“And this I was still the more confirmed in, because it had been known before that the Duchess of Somerset, who was there with her lord, was to act a cunning part between the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. The Whigs and Tories did not intend to come to the trial. “As, therefore, it was my business to keep all things as quiet as possible till the campaign was over, and preserve myself in the mean while, if I could, from any public affront, I resolved to do what I could to disappoint these ladies in their little design; and in order to this, I waited upon the Queen the next morning, before she went to the trial, and told her that I had observed, the day before, that the Duchess of Somerset had refused to sit at the trial, which I did not know the meaning of, since her Majesty was pleased to order it, and it was nothing more than what was agreeable to the constant practice of the court in all such cases; but however, if it would be in any respects more pleasing to her Majesty that we should stand for the future, I begged she would let me know her mind about it, because I should be very sorry to do anything that could give her the least dissatisfaction. To this she answered, with more peevishness than was natural to her, in these words: ‘_If I had not liked you should sit, why should I have ordered it?_’ “This plainly showed that the cabal had been blowing her up, but that she could not, however, contradict her own order. What she had now said was still a further confirmation of it, and made it more difficult for the cabal to proceed any farther in this matter, and therefore the next day the Duchess of Ormond and Lady Fretchwell came to the trial, and, to my great surprise, sat down amongst the rest of us. And thus this matter ended; only that the Duchess of Somerset used some little arts afterwards, which are not worth mentioning, to sweeten me again, and cover her design, which I suppose now she was ashamed of.”[156] Whilst proceedings were pending against Sacheverell, the Queen’s design, to disgust her ministers and to induce them to resign, became apparent. Notwithstanding the open warfare between “poor Masham” and the Duchess, Anne, upon a vacancy occurring, wrote to the Duke of Marlborough to obtain the colonelcy of a regiment for Mr. Hill, the brother of that Abigail who had undermined all the Duke’s greatness, and put to flight the small portion of the Duchess’s forbearance.