The bill was again, by a large majority, rejected, and the Queen and Prince George became, in consequence, extremely unpopular with the high church party, for the coolness with which they had abstained from using their influence on this second occasion.[39] But the triumph of the Whig party was now fast approaching. Marlborough, after passing the winter in military preparations proportioned to the public danger, had, as we have seen, embarked for Holland; “but few,” says Cunningham, “perceived that England was about to unite her forces to those of Germany.” The progress of the great general through the territories of Cologne to Colburg, where he left a camp; his march up the Rhine, on which he carried his sick and wearied in boats between the two armies, marching on either side of the “abounding river;” his encampment on a vast plain, beyond Andernach, and his rapid progress to the Danube, are events which demand almost a separate and distinct history, to relate them as they merit. It was in this campaign that the gallant Eugene passed high compliments on the spirit and deportment of the British army, and requested to serve under the illustrious Marlborough as a volunteer. It was here that the mutual partiality of these two brave men began, and that a friendship was contracted between them, which proved no less delightful to themselves than important to the interests of the war. The march of the allied troops to Schellenberg, and the encampment around its church, on a hill, commanding a plain, bounded by the Danube, followed this memorable meeting. The battle of Blenheim, which annihilated the ascendency of France, was the glorious climax of a series of less important, yet brilliant engagements. It destroyed, at the same time, the influence of that party in our own country, who had prophesied, not many weeks before the important victory, that all would end fatally for Holland and for England. Sir Edward Seymour, the leader of the opposition in the House of Commons, inveighed against Marlborough, before the decisive action, and whilst he lay before Schellenberg, in the bitterest terms, and even threatened the Duke with a severe censure of Parliament for marching his army to the Danube. Nor was the arrogant but able Seymour a solitary railer against the great deliverer of his country. There was a host of malcontents who accused Marlborough of exceeding his commission, and of consulting his private interests in the steps which he had taken; and a clamour was raised, that the British army was led away to slaughter, in order to serve the purposes of a single individual. The Duchess, in her narrative, refers to the battle of Blenheim in one short paragraph only, and that in reference to its effect upon the state of politics in England.