Marlborough, JOHN CHURCHILL, DUKE OF, the ablest general and diplomatist of his time, was born on the 24th June 1650, at Ashe, in Devonshire, an old manor-house, which can still be seen between Axminster and Seaton. His father, Sir Winston Churchill, had been an enthusiastic adherent of the Stuarts, and on the accession of Cromwell to power his estates had been consequently sequestered. At the Restoration, however, Winston recovered possession of his lands, but his poverty prevented him from giving his children an education befitting their position, so that young Churchill and his brother George had to face the world with little Latin and less Greek, and a knowledge of English history gathered from the plays of Shakespeare. During his engagement as a page to the Duke of York, John was fortunate enough to secure a commission as ensign in the Guards, and at the age of sixteen, in the year 1667, he was sent to Tangiers, then besieged by the Moors. It is said that he was sent to Tangiers on account of the king's jealousy of his favour with the Duchess of Cleveland; and the story is told that on one occasion, being nearly surprised by the king, he leapt out of a window and was presented by the duchess with £5000, £4500 of which he invested in an annuity of £500 a year. The papers with regard to the annuity transaction are still in existence. At Tangiers Churchill had little opportunity of distinguishing himself. Recalled to England by the Duke of York, he was promoted to a captaincy, and in command of a grenadier company he was despatched to join Turenne, to assist Louis XIV. in the reduction of the fortresses on the Dutch frontier. Here his brilliant courage and ability at once gained him a colonelcy, although his promotion would not have been so rapid had he not called into requisition the influence of his sister, Arabella, mistress of the Duke of York. His prosperity was further advanced by his marriage with Sarah Jennings, a lady as remarkable for her talents and imperious disposition as for her beauty. In 1682 he was created Baron Churchill of Eyemouth, in Scotland. On the accession of the Duke of York to the throne as James II., the services of Colonel Churchill to his master were not forgotten, as he was raised to the English peerage under the title of Baron Churchill of Sandridge, in Hertfordshire. Promoted to be general, Churchill took an active part in quelling the rebellion of Monmouth; but, on the landing of the Prince of Orange, he stole away to the side of the invader, leaving a letter in which he endeavoured to explain away his treachery by saying that only the inviolable dictates of his conscience and a necessary concern for his religion could have induced him to desert his master. James's daughter, the Princess Anne, accompanied by Lady Churchill, also fled to join the rebels in the north. William, on his accession, showed his gratitude for the assistance given him by Churchill by creating him Earl of Marlborough. Notwithstanding the conspicuous service rendered by Marlborough in reducing Ireland to subjection, and as commander of the troops employed against the French in the Netherlands, in 1689-91, William III. could not rid himself of a certain not altogether ungrounded suspicion of his new earl, till in 1692 he fell into disfavour, and was dismissed from all his offices. As the result of the discovery of a plot with which a clever forger named Young associated the name of Marlborough, the earl was arrested and lodged in the Tower. In ten days he was released, however, but for five years he was without any public employment, till the death of Mary, when he was restored to the favour of the king, and he retained it till the death of William in 1702.
At the accession of Queen Anne he was entrusted with the command of the British army in the Netherlands on the declaration of the war of the Spanish succession, in which he was to show his unrivalled strategical genius during one of the greatest series of military operations in which England has ever been engaged. Anne showered honours on the head of the fortunate earl and his wife, her closest friend. Marlborough was made a knight of the Garter, Commander-in-chief, and Master General of the Ordnance, while his lady was appointed Groom of the Stole, Mistress of the Robes, and Keeper of the Privy Purse. Marlborough, in fact, became regent in all but name. His wife governed the queen, and he himself directed Godolphin, the Lord High Treasurer, whose son had married his daughter. At the opening of the campaign, Marlborough, on his arrival at The Hague, was named commander-in-chief of the combined English and Dutch forces, with a salary of £10,000. The campaign was one long series of triumphs for the allies. In 1702, for driving the French out of Spanish Guelders, the reward was a dukedom and £5000 per annum 'from the post-office.' The year 1703 was made memorable to the duke by the death of his only surviving son, the Marquis of Blandford, who succumbed to an attack of smallpox. Marlborough had little time to grieve over his loss, as he was summoned at once to the campaign in the Low Countries, in which he was so much disgusted with the Dutch that he returned to England, seriously thinking of throwing up his command. Next year, however, we see him supporting the Emperor of Germany, and joining Prince Eugene of Savoy, in July of that year storming successfully the French and Bavarian lines at Donauwörth, and on the 13th August gaining a glorious but bloody victory over the enemy at Blenheim. Of 56,000 men, the French and Bavarians lost 40,000, and the victors' killed and wounded numbered fully 12,000. The result of this decisive battle stamped Marlborough as the first general in Europe. Parliament bestowed upon him the estate of Woodstock, the queen caused Blenheim Park (q.v.) to be built for him, and the emperor created him a prince of the Holy Roman Empire. Diplomatic negotiations occupied the principal part of Marlborough's time and attention in 1705, but in 1706 he resumed that career of victory which broke the force of the spell surrounding the great power of France under Louis XIV., who gloried in calling himself the 'Invincible.' On the 23d May 1706 the battle of Ramillies was fought, when the French were obliged to desert the line of the Scheldt and evacuate the whole of Spanish Flanders. The campaign of 1707 was an almost wholly inactive one; but in 1708 the attempt by the French under Vendôme to recover Flanders led to the battle of Oudenarde—the only battle of Marlborough's engaged in front of a fortified town—fought on July 11, and resulting in the total defeat of the French forces. Marlborough then laid siege to Lille and Ghent, and the surrender of these two towns ended the long and arduous campaign. The year 1709 was distinguished by the battle of Malplaquet—in Marlborough's words, 'a very murdering battle.' The numbers were practically equal, but the French had an infinite superiority of position. There are few battles in history of which it can so certainly be said that the best men won. The carnage was tremendous—20,000 on the side of the allies and 8000 on that of the French. The blood of Malplaquet—the last of the four engagements which gave Marlborough's name a unique position in the roll of generals—did not bring about peace; and in 1711 he was afeld again, taking town after town from the French. This eventually led to the treaty of Utrecht, which gave thirty years of peace to Europe.
Meanwhile important events were taking place in Britain. The queen, tired of the tyranny exercised by the Duchess of Marlborough, shook off the yoke, dismissed her ministers, Godolphin and Sunderland, paving the way for the elevation to power of the Earl of Oxford and the Tories. Thereupon a charge was preferred against Marlborough of having embezzled public money, and he was deprived of his offices, till the accession of George I., when, in a day, he was restored to the position in which he stood after the battle of Blenheim. A stroke of apoplexy on 28th May 1716, although it impaired his speech, did not preclude his attendance in parliament till within six months of his death, which occurred on 16th June 1722. His funeral obsequies in Westminster Abbey were celebrated with great magnificence, and all ranks and all parties in the state joined in doing him honour. Charges of avarice and peculation have been brought against Marlborough—among others, by Hallam, Mahon, Macaulay, and Thackeray. Despite this, and the certainty that he thought more of his own interest than the cause in which he was engaged, his character had many elements of excellence. He was generous in action, gentle in temper, a devoted husband, and a man of religious fervour.
His wife, SARAH JENNINGS, was born on 29th May 1660, and when about twelve years of age entered the service of the Duchess of York, and became the chosen and most intimate friend of her step-daughter the Princess Anne. Like Marlborough himself, Sarah came of an ancient but ruined royalist family. On the accession of Anne to the throne, the duchess exercised over the young queen the influence due to a superior and singularly active mind. Her power was almost boundless; the Whig ministry relied upon her support, and she disposed of places and offices at her pleasure, and is said to have accumulated money by the transactions. Her fair fame, however, apart from this, was never, even in those days of scurrilous lampoon, tarnished by the breath of scandal. Her rule, which lasted for a considerable time, at last became unbearable, and she was supplanted in the favour of the queen by her own cousin, Mrs Masham, whom she herself had introduced to court. She retired from the queen's service in January 1711; and for nearly a quarter of a century she survived her husband, living in complete retirement. She was of a very pugnacious disposition, only happy when quarrelling with her friends or engaged in lawsuits, such as those arising out of the completion of Blenheim. She died on 29th October 1744, leaving a fortune of three millions sterling, of which she bequeathed £10,000 to William Pitt. As the Marquis of Blandford, the only son of the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, died young, the title was inherited by the descendants of one of their daughters, the Countess of Sunderland.
See the Memoirs by Coxe (1819), the short Life by Saintsbury (1885), Leslie Stephen in Dict. Nat. Biog. (vol. x.), and the early life by Lord Wolseley (2 vols. 1894).