Even Barbara Villiers, my Lady Castlemaine, who had for many years been the King’s “light o’ love,” and had borne him three sons, all Dukes-to-be, cast amorous eyes on the handsome young Guardsman; and, what is more, succeeded where beauty failed, in drawing him within the net of her coarse, middle-aged charms.  Strange stories are told of the love-making of this oddly-assorted pair, which had a ludicrous conclusion.  One day King Charles was informed that if he would take the trouble to go to Lady Castlemaine’s rooms he would be rewarded by a singular spectacle—­that of young Churchill dallying with his mistress and the mother of his children.  And so it proved; for when the King made an unexpected appearance he was just in time to see the lieutenant-Lothario disappearing through an open window and his inamorata on the verge of hysterics on a sofa.

One cannot blame the “Merrie Monarch” for deciding that such activities were better fitted for another field of exercise.  The young Lothario was packed off to Tangier to cool his ardour by a little bloodshed; but before he went Lady Castlemaine handed him a farewell present of L5,000 with which, according to Lord Chesterfield, “he immediately bought an annuity of L500 a year of my grandfather Halifax, which was the foundation of his subsequent fortune.”

A young man so enterprising and so gifted by nature could scarcely fail to go far, when his energies were directed into a suitable channel.  He proved that he could serve under the banner of Mars as gallantly as under the pennon of Cupid.  He did such doughty deeds against the Dutch, under Monmouth, that he was made a Captain of Grenadiers.  At the siege of Nimeguen his reckless bravery won the unstinted praise of Turenne, who, when one of his own officers cowardly abandoned an important outpost, exclaimed, “I will bet a supper and a dozen of claret that my handsome Englishman will recover the post with half the number of men that the officer commanded who has lost it.”  And the “handsome Englishman” promptly won the supper for the Marshal.  Moreover, by an act of splendid daring, during the siege of Maestricht he saved the Duke of Monmouth’s life; and returned to England a hero and a colonel, having thoroughly purged his indiscretion in Lady Castlemaine’s boudoir.  If he had toyed dangerously with the King’s mistress, he had at least saved the life of his Sovereign’s best-loved son.

It was at this time that Churchill seems to have first set eyes on Sarah Jennings, now standing on the verge of womanhood, and as sweet a flower as the Court garden of fair girls could show.  He saw her moving with queenly grace and dainty freshness among a crowd of the loveliest women at a Royal ball, her proud well-poised head rising above them as a lily towers over meaner flowers.  And—­such are the strange ways of love—­from that first glance he was fascinated by her as no other woman ever had power to fascinate him.  When he sought an introduction to her, the bright spirit that shone in her eyes, her clever tongue, and her graciousness quickly forged the chains which he was proud to wear to his life’s end.  Seldom has a woman’s spell worked such quick magic—­never has the love it gave birth to proved more loyal and enduring.