_Character of Queen Anne written by the Duchess, and inscribed on the statue at Blenheim._[412] Queen Anne had a person very graceful and majestic; she was religious without affectation, and always meant well. Though she believed that King James had followed such counsells as endangered the religion and laws of her country, it was a great affliction to her to be forced to act against him even for security. Her journey to Nottingham was never concerted, but occasioned by the sudden great apprehensions she was under when the King returned from Salisbury. That she was free from ambition, appeared from her easiness in letting King William be placed before her in the succession; which she thought more for her honour than to dispute who should wear first that crown that was taken from her father. That she was free from pride, appeared from her never insisting upon any one circumstance of grandeur more than when her family was established by King Charles the Second; though after the Revolution she was presumptive heir to the crown, and after the death of her sister was in the place of a Prince of Wales. Upon her accession to the throne the Civil List was not encreased, although that revenue, from accidents, and from avoiding too rigorous exactions, (as the Lord Treasurer Godolphin often said,) did not, one year with another, produce more than five hundred thousand pounds. Yet she paid many pensions granted in former reigns, which have since been thrown upon the publick. When a war was found necessary to secure Europe from the power of France, she contributed, for the ease of the people, in one year, out of her own revenue, a hundred thousand pounds. She gave likewise the first fruits to augment the provisions of the poorer clergy. For her own privy purse she allowed but twenty thousand pounds a year, (till a very few years before she died, when it was encreased to six and twenty thousand pounds,) which is much to her honour, because that is subject to no account. She was as frugal in another office, (which was likewise her private concern,) that of the robes, for in nine years she spent only thirty-two thousand and fifty pounds, including the coronation expense, as appears by the records in the Exchequer, where the accounts were passed. She had never any expense of ostentation or vanity; but never refused charity when there was the least reason for it. She always paid the greatest respect imaginable to King William and Queen Mary. She was extremely well bred, and treated her chief ladies and servants as if they had been her equals. To all who approached her, her behaviour, decent and dignified, shewed condescension without art or manners, and maintained subordination without servility. SARAH MARLBOROUGH. 1738. _Papers relating to Blenheim._ _Description of the Buildings and Gardens at Woodstock._ LORD GODOLPHIN TO THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH.[413]