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 made an irruption into the Pays de Waes, attracted, as Marlborough thought, by a desire of perquisites (, i. 183). His colleague, Obdam, got into an isolated position, where he was surprised at Eckeren (30 June 1703) by the French, angkdeserted his army, which only secured a retreat by desperate fighting at severe loss. Obdam was dismissed. Slangenberg, who commanded at Eckeren, complained that Marlborough had not supported him properly. Meanwhile, Marlborough effected a junction with the Dutch, and proposed to assault the lines by which Antwerp was protected. A victory would have been crushing, as the French had their backs to the Scheldt. The Dutch refused, and Marlborough had to return to the Meuse, where he took Huy (27 Aug.) He once more proposed an attack upon the lines on the Mehaigne, and was again stoppled by the Dutch. The campaign closed by the sie of Limburg, which surrendered on 27 Sept. 1703. The surrender of Guelders (17 Dec.), after a long blockade by the Prussian forces, put the whole country between the Meuse and the Rhine in possession of the confederates.

Politics in England were still distracting. Rochester had been forced to resign, but Nottingham, who still remained in the ministry, led the high tories and obstructed Marlborough’s plans. Godolphin, worried by the cabinet disputes, threatened resignation. Marlborough himself talked of retiring till the queen pathetically entreated him to stand by her. The duchess brought overtures from the whigs, but Marlborough still protested that he would be independent of party. In October 1703 he wrote from the Hague to protest against Godolphin’s inclination to adopt the tory plan of a merely defensive war in this Netherlands. He was deeply annoyed at the discovery that Nottingham had without his knowledge ordered a detachment of two thousand men from his army to Portugal. Such a step 'naturally excited the distrust of the Dutch. Godolphin and Marlborough gave proof of a growing alienation from the tories, allowing the Occasional Conformit Bill to be defeated in the House of Lords, though they still endeavoured to maintain neutrality by signing a protest against its rejection, a device which satisfied nobody. In the early art of 1704 these party troubles came to a head. Nottingham, accused of obstructing inquiry into a Jacobite plot in Scotland, was vigorously assailed in parliament, especially by the whig leaders in the House of Lords. He at last tried to extort from the queen the expulsion of his whig rivals by a threat of himself resigning. His resi tion, by Godolphin’s advice, was accepte§n1i8 May 1704. Harley on the same day became secretary of state, and St. John secretary of war. Marlborough had a special liking for St. John (see Private Correspondence, ii. 292 n.), and Harley was his old ally. Although the impracticable tories had thus been ejected, and a cabinet formed which was personally acceptable to Marlborough, the whigs were naturally discontented. The five great lords (Somers, Whiston, Orford, Halifax, and Sunderland), who came to be known as the Junto, were not admitted to power, and thus the strongest supporters of the war policy had neither a share of the spoils nor a direct influence in the management of affairs. The duchess and her son-in-law, Sunderland, were discontented, and suspected the sincerity of Harley and St. John.

While Marlborough had slowly gained ground in the Netherlands, the emperor was in the utmost difficulty. There was a dangerous insurrection in Hungary. The French had established themselves on the Upper Rhine, retaking Landau, Kehl, and Brisach. They were thus in communication with their ally, the elector of Bavaria, who during 1703 took possession of Augsburg, Ratisbon, and other cities, and thus commanded the whole valley of the Danube from its source to the frontiers of Austria. The resistance of the Tyrolese and the accession of the Duke of Savoy to the alliance had delayed operations but in the beginning of 1704 the French were preparing to join the elector from the Rhine and the Moselle, and advance down the Danube upon Vienna. A small imperial army under the Prince of Baden which occupied the lines of Stollhofen on the Rhine below Strasburg, and a few Dutch, Hessian, and Prussian troops in Würtemberg and the Palatinate, constituted the only force by which this dangerous invasion could be impeded. Marlborough had privately concerted a scheme with Prince Eugene to meet the difficulty. Parliament granted subsidies to Portugal and Savoy, and raised the force in the Netherlands to fifty thousand men. Marlborough himself went to Holland in January, and induced the States to consent to a scheme for carrying on operations upon the Moselle, while remaining on the defensive in the Netherlands. He persuaded them to make advances to other allies, and induced the king of Prussia to increase his contingent. His complete plan was revealed to Eugene alone, but he obtained instructions from the English government (4 April 1704). authorising him in general terms to concert measures for the reliefhf the em ror. He reached the Hague on 21 April, and, after many difficulties, persuaded the States to entrust him with a sufficient force.