborough stands, were erected at her own expense. The united sums paid by government, and by the Duke and his widow, are computed to amount to three hundred thousand pounds.[379] Of the enjoyment of law, the Duchess had indeed abundant opportunities. In 1721, she and the Duke’s executors were sued by Edward Strong, sen. and jun., for debts incurred on Blenheim, but were defended so successfully that they came off triumphant. It was on an occasion of this nature, either in this suit, or in the action brought against her by her grandson, that she sat in court during the trial, and was so much delighted with the address of Mr. Murray, afterwards Lord Mansfield, who was her counsel, that she presented him, immediately after the termination of the trial, with a fine sword, as a perpetual retainer in her favour.[380]