her feverish thirst for political and courtly intrigues return upon her despite the advance of old age, 308; her shrewd and sound advice to her husband, 308; survives her illustrious husband twenty-two years, 309; her reply to the "proud Duke" of Somerset on the offer of his hand, 309; the testimony of respect she owed to the memory of a husband who left so great a name, 309; the instructive lesson derivable from her extraordinary and signal disgrace, as emphatically given by herself, 309, 310; her death at eighty-four, 310; her singular fate in private life--"that scarcely did she possess a tie which was not severed or embittered by worldly or political considerations," 310. MARLBOROUGH, John Churchill, afterwards Duke of, son of a poor cavalier knight, he enters the army at sixteen, 208; love, not war, the first-stepping-stone to his high fortunes, 208; obtains a pair of colours in the Guards through the interest of his sister Arabella, 208; known to the French soldiery as "the handsome Englishman," 208; complimented by Turenne on his gallantry and serene intrepidity, 209; Turenne's wager, 209; solicits unsuccessfully the command of a regiment from Louis XIV., 209; declared by Lord Chesterfield "irresistible either by man or woman," 209; rises rapidly at Court, 209; his daring adventure with the Duchess of Cleveland, 210; presented by her with 5000_l._, with which he buys an annuity, 210; marries Sarah Jennings, 210; testifies the greatest affection for his wife, 210; climbs fast up the ladder of preferment, 211; coldly forsakes his benefactor James II., 211; created Earl and General by William III., 211; Duke and Commander of the British armies by Queen Anne, 211; his deceitful and selfish character, 211; if his soul was mean and sordid, his genius was vast and powerful, 212; his neglected education and consummate oratory, 212; the most powerful personage in England, 214; rules the household, parliament, ministry, and the army, 214; rules the councils of Austria, States-General of Holland, Prussia, and the Princes of the Empire, 214; as potent as Cromwell, and more of a king than William III., 214; writes a stern letter to his wife on her dissensions with the Queen, 229; detained in England by "the quarrel among the women about the Court," 231; Dean Swift's unjust insinuations, 234; his courage called in question, and he is represented as the lowest of mankind, 234; his cold reception on his return from Flanders, 242; his ruling passion--love of money--made him stoop to mean and paltry actions, 243; his motives for retaining command of the army under a Tory Ministry, 245; the mask of envy, hatred, and jealousy, 247;