1695. He continued to represent that borough until he was called to the house of peers, on the death of his father in 1702. In 1705, he was diplomatically employed at the courts of Berlin, Vienna, and Hanover. In April, 1706, he was nominated one of the commissioners to treat for a union with Scotland; and at the latter end of the year, he was not only made a privy-councillor, but, according to Archdeacon Coxe, the whig-leaders perceiving that the Queen favoured the tories, he was forced by them into the office of secretary of state.

In 1709-10, on account of the conduct of Sunderland, with regard to Sacheverell and his supporters, the whole influence of the high church party was exercised to procure his dismissal from office. The Duke of Marlborough, on the other hand, wrote very warmly to the Queen in his favour; and the haughty dutchess 'begged on her knees' that the Queen would not compel him to retire; with this request, although very powerfully seconded by a number of influential noblemen, her Majesty refused to comply, and Sunderland was almost immediately commanded to deliver up his seals. To soften the harshness of her conduct towards the Earl, Queen Anne offered him a pension of £3,000 per annum for life; which, however he indignantly rejected; observing that "He was glad her Majesty was satisfied he had done his duty; but if he could not have the honour to serve his country, he would not plunder it."

On the death of Queen Anne, the Earl of Sunderland, who was accounted the great leader of the whigs, expected, in return for the zeal he had displayed in behalf of the house of Hanover, to be placed at the head of the new administration. But, although the King treated him with

great attention, and several places of dignity were conferred on him, some years elapsed before he could attain the exalted station to which he aspired. Shortly after George I. arrived in the country, the Earl was sworn a privy-councillor, and appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland. In 1715, ill health having compelled him to resign his vice-regal office, he was constituted lord-privy seal; and in July 1716, he became vice-treasurer of Ireland, having previously enjoyed that office jointly with Lord Rochester, from the month of February in the same year. In September he went to Hanover with the King, with whom his influence now rapidly increased. In April, 1717, he achieved a political victory over Walpole and Townshend, on whose resignation he was appointed, in the first place, chief secretary of state, shortly afterwards lord president of the council, and finally first lord of the treasury.

At this period, Sunderland, in whose person the whole power of government seemed to be united, brought forward the celebrated peerage bill, by the passing of which he hoped to check the authority of the Prince of Wales, -whom the earl had offended beyond the possibility of forgiveness, when his Royal Highness should become king; and to extend the duration of his own authority by the elevation of a number of adherents to the House of Lords. This unpopular bill was passed by the peers, but rejected by the commons, principally through the exertions of Walpole.

In 1718-19 he resigned the presidency of the council, but was on the same day appointed groom of the stole and first gentleman of the bed-chamber. In May, 1719, he was nominated one of the lords-justices, to whom the government was entrusted during the king's visit to

Hanover. Walpole and Townshend had, by this time, become so formidable to the Earl that he deemed it expedient to divide his power, and partially coalesce with them. About the end of October in this year, 1719, he went to Hanover, in the following month he was elected a knight of the garter; in June, 1720, he was again nominated a member of the regency during the King's absence in Hanover; and in September he repeated his visit to the electorate.

The year 1721 was rendered remarkable by the celebrated South Sea bubble, the bursting of which proved fatal to the political supremacy of the Earl of Sunderland. Notwithstanding his exalted station-for he was still first minister of the crown-he was strongly suspected of having taken a guilty part in that nefarious scheme; and a parliamentary inquiry, as to his alleged mal-practices, took place; which, however, owing to the zeal and talent with which he was defended by Walpole, terminated in his acquittal; but the public were so fully convinced of his guilt, that he found it necessary to resign all his employments. This event was followed by the re-establishment of Townshend and Walpole; "yet it was not without great difficulty," says Coxe, "that Sunderland, who maintained the most unbounded influence over the Sovereign, had been induced, or rather compelled, to consent to the arrangement for a new ministry, and particularly to relinquish the disposal of the secret service money."

His conduct at this period was involved in suspicious mystery. He intrigued with the tories, although he did not dare openly to avow any connexion with them. He made overtures to Bishop Atterbury, and his health was frequently drunk by the Jacobites. He continued, on

many occasions, successfully to use his influence over the King, fomented divisions in the cabinet,-and carried several measures in direct opposition to its chiefs. "Walpole's merit," says Coxe, " in screening the Earl of Sunderland from the rage of the House of Commons, could not expiate the crime of superseding him at the head of the treasury. Sunderland, jealous of his growing power, resolved, if possible, to obtain his dismission. Under the semblance of favour, he requested the king to create him postmaster-general for life, a lucrative office, which, if he had received, would have incapacitated him for a seat in Parliament; and, if he refused, would subject him to the resentment of his sovereign. Contrary, however, to his expectations, the King inquired if Walpole had desired it, or was acquainted with it. Sunderland replied in the negative. Then,' returned the King, 'do not make him the offer: I parted with him once against my inclination, and I will never part with him again as long as he is willing to serve me.' Soon afterwards, on the 19th of April, 1722, death terminated the Earl's machinations against his rival.

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The Earl of Sunderland was thrice married; first on the 12th January, 1694-5, to Lady Arabella, youngest daughter of the Duke of Newcastle, by whom he had a daughter, and who died, June 4, 1698,-next in January, 1700, to Anne*, the second daughter of the ever-memor

It is remarkable (says the Rev. Mark Noble), that Lady Sunderland was the daughter of a duke, the sister of a duchess in her own right, and mother to a duke, yet never attained herself to a higher rank than that of a countess. Her ladyship, who was rather petite in person, did not disdain the appellation of the "Little Whig," which that party, not less to honour themselves than her, chose to

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able Duke of Marlborough, by whom he had four sons, and two daughters, and who died, April 15, 1716,—and, lastly, on the 5th December, 1717, to Miss Judith Tichborne, a lady of fortune, and of an ancient Irish family, by whom he had three children, and who survived him many years.

His spirit was daring, and his intellect unquestionably great. Of patriotism or probity, he appears to have had but a very moderate share. Personal aggrandizement was the one great object of his life. He was at all times willing to abandon the principles he had last professed, to be a whig, a tory, or downright Jacobite,-to sacrifice a friend, or coalesce with an enemy, for the purpose of advancing or securing his own political power.

*

The honour still remains in his descendants, and is the third title of the now Duke of Marlborough, Marquis of Blandford, and Earl of Sunderland, in the British peerage, who is descended from Anne Countess of Sunderland, one of the daughters of John Churchill, the great Duke of Marlborough, and mother of Charles the second duke.

John Winston Spencer Churchill, the eldest son of the present duke, is by courtesy styled Marquis of Blandford; he is M.P. for the borough of Woodstock,

distinguish her by, at a time when everything was governed by, and bore the ensigns of, party, of one kind or other; and Colley Cibber tells us that the foundation stone of Sir John Vanburgh's new and stately theatre in the Haymarket, and which, without lasting out the century even, was a few years past burnt to the ground, had that title engraved upon it-a matter of wonder and deep investigation for the antiquaries of, we sincerely hope, a very distant period.— Noble's Continuation of Granger's Biographical History of England, ii., 373. * "Cunningham's Lives of Illustrious Englishmen."