In 1682 Charles II. made Churchill a Baron, and three years afterwards he was made Brigadier-general when sent to France to announce the accession of James II.  On his return he was made Baron Churchill of Sandridge.  He helped to suppress Monmouth’s insurrection, but before the Revolution committed himself secretly to the cause of the Prince of Orange; was made, therefore, by William III., Earl of Marlborough and Privy Councillor.  After some military service he was for a short time imprisoned in the Tower on suspicion of treasonous correspondence with the exiled king.  In 1697 he was restored to favour, and on the breaking out of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701 he was chief commander of the Forces in the United Provinces.  In this war his victories made him the most famous captain of the age.  In December, 1702, he was made Duke, with a pension of five thousand a year.  In the campaign of 1704 Marlborough planned very privately, and executed on his own responsibility, the boldest and most distant march that had ever been attempted in our continental wars.  France, allied with Bavaria, was ready to force the way to Vienna, but Marlborough, quitting the Hague, carried his army to the Danube, where he took by storm a strong entrenched camp of the enemy upon the Schellenberg, and cruelly laid waste the towns and villages of the Bavarians, who never had taken arms; but, as he said, we are now going to burn and destroy the Electors country, to oblige him to hearken to terms.  On the 13th of August, the army of Marlborough having been joined by the army under Prince Eugene, battle was given to the French and Bavarians under Marshal Tallard, who had his head-quarters at the village of Plentheim, or Blenheim.  At the cost of eleven thousand killed and wounded in the armies of Marlborough and Eugene, and fourteen thousand killed and wounded on the other side, a decisive victory was secured, Tallard himself being made prisoner, and 26 battalions and 12 squadrons capitulating as prisoners of war. 121 of the enemy’s standards and 179 colours were brought home and hung up in Westminster Hall.  Austria was saved, and Louis XIV. utterly humbled at the time when he had expected confidently to make himself master of the destinies of Europe.

For this service Marlborough was made by the Emperor a Prince of the Empire, and his Most Illustrious Cousin as the Prince of Mindelsheim.  At home he was rewarded with the manor of Woodstock, upon which was built for him the Palace of Blenheim, and his pension of L5000 from the Post-office was annexed to his title.  There followed other victories, of which the series was closed with that of Malplaquet, in 1709, for which a national thanksgiving was appointed.  Then came a change over the face of home politics.  England was weary of the war, which Marlborough was accused of prolonging for the sake of the enormous wealth he drew officially from perquisites out of the different forms of expenditure upon the army.  The Tories