This celebrated and extraordinary epistle, penned with the freedom of an equal, was intended by the Duchess, as she declared, to express to the Queen freely those truths which no one else appeared to speak to her Majesty. It contained the strongest remonstrances, not only on the injustice done to the Duke of Marlborough by the new system of policy pursued, but on the injury which public affairs would receive, from the loss of credit and of confidence in the government. With respect to the proposed dissolution of parliament, the Duchess says—“When once the parliament is dissolved, and the credit of the nation lost, it will be in nobody’s power to serve you, but the French will come upon you unawares. I heard a comparison of our credit, as it now stands, which I was pleased with. It was said to be like a green flourishing tree full of blossoms, which, upon the least change of ministry, would be nipped and blasted, as fruit is by a north-east wind. And I was told of a very unlikely man to understand the matter of parties, that is, Sir Godfrey Kneller, who, upon the news of Lord Sunderland’s being out, was going to sell all he had in the stocks, but a friend advised him to wait till it was done. If such a man as this thinks of doing so, it is easy to imagine that the alarm will work very far. And I cannot for my soul conceive what your Majesty would do all this for.”[175] These exhortations were of no avail; and perhaps added fresh inducements to the strong determination of the exasperated Queen; they certainly served to put the new favourites on their guard. But the Duchess wrote no letters to her Majesty without submitting them to the perusal of Godolphin,—the Duke of Marlborough being unfortunately abroad at this critical period. The Duchess, in the meantime, resided chiefly at Windsor; the works were, nevertheless, still going on actively at Blenheim; and the Duke, in his letters of this period, earnestly entreats her to hasten the completion of the great court leading to the offices, and of the north side of the house, that he and the Duchess might have one side of the house “quiet;” “for, one way or other,” adds the wearied and broken-spirited Marlborough, “I hope to be there next summer.”[176] Early in June, however, the Duchess, it appears, was prevailed upon to come to London, not entirely with the Duke’s approbation, for he was fearful that her coming to town, and not waiting upon the Queen, might have an awkward appearance. He commended her letter to the Queen, yet, in a subsequent despatch, begged her to write no more, since the behaviour of her Majesty did not warrant nor encourage other addresses.