Lord Oxford was sent to the Tower, the Duke of Berwick, who had owed him some obligation, sent to know whether he could do anything to serve him, and in the meantime sent him an original letter from the Duke of Marlborough to the Pretender for him to make any use of he thought proper. Lord Oxford asked his counsel, Serjeant Cummins, whether it could be of any; he said: 'A great deal; I would advise your Lordship to send your son, Lord Harley, with it to his Grace the Duke of Marlborough, but as I have known such things sometimes snatched and tore up, I would keep the original, and send only an exact copy.' Lord Harley waited accordingly on the Duke of Marlborough, saying that he waited on his Grace by his father's directions with it, and nothing more. The Duke read it attentively, and said: 'My Lord, this is not my hand.' Lord Harley said: 'My father has the original;' upon which civil bows passed without a word more, but the prosecution in a few weeks after was dropped.[1] In 1716, when the Duke of Marlborough was in a state of dotage, and the country was in a state of general panic under the apprehension of a sudden invasion, the Court sent to ask his advice. They found him with all the appearance of a driveller in an armed chair; all that they could get him to say was: 'Keep the army together; don't divide it.'
"The last four years of Queen Anne passed in divisions and faction fighting between Lord Oxford and Lord Bolingbroke. It was impossible that they should ever agree. They were both men devoted to ambition. One was all surface; the other all substance; Oxford a Whig; Bolingbroke a Tory; and different in ages, which encouraged Bolingbroke to attack Oxford, though I imagine much his inferior in point of courage. The fact was that Bolingbroke was both a political and personal coward. Mr. Pitt has told me that a relation of his, Mr. Cholmondeley, of Vale Royal in Cheshire, upon the death of Queen Anne, came from the country in his boots to Lord
- ↑ The above story is told in vol. lxii. of the Edinburgh Review in a notice of Mr. Cooke's Life of Bolingbroke; with the addition that the Duke made an ineffectual attempt to seize and destroy the letter.
