“But it was all in vain; a transient smile might have been excited at such palpable absurdity; some partial good was perhaps effected; but fashion and faction were far too strong to be acted upon by wit, or argument, or eloquence, or satire. At a time when a low-bred, artful, ignorant bedchamber-woman, with no more sense than would have sufficed to smooth a crumpled ribbon or comb a lapdog, possessed supreme power, and Swift, Arbuthnot, Harley, and Bolingbroke were dancing attendance in her anteroom, it was in vain to preach to women the forbearance and reserve proper to their sex, to point out the confined sphere of their duties, or to remind them of the advice of Pericles to the Athenian women, ‘not to make themselves talked of one way or another.’ Mrs. Masham ruled the queen, but she was herself the contemptible tool of a set of designing men. In the end she and her tutor Harley triumphed; the Tories prevailed; the Whigs were all turned out; Marlborough was not only disgraced at court, but, by a sudden turn of feeling produced in the popular mind by the calumnies and contrivance of his enemies, he became an object of contempt and hatred; and he whose victories had been hailed with such national pride and exultation, found himself ‘baited with the rabble’s curse.’ This might have been contemned, for mere popular clamor dies away, and leaves no trace on the dispassionate page of history; but when Swift, the political gladiator of that time, collected all his terrible powers of invective and satire, and sarcasm, and fell upon the devoted general, branding, stabbing, and slashing at every stroke, he left the duke standing like a column scathed by the thunderbolt, and the lapse of a century has hardly enabled us to distinguish the truth from falsehood of his rancorous libels.” The brilliant victories of the Duke of Marlborough, in alliance with the German princes under Prince Eugene, had filled all Europe with wonder. In 1704, the victory of Blenheim was achieved, and notwithstanding Marshal Villars’ heroism at the battle of Malplaquet, in 1709, the victory was gained by Marlborough and Prince Eugene, though so great was the loss of the allies, that Villars wrote to Louis XIV.: “If God permits us to lose such another battle, your Majesty can count on your enemies being destroyed.” Marlborough had joined the Whigs because they were in favor of war; but now the Tories were gaining the ascendency in England; and with their coming into power peace was declared, and the Marlboroughs were deposed from their high places.