Titans of History

MARLBOROUGH

1650–1722

If I were young and handsome as I was, instead of old and faded as I am, and you could lay the empire of the world at my feet, you should never share the heart and hand that once belonged to John, Duke of Marlborough.

Sarah, duchess of Marlborough, quoted in W.S. Churchill, Marlborough: His Life and Times (1938)

John Churchill, 1st duke of Marlborough, was Britain’s most brilliant soldier-statesman. He won a string of glorious victories against the French and their allies in the War of the Spanish Succession that prevented Louis XIV and his Catholic absolutism from dominating Europe in the opening years of the 18th century.

From early in his life, Churchill was a protégé of James, the Catholic duke of York, who later became the ill-starred James II. Churchill traveled with James when his brother, Charles II, sent the unpopular duke into exile in the 1670s. At this time James used Churchill as his skilled lobbyist at the royal court. Handsome, charming and clever, young Churchill was seduced by Charles II’s voracious mistress Barbara, duchess of Castlemaine, and once had to leap from her window when the king arrived. He was already showing himself to be a particularly talented soldier; he fought under the legendary musketeer d’Artagnan in 1673 and performed with the utmost bravery, earning himself personal praise from his future enemy, the French king, Louis XIV.

In 1677 Churchill married Sarah Jennings, a strong-willed woman who proved politically astute. As his military career progressed, the couple spent long periods apart, but the marriage was nevertheless an enormously successful one. From 1683 Sarah was the best friend of, and favorite adviser to, Princess Anne—later Queen Anne, a connection vital to Marlborough’s future favor and fortune.

Although he had been a close confidant of James II, Marlborough was at heart a Protestant. When his patron James II ascended the throne in 1685, Churchill was promoted in the army and raised to the peerage. But James proved a disastrous king, alienating the Protestant nobility, who rose against him to back the Dutch prince William and his wife Mary, Protestant daughter of the king himself. The defection of Churchill, now earl of Marlborough, played its part in James’ downfall. Churchill had no difficulty in shifting his allegiance to William of Orange, who became joint monarch with his wife Mary II after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He played an important role in the campaign against James’s forces in Ireland in 1690, and though he was suspected for much of the 1690s of being a closet Jacobite (a supporter of James II), William trusted him enough to appoint him commander-in-chief of British forces in the Low Countries in 1701.

It was under Queen Anne, who came to the throne in 1702, that Marlborough’s career really took off. He was elevated to a dukedom and appointed captain general of the armed forces, taking command of the first campaign of the War of the Spanish Succession. From the very beginning, Marlborough was able to out-think, out-march and outmaneuver the French. During his first campaigning season he succeeded in pushing the French into a highly disadvantageous position. But it was the campaign of 1704 that saw Britain’s greatest success.

Thanks to the complex European dynastic politics of the early 18th century, in 1704 Marlborough found himself commanding a multinational coalition, a combined army of British, Dutch, Hanoverian, Hessian, Danish and Prussian soldiers, which he coordinated with his Austrian ally, Prince Eugene of Savoy, and the difficult, thin-skinned leaders of the Dutch Republic. Near the village of Blindheim (anglicized as Blenheim) on the River Danube in Bavaria, he came up against a force of French and Bavarian troops under the French commander Marshal Tallard. Tallard had more men and a stronger natural position on the battlefield, but he was no match for Marlborough. Throughout the battle of Blenheim, fought on August 13, 1704, Marlborough completely outmaneuvered the Franco-Bavarian army, personally intervening at crucial points of the battle and ensuring that his enemies were never allowed to exploit any small advantage. More than 20,000 of Tallard’s men were killed or wounded, and Tallard himself was captured.

It was a resounding victory for Marlborough. After the battle was over, he scrawled a note to his wife on a tavern bill: “I have not time to say more, but to beg you will give my duty to the Queen and let her know her army has had a glorious victory.” From that moment, Marlborough’s fame spread throughout Europe. In England, as a reward for his success, Marlborough was granted funds to build the magnificent Blenheim Palace, near Woodstock in Oxfordshire.

At home, Marlborough was also the political partner of the chief minister Earl Godolphin, making him a unique force in politics, in war and at court.

Other famous victories followed: Ramillies in 1706, Oudenarde in 1708 and Malplaquet in 1709. These were notably bloody affairs, but Marlborough’s reputation soared. Throughout all of the campaigns between 1702 and 1710, Marlborough showed himself to be a shrewd tactician and a daring and confident commander, able to unify the forces of the disparate states of the Grand Alliance against the aggressively expansionist Louis XIV.

After 1710, royal intrigues and domestic politics started to undermine Marlborough. He and his wife lost favor at court when Sarah Marlborough haughtily argued with her former best friend, Queen Anne. Sarah Marlborough became a vicious and embittered enemy of the queen, whom she accused of lesbianism and whose reputation she ruined. The satirist Jonathan Swift aimed repeated barbs at the duke, accusing him of corruption. But, with the foresight of natural courtiers, the Marlboroughs simply aligned themselves with the elector of Hanover, who in 1714 became King George I and reappointed the duke as captain general.

However, by now Marlborough’s powers were fading. He suffered two strokes in 1716 and was thereafter largely confined to Blenheim. In 1722 a final stroke killed him, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey. A century later the duke of Wellington declared, “I can conceive of nothing greater than Marlborough at the head of an English army,” and since then military historians have largely agreed that Marlborough was the finest general England has ever produced.

Over three hundred years later, the Churchill family again produced an outstanding statesman who dominated his age: Winston Churchill.