The Duchess could not long endure this; and, upon the occasion of a thanksgiving for the victory of Oudenarde, and after the memorable siege of Brussels, her wrath broke forth. She still, in spite of her threats, held the office of groom of the stole, which brought her into frequent, unfortunate collision with the Queen. The efforts to please, which the haughty Duchess now condescended to make, were constantly counteracted by her rival. The following letter is truly characteristic. Pique, pride, effrontery, are curiously manifested in its expression.[144] “I cannot help sending your Majesty this letter, to show how exactly Lord Marlborough agrees with me in my opinion, that he has now no interest with you; though, when I said so in the church on Thursday,[145] you were pleased to say it was untrue: and yet I think that he will be surprised to hear that, when I had taken so much pains to put your jewels in a way that I thought you would like, Mrs. Masham could make you refuse to wear them, in so unkind a manner; because that was a power she had not thought fit to exercise before. I will make no reflection upon it; only that I must needs observe that your Majesty chose a very wrong day to mortify me, when you were just going to return thanks for a victory obtained by Lord Marlborough.” The Queen thought proper to answer this epistle in the following words. The contest had now arrived at its climax. “Sunday. “After the commands you gave me on the thanksgiving-day of not answering you, I should not have troubled you with these lines, but to return the Duke of Marlborough’s letter safe into your hands, and for the same reason do not say anything to that, nor to yours enclosed with it.” It was impossible for the Duchess, on receiving so extraordinary a letter, to remain silent; and, in truth, she was one of those whom rebuke could not abash, nor argument silence, nor invective intimidate. She again took up the pen, not, as she assured her Majesty, with any view of answering the Queen’s letter, but of explaining what she had said at church. This explanation, like most others, tended to make the matter considerably worse. “I desired you,” says the Duchess, continuing to address the Queen in the character of an equal, “I desired you not to answer me there, for fear of being overheard; and this you interpret as if I had desired you not to answer me at all, which was far from my intention. For the whole end of my writing to you so often, was to get your answer to several things in which we differed, that if I was in the wrong you might convince me of it, and I should very readily have owned my mistakes.”