The most ungracious act of Anne’s reign was her dismissal of the disinterested, the faithful, loyal, and hard-working Godolphin. His disagreement with the Duke of Somerset, called, in derision, by his party, “the sovereign,” tended doubtless to split the forces which the Whigs could ill spare. Somerset was a proud, interested, and equivocal politician, whose personal views made him vacillate from side to side.[173] From the correspondence between Mr. Maynwaring and the Duchess of Marlborough at this time, it is evident that the Whigs depended much on the Duke of Somerset’s movements to decide the balance of power, notwithstanding the opinion entertained by the Duke of Marlborough “that he was an ill-judging man.” It is also obvious that the utmost persuasions were adopted, both by Maynwaring and by Mr. Craggs, to induce the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough not prematurely, nor unnecessarily, to throw up their employments; and there were even many persons who recommended the Duchess to “live easy with Mrs. Masham,” and who resented the Duchess’s indignant refusals to truckle, as the Duke termed it, to her arch-enemy. At last the final blow against the ministry was struck, by the dismissal of Lord Godolphin. The probability of this event had been asserted ever since the removal of Lord Sunderland, but had been positively denied by Anne,—who, through her former secretary, Mr. Boyle, had sent assurances to foreign courts that no more changes would be made in her ministry. “And yet,” relates the Duchess,[174] “in less than two months after this, and even the very day after the Queen had expressed her desire to my Lord Godolphin himself that he would continue in her service, she dismissed him; and her letter of order to him to break his staff was sent by no worthier a messenger than a man in livery, to be left with his lordship’s porter,—a proceeding which in all its parts would remain very unaccountable, if the Queen had not, to those who expostulated with her, made this undoubtedly true declaration, that she was sorry for it, but could not help it. Unhappy necessity!” The Duchess could not view these changes without making one more struggle. It was probably at the united desire of the party that she wrote a long, an able, and a characteristic letter to the Queen, of which the precise date (for, like many ladies, she did not always date her letters) is unknown. It was written, however, before the dismissal of Lord Sunderland, whilst yet the ministry remained entire, and whilst the “collection,” (as the Duchess termed those statesmen who were talked of to succeed her friends) were in expectation only of the places and honours which they attained.