To the
almost universal exemption of Englishwomen from taking an overt part in
political affairs a striking exception must be made in Sarah, Duchess of
Marlborough. She is the strongest example, perhaps, in the history of
the world--certainly in the history of this empire--of the abuse of
female favouritism, and the most flagrant instance of household
familiarity on the destinies of mankind. Sarah Jennings, the political
heroine of her age, and Viceroy, as she was called, in England, had,
however, for contemporaries two other remarkable women, who touched the
springs of political machinery quite as powerfully as--if not more
powerfully than, save herself, any to be found within the limits of
Europe--Madame de Maintenon and the Princess des Ursins. In the
respective careers of that other formidable trio of female politicians
may be traced the important, the overwhelming, influence, which female
Ministers, under the title of Court ladies, had obtained over the
destinies of England, France, and Spain. At that momentous period--the
commencement of the eighteenth century--the memoirs of a _bed-chamber
lady_ constitute the history of Europe. The bed-chamber woman soon
became the pivot of the political world. The influence of Mrs. Masham
first endangered and finally overthrew the power of the great Duke of
Marlborough. Some of the characteristics of the reign of Charles the
Second reappeared partially and in a very unattractive form under the
two first Georges, and have served to impart a tinge of French colour to
the memoirs which describe their Courts. But, fortunately for England,
neither Walpole nor his royal master were men of refined taste. It would
have been hard for a monarch like Charles the Second, or a minister like
Lord Bolingbroke, to resist the charms of those beautiful and sprightly
girls who sparkle like diamonds in all the memoirs of that time. Their
political influence was but small. George the First and his successor
pursued their unwieldy loves and enjoyed their boorish romps in a style
not seductive to English gentlemen. Politics were surrendered to
Walpole; and the consequence was that, although there was plenty of
immorality under those gracious Sovereigns, yet the feminine element of
Court life had no longer that connection with _public policy_ which once
for a brief space it had possessed; and the resemblance to French
manners in this respect grew less and less, till it disappeared
altogether with the