There was another young satellite of the Lord Treasurer’s, whom the old-fashioned Whigs dreaded and detested. This was Mr. James Craggs, an early favourite of the Duke of Marlborough, and now a rising star on the political hemisphere. But Harley stood on a more firm footing than any of the courtiers who dreaded, or who flattered, the still powerful Duchess of Marlborough. Her influence and her arrogance were now at their climax. It is said that, with one glance of her eye, she banished from the royal presence a Scottish gentleman, Mr. James Johnson, who came to Hampton Court to treat with the Queen on the affairs of his country.[63] And, indeed, Harley in vain endeavoured to ingratiate himself in her favour. He dreaded the violent temper and influence of that “busy woman,” as she was called; he knew that it had been exercised to the ruin of others, and that it might affect his prospects. Few persons understood the art of adapting his conversation to certain ends so well as the discerning, artful, and accomplished Harley; few persons better understood the value of appearances. Although educated in the Presbyterian faith, he carefully avoided an exclusive preference to sectarianism, as a barrier to political advancement; and, piqued at the indifference of the liberal party which he had originally espoused, he adhered to that which was most likely to insure lasting popularity—the high church party. Essentially a worldly man, Harley, nevertheless, failed not to have a clergyman at his dinner-table every Sunday, and, with characteristic temporising, selected his weekly clerical visitants alternately from the Episcopalian and Presbyterian faith,[64]—his family generally following the latter persuasion. It was Harley’s unsuccessful aim, at this time, to ingratiate himself with the Duchess of Marlborough, and to gain her over to his interests. Deeply versed in literature, and a patron of learning, it might have been supposed that the lettered, the polite, the liberal Harley, could have found means to gain the good-will of one who knew well how to estimate his talents, and to prize the deference which he paid to her ascendant star. The Duchess, however, was not to be blinded or misled by flattery, which she expected as her due, and which she did not think entitled to any degree of gratitude on her part. To all Harley’s civilities she could scarcely be prevailed upon to return a civil answer.[65] The “diverting stories of the town,” with which he afterwards solaced the Queen’s retirement, when Mrs. Masham had superseded the lofty Sarah,[66] were condemned to remain untold, whilst the Duchess frowned on all he said. “She had an aversion to him,” says a contemporary historian, “and with a haughty air despised all that gentleman’s civilities, though he had never discontinued his endeavours, by the most obliging efforts, and all the good offices in his power, to gain her friendship; but she, without any concern, rode