“Upon the subject of Blenheim, which every friend I have knows I was always against building at such expense, and as long as I meddled with it at all, I took as much pains to lessen the charge every way, as if it had been to be paid for out of the fortune that was to provide for my own children; for I always thought it too great a sum even for the Queen to pay, and nothing made it tolerably easy to me but my knowing that as she never did a generous thing of herself, if that expense had not been recommended by the parliament, and paid out of the civil list, she would have done nothing with the money that was better. But I never liked any building so much for the show and vanity of it, as for its usefulness and convenience, and therefore I was always against the whole design of it, as too big and unwieldy; whether I considered the pleasure of living in it, or the good of my family that were to enjoy it hereafter; besides that the greatness of the work made it longer in finishing, and consequently would hinder Lord Marlborough from enjoying it when it was reasonable to lose no time; and I made Mr. Vanburgh my enemy by the constant disputes I had with him to prevent his extravagance, which I did effectually in many instances, notwithstanding all the follies and waste which, in spite of all that could be said, he has certainly committed.”[382] CHAPTER XVIII. Old age and decline of the Duchess—Her incessant wrangling with Sir Robert Walpole—Her occupations—The compilation of her Memoirs. It is now necessary to touch upon the closing scene of the Duchess’s long and eventful life. Let it not be supposed that it passed in a calm retirement from the turmoils of the world, or in the agitating though small sphere of domestic faction. She was a politician to the last; but the gales which had in early life driven her along, now blew from a different direction. She despised and reviled the Whig administration of Sir Robert Walpole, with as much inveteracy as she had formerly manifested towards Lord Rochester and Lord Oxford. She considered the mode of managing public affairs to be disgraceful to her country.[383] She professed to deem it a sacred duty to use every exertion to defeat the measures of the minister, Walpole; and perhaps that profligate minister had, in the three kingdoms, no enemy more potent, as far as the influence of property was concerned, and certainly not one more determined, than Sarah Duchess of Marlborough.