These disreputable contentions continued for many years after this. “The governing men in the Lower House,” says Burnet, “were headstrong and factious, and designed to force themselves into preferment by the noise they made, and by the ill-humour which they endeavoured to spread among the clergy, who were generally soured by their proceedings.” It is impossible to say what part Samuel Wesley took in these convocation debates; and, in the absence of information, the reader is left to guess. We conclude the present chapter with a brief review of the state of things during the reign of King William’s successor, Queen Anne. This will clear the way for further details respecting Mr Wesley. Anne was proclaimed Queen of England in March 1702. She was in the thirty-eighth year of her age, but was as much under the tutelage of Lord and Lady Marlborough as if she had been a girl of fifteen, or of still tenderer years. Three days after her accession, Marlborough was decorated with the order of the garter, and very soon obtained the entire command of the English army. His countess was made groom of the stole and mistress of the robes, and was intrusted with the management of the privy purse. His two daughters were nominated ladies of the bedchamber; and the father-in-law of one of these ladies, the Earl of Sunderland, obtained the renewal of a pension of £2000, which had been granted him by King William. Marlborough’s influence, in the court of England was omnipotent.[155] ----- Footnote 155: Macaulay writes:—“Queen Anne had no will, no judgment, no conscience, but those of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. To them she had sacrificed affections, prejudices, habits, interests. In obedience to them, she had joined in the conspiracy against her father. She had fled from Whitehall in the depth of winter, through ice and mire, to a hackney coach. She had taken refuge in the rebel camp. She had consented to yield her place in the order of succession to the Prince of Orange. While a large party was disposed to make her an idol, the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough regarded her merely as their puppet, and no person, who had a natural interest in Anne, could observe, without uneasiness, the strange infatuation which made her the slave of an imperious and reckless termagant.” -----