Nonconformists would have given them the
command of the boroughs; and this test at first received Marlborough's
support. But it was rejected by the Lords as often as it was sent up to
them, and it was soon guessed that the resistance of the Lords was
secretly backed by both Marlborough and Godolphin. Tory as he was, in
fact, Marlborough had no mind for an unchecked Tory rule, or for a
measure which would be fatal to the war by again reviving religious
strife. But it was in vain that he strove to propitiate his party by
inducing the Queen to set aside the tenths and first-fruits hitherto
paid by the clergy to the Crown as a fund for the augmentation of small
benefices, a fund which still bears the name of Queen Anne's Bounty. The
Commons showed their resentment against Marlborough by refusing to add a
grant of money to the grant of a dukedom after his first campaign; and
the higher Tories, with Lord Nottingham at their head, began to throw
every obstacle they could in the way of the continuance of the war.

[Sidenote: The Coalition Ministry.]

Nottingham and his followers at last quitted office in 1704, and
Marlborough replaced them by Tories of a more moderate stamp who were
still in favour of the war; by Robert Harley, who became Secretary of
State, and by Henry St. John, a young man of splendid talents, who was
named Secretary at War. Small as the change seemed, its significance was
clear to both parties; and the Duke's march into Germany gave his
enemies an opportunity of embittering the political strife. The original
aim of the Tories had been to limit English efforts to what seemed
purely English objects, the defence of the Netherlands and of English
commerce; and the bulk of them shrank even now from any further
entanglement in the struggle. But the Duke's march seemed at once to
pledge England to a strife in the very heart of the Continent, and above
all to a strife on behalf of the House of Austria, whose designs upon
Spain were regarded with almost as much suspicion as those of Lewis. It
was an act indeed of even greater political than military daring. The
High Tories and Jacobites threatened if Marlborough failed to bring his
head to the block; and only the victory of Blenheim saved him from
political ruin. Slowly and against his will the Duke drifted from his
own party to the party which really backed his policy. He availed
himself of the national triumph over Blenheim to dissolve Parliament;
and when the el