THE MARLBOROUGH PUZZLE

Larry the Cat,
Marlborough Soldier and Statesman

John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough, has been little better served by some of his admirers than by his detractors. They have made of him an exemplary hero in the Victorian mould; a leader of flawless performance and yet at the same time remote and impersonal. The man himself has been buried, like a pharaoh in a pyramid, beneath a massive heap of military, political and diplomatic detail.

As a consequence Marlborough has become eclipsed in the national memory by Wellington, whose pungent outward personality is a gift to his biographers. Yet of the two men, John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, is in many ways the richer and more interesting character - sensitive, emotional, highly strung even, pulled by complex motives, impulses and anxieties. Marlborough is, moreover, a tragic figure, whose gradual descent from greatness to dismissal is deeply moving.

The purpose of this book therefore is not to offer a 'definitive' scholarly study, omitting no fact or document, but to present Marlborough as a living, feeling man; a man enduring such strains and grappling with such a weight and variety of responsibility as have befallen no other English soldier in history. 

On 11 April 1705 Marlborough set sail for the Netherlands. The voyage was rough; his yacht went aground on the sandbanks of the Dutch coast; and the Duke finally reached haven after a four-hour pull in an open boat against wind and tide. It was not a good beginning: 

I have been so very sick at sea [he wrote to Sarah] that my blood is as hote as if I were in a feavor, which makes my head eake extreamly, so that I beg you will make my excuse to Ld Treasurer, for I can write to nobody but my dear soull, whome I love above my life. I am just now going to bed, although I know I cannot sleep. . . .¹

The Marlborough Puzzle

1. 🧩 The Duke of Marlborough
2. 🧩 To Suspicions of the Dutch
3. 🧩 The Long March
4. 🧩 The Battle of Blenheim
5. 🧩 Anna and Sarah
6. 🧩 See What a Happy Man He Is 
7. 🧩 The Great Glorious Success
8. 🧩 ...
9. 🧩 ...

The Duke's strategy in 1705, as in 1704, absolutely depended therefore on his wielding the initiative from the very start of the campaign. And this in turn depended on the allied armies concentrating and taking the field before the French. But as soon as the Duke reached The Hague, his timetable began to go awry. He found that the Dutch were quite unready to take the field - and not merely unready, but unwilling to see their frontiers again denuded for the sake of another Marlburian gamble in Germany. On 21 April the Duke glumly reported to Godolphin...

On 22 June, near Lauensheim, the Duke linked up with the Margrave of Baden's army. It was a day bleak with scudding rain. Marlborough wrote to Sarah:

As I was never more sensible of heat in my life then (sic) I was a fortnight agoe, we now have the other extreamity of cold; for as I am writing I am forced to have fyer in the stove in my chamber. But the poor men, that have not such conveniences, I am afraid will very much suffer from these continnual rains...²⁰

The Marlborough Puzzle 

The principal sovereigns and commanders of Europe,
in the year of Blenheim, with allegorical figures. 

QA Queen Anne

1.  Emperor Leopold I
2.  King of the Romans
3.  King of Spain
4.  King of Portugal
5.  Duke of Marlborough
6.  Prince Eugène
7.  Landgrave of Hesse
8.  Lord Cutts
9.  Tsar of Russia
10.  King of Poland
11.  Johann von Patkul
12.  King of Prussia
13.  Marshal Tallard
14. 'Lamenting Spaniard'
15.  Louis of Baden
16.  Admiral Rooke
17.  General Dopff
18.  General Hompesch
19.  Admiral Leake

On 27 June, after a final struggle against mud and gradient, the English infantry and guns joined Marlborough at Giengen, near Ulm. The Dutch battalions which had been serving in Germany under General Goor ever since the beginning of the previous year also joined, together with other contingents. The march was completed. Marlborough had now concentrated one hundred and seventy-seven squadrons and seventy-six battalions, the largest army to take to the field in the present war. They were now in a region of vast open landscapes rolling away into the distance - ideal for marching and fighting.

The Marlborough Puzzle

1. 🧩 The Duke of Marlborough
2. 🧩 To Suspicions of the Dutch
3. 🧩 The Long March
4. 🧩 The Battle of Blenheim
5. 🧩 Anna and Sarah
6. 🧩 See What a Happy Man He Is 
7. 🧩 The Great Glorious Success
8. 🧩 ...
9. 🧩 ...

 

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Dates Owing to the English delay in adopting the Reformed Calendar of Gregory XIII, English dates (known as Old Style) were ten days behind Continental European dates (New Style) in the seventeenth century, and eleven days behind in the eighteenth century. It was also the official English custom to begin the New Year on Lady Day, 25 March; so that, for example, 24 March 1705, was followed by 25 March 1706. In the present book, however, all dates have been rendered as New Style, except where specifically stated otherwise; and new years commence on 1 January. 

Spelling of Placenames. The author has sought to avoid a merely pedantic consistency. In principle he has followed modern spellings (i.e. Douai instead of Douay; Nijmegen instead of Nimwegen), unless a contemporary spelling has become hallowed by usage (i.e. Blenheim instead of Blindheim; Oudenarde instead of Audenarde or Oudenaarde). Where French versions of German placenames were current in Marlborough's time (as in the case of Trèves for Trier; Aix-la-Chapelle for Aachen), this version has been used, with the modern name in parentheses.

General Spelling. Here again the author has wished to avoid pedantry. Contemporary letters and documents have been rendered in the spelling of the particular source whence they are quoted. In the case of original documents and certain printed collections, the spelling is therefore that of Marlborough's own day; in the case of standard reference works, such as Coxe's Life, and Murray's edition of the Dispatches, where the authors or editors have modernized the spelling, this modernized spelling has been followed.

— HOME
↪ THE MARLBOROUGH PUZZLE
— SITE MENU — EXCUSABLE EXCULPATIONS

UNICEF - SAVE THE CHILDREN - HOMELESS FOUNDATION - ICRC RED CROSS
OXFAM INTERNATIONAL - GREENPEACE - WWF WILDLIFE - PAPAGENO
LIVESTRONG - DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS - WELCOME TRUST