Next to him in power was the lord-treasurer Godolphin, to whom he was bound by ties of friendship, family alliance, and political principles.  Like Marlborough, Godolphin had in early life been attached to the service of the House of Stuart.  He had been page to Charles II., and lord chamberlain to Mary of Modena.  The Princess Anne, when a young lady, became attached to this amiable and witty man, and would have married him if reasons of State had not prevented.  After the Revolution of 1688 his merits were so conspicuous that he was retained in the service of William and Mary, and raised to the peerage.  In sound judgment, extraordinary sagacity, untiring industry, and unimpeached integrity, he resembled Lord Burleigh in the reign of Elizabeth, and, like him, rendered great public services.  Grave, economical, cautious, upright, courteous in manners, he was just the man for the stormy times in which he lived.  He had his faults, being fond of play (the passion of that age) and of women.  Says Swift, who libelled him, as he did every prominent man of the Whig party, “He could scratch out a song in praise of his mistress with a pencil on a card, or overflow with tears like a woman when he had an object to gain.”

But the real ruler of the land, on the accession of Anne, was the favored wife of Marlborough.  If ever a subject stood on the very pinnacle of greatness, it was she.  All the foreign ambassadors flattered her and paid court to her.  The greatest nobles solicited or bought of her the lucrative offices in the gift of the Crown.  She was the dispenser of court favors, as Mesdames de Maintenon and Pompadour were in France.  She was the admiration of gifted circles, in which she reigned as a queen of society.  Poets sang her praises and extolled her beauty; statesmen craved her influence.  Nothing took place at court to which she was not privy.  She was the mainspring of all political cabals and intrigues; even the Queen treated her with deference, as well as loaded her with gifts, and Godolphin consulted her on affairs of State.  The military fame of her husband gave her unbounded eclat.  No Englishwoman ever had such an exalted social position; she reigned in salons as well as in the closet of the Queen.  And she succeeded in marrying her daughters to the proudest peers.  Her eldest daughter, Henrietta, was the wife of an earl and prime minister.  Her second daughter, Anne, married Lord Charles Spencer, the only son of the Earl of Sunderland, one of the leaders of the Whig party and secretary of state.  Her third daughter became the wife of the Earl, afterwards Duke, of Bridgewater; and the fourth and youngest daughter had for her husband the celebrated Duke of Montague, grand-master of the Order of the Bath.