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The eleventh chapter traces the downfall of the partnership between Marlborough and Godolphin. The public trial of the High Church demagogue Dr Henry Sacheverell reinforces the perception of a dangerous alliance between an ambitious general and an anti-monarchical party. Marlborough opens the campaign vigorously, but both his operations and the peace negotiations at Gertruydenberg come to nothing. Under Harley’s guidance the queen begins to rid herself of the Whigs. With the public credit in decline Marlborough and Godolphin accept that they can’t make peace or war as they are. They and the Whigs effectively abandon one other, though Marlborough and Godolphin reaffirm their partnership. When Harley finally induces the reluctant queen to dismiss Godolphin, he urges Marlborough to stay on to give the new ministry a chance to establish itself and achieve peace. Marlborough is obliged to procure his wife’s resignation, although he is able to keep her from being publicly disgraced.

The final chapter shows how the partnership continues until Godolphin’s death. When Godolphin realizes that Harley (now Earl of Oxford) has begun a secret peace treaty separately from the Allies, he leads the opposition. Marlborough at first hopes that he will be able to remain neutral, but at Godolphin’s persuasion he joins in publicly, is dismissed, vilified in a press campaign led by Swift, and threatened with prosecution and even assassination. When Godolphin dies in 1712 Marlborough goes abroad. His ostensible aim, a coup by the Allies to overturn Oxford’s ministry, forestall the peace of Utrecht, and secure the Hanoverian succession, fails. But the queen becomes disillusioned with Oxford and Bolingbroke, regrets parting with Godolphin, and encourages Marlborough to return, although she dies before he can land in England. Marlborough is reinstated by George I, and Robert Walpole inherits Godolphin’s role, with Marlborough’s great fortune an asset for government borrowing.

The second chapter traces the friendship of Godolphin and Marlborough through the reign of William and Mary. Godolphin gains experience in working with Parliament to finance a major European war, but Marlborough and William are soon at loggerheads. Mary’s premature death in 1694, leaving Anne heir to the throne, and the marriage of Godolphin’s only son to Marlborough’s eldest daughter under Anne’s auspices in 1698 cements their friendship and commitment to Anne. But the deaths at the end of the century of Anne’s only son, Carlos II of Spain, King James, and finally William, make another European war inevitable over the rival claims of the Bourbons and the Habsburgs to the Spanish empire, with the British succession dependent on the outcome. Marlborough succeeds to William’s leadership of the Grand Alliance, but Godolphin resigns over William’s dying conviction that only the Whigs, not the Tories will support the war.

The seventh chapter describes the annus mirabilis of the Marlborough-Godolphin partnership. With Italy and Spain the priorities, Marlborough is given discretionary instructions to march to save Turin. Instead he uses these to induce the Dutch to let him give battle in Flanders. His second great victory at Ramillies wins the Spanish Netherlands back from France and Marlborough is offered the governorship. With success in Spain and Italy, complete success seems in sight. But the Habsburgs lose their opportunity in Spain, the Dutch deny Marlborough the governorship, and the Whigs demand cabinet office for Marlborough’s son-in-law Sunderland, whom the queen dislikes. Godolphin says that if Marlborough will not return and support him he must resign. Believing that they need only one more year to achieve their objectives, Marlborough agrees, but also helps to rebalance the parties. The Whigs are discontented again and Harley now has the queen’s ear.

The eighth chapter describes the lowest point of the Marlborough-Godolphin partnership. The Allied army in Spain is defeated at Almanza, Sarah is supplanted at court by her poor relation (and Harley’s cousin) Abigail Masham, and the Whigs turn against the government because the queen refuses to consult them over senior Church appointments (‘the bishoprics crisis’). Marlborough says he would be better able to serve in a military capacity only, while Harley tells the queen that the partnership has become a dangerous concentration of power: the Treasury should be put into commission and the war be brought to an end on realistic terms. Marlborough’s loyalty to Godolphin seems to waver. Then the discovery that one of Harley’s clerks, William Gregg, is a spy forces a premature confrontation. Marlborough obliges the queen to part with Harley and goes over to try to ‘get Spain by France’.

The third chapter traces the beginning of the partnership through the first year of Queen Anne’s reign, as Marlborough persuades Godolphin to return to office as Lord Treasurer and his ministerial partner, with the declared aim of ‘moderation’, that is, holding the balance between the Tories and Whigs on the basis of their support of the war. The role of Queen Anne’s husband Prince George is examined and Marlborough’s and Godolphin’s separate roles are explored, along with the significance of their extensive correspondence. Marlborough is unexpectedly successful in his first campaign, but his determination to obtain a grant from Parliament to support his dukedom jeopardizes Godolphin’s project for war-supply, and their rival Rochester contests control of the Treasury and therefore the war. Marlborough forces Rochester’s resignation and the partnership is confirmed when Marlborough’s only son dies shortly before he leaves for the Continent and he adopts Godolphin’s son as his heir.

The fifth chapter shows the Marlborough-Godolphin partnership in full operation, as Godolphin aims to defeat the economy of France while Marlborough conquers the French army in the field. Nottingham resigns and is replaced as Secretary of State by Harley. Financed by Godolphin’s remittances, Marlborough marches his army into Germany and wins a decisive victory against the French at Blenheim. But he then makes a tour of German courts, leaving Godolphin to face Parliament alone in England. Godolphin sets a standard of ministerial responsibility by defending his advice to the queen to pass the Scots Act of Security. As the High Tories threaten to bring him down by tacking the Occasional Conformity bill to the Land Tax, the Whigs offer to support the war and Union. Godolphin’s association with one of the Whig leaders, Charles Montagu, Lord Halifax, and the marriage of Marlborough’s daughter into the Montagu family furthers the alliance.

The ninth chapter describes how the Marlborough-Godolphin partnership continues with an agreed division of labour and again comes in sight of complete success. Marlborough wins a third major victory at Oudenarde and besieges Lille, a huge undertaking in which Godolphin’s support is crucial. Godolphin achieves one of the milestones of his administration by uniting factions within the East India Company so that it can join the Bank of England in providing government finance. Marlborough goes on to make a winter campaign and afterwards keeps vice-regal court at Brussels. The queen admits Somers and Wharton to the cabinet, while Godolphin maintains his authority by means of the new Scots members. France sues for peace and Marlborough plans to retire with his wife and Godolphin in England. But to secure himself he asks the queen to make him Captain-General for life, confirming for her that he is a threat to her sovereignty.

The sixth chapter traces the beginning of the Whig alliance. The Whigs are now prepared to offer constructive help in return for a share of government. This includes furthering the Union with Scotland (the Scots pass the necessary legislation with the Duke of Argyll as commissioner), support in Parliament and the City for the Grand Alliance, the Hanoverian succession, and the war, despite Marlborough’s disappointing campaign in Germany and Flanders. With the Tories now hostile, Godolphin accepts their help, believing he can control them, and Sarah supports him, though the queen and Harley are unconvinced and Marlborough keeps his distance, again spending much of the winter at the German courts. When he brings the Duke of Shrewsbury back with him to help Godolphin, the Whigs will not accept him and Godolphin has to continue the ministry alone.

The tenth chapter describes how peace slips from the Allies’ grasp. Louis XIV refuses to join in driving his grandson out of Spain; Marlborough refuses to mediate between the Dutch and the Habsburgs; and the Whig financiers reject a separate peace with France with a campaign to get Spain afterwards. Another battle at Malplaquet fails to solve the impasse. Marlborough withdraws from his diplomatic and ministerial roles. Godolphin, having completed his bargain with the Whigs by getting Orford into the Admiralty, feels himself master of them, but Marlborough contests control of the army with the queen (the Essex regiment crisis) and tries unsuccessfully to use the Whig majority in Parliament to drive Abigail Masham from court. The queen, advised by Harley behind the scenes, is now convinced Marlborough is a threat to her and has turned completely against his wife, though Godolphin retains her confidence.

The fourth chapter shows the Marlborough-Godolphin partnership challenged by Nottingham for control of grand strategy. The expansion of the war into Portugal, Spain, the Mediterranean, and the Americas makes Godolphin anxious about over-extension of resources. He also has to bring about the union of England with a violently nationalist Scotland to fulfil the queen’s desire and safeguard the Protestant succession. Marlborough is prevented by the Dutch from following up his success in the Low Countries and the Holy Roman Empire comes under threat from France. But Godolphin’s rigorous management of the Treasury gains the confidence of the City, thus lowering the interest rates for public credit, enabling him to pay subsidies to the Allies, exercise control over strategy, and fund Marlborough’s secret plan to save Vienna. With the aid of Robert Harley, Marlborough and Godolphin use the parliamentary contest over Occasional Conformity to divide the Tory opposition.

This chapter surveys revisionist appropriations of Paradise Lost developed by Whig poets and theorists in the wake of the Battle of Blenheim (1704). Resisting the scholarly tendency to draw a great gulf between Milton and his immediate poetic successors, it argues that later writers continued to feel, as Milton felt, longing for an angel’s body. Such yearning became a feature of post-Miltonic blank verse. After first examining the Blenheim effect—Whig poets’ tendency to ascribe angelic strength to their military hero the Duke of Marlborough—the chapter considers spiritual verse that offers angelic potential to all devout souls. Here the preoccupation is less with angel warfare than with the ecstatic possibilities of angel sex. Unifying these two movements is Isaac Watts, whose hitherto underappreciated place in the history of blank verse this chapter emphasizes.

This introduces the Marlborough-Godolphin partnership as not just a political alliance, but a close friendship founded on ideals of platonic love and heroic virtue. It reviews the various discourses of friendship, noting the cultural influences (the essayists Montaigne, Sir William Temple, Saint-Évremond, as well as heroic drama and opera) which carried the ideal forward, but with the growing sense that it must prove itself in actual human transactions. It suggests that studying the Marlborough-Godolphin friendship as it proved itself in war abroad and party conflict at home is revealing of two historical figures whom historians have often found enigmatic, though in the end their commitment to it contributed to their short-term failure as well as their longer-term success. The distinction between friendship and royal favour is also touched on.