Dr. Burnet now, during the winter of 1710, undertook to speak to the Queen on her affairs, more freely than he had ever in his life done before. He told her the reports that prevailed, of her intention to favour the design of bringing the Pretender to the succession of the crown, on condition of her holding it during her life. He represented to her Majesty that her accordance in such a scheme would darken all the glory of her reign, and would arouse her people to a sense of their danger, and to the necessity of securing the Protestant succession; in which, the good Bishop assured her, he would plainly concur. He sought to work upon Anne’s timid temper, by declaring to her, that if such were her plans, he believed that her brother would not wait until the term of her natural life for his possession, but take some means to shorten it; and that he doubted not, when the Pretender was on the sea, there were “assassinates” here, who, upon the news of his landing, would try to despatch her. To these emphatic arguments the Queen listened patiently, and for the most part in silence, and, with her usual timid and crooked policy, gave the Bishop to understand that she thought as he did. Yet his remarks produced no effect upon her mind; and no other consolation was left to the Bishop than that of having honestly and forcibly delivered his sentiments.[170] The appointment of the Duke of Shrewsbury to the office of Lord Chamberlain, in room of the Marquis of Kent, who was made a peer, was the next event talked of, after the last stormy interview between the Queen and the Duchess. Godolphin, who was at Newmarket when the staff was given to Shrewsbury, remonstrated in vain with the Queen; and although the most positive assurances of fidelity to the Whigs were given by Shrewsbury, it was impossible for the ministry not to entertain considerable suspicions of his sincerity. The dismissal of the Earl of Sunderland from the post of secretary of state, in the month of June, was the first decisive blow struck against the power of the Marlborough family. It was aggravated by the refusal of the Queen to listen to the remonstrances of Marlborough, and the epistolary arguments of Godolphin.