which he and his family acquired, through his sister becoming one of the mistresses of the Duke of York. It is repulsive to know that Marlborough laid the foundation of his wealth by being the paid lover of one of the fair and frail favourites of Charles II.[1] His treachery, and his ingratitude to his patron and benefactor, James II., stand out in dark relief even in that age of thankless perfidy. He was almost equally disloyal to his new master, King William: and a more un-English act cannot be recorded than Godolphin's and Marlborough's betrayal to the French court in 1694 of the expedition then designed against Brest, a piece of treachery which caused some hundreds of English soldiers and sailors to be helplessly slaughtered on the beach in Cameret Bay.
It is, however, only in his military career that we have now to consider him; and there are very few generals, of either ancient or modern times, whose campaigns will bear a comparison with those of Marlborough, either for the masterly skill with which they were planned, or for the bold yet prudent energy with which each plan was carried into
- ↑ Marlborough might plead the example of Sylla in this. Compare the anecdote in Plutarch about Sylla when young and Nicopolis, κοινἣς μὲν, εὺπόρον δὲ γυναικὸς, and the anecdote about Marlborough and the Duchess of Cleveland, told by Lord Chesterfield, and cited in Macaulay's "History," vol. i. p. 461.
