Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/344

 Peterborough received the thanks denied to Marlborough, and his old friend Cadogan was dismissed from the post of envoy to the States. Supplies, however, were voted, and Marlborough reached the Hague on 4 March 1711 to concert the new campaign. St. John and Harley gave him assurances of support, though committees of inquiry were ordered to investigate the state of national accounts, where it was expected that great corruption would be detected. The death of the emperor on 17 April 1711 brought new perplexities. Eugene with German contingents was obliged to leave the Netherlands. Charles, the claimant of the Spanish crown, was now head of the house of Austria, and it was urged that such an accumulation of power was as undesirable as the accumulation in the hands of the Bourbons. Villars meanwhile had constructed formidable lines in defence of the French frontier from Namur to the coast of Picardy. On 30 April Marlborough took command of his army between Lille and Douay. His forces, weakened by the departure of Eugene, were apparently rather inferior to tllose of Villars. Louis forbade Villars to risk an en gement. He took up a position near Cambaray, his front coverage by the Sanzet, which Joins the Scheldt at Bouchain. Marlborough’s camp was on the other side of the Sanzet, between Bouchain and Douay. The armies confronted each other for some weeks, till Marlborough concerted a series of movements which have been regarded as among his most skilful operations. Villars had written to Louis boasting that Marlborough was at his ne plus ultra. After taking a small fort at Arleux which protected the Sanzet, Marlborough moved to his left towards Bethune. Villars retook the fort at Arleux and demolished it, as he supposed it to be valued by his antagonist. Marlborough had, according to Kane (Campaiqns, pp. 88-96), anticipates this destruction; ‘but he aflectcd extreme annoyance.' He then approached Villars’s lines further west, near Arras. Villars moved to confront him, and .Marlborough on 4 Aug. advanced as if for an attack, spoke to his oflicers of his grievances, and professed that his resentment was leading him to a rash assault on a strong position. Suddenly on the same night he made a forced march of thirteen leaigues to his left, many men dropping from atigue, crossed the Sanzet near Arleux, and seized Villars’s lines without opposition, while the marshal was still awaiting the attack near Arras. Villars speedily followed, and confronted Marlborough near Cambray. The Dutch deputies for once urged a battle, and Marlborough declined. He was much annoyed by the criticisms upon this decision, and declares that the enemy had a superiority of numbers and strength of position which would have made an attack figgleless (Despatches, v. 443, 455, &c.) He turned his advantage to account by skilfullv crossing the river in face of Villars and immediately investing Bouchain. The operation was one of great difficulty, and every movement was closely watched by Villars. All his attempts, however, were foiled, and the town surrendered on 14 Sept. 1711. Marlborough on this occasion earehilly protected the estates of the see of Cambray from plunder, to show his respect for Fénelon.

The siege of Quesnay was intended, but Marlborough’s campaigns were now closed. Some fruitless attempts at a reconciliation with Oxford had been made through Lord Stair in the summer of 1711 (, iii. 404, 441). St. John and Harley (now Lord Oxford), though still approving his lans, were secretly negotiating with the  Preliminaries were signed at London, 27 Sept. (O.S.), and immediately became public. All prosecution of the war on the part of England dropped. Marlborough reached the Hague, where he found that he had been accused of corruption. The commissioners appointed to inquire into abuses of the accounts reported that he received sums from Sir Solomon Medina, contractor for supplyin bread to his army, amounting between 1709 and 1710 to 63,319l. Marlborough at once wrote declaring that this sum was a regular perquisite of the general, and had been applied bv him to maintainin secret correspondence. He added that in the last war parliament had voted 10,000l. a year for secret service. This being found insufficient, William III had arranged for a deduction of 2½ per cent. on the pay of all foreign auxiliaries for the same purpose. Marlborough had obtained a royal warrant for the continuance of this arrangement, and had a plied the whole sum to this purpose, which had been essential to the continuance of the war. He landed at Greenwich 17 Nov. 1711. It was the anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s accession, and generally celebrated by burning efligies of the pope, the devil, and the Pretender. A jesuit spy, named Plunket, circulated an absurd story, first published in the ‘Memoirs of Torcy,’ to the effect that Marlborough had proposed to raise mpopular tumult, seize the queen, and mu er Oxford. The plot was supposed to have been concocted with Eugene, who came to England in the following January on a mission from the emperor, and with the hope of working upon popular enthusiasm. The story only deserves mention because Swift afterwards believed in.