The Duchess, during the latter years of her life, changed her residence frequently. Sometimes she remained at Marlborough-house, but exchanged that central situation for the quiet of Windsor-lodge or of Wimbledon. Yet at Windsor-lodge she was tantalised with a view of gardens and parks which she could not enjoy; and Wimbledon, she discovered, after having laid out a vast sum of money on it, was damp, clayey, and, consequently, unhealthy.[402] Wrapped up in flannels, and carried about like a child, or wheeled up and down her rooms in a chair, the wealthy Duchess must, nevertheless, have experienced how little there was, in her vast possessions, that could atone for the infirmities of human nature. A very few months before her death she requested an extension of the lease of Marlborough-house, the term of which had been extended in the reign of George the First. This residence had been built at the entire expense of the Duke of Marlborough, who had likewise paid Sir Richard Beelings two thousand pounds for what the Duchess calls a pretended claim which he had upon the land; so that she considered that she had as just a claim “to an extension as any tenant of the crown could have;” yet she deemed it prudent to make the application to government whilst Mr. Pelham was at the head of the Treasury, “he being the only person in that station who would oblige her, or to whom she would be obliged;” adding to this remark, that Mr. Pelham “had been very civil to her, and was the only person in employment who had been so for many years.” The letter in which this petition was contained was written in June 1744, and the Duchess died in October. Such was the clearness of her faculties, and so strongly were her desires still fixed upon all the privileges which she thought she merited. Had she been blessed with an exalting and practical faith, such a faith as elevates the heart, and chastens those angry passions and wilful discontents which embitter the dark valley of old age far more even than bodily suffering, the Duchess, looking around her upon those whom she had the power to bless, might have been happy. But, without by any means imputing to her that scepticism with which it was the fashion of the day to charge her, it must be allowed that there is no reason to suppose that the Duchess’s path in life was illumined by those rays which guide the humble and practical Christian through the changes and chances of the world. Her views were all bounded to the scene before her: a spoiled child, the victim of prosperity, as well as its favourite, she received the bounties of Providence as if they had been her due, whilst she aggravated its dispensations of pain by a murmuring spirit.[403]