ACTIONS OF HIS GRACE JOHN, D. OF MARLBOROGH***


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[DANIEL DEFOE]

A SHORT NARRATIVE OF THE
Life and Actions
Of His GRACE
_JOHN_, D. of Marlborough

(1711)

_Introduction by_
PAULA R. BACKSCHEIDER







Publication Number 168
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
University Of California, Los Angeles
1974


GENERAL EDITORS

  William E. Conway, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
  George Robert Guffey, University of California, Los Angeles
  Maximillian E. Novak, University of California, Los Angeles
  David S. Rodes, University of California, Los Angeles


ADVISORY EDITORS

  Richard C. Boys, University of Michigan
  James L. Clifford, Columbia University
  Ralph Cohen, University of Virginia
  Vinton A. Dearing, University of California, Los Angeles
  Arthur Friedman, University of Chicago
  Louis A. Landa, Princeton University
  Earl Miner, Princeton University
  Samuel H. Monk, University of Minnesota
  Everett T. Moore, University of California, Los Angeles
  Lawrence Clark Powell, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
  James Sutherland, University College, London
  H. T. Swedenberg, Jr., University of California, Los Angeles
  Robert Vosper, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library


CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

  Edna C. Davis, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library


EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

  Beverly J. Onley, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library


Typography by Wm. M. Cheney




INTRODUCTION

Opinion is a mighty matter in war, and I doubt but the French think it
impossible to conquer an army that he leads, and our soldiers think
the same; and how far even this step may encourage the French to play
tricks with us, no man knows.

    Swift's _Journal to Stella_, 1 January 1711

   ... the moment he leaves the service and loses the protection of
    the Court, such scenes will open as no victories can varnish over.

    Bolingbroke's _Letters and Correspondence_,
    23 January 1711


The career of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, reflects the
political battles of nearly thirty years of English politics. In an
age when duplicity, intrigue, personality, and an immediate history of
violence characterized politics, John Churchill was a constant, steady
military success even while his political and personal fortunes
alternately plunged and soared. His military ability insured his
importance to the Grand Alliance and his victories brought the
reverence of the European powers opposing Louis XIV as well as that of
his own people, but, at the same time, his successes also assured his
involvement with the fortunes of nearly every major English political
figure and movement in the years 1688 to 1712.

Marlborough's military career spanned two periods. Aware of the danger
of the "exorbitant power of France" and the corresponding danger to
the Protestant religion, disgusted with James's actions at the
_Gloucester_ shipwreck and in dealing with Scottish Protestants,
Marlborough had joined the bloodless shift to William of Orange. For
William, he led the English forces in Flanders in 1689 and in Ireland
in 1690; in 1691 he was in charge of the British forces in Europe with
the rank of lieutenant-general. In January, 1692, however, Marlborough
was dismissed from all of his offices for a combination of reasons,
each insufficient in itself but all too typical for him--open
opposition to William's Dutch dominated army, rumors that he and
Sarah, his ambitious and sometimes presumptuous wife, were plotting
Anne's usurpation of the throne, and dissension aroused between Anne
and her sister Queen Mary by the quixotic Sarah. When rumors of a
Jacobite uprising began, Marlborough spent six weeks in the Tower.

Although Marlborough was restored to political favor in 1698 partly as
a placatory gesture to Anne, it was 1701 before he resumed his
military career, this time as William's Commander-in-Chief and
Ambassador Extraordinary to the United Provinces. In this second phase
of his military career, he won every battle, took every fort that he
besieged, held the Grand Alliance together, broke the threatening
supremacy of France, and established England as a major power. Yet,
during these ten years, Queen Anne's ministry and Parliament underwent
several major upheavals: the resulting shifts in policy and
personalities alternately inconvenienced and vexed Marlborough. The
year 1711 marked the culmination of warring factions and clandestine
arrangement, and Daniel Defoe's _A Short Narrative of the Life and
Actions of his grace, John, Duke of Marlborough_, published 20
February 1711, originated in this battle. (For discussion of
authorship, please see Appendix.)

Much that happened in these years can be unraveled back to Harley,
Earl of Oxford. His influences and circuitous dealing emerge wherever
a close examination of politics is made.[1] Hiding his activities from
even his closest associates, employing spies and journalists whose
purposes seem contradictory, manipulating the House of Commons'
radical October Club while preaching a "broad bottomed" moderate
government, and buzzing in the Queen's ear in a variety of ways,
Harley was ready for any exigency. England had wanted peace since 1709
when their insistence on "no peace without Spain" and on the XXXVII
Article asking for guarantees of three Spanish towns had rallied the
French behind the war;[2] Marlborough's pleas that peace be made and
Spain be dealt with later were ignored. Although Parliament voted
Malplaquet a triumph, Marlborough's power and prestige were
systematically shorn away, and embarrassing decisions contrived to
force his resignation were effected.[3] Should Marlborough resign, a
scapegoat for defeat or an unfavorable peace would be assured. By
1710, foreign policy had changed--a growing interest in trade and
colonization urged Parliament to end a costly and now unnecessary war
and had united the Tories, Jacobites, the Church party, as well as
such diverse men as the Dukes of Argyll, Somerset, Newcastle, and
Shrewsbury, a Whig. With the election of the radical Tory majority
(240 new members were seated) to the Commons in 1710 and the creation
of twelve new peers,[4] Harley's job of using diverse elements to form
a moderate government became more complex. He found it expedient to
establish and maintain influence with groups ranging from the radical
Tory October Club to Swift's country squire and clergy _Examiner_
readers to moderate Whigs such as Shrewsbury. Moreover, Defoe had
impressed upon him the importance of assuring the nation that moderate
and sensible men were at the bottom of all of the political
changes.[5] Harley, therefore, prepared for at least three apparently
exclusive possibilities--prosecuting the war for several more years,
negotiating a peace with the Allies, or making a separate peace with
France without the Allies. To keep all these possibilities alive,
Harley had to remain in harmony with Marlborough. The general's
popularity with the soldiers and the European powers and France's awe
of his military prowess necessitated the appearance that Marlborough's
command was secure. While the _Examiner_, with its Tory audience and
its emphasis on pressure for peace, was essential to Harley, so were
Swift's and Defoe's appeals for moderation at a time when sympathy for
Marlborough was rampant and the call "no peace without Spain" was
still defended even by the October Club; for the same reasons he was
glad to have Bolingbroke openly associated with the _Examiner_.

January of 1711 brought the decisive defeat at Brihuega which
effectively took the issue of Spanish succession away; in the ensuing
witch hunt, Almanza and the peace talks of 1709 were revived to
distract the people. While these inquiries proceeded, England received
word that France was ready to discuss terms. The delay between this (8
February) and France's formal proposal (2 May) was an anxious time for
Harley and his schemers. Defoe was busy setting the stage for the
outcome.

While Swift, the high Tory, could easily set about discrediting
Marlborough, the hero and standard bearer, and, by so doing, weaken
the Whig's position, Defoe's readers required different handling. His
most effective writing at this time was in pamphlets which reached a
wider audience and which were not bound by the consistency of the
Review. Defoe and Swift, primed with the Minister's inside knowledge,
set about to discredit the Whig ministry in basically the same way. In
the 15 February _Examiner_, Swift wrote,

    No Body, that I know of, did ever dispute the Duke of Marlborough's
    Courage, Conduct, or Success; they have been always unquestionable
    and will continue to be so, in spight of the Malice of his Enemies,
    or which is yet more, the Weakness of his Advocates. The Nation
    only wished to see him taken out of ill Hands, and put into better.
    But, what is all this to the Conduct of the late Ministry, the
    shameful Mismanagements in Spain, or the wrong Steps in the Treaty
    of Peace.... [6]

Defoe remarks, "our General wants neither Conduct or Courage" and
describes his greatest successes as "daughters to preserve his Memory"
while dissociating him somewhat from the Jacobites, Whigs, and
"business of [making] peace and war." When the _Review_ finally
discusses Marlborough's fall, Defoe suggests that the "greatest Guilt
... is the Error in Policy, and Prudence among his Friends."[7] Both
writers presented the Duke as a means to an end and discredited him on