"This, therefore, is a convenient period for casting the eyes back on what he had done during the ten years that he had been the real head of the Alliance; and marvellous beyond all example is the retrospect! He began the war on the Waal and the Meuse, with the French standards waving in sight of the Dutch frontier, and the government of the Hague trembling for the fate of their frontier fortress, Nimeguen. He had now brought the Allied ensigns to the Scarpe, conquered Flanders, subdued all its fortresses, and nearly worked through the iron frontier of France itself. Nothing was wanting but the subjugation of its last fortress, Arras, to enable the Allies to march to Paris, and dictate a glorious peace in the halls of Versailles. He had defeated the French in four pitched battles and as many combats; he had taken every town to which he had laid siege; he had held together, when often about to separate, the discordant elements of the Grand Alliance. By his daring march to Bavaria, and victory of Blenheim, he had delivered Germany when in the utmost danger; by the succours he sent to Eugene, he had conquered Italy at Turin; by his prudent dispositions he had saved Spain, after the battle of Almanza. He had broken the power of Louis XIV. when at the zenith of his fame; he had been only prevented by faction at home from completing his overthrow by the capture of his capital. He had never suffered a reverse; he had never alienated a friend; he had conquered by his mildness many enemies. Such deeds require no comment; they are without a parallel in European history, and justly place Marlborough in the place assigned him by Napoleon – at the head of European captains."
The overthrow of Marlborough effected an object quite unlooked for by his eager and shortsighted enemies. The efforts of faction, aided by a palace intrigue, showed what had been due to the greatness of one man. Instantly, as if by enchantment, the fabric of victory raised by his all-potent arm was dissolved. Spain was lost, Flanders reconquered, Germany threatened! The arch of the Grand Alliance fell to pieces. These show in brighter colours than ever the greatness and patriotism of Marlborough. Again he took the command of the Hague, though no longer possessing the confidence of the government, and intrusted with no control over diplomatic measures; and again dazzled Europe and petrified his enemies by the splendour of his first achievement. Louis, in order to prevent the irruption of his foes into France, now that almost all his fortresses had been broken through, resolved on the construction of a line of defence on a scale so stupendous as to attract universal wonder – lines subsequently paralleled only by the prodigious lines of Torres Vedras. They were supplied with abundance of cannon, and manned by ninety thousand choice troops of infantry and cavalry under the command of Villars, who at length seemed both impregnable and unconquerable. Marlborough was then in his sixty-second year, and almost worn out by long service, and intense anxieties, and incessant mortifications. "I find myself decay so very fast," he wrote to his Duchess, "that from my heart and soul I wish the Queen and my country a peace, by which I might have the advantage of having a little quiet, which is my greatest ambition."36 But his mighty powers addressed themselves once more to a commensurate object – the devising an enterprise which should at a stroke deprive his enemy of all his huge defences, and drive him to fight a decisive battle or lose his last frontier fortress. Shortly afterwards, he was confounded by Prince Eugene being withdrawn from him, together with a large section of the army, to repair disasters in a distant part of the Continent. This rendered Villars suddenly anxious for an encounter; but Louis, his eyes intently fixed on the progress of intrigues in London, had peremptorily prohibited him from fighting. Villars vaingloriously styled his lines "Marlborough's ne plus ultra," a subject on which he was abundantly jocular. But Marlborough, having carefully studied them, devised a plan which very soon banished his boasts, and plunged him into consternation. We must refer our readers to Mr Alison's exciting description of this feat of strategy, by which Marlborough passed the imaginary "ne plus ultra" without having fired a shot, without having lost one man – frustrating by a sudden march nine months' labour, and suddenly exhibiting to Marshal Villars the palsying spectacle of Marlborough's whole army drawn up in battle array on the inner side of the impregnable lines! All this was the work of Marlborough alone. The military critics of the Continent were at a loss for words adequately expressing their admiration of this great exploit: —
"Marlborough's manœuvre," says Rousset, "covered him with glory: it was a duel in which the English beat the French general; the armies on either side were present only to render the spectacle more magnificent. In battles and sieges, fortune and the valour of soldiers have often a great share in success; but here everything was the work of the Duke of Marlborough. To gain the lines, they would willingly have compounded for the loss of several thousand lives: thanks to the Duke, they were won without the loss of one; that bloodless victory was entirely owing to his wisdom."37
Marlborough instantly besieged Bouchain, another great fortress, having prevented Villars, by brilliant manœuvring, from coming to its assistance. "The works effecting that purpose," said a Hanoverian officer engaged on the occasion, "were worthy of Julius Cæsar or Alexander Farnese, and the siege one of the prodigies of war. You could not fire a cannon-shot from the trenches without Villars seeing its smoke. He omitted nothing which could suspend or interrupt the works. Vain hope! Our general, invincible on all sides, has foreseen and frustrated all his enterprises."38 Marlborough was then pressing on the siege of Quesnoy, the capture of which would have completely broken through the French barrier, when he suddenly found himself undermined by the intrigues secretly carrying on between the Tories and Louis XIV.; preliminaries of peace were signed between them, afterwards embodied in the execrable Treaty of Utrecht – abandoning the main object of the long, glorious, and successful war – the exclusion of the Bourbon family from the throne of Spain. And what, thinks the reader, was done by Marlborough's enemies, in order to anticipate and frustrate his opposition to these base proceedings? He was ridiculed and libelled everywhere in the bitterest terms; accused of avarice, fraud, extortion; of indolence, cruelty, ambition, and misconduct: even his courage was questioned; and he was denounced as the lowest of mankind! His magnificent passage of the French lines was ridiculed as "the crossing of the kennel;" and the siege of Bouchain stigmatised as an inexorable sacrifice of sixteen thousand men for "the capture of a dovecot!"39 He was charged with having embezzled £63,319 of the public money during the war in Flanders, and Parliamentary commissioners were employed to investigate the charge, which the indignant warrior in one moment blew into the air. Then he was charged with having prolonged the war for his own pecuniary interests; and finally, he was charged with other pecuniary peculations to an immense amount; and the Queen, on the advice of her infamous ministers, dismissed her illustrious servant from all his employments, in order that the atrocious calumnies might be investigated. The intelligence was received with transport by the enemies of England abroad; and Louis XIV. exclaimed, rapturously, "The dismission of Marlborough will do all we can desire."40 At that moment the fallen warrior-statesman's resplendent services had reduced Louis to a state of desperation, and he, with his whole kingdom, lay at the mercy of Marlborough. Louis had announced his resolve to lead the last army he could muster in person, and conquer or die; but the measures of the ministry averted the alternative, and saved his throne at the instant of its having become defenceless. The perfidious desertion of England from the Grand Alliance paralysed it. England consummated her treachery and dishonour by the peace of Utrecht, which Mr Pitt justly stigmatised as "the indelible reproach of the age," and which has entailed on her long-continuing disaster. As for Marlborough, almost every conceivable kind of insult and provocation was heaped upon him; scurrilous mercenaries haunted him with libel and ridicule; and to complete the climax of national meanness, the Treasury payments for the works at Blenheim were discontinued, and the contractors