But Churchill’s good looks and gallant bearing stood him in better stead than this in that profligate court. He captivated the fancy of his distant cousin, Barbara Palmer, the most beautiful of the King’s mistresses, already created Duchess of Cleveland as the price of her dishonour. Buckingham afforded the King ocular proof of this attachment, and we are told that Churchill was sent into practical banishment, but to an ostensible command in Tangier, or into the Low Countries. The Duchess of Cleveland made her kinsman a present of 5000_l._, with which he promptly purchased an annuity of 500_l._, and so laid a foundation to his fortunes. England was for a time in close alliance with France, and it was then and there that the young officer--he held a commission in the Guards--learned scientific warfare under those past-masters in the art of war, Condé and Turenne. He remained for five years in Flanders, and during that time distinguished himself at numerous places, more especially at the siege of Maestricht, where ‘the handsome Englishman,’ as Turenne called him, was thanked for his services by Louis XIV. Returning to England, he was married privately to Sarah Jennings, whose family, like his own, had suffered great misfortunes in the cause of the Stuarts. She had been introduced to Court, and had obtained a position there as maid-of-honour to James’s second wife, the young and beautiful Mary of Modena, by the interest of her elder sister, the ‘_Belle Jennings_’ of Grammont, who had held a similar post during the lifetime of the first Duchess of York. She and her sister were the only virtuous women in all that court, and neither the cajoleries of the King nor his brother availed anything to induce them to join the ranks of the Nell Gwynnes, the Barbara Palmers, or the Louise de Querouaille, whose shame helped to swell the peerage. [Illustration: SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH. ]