Memoirs of the Duke of Marlborough (Volume 1); With His Original Correspondence, Collected from the Family Records at Blenheim and Other Authenic Sources (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 1692.] COURT DISSENSIONS. 33 serve the ensuing year. Indeed, the manifest preference which he enjoyed, excited the envy of many among the ministers. We find the marquis of Caermarthen, in particular, designating him, even to the queen, as the "general of favour," and interfering so invidiously in military business as to draw from Marlborough an indignant appeal to the king. The countenance of the monarch, however, supported him amidst these petty vexations; and the year closed with the same flattering prospects which had marked its commencement. Chap. V. ? Cabals Against The Duke.? 1692. Notwithstanding this apparent favour, Marlborough soon felt the natural effects of his delicate connexion with the actual possessor, and the presumptive heiress to the crown. We have already traced the commencement of the contentions between the king and the Princess Anne, which successive incidents continued to increase. Among other causes of dissatisfaction, she was offended at the rejection of an offer made by the prince her husband, to serve on board of the fleet, and still more by the mode in which it was conveyed. Such bickerings could not have failed to recoil on Marlborough and his countess, even had he not rendered himself particularly obnoxious by his indiscreet remonstrances against the king's bounty to his foreign adherents, and by his contemptuous treatment of the earl of Portland, whom he publicly stigmatised as a wooden fellow. The odium which he thus incurred was manifested by the refusal of the king to confer on him the order of the Garter, though it was earnestly solicited both by the prince and princess of Denmark. Such mutual irritation could not long continue without producing an open rupture. Accordingly, on the evening of January 9th, 1692, an indecorous alterca...