adorn them
with the colouring of words would be vain and inexcusable. Therefore I
decline it, the rather because I should certainly offend that great
modesty which alone can and does add lustre to your actions, and which
in your Grace's example has successfully withstood as great trials, as
that virtue has met with in any instance whatsoever." The House of
Commons passed a similar resolution; and the better to testify the
national gratitude, an annuity of L5000 a-year, charged upon the
Post-Office, was settled upon the Duke and Duchess, and their
descendants male or female; and the dukedom, which stood limited to
heirs-male, was extended also to heirs-female, "in order," as it was
finely expressed, "that England might never be without a title which
might recall the remembrance of so much glory."

So much glory, however, produced its usual effect in engendering
jealousy in little minds. The Whigs had grown spiteful against that
illustrious pillar of their party; they were tired of hearing him
called the just. Both Godolphin and Marlborough became the objects of
excessive jealousy to their own party; and this, combined with the
rancour of the Tories, who could never forgive his desertion of his
early patron the Duke of York, had well-nigh proved fatal to him when
at the very zenith of his usefulness and popularity. Intrigue was rife
at St James's. Parties were strangely intermixed and disjointed. Some
of the moderate Tories were in power; many covetous Whigs were out of
it. Neither party stood on great public principle, a sure sign of
instability in the national councils, and ultimate neglect of the
national interests. Harley's intrigues had become serious; the prime
minister, Godolphin, had threatened to resign. In this alarming
juncture of domestic affairs, the presence of Marlborough produced its
usual pacifying and benign influence. In a long interview which he had
with the Queen on his first private audience, he settled all
differences; Godolphin was persuaded to withdraw his resignation; the
cabinet was re-constructed on a new and harmonious basis, Harley and
Bolingbroke being the only Tories of any note who remained in power;
and this new peril to the prosecution of the war, and the cause of
European independence, was removed.

Marlborough's services to England and the cause of European
independence in this campaign, recall one mournful feeling to the
British annalist. All that he had won for his country--all th