all about the town triumphant; sometimes to one lady, sometimes to another; and sometimes she would visit Lord Halifax, who, in compliance with the humour of the times, was wont to appease that lady’s spirit with concerts of music, and poems, and private suppers, and entertainments, for all of which he was well qualified by the natural ease and politeness of his manners.”[67] The causes of the Duchess’s aversion to Harley are fully disclosed in her “Vindication.” The minister who afterwards effected her downfal had been promoted by Marlborough and Godolphin, who often saw with different eyes to those with which the Duchess viewed the map which lay before her, and on which she traced her future course. Her penetrating glance detected the deep art, the well-digested designs which lay beneath the moderation and civility of Harley. But she had a more particular source of enmity towards Harley, which was that minister’s patronage of Sir Charles Hedges, into whose post it was her design, or rather determination, to introduce her son-in-law Sunderland. The Queen had a reluctance to part with Sir Charles Hedges, and was assisted by Harley in raising obstacles to the change in the cabinet which the Duchess desired. The predominating Whig party aided the Duchess, and, as she relates, “after the services they had done, and the assurances the Queen had given them, thought it reasonable to expect that one of the secretaries at least should be such a man as they could place a confidence in. They believed,” adds the Duchess, “they might trust my Lord Sunderland; and though they did not think him the properest man for the post, yet, being my Lord Marlborough’s son-in-law, they chose to recommend him to her Majesty, because, as they expressed themselves to me, they imagined it was _driving the nail that would go_.”[68]