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Rh interest. His visit seems to have been principally one of pleasure, and partly in pique at the conduct of the king of Spain and of his own colleagues. By the end of December he rejoined the king at Valencia, where, on 11 Feb. 1706-7, he received orders recalling him to England to give an account of his conduct. Galway was at the same time appointed commander-in-chief of the forces in Spain.

On 13 March Peterborough again sailed for Genoa in the Resolution [see Mordaunt, Henry (1681?-1710) (DNB00), 1681 ?-1710], and after narrowly escaping capture on the way, was put on shore at Oneglia. At Turin he was met by peremptory orders to return to England immediately. Nothing was further from his intentions than obedience; and finding that the Duke of Savoy, who had been duly informed that his commission was revoked, declined to discuss the operations of the coming campaign with him, he made a circular tour through Europe. At Vienna he was well received, and is said to have inspired the emperor with the idea of an expedition against Naples. Almanza had been fought and lost a few weeks before; and as Peterborough, after his quarrel with Galway, had prophesied misfortune, it was supposed that he had foreseen the course of the war. Accordingly Count Wratislaw, the emperor's minister, wrote to Marlborough on 21 June-2 July: `When you have spoken to him you will probably be more satisfied with him than you imagine; for Prince Eugene has written to me that his lordship thinks like a general, though he does not always express himself with propriety' (, ii. 79). From Vienna Peterborough went to Leipzig, charged, it would appear, with some irregular mission from the Austrian court to the king of Sweden. At Leipzig Charles XII sought to avoid him, but Peterborough managed to point out to him that with an army such as his nearly eighty thousand men of the best troops in the world he might be the arbiter of the fate of Europe. Charles, however, had other designs, and Peterborough went on to Hanover, paid his court to the Electress Sophia, inspired her son, the future king of England, with antipathy, and early in August arrived at Soignies on a visit to Marlborough.

For some time back Marlborough had conceived a poor idea of Peterborough's conduct, and on 13 Sept. 1706 had written privately to the duchess that `he did not think much ceremony ought to be used in removing him from a place where he has hazarded the loss of the whole country' (ib. i. 471). He was, however, quite sensible that Peterborough might be a dangerous man to offend, and now received him with civility but apparently with little confidence. 'By what he tells me,' he wrote to Godolphin on 18 Aug., 'he thinks he has demonstration to convince you that he has been injured in everything that has been reported to his disadvantage.' 'I have endeavoured,' he added four days later, 'to let him see that, for his own sake, he ought to clear up the objections against him, and he has promised me that he will acquaint you and Lord Sunderland with all he has to say' (ib. ii. 132).

By 20 Aug. Peterborough was in England. A proposal had been made by Harley, and endorsed by others of the cabinet, to arrest him and bring him to trial, but it was not acted on (ib. ii. 137). On 3 Sept. he applied for an audience. It was refused, on the ground that he could not be admitted to the queen's presence until he had explained 'why he did not in the preceding campaign march to Madrid with the army under his command; why he did not fulfil his instructions in advancing to the King of Spain the supplies entrusted to his disposition; and why he retired to Italy without orders, and borrowed large sums of money on disadvantageous terms' (ib. ii. 178). Peterborough made no attempt to clear himself officially, but he commissioned his friend, Dr. Freind, to publish an account of what had been done, and supplied him with such documents as he judged suitable. These documents were correctly reproduced, but Freind's 'Account of the Earl of Peterborough's Conduct in Spain' must be considered, as was said at the time, as 'the Earl of Monmouth's vindication of the Earl of Peterborough.' It is Peterborough's own story, and, except where extraneously supported, has no authority. Neither has the answer, under the title of Remarks upon Dr. Friend's Account,' any independent authority; it merely supplied glosses, pro or con, on such evidence as it suited Peterborough to produce. But Freind had also challenged an official inquiry, and an investigation began before the House of Lords in January 1707-8. It speedily became a trial of strength between the factions of the day; the tories upheld Peterborough, although he was the most radical of whigs, against the whig government, whose supporters had denounced him. After an examination extending over several weeks, the House of Lords refused to adopt the charges against him; but it also refused to pass a vote of thanks. The government was loth to accept this ambiguous decision as an acquittal. Peterborough was, indeed, on 30 July, admitted to kiss the queen's hand; but he was also ordered to render an account of the money