It is time to return my thanks for the paper I have received about the chaplain, and to assure you that now thirty-nine (Marlborough) is gone, there is nobody behind him in this kingdom more heartily concerned for the happiness of you and yours, &c. LORD CONINGSBY TO THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.[428] _Letters of Lord Coningsby to the Duchess of Marlborough, after the death of the Duke._ (Referred to in vol. ii.) Hampton Court in Hertfordshire, Oct. 14, 1720. I received with the greatest pleasure imaginable your grace’s commands, as I shall ever do to the last moment of my life, and obey them with a readiness as becomes one to do, who, with all his faults, has not those fashionable ones of fickleness and insincerity, which the dear Duchess of Marlborough has, to my knowledge, so often met with in this false world. I am sure your grace is overjoyed to hear the Duke is so well, and the more so because it is truth beyond contradiction, that as we owe our liberties to him, so he, under God, owes his life to the care and tenderness of the best of wives. My dearest girls order me to present their duty to your grace, and their services to Lady Dy and Lady Hun. There is not upon the face of the earth anybody that is more than I am, and ever will be, &c. LORD CONINGSBY TO THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.[429] Did I not know myself to be so entirely innocent as never to have had a single thought, that if you had known it would have given the least umbrage of offence to your grace, the usage I have lately met with would be to me insupportable; but since that is my case, I can, though with great uneasiness, bear it now, as I did once before, till the happy time will come when your grace will be convinced that I am incapable of being otherwise than your faithful servant; and that those who have persuaded you to believe the contrary are as great enemies to your grace, as I know they are to the true interest of their country. In the mean time, I beseech Heaven to let me learn by degrees to be without that agreeable conversation which I valued more than I can express. I can say no more, but conclude with assuring your grace, that, use me as you will, it is not in your power to make me otherwise than your grace’s, &c. Saturday, Six o’Clock. _Letters between Mr. Scrope and the Duchess of Marlborough._[430] MR. SCROPE TO THE DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH. April 20, 1744.