e of York,
that soon after, though not yet thirty years of age, he obtained a
regiment. In 1680 he married the celebrated Sarah Jennings, the
favourite lady in attendance on the Princess Anne, second daughter of
the Duke of York, one of the most admired beauties of the court, and
this alliance increased his influence, already great, with that Prince,
and laid the foundation of the future grandeur of his fortunes. Shortly
after his marriage he accompanied the Duke of York to Scotland, in the
course of which they both were nearly shipwrecked on the coast of Fife.
On this occasion the Duke made the greatest efforts to preserve his
favourite's life, and succeeded in doing so, although the danger was
such that many of the Scottish nobles perished under his eye. On his
return to London in 1682, he was presented by his patron to the King,
who made him colonel of the third regiment of guards. When the Duke of
York ascended the throne in 1685, on the demise of his brother,
Churchill kept his place as one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber, and
was raised to the rank of brigadier-general. He was sent by his
sovereign to Paris to notify his accession to Louis XIV., and on his
return he was created a peer by the title of Baron Churchill of
Sandbridge in the county of Hertford--a title which he took from an
estate there which he had acquired in right of his wife. On the revolt
of the Duke of Monmouth, he had an opportunity of showing at once his
military ability, and, by a signal service, his gratitude to his
benefactor. Lord Feversham had the command of the royal forces, and
Churchill was his major-general. The general-in-chief, however, kept so
bad a look-out, that he was on the point of being surprised and cut to
pieces by the rebel forces, who, on this occasion at least, were
conducted with ability. The general and almost all his officers were in
their beds, and sound asleep, when Monmouth, at the head of all his
forces, silently debouched out of his camp, and suddenly fell on the
royal army. The rout would have been complete, and probably James II.
dethroned, had not Churchill, whose vigilant eye nothing escaped,
observed the movement, and hastily collected a handful of men, with whom
he made so vigorous a resistance as gave time for the remainder of the
army to form, and repel this well-conceived enterprise.

Churchill's mind was too sagacious, and his knowledge of the feelings of
the nation too extensive, not to be aware of t