a display of generalship so extraordinary, the deliverance of the Dutch frontier from insult was of itself an object of the first importance, while the command of the Meuse, by facilitating the transport of supplies, gave to them all the superiority which the enemy had lost.

Marlborough kept his army together a few days, till he had perfectly ascertained that the French were withdrawn beyond the Mehaigne; he then ordered them into cantonments, partly at Liege, partly in the towns and villages near, and partiy at Maestricht. From the latter of these places, on the 3d of November, he himself set out on his return to England; and conceiving that the passage by water would be both more expeditious and less fatiguing than a land journey, he gladly availed himself of it. With this view he embarked, together with the field deputies, on board of an open boat, and began, under a slender escort of twenty-five men, to descend the river. Next day, however, Cohorn joined him, in a larger barge guarded by sixty soldiers, while fifty cavalry, scouring the banks, appeared to obviate all risk of molestation from any enemy. But the little squadron had not sailed many hours in company when the vessels composing it were again separated, and the dragoons, either through negligence or misapprehension, missed their way in the dark. The town of Guelders was at this time occupied by a French garrison, from which bands of marauders were in the frequent habit of scouring the country. It chanced that these plunders being abroad that night, perceived, though themselves unseen, the boat which conveyed Marlborough; and seizing the tow line, after they had secured the guides, drew it quietly to shore. A volley of musketry, with a shower of grenades, awoke the sleeping guards; one or two were killed, and a few wounded, and the remainder being panic-struck, offered no resistance, while the plunderers leaped on board, and made prisoners of all whom they found. It was now that the fidelity of an attendant, and his own unconquerable presence of mind, saved the hero of twenty fields from becoming the prize of a handful of stragglers. This man, by name Stephen Gell, happening to have in his pocket an old passport, granted many months previously to general Churchill, put it quietly into the hands of Marlborough, and the latter, with the utmost promptitude, showed it as his own. The night was dark; French, more intent upon plunder than prisoners, took no pains to examine the document, but, after robbing its supposed subject of his money, permitted him to pass, and the deputies being likewise provided with protections, the boat was allowed to proceed. But the rumour that Marlborough had fallen into the enemy's hands reached the Hague before him; and hence his appearance there was greeted by all classes with an enthusiasm of delight such as the phlegmatic Dutch are not every day accustomed to exhibit.

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Having rested at the Hague the space of two days only, Marlborough took shipping for England, where his reception, both by the queen and the people, proved in the highest degree gratifying to his feelings. From the former he received the honour of a dukedom, with an offer-which he chose for the present to decline-of a pension to the amount of 5000 pounds a year, out of the revenues of the post office; by the latter he was every where greeted with the most rapturous and extravagant applause. Both houses of parliament voted him their thanks; they accompanied him in solemn procession to St. Paul's; and they marked their approbation of his conduct by acceding, after a warm debate, to his demand of additional means, both in men and money, for the prosecution of the next campaign.

While he was thus reaping the reward of his eminent public services, and, amid the approbation of his countrymen, paving the way for still greater successes, an event befell which plunged the duke of Marlborough into the deepest distress, and of which the recollection served in a great measure to cast a shade over all his future fortunes. Of the six children who had been borne to him, one son, a promising youth of seventeen years of age, with four daughters*, survived: the former, who bore the title of marquess of Blandford, was seized with the small-pox, and, in spite of every care on the part of his physicians, died. It was a severe blow both upon the duke and the duchess; so severe, indeed, as seriously to affect their happiness nor could the advantageous matches contracted by the sisters of the young nobleman in any degree compensate for his loss. The truth indeed is, that Marlborough, like other great men, was ambitious of perpetuating his name and honours in the male line. The death of the amiable and accomplished heir of his title naturally interfered with this wish, and brought with it more than the common pang of a bereaved parent: for though he clung long and fondly to the hope that another son might yet be born to him, it was mixed up throughout, as it might well be, with apprehensions of the contrary. Nor were these fears groundless. With himself the family name became extinct; nor was it revived till the noble house of Spencer chose voluntarily to adopt it as an appendage to their own.

While England was thus mustering her strength for a renewal of the contest, events befell elsewhere, all of them tending, in a greater or less degree, to determine the probability of success. Among the favourable occurrences may be enumerated the adhesion of Portugal to the league, and her proposal, in case the allies would support her

* Of the marriages of the two eldest of these an account has been given elsewhere. The third, lady Elizabeth, was united, in her seventeenth year, to Scroope Egerton, earl of Bridgewater; and the youngest of all, Lady Mary, gave her hand to viscount Monthermer, the eldest son of Ralph, earl, and afterwards duke, of Montagu.

with troops and money, to march 28,000 men across the Spanish border. In like manner the revolt of the protestants in the Cevennes, whom the intolerance of the French government had goaded into rebellion, promised materially to affect the issues of the approaching campaign. Yet, important as these advantages might be, they were fully overbalanced by the turn which affairs had assumed in other quarters. In the first place, the elector of Bavaria, after amusing the confederates with professions, took possession of Ulm by surprise; and finding himself in communication with the armies on the Upper Rhine, declared openly in favour of France. To assist his endeavours, marshal Villars, on the 14th of October, had advanced as far as Friedlingen, where he defeated the margrave of Baden in a great battle, and opened out the passes to the Black Forest. Almost at the same moment Tallard, sweeping the Rhine and the Moselle, reduced the strongholds of Treves and Traerbach; till the Germans, instead of profiting by their successes at Landau, were pressed back into an exposed position be. hind the lines of Stolhoffen. In Italy, too, the campaign of 1702 was far from terminating advantageously to the cause of the league. Prince Eugene not only failed in an attempt to carry Cremona, but was foiled in his still more important design of establishing himself beyond the Po; and eventually compelled, after losing Luzzara and Guastalla, to confine himself to the narrow and exhausted tract of country between the Po and the Secchia. With the solitary exception of the operations in Flanders, therefore, no movements on the part of the allies had been attended with success; and the preparations which the Bourbons made during the season of repose, threatened to rob them, in the approaching campaign, even of the acquisitions which the skill of their great leader had secured.

On the 17th of March, 1703, Marlborough reached the Hague, at a moment when the movements of the enemy's columns announced the developement of a design pregnant with gigantic issues. On one hand, marshal Villeroi, drawing his detachments to a point, threatened the forts on the Meuse, and menaced the Dutch frontiers. In another quarter, marshal Villars, who, during the winter months had beaten up the quarters of the imperialists, and reduced Kehl, divided his army into two corps; one of which, under Tallard, watched the prince of Baden at Stolhoffen, while the other, led on by himself, penetrated through the Black Forest into Bavaria. At the same time the elector, after driving the Austrians from the Inn and the Danube, and making himself master of Neuburg and Ratisbon, defiled towards the mountains which border his own country on the west, and effected a junction with Villars on the 12th of May at Dutlingen. Meanwhile, the greatest alarm, accompanied by the most unaccountable supineness, prevailed in Hol

land: Saarbruck and the earl of Athlone were both dead, and their places inadequately supplied by generals Overkirk, Opdam, and Slangenberg; of whom the first was chilled by age, the second naturally incompetent, and the third a man of talent certainly, but untractable and overbearing. Nevertheless, Marlborough was far from regarding matters as desperate. After inspecting the condition of the troops in Dutch Brabant, he hurried back to his own proper province; and, in spite of the numerous obstacles opposed by Dutch timidity and German sloth, took the field so as to anticipate the favourite project of the enemy.

Had the plan proposed by the English general been adopted, French Flanders and Brabant would have become at once the seat of war, but to a measure so bold the states would by no means consent. They had set their hearts upon the reduction of Bonn ; and to gratify them, Marlborough gave up with a good grace his own wellmatured opinions. By the middle of April, after leaving an adequate force to cover Liege, he was in full march towards the point of attack; on the 3d of May the trenches were opened, and on the 15th the place was surrendered by capitulation. All this occurred ere Villeroi could well believe that the allies were in a condition to act even upon the defensive. But no sooner was he made fully aware of his error, than he hastened to retrieve it, by pressing vigorously upon Overkirk and the corps which protected Liege. Marlborough, however, was not slow in coming to the assistance of his colleague. Without so much as waiting to receive the submission of the governor of Bonn, he contented himself with signing the convention, and hurried back to Maestricht, at a convent in the vicinity of which he fixed, on the 17th, his head-quarters.

Having thus thwarted Villeroi in his designs upon the fortresses, Marlborough returned to his original plan of campaign, of which he now pressed the adoption with all earnestness possible. He was not opposed on the present occasion, as he had previously been, by arguments founded on false policy; but its execution was cruelly perplexed by the avarice or stupidity of those to whom it was necessarily in part committed. How this came about, will best be understood by taking a glance at the positions which were respectively occupied by the opposing armies, as well as by considering the purposes which the occupation of those positions was expected to serve.

The French, with the view of securing the provinces of East and West Flanders, and South Brabant, had constructed two extensive chains of field-works, which stretched in one direction from Antwerp to the Mehaigne, in another from Antwerp to Ostend. While Villeroi availed himself of the former of these, both as a base of active operations and a place of retreat, the latter was maintained by two corps, one of which, under the marquis de Bedmar, occupied a camp close to

Antwerp, while the other was stationed chiefly, under the count de la Motte, near Bruges. It was the great object of Marlborough to render both lines untenable, by the reduction first of Antwerp, and afterwards of Ostend. With this view, he instructed general Spaar, who was advanced as far as Hulst, to hold La Motte in check, by frequent demonstrations. Cohorn, again, who had established himself on the east of the Scheld, was to communicate between Spaar and Bergen-op-Zoom; whilst Opdam, advancing from the latter place, should endeavour to surprise Antwerp, or, at all events, penetrate the lines, and maintain himself till supported. Meanwhile Marlborough undertook to keep Villeroi in play, by feigning an assault upon his position; till, having gained a march or two, he might find an opportunity of piercing the lines somewhere between Antwerp and Lierre. Thus would a junction be formed with the Dutch army at the very moment when that of the enemy became separated, and Antwerp falling, as fall it must, Ostend would become the next point of attack.

Had these instructions been rigidly obeyed, there cannot be a doubt that, widely extended as the line of operations was, a series of brilliant victories would have followed; but they were not rigidly obeyed. While Marlborough by a variety of skilful manœuvres passed the Yaar unperceived, and pushed his immediate opponents first upon Landen, and finally back as far as Diest, the generals at the head of the other corps not only failed to act up to the orders issued, but positively and glaringly infringed upon them. Cohorn, in particular, impelled either by jealousy, or, as has with equal plausibility been conjectured, by the hope of plunder, left Opdam to shift for himself; and joining Spaar, led the combined corps directly against La Motte. Some little success he doubtless obtained; that is to say, he drove in the enemy's outposts, and penetrated to their mere advanced works; but these were far from compensating for the hazards to which Opdam became in the mean time exposed. That officer advanced as he had been instructed; but he did so without support, and having lost all touch to the right, became absolutely isolated in his position at Ekeren.

Marlborough received intelligence of these unhappy blunders, not indeed in sufficient time to restore things to their former order, but early enough to permit his sending instructions to Opdam, that he should provide as he best could for his own safety. And high time it was that some such step should be taken; for the enemy, whose intelligence was excellent, were soon aware of the breach in the allied lines, and made haste to turn it to account. While Bedmar remained immov. able, leaving De la Motte to his fate, Boufflers, at the head of 20,000 men, was detached from Diest; and hastened with rapid strides to co-operate in an attack upon the corps thus exposed, to hazard.

It was to no purpose that Marlborough strained every nerve to pass Villeroi and to support Opdam. Ere the former measure could be effected, Opdam had permitted himself to be surprised, and, escaping almost unattended from the field, left his corps to fight or flee, according to the humour of the men themselves. It was fortunate, in such a juncture, that general Slangenberg, the next in command, possessed a greater share both of courage and conduct than his chief. He put himself hastily at the head of the columns; attacked and recovered several passes in the rear, of which the enemy had possessed themselves; and, retiring in good order, disputed every inch of ground with his pursuers. The result was, that, in the numbers of killed and wounded, neither party could boast of much superiority over its rival ; and that the single fruit of victory gathered by the French was the temporary derangement of a plan concerted with singular skill, and laid down with extraordinary clearness.

Chagrined, but not disheartened, at this untoward event, Marlborough so far yielded to his fate as to determine now upon trusting all to a direct attack on the enemy's position. With this view he moved his army to Thielen, and establishing it there, repaired himself to Breda, for the purpose of concerting arrangements with the deputies of the states. He proceeded next to Bergen-op-Zoom, where he saw and held a conference with Coborn, and communicated his own sentiments to Slangenberg; but he soon became convinced that with such men no business could be done, because no reliance could be placed either on their temper or their promises. On the one hand, Slangenberg, elated by his recent good fortune, affected to treat every proposition which emanated from other sources, with disdain. He disputed the justice of Marlborough's representations, and ventured to accuse the duke himself of having wilfully, and through the basest motives, exposed the Dutch troops to certain defeat; while of Cohorn he never spoke except in language the most contemptuous. Cohorn, on the other hand, entertained so rooted a dislike for Slangenberg, that he positively refused to serve, unless the latter were removed; and as such a proposition could not under any circumstances be admitted, he gave up his command and quitted the army.

To this point affairs had come, when the reported junction of Boufflers with Villeroi, and the advance of both, strengthened by a portion of Bedmar's corps, upon Sandhofen, recalled Marlborough to his own camp. He broke up from Thielen, and, apprehensive for his communications, which were threatened on the right, moved briskly to Vorstelar. A corresponding movement on the part of the enemy followed: they established themselves at St. Loo; and, beginning to entrench, Marlborough was again elated with the prospect of bringing them to action. But just as he arrived on the great heath of Antwerp, making sig

nals for Slangenberg to join him from Lillo, a dense smoke rising in the direction of the enemy's camp attracted his notice; and it was found, on sending forward a reconnoitring party, that they had retreated, and were behind their lines. Upon these no arguments which Marlborough could employ would induce the Dutch generals to hazard an assault. After a short delay, therefore, and a reconnoisance pushed as far as the outer entrenchments, he abandoned his mighty project, and with a heavy heart began to retrace his steps to his old position on the banks of the Meuse.

On the 15th of August the allied army pitched its camp at Val Notre-Dame, Villeroi moving in a parallel direction behind his lines, and establishing himself at Wasseige. On the 16th, a corps was detached for the attack of Huy, which surrendered soon after the batteries began to play. Hoping that his colleagues might be emboldened by this success, Marlborough once more urged upon them the propriety of storming the enemy's lines; but his arguments were again met by expressions of despondency and mistrust. It was now that, with undisguised reluctance, he applied himself to the reduction of Limburg and Guelder, both of which opened their gates ere the close of September; thus leaving the Dutch secure from all hostile visits, except on the side of Brabant alone. No doubt these were very valuable acquisitions. They completed the conquest of the provinces of Cologne and Liege, and relieved the states from the dread which had so long held them in suspense; while they paved the way in future campaigns for enterprises still more extensive and important. Nevertheless the result of the struggle fell so far short of what the general had anticipated, that he seems to have regarded the summer of 1703 as, in a military point of view, sadly misused. He accordingly disposed his troops in winter quarters, under the command of his brother, general Churchill, and set out on the 30th of October for the Hague.

Marlborough was accompanied in his present journey by the archduke Charles of Austria, who had recently been proclaimed king of Spain in his brother's capital of Vienna. This prince, captivated by the reputation which our great commander had acquired, visited him while distributing his army in their cantonments; and besides addressing to him compliments in the highest degree gratifying, presented him with a diamond-hilted sword of great value. He entered with him, likewise, much at length, into the actual state of affairs and their probable results. He consulted him as to the measures which it behoved himself to adopt, both as to the establishment of his claim on the Spanish crown and the conciliation of the people; and he freely submitted to his judgment every arrangement relating both to his own conduct and the selection of the officers whom it would be judicious to entrust with command. Marlborough delivered his opinions on these points with the

freedom which became his high talents, and the modesty which was natural to him; whilst Charles received, or affected to receive, his admonitions as a son receives the advices of a parent. They accordingly journeyed together in the best humour possible; and when Charles soon afterwards visited England, Marlborough was the individual selected to introduce him at the court of St. James's.

It is not to be imagined that the cares of conducting his army, mighty as in Marlborough's case these unquestionably were, constituted the only or perhaps the chief sources of uneasiness to which that great man was subject. There was not a political movement at home, nor an intrigue or a cabal among the powers abroad, in which he was not, by some means or other, made a party. Thus, during the progress of the campaign which has just been described, the duke of Savoy exhibited symptoms of a desire to break with the king of France, and give in his adherence to the terms of the grand alliance. To Marlborough was committed the delicate task of reconciling the pretensions of that prince as well with the pride of the emperor as with the selfish policy of the maritime powers; and even Marlborough might have failed in bringing the negotiation to a happy issue, but for the precipitancy of Louis in disarming the Piedmontese contingent. In like manner, the important struggle which was carried on between the tories and whigs gave to Marlborough incessant uneasiness. Disposed from personal feeling to support the former, and aware that the inclinations of the queen corresponded with his own, he found himself thwarted in all his endeavours, not only by the strength of a numerous and well-organized opposition, but by the irresolution and inconsistency of the very men who professed to hold opinions congenial with his own. Lord Godolphin, though advanced principally by Marlborough's influence to the office which he held, yielded at last so completely to popular clamour, as to write seriously of resigning; whilst the duchess, a strenuous supporter of the whigs, urged her husband with the most pressing arguments to cast himself loose from the tories altogether, and coalesce with the opposite faction. Now, had the proceedings of these different parties gone no farther than their correspondence, it would have been irksome enough for a man circumstanced as Marlborough was to have his leisure moments occupied by the perusal of angry or expostulatory letters; but when it is further considered that the wheels of government were completely clogged, that supplies were <ither totally withheld, or furnished in a very inadequate degree, and that distrust and suspicion were thus engendered in the minds of the allies, some notion may be formed of the real comforts of that situation which Marlborough was called upon to fill. The truth, indeed, is, that even his patience, exhaustless as it appeared to be, ceased at length to hold out; and he returned to

England with the avowed determination of resigning his command, and retiring into private life.

It is not our province to describe in detail the many political feuds to which, in the present stage of his career, the duke of Marlborough was made a party. Enough is done when we state, that after spending the winter in the very whirlpool of faction and debate, he saw abundant cause, as spring approached, for relinquishing the determination which he had formed, and prepared to return, with zeal unabated, to the scene of his past glories on the Continent. Nor was there, at any stage of the war, greater need of the commanding genius of this extraordinary man. In spite of the accession of Portugal and the defection of Savoy from the Bourbons, the latter, so far from relaxing in their endeavours, seemed to increase them fourfold. To this they were encouraged, as well by the command which they themselves held of the passages of the Rhine and the defiles of the Black Forest, as by the successful insurrection of prince Ragotski in Hungary; who, after compelling the imperial general Schlick to retreat upon Presburgh, levied contributions in Moravia and Silesia, and spread alarm to the very gates of Vienna. The elector of Bavaria, too, had not been wanting in exertions, to which fortune, on almost all occasions, proved kind. Master of Ratisbon, Kempten, Kaufleuren, and Gravenbach, which commanded the country between the Iller and the Inn, in possession of Augsburgh, which afforded a passage over the Lech, and occupying Ulm with a strong garrison, he besieged and carried Passau and Lintz, the keys of Upper Austria, and was prevented from reducing Nordlingen and Nuremberg only by the approach of winter. He thus held the course of the Danube from its fountain-head to the frontier of Austria; established a communication with the French armies on the Rhine and the rebels in Hungary; and by these advantages, joined to his central position, was enabled to overawe the provinces of the empire, and to penetrate, almost without obstruction, to Vienna itself. His field force, again, consisted of 45,000 men, with which he occupied cantonments in the vicinity of Ulm, waiting till he should be strengthened, in early spring, by a French corps, which was ready to proceed, so soon as the state of the roads would permit, through the rugged country bordering the sources of the Danube.

While such was the state of affairs in this quarter, and Villeroi continued strong in the Netherlands, Tallard, with 45,000 veteran troops, invaded Suabia and Franconia, from his position on the Upper Rhine. The Tyrol was threatened from Italy; the duke of Savoy was sorely pressed; and the whole country between the frontier of Dauphiné and the Trentine Alps seemed on the eve of subjugation. Meanwhile, the best exertions of the court of Vienna had failed to infuse

either vigour or daring into the sluggish contedera cy of which the empire was made up. Twent thousand regular troops, encamped behind th lines of Stolhoffen, and commanded by the ma. grave of Baden, were all that the emperor could op pose to the elector of Bavaria. To bands of mil tia and armed peasantry, feebly supported by a few battalions under general Stirum, the important passes of the Black Forest were entrusted; while a body of Dutch troops, amounting to less than 7000 men, covered Wirtemberg from their quarters at Rothweil; and a few Hessians and Prussians watched the Rhine below Philipsburg. Such was the exposed condition of the empire in the beginning of 1704; and as Marlborough well knew that the downfal of that power would leave France without a rival on the Continent, he determined to sacrifice his own feelings to the public good, and make a great and decisive effort to save the liberties of Europe.

For some time previous, Marlborough had meditated a scheme, of which he communicated the perfect outlines to prince Eugene alone.* Even Godolphin, though usually in his confidence, was, on the present occasion, consulted only so far as appeared necessary for the due supply of resources; while the sanction neither of the queen ror of the cabinet was solicited, that being left to follow should the result prove fortunate. The scheme in question embraced nothing less than a complete change of the theatre of war, by a separation from the allied and the Dutch contingents, and the march of his own army into Germany. Now, there were many and serious obstacles opposed to this measure, from the bare contemplation of which most men would have shrunk. In the first place, it would be necessary to obtain the consent of the states, a matter only to be accomplished by the exercise of consummate address; in the next place, the protection of Holland and Flanders must be committed to the Dutch troops alone; and last, though not least, a strong hostile army, supported by numerous fortresses, must be left to act upon the communications, and block up the rear of the corps engaged in this distant expedition. On calculating all the chances, however, it appeared to Marlborough that, provided he should succeed in masking his design at the commencement, success was at least more probable than failure. He was satisfied, moreover, that nothing short of success could prevent the ruin of Austria and the subsequent dissolution of the league; and he regarded that object as an end towards the attainment of which every imaginable hazard ought to be run. Having therefore availed himself of the circumstances of Portugal and Savoy to obtain both subsidies from

* With this officer, whose name stood deservedly high, he had entered into a close and intimate correspondence during the last campaign, and he renewed it with daily increasing confidence, as he saw the crisis approaching.