created earl of Marlborough. From 1689 to 1691, he
commanded a series of minor military expeditions in
Flanders, Belgium, and Ireland.
In 1692, after letters he had written to James II
in exile were uncovered, Churchill was stripped of his
titles and imprisoned in the Tower of London, accused
of working to reinstate the former king to the English
throne. He was soon released, and William III restored
his titles and rank in the army, but Churchill remained
under suspicion for some years.
In 1702, William died, and Anne, his wife Mary’s
sister—a close friend of Churchill’s wife—ascended
the throne of England. The death of King Charles II
of Spain, who left no heir, set off a conflict in Europe
known as the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14),
fought between France and Spain, and England, Austria,
and the Netherlands. Churchill, having once fought on
the side of France, now fought against her, as England
saw a French king on Spain’s throne as a threat to its
security. After the allied forces had taken several French
garrisons, Churchill, now created duke of Marlbor-
ough, joined with the Austrian general eugène, prince
de Savoie, in a series of battles against the French. At
Schellenberg on 2 July 1704, Marlborough won the first
major battle of this conflict. In his Chronicles of an Old
Campaigner, 1692–1717 (published 1904), a French of-
ficer, Jean-Martin de la Colonie, writes of this battle:
The English infantry led this attack with the
greatest intrepidity, right up to our parapet, but
there they were opposed with a courage at least
equal to their own. Rage, fury, and desperation
were manifested to both sides, with the more ob-
stinacy as the assailants and assailed were perhaps
the greatest soldiers in the world. The little para-
pet which separated the two forces became the
scene of the bloodiest struggle that could be con-
ceived. Thirteen hundred of grenadiers, of whom
seven hundred belonged to the Elector’s Guards,
and six hundred who were left under my com-
mand, bore the brunt of the enemy’s attack at
the forefront of the Bavarian infantry.... At last
the enemy, after losing more than eight thousand
men in this first onslaught, were obliged to relax
their hold, and they fell back for shelter to the
dip in the slope, where we could not harm them.
A sudden calm now reigned amongst us, our
people were recovering their breath, and seemedmore determined even than they were before the
conflict. The ground around our parapet was
covered with dead and dying, in heaps almost
as high as our fascines, but our whole attention
was fixed on the enemy and his movements; we
noticed that the tops of his standards showed at
about the same place as that from which they had
made their charge in the first instance, leaving
little doubt that they were reforming before re-
turning to the assault.The most important battle of the early part of
the war was at Blenheim on 12 August 1704, when
Marlborough and Eugène commanded some 52,000
troops against the French and Bavarians under Mar-
shals Camille d’Houston, duke of Tallard; Ferdinand,
Count Marsin; and their ally, Maximilian Emmanuel
of Wittelsbach, the elector of Bavaria. An attack by
Marlborough, followed by an assault by Eugène, aided
the Allies in a victory. The English and Austrians lost
about 12,000 killed and wounded, while the French
casualties were upwards of 40,000, and Tallard was cap-
tured. Following the victory, a grateful Parliament and
Queen Anne bestowed on this military hero a 2,000-
acre estate near Oxford that was dubbed Blenheim.
The massive home, designed by the playwright Sir John
Vanbrugh, was built from 1705 to 1722 and is one
of the most spectacular examples of English baroque
architecture.
Marlborough’s own victory at Ramillies (23 May
1706) was a mastery of strategy that forced a complete
French withdrawal from the Low Countries. A further
victory with Eugène at Oudenaarde (11 July 1708),
when Marlborough faced overwhelming French forces
but fought them off, confirmed his preeminence as one
of the finest military commander of his age.
Marlborough’s final military victory came at Mal-
plaquet on 11 September 1709; however, it was a Pyrrhic
victory, as the Tories in Parliament, opposed to his com-
mand of the army, used the high number of British ca-
sualties at Malplaquet to try forcing Marlborough from
power as commander. Nonetheless, the House of Com-
mons, under the Whigs, had passed a resolution earlier
that year: “The astounding progress of Her Majesty’s
arms under the Earl of Marlborough has brilliantly re-
stored the honour of the English nation.” Marlborough
continued to win battles against the French, including
breaking their defensive lines in 1711. chuRchill, John, FiRSt Duke oF mARlboRough