Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
Had the subject of this Memoir lived in thepresent day, copious accounts of the part whichshe performed in public life would have instantlybeen given to the world. Her domestichabits, and her merits and demerits of every description,would have been amply discussed.With her personal qualities we should, from athousand channels, have been familiarised. Everypeculiarity of her resolute and singular characterwould have been unveiled to the inspection of aninquisitive and amused public: nor would therehave been wanting those who would have eagerlygrasped at such an opportunity of commentingupon the politics, manners, and events of theday, as that which the biography of the Duchessof Marlborough affords.
It is, nevertheless, a fact, that ninety-six yearsivhave elapsed since the death of this celebratedwoman, and, as yet, no complete account of hersingular career, no memoirs of her as a privateindividual, of any length, or of any importancein other respects, have appeared; and it is remarkable,that both the Duke and Duchess ofMarlborough, two persons who acquired in theirlifetime as great a share of celebrity as anyBritish subjects ever enjoyed, incurred a risk ofnot being commemorated, after their decease, byany connected and adequate work.
The biography of John Duke of Marlborough,undertaken by three individuals, was completedonly by Lediard, who had served underthe hero of Blenheim, and who may be supposedto have felt a sort of personal interest in hisillustrious career. The coldness of those towhom the task was deputed, recommended asit was to their zealous attention by the promiseof a considerable sum to forward its completion,proves how feebly the public called for such aproduction. It was not until the Duchess wason her deathbed that she began to arrangethe voluminous materials of the life of herhusband. It was not until two years beforeher death that she published her own Vindication,which she entitled “An Account of theConduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough,vfrom her first coming to Court, to theyear 1510.”
This book, published in 1742, after provokingseveral replies, fell into a partial oblivion. Theanimadversions and discussions to which it gaverise, and the contemptuous opinion pronouncedupon it by Horace Walpole, whose fiat in thefashionable world was decisive, have thereforeremained unanswered. Garbled as it was