Marlborough (82 page)

CHAPTER 2
:

From Court to Coup

1
  Sarah and some of her contemporaries actually spelt her surname ‘Jenyns’, which is probably how they pronounced it.

2
  Churchill
Marlborough
I p.116.

3
  Ibid. p.118.

4
  Colonel John Churchill to Sarah Jennings, undated, BL Add Mss 61427 f.13.

5
  Colonel John Churchill to Sarah Jennings, undated, BL Add Mss 61427 f.33.

6
  Colonel John Churchill to Sarah Jennings, undated, BL Add Mss 61427 f.10.

7
  John Childs lists Churchill as the lieutenant colonel commanding his regiment. Monmouth was colonel in chief of his own regiment, and its commander was styled (in a direct read-across from French practice) the colonel lieutenant. The post that Churchill was being canvassed for was that of colonel lieutenant of Monmouth’s Royal English, in place of the rapacious Robert Scott, Churchill’s own regiment having apparently been amalgamated with Monmouth’s in May 1775. The job in fact went to Justin MacCarthy, later Lord Mountcashel, who had served with Churchill at the siege of Maastricht. Churchill does not seem to have served with the French army after the winter of 1674–75. He was in Paris, probably on a diplomatic mission, in August 1675, and in September the following year sat on the court-martial which tried Lieutenant Morris for assaulting the governor of Plymouth.

8
  Churchill
Marlborough
I p.126. Mary, as James II’s daughter, had opposed him in 1688 and accepted the throne jointly with her husband William. This fell some way short of honouring her father.

9
  Sarah Jennings to Colonel John Churchill, undated, BL Add Mss 61427 f.12.

10
  Sarah Jennings to Colonel John Churchill, undated, BL Add Mss 61427 f.21.

11
  Colonel John Churchill to Mrs Elizabeth Mowdie, undated, BL Add Mss 61427 f.25.

12
  
Sarah Jennings to Colonel John Churchill, undated, BL Add Mss 61427 f.38.

13
  Colonel John Churchill to Sarah Churchill 3 September 1678, BL Add Mss 61427 ff.75–6.

14
  Keith Feiling
A History of England
(London 1959) p.555.

15
  
Ailesbury
I p.20.

16
  Richard Talbot was eventually created Duke of Tyrconnell by the exiled James, but the promotion had no legal validity in the Irish peerage.

17
  Colonel John Churchill to Sarah Churchill January 1680, BL Add Mss 61427 f.105. This is the first reference I have encountered to Churchill’s headaches, discussed at length on pp. 308–9

18
  Letter 6 October 1744 in Churchill
Marlborough
I p.172.

19
  Laurence Hyde was second son of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, and brother of James’s late wife Anne Hyde.

20
  HMC Dartmouth XI Appendix V pp.67–8.

21
  Sir John Werden to Churchill 22 December 1681 in Churchill
Marlborough
I p.174.

22
  Brian Miller
James II: A Study in Kingship
(London 1978) p.240.

23
  
Ailesbury
I pp.96, 131.

24
  Miller
James II
p.241.

25
  Churchill
Marlborough
I p.191.

26
  Burnet
History
II p.324.

27
  
Ailesbury
I p.67.

28
  Churchill
Marlborough
I pp.176–7.

29
  Arthur Bryant
Samuel Pepys: The Years of Peril
(Cambridge 1935) p.378.

30
  Ibid. p.379.

31
  Barons in this context were county Members of Parliament, selected by the crown’s tenants in chief in their constituencies. Churchill’s title of baron, however, was the junior step in the peerage, ranking him with the nobles.

32
  John Churchill to Sarah Churchill 23 April 1703 in Henry L. Snyder (ed.)
The Marlborough – Godolphin Correspondence
(3 vols, Oxford 1975) I p.170.

33
  Sidney was the third son, and in 1667 the family baronetcy passed to his eldest brother. Sir Francis Godolphin’s second daughter married Edward Boscawen, and was the mother of the 1st Viscount Falmouth, and of two daughters, the younger of whom married Sir John Evelyn, grandson of the diarist.

34
  Evelyn
Diary
p.403.

35
  Snyder
Marlborough – Godolphin
I p.xxi.

36
  Ibid. p.xxiii.

37
  We are often told that the Whig leader Sir Robert Walpole (1676–1745) was the first prime minister, but the expression was occasionally used in Godolphin’s time and he was, while he held power, rather better than first among equals.

38
  See C.H. Firth
Cromwell’s Army
(London 1962) pp.124–8.

39
  
A Military Dictionary … by an Officer who served several years abroad
(London 1702) p.28.

40
  Churchill
Marlborough
I p.183.

41
  Edward Gregg
Queen Anne
(London 1980) p.27.

42
  Lever
Godolphin
p.42.

43
  Field
Favourite
p.35.

44
  Ibid. p.37.

45
  Ibid. p.34.

46
  
Sarah Duchess of Marlborough
An Account
p.6.

47
  Ibid. p.10.

48
  Ibid. p.14.

49
  Sarah Duchess of Marlborough (attrib.)
A Faithful Account of Many Things
, BL Add Mss.

50
  Sarah Duchess of Marlborough
Correspondence
II pp.121, 119.

51
  Evelyn
Diary
p.447.

52
  James Brydges to William Cadogan 29 October 1708, Cadogan Papers.

53
  Field
Favourite
p.42.

54
  Gregg
Queen Anne
p.36.

55
  Lord Churchill to Lady Churchill, undated but probably 1682–83, BL Add Mss 61427 f.114.

56
  
Ailesbury
I pp.88–90. Strictly speaking Ailesbury was Lord Bruce at this time.

57
  Evelyn
Diary
p.466.

58
  Burnet
History
III p.269.

59
  Sarah Duchess of Marlborough
An Account
p.14.

60
  Churchill
Marlborough
I p.205.

61
  ‘Mr Wade’s further information’ in Philip Yorke, Earl of Hardwicke
Miscellaneous State Papers from 1501 to 1726
(2 vols, London 1778) I pp.319–20.

62
  Tincey
Sedgemoor
p.57.

63
  HMC Northumberland III p.99.

64
  Tincey
Sedgemoor
p.26.

65
  National Archives WO 5/1 f.56 15 June 1685.

66
  HMC Northumberland III p.97.

67
  Churchill
Marlborough
I pp.211–12, and for the sillier assertion http:/en.wikipedia. org/wiki/John _Churchill … Atkinson (
Marlborough
p.77) cites as evidence of this resentment Churchill’s letter of 4 July 1688 to the Earl of Clarendon. This testifies to difficult relations with Feversham and suspicion of Oglethorpe, rather than to general dissatisfaction at his supersession.

68
  HMC Northumberland III p.98.

69
  Ibid. p.96. Theoretically Somerset should have used ‘your Grace’, not ‘your Lordship’, had he been writing to Albemarle, although at the time such strict form was very often ignored. But the preremptory tone – ‘I do desire’ – would have been strong language from one ducal lord lieutenant to another. Churchill was certainly in a position to march to Somerton, but only by moving north-east and losing contact with Monmouth’s main body in the process. This was a missive best confined to an inside pocket and forgotten.

70
  Tincey
Sedgemoor
p.63.

71
  Wolseley
Marlborough
I p.306. Winston S. Churchill (
Marlborough
I p.216) quotes the same letter very selectively.

72
  This messenger was illegitimate, and is sometimes called, from his mother’s surname, Benjamin Newton, or even Richard Godfrey: Tincey
Sedgemoor
p.88.

73
  Ibid. p.92.

74
  Armies of the period generally formed up with the most senior regiment on the right, the next most senior on the left and so on, so that the most junior finished up in the centre of the line. However, at Sedgemoor the infantry deployment seems to have been, from the right, Dumbarton’s, 1/1st Foot Guards, 2/1st Foot Guards, Coldstream Guards, Trelawney’s and Kirke’s.

75
  
White-Spunner
Horse Guards
p.90.

76
  Not all Grey’s horse was hopeless. Captain John Jones, sometime of the New Model Army, kept a sizeable handful together, found the northern plungeon and tried hard to cross it in the face of resistance from Compton’s men, now under Captain Sandys. Jones earned the respect of his adversaries, and shows what a trained and determined man might accomplish even amidst the wreckage of Monmouth’s fortunes.

77
  James II to William of Orange 13 July 1688 in Tincey
Sedgemoor
p.138.

78
  Stephen Saunders Webb
Lord Churchill’s Coup
(New York 1995) p.97.

79
  Buckingham
Works
(London 1775) II pp.117–24.

80
  Churchill
Marlborough
I p.223.

81
  Tincey
Sedgemoor
p.158.

82
  J.S. Clarke (ed.)
The Life of James II
(2 vols, London 1816) II p.278.

83
  Evelyn
Diary
p.492.

84
  Ibid. pp.499–500.

85
  Waller
1700
pp.266–7.

86
  Burnet
History
III p.88.

87
  Matthew Glozier
The Huguenot Soldiers of William of Orange and the Glorious Revolution of 1688
(Brighton 2002) pp.41, 55.

88
  Walter C.T. Utt and Bryan E. Straymer
The Bellicose Dove: Claude Broussan and Protestant Resistance to Louis XIV 1647–1698
(Brighton 2003) pp.28–9.

89
  
Memoirs of the Marshal Duke of Berwick, Written by Himself …
(2 vols, London 1774) I p.256.

90
  Harris
Revolution
p.236.

91
  John Childs
The Army, James II and the Glorious Revolution
(Manchester 1980) p.5.

92
  Ibid. p.49.

93
  Ibid. p.58.

94
  David Chandler (ed.)
Military Memoirs: Robert Parker and the Comte de Mérode-Westerloo
(London 1968) pp.5–6.

95
  
London Gazette
11–14 March 1688.

96
  Evelyn
Diary
p.500.

97
  Childs
The Army and the Glorious Revolution
pp.110–11.

98
  Webb
Lord Churchill’s Coup
pp.118–23.

99
  Burnet
History
III p.262.

100
  
Ailesbury
I pp.184–5.

101
  Webb
Lord Churchill’s Coup
pp.132–3.

102
  
The Lives of the Two Illustrious Generals
p.22.

103
  Sir John Dalrymple
Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland
(3 vols, London 1790) II pp.107–10.

104
  White-Spunner
Horse Guards
p.111.

105
  Evelyn
Diary
p.518.

106
  Ibid. p.521.

107
  
The Lives of the Two Illustrious Generals
pp.19–21, put into direct speech by Churchill in
Marlborough
I pp.242–3. This is hearsay evidence, but certainly reflects what Churchill later told James were the reasons for his betrayal in 1688.

108
  Lady Churchill to Mary of Orange 29 December 1687 (OS) in Atkinson
Marlborough
p.89.

109
  Childs
The Army and the Glorious Revolution
p.149.

110
  Princess Anne to Mary of Orange 29 April 1686 in Beatrice Curtis Brown
Letters and
Diplomatic Instructions of Queen Anne
(London 1968) p.16.

111
  Princess Anne to Mary of Orange 9 May 1687 ibid. p.31.

112
  Gregg
Queen Anne
p.51.

113
  Anne to Mary of Orange 9 July 1688 in Brown
Letters
p.39.

114
  Sarah Duchess of Marlborough
Conduct
p.18.