“Thus,” observes the Duchess, “ended this remarkable conversation, the last that I ever had with her Majesty. I shall make no comment on it. Yet,” she adds, with her inherent magnanimity, “the Queen always meant well, however much soever she may be blinded or misguided.” And she adds to this temperate observation a passage from a letter of her husband’s, the Duke, written about eight months before, in which she says, “There is something so pertinent to the present occasion, that I cannot forbear transcribing the passage.”[165] “It has always been my observation in disputes, especially in that of kindness and friendship, that all reproaches, though ever so just, serve to no end but making the breach wider. I cannot help being of opinion that, however insignificant we may be, there is a Power above that puts a period to our happiness or unhappiness. If anybody had told me eight years ago, that after such great success, and after you had been a faithful servant for twenty-seven years, that even in the Queen’s lifetime we should be obliged to seek happiness in a retired life, I could not have believed that possible.” CHAPTER IX. Final separation between the Queen and the Duchess—Some anecdotes of Dr. and Mrs. Burnet—Dr. Burnet remonstrates with the Queen—The Queen’s obstinacy—Dismissal of Lord Godolphin—Letter from the Duchess to the Queen—1710. The Queen and the Duchess never met again. But, in the midst of enemies, there were not wanting friends, faithful to the Duchess, and true to the Queen and constitution, who ventured to remonstrate with her Majesty upon the hazardous change in her counsels which her whole demeanour augured. Amongst those who privately and earnestly pointed out the impending dangers and difficulties, was the Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. Burnet, who has done ample justice to the “economy and fidelity of the Duchess to the Queen, and justice to those who dealt with the crown,” which the Duchess of Marlborough manifested in her brilliant, but arduous career.[166]