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Rh nominated a K.G. In November he was sent as ambassador extraordinary to the Duke of Savoy (now become king of Sicily), and to the other Italian princes. It was a mere mission of compliment, and very positive instructions minimised his talent for mischief. In March 1714 he was appointed governor of Minorca, but before he could go thither the queen died, King George ascended the throne, and, on the return of the whigs to power, Peterborough was summarily recalled. On his way home through Paris he was entertained at dinner by the Marquis de Torcy, and Louis XIV `ordered the fountains at Marly to be set working in his honour, keeping him by his side as he walked, and treating him "avec beaucoup de distinction"' (, p. 191).

But in England he was `a fallen star.' The day after his return he presented himself at court; he was coldly received, and an order was sent to him forbidding his reappearance. It was the end of his official career, though he continued to attend in the House of Lords as late as 1731, and frequently spoke with much wit and vehemence. In June 1715 he was deprived of his colonelcy of the blues (, p. 76). In 1717 he went to Italy in search of health. At Bologna he was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in a conspiracy against the Pretender, and was detained for a month till he made his identity clear to his captors. The excitement' restored his health. He hastened back to England to clamour for revenge; but the story that the English fleet was sent off Civita Vecchia to exact compensation is not true. The papal government, however, expressed regret, laying the blame on the cardinal-legate at Bologna. In 1719 Peterborough again went to Italy on a self-constituted mission to the Duke of Parma, and is said to have brought about the downfall of Alberoni, who, on his part, had described him as `a most pretentious fool and consummate blackguard' (, Elisabeth Farnese, p. 122). He was again in France in 1720, when Dubois wrote of him as likely to injure the Anglo-French alliance by his pernicious habit of belittling the resources of England. It was afterwards said that in 1722 he married Anastasia Robinson, the singer. At the time, however, the marriage if there was one was kept strictly secret; it was believed by many that she was Peterborough's mistress a belief that gained ground when, apparently in January 1723-4, Peterborough publicly caned Senesino, the leading tenor of the opera company, for insolence to her, and compelled him to ask her pardon on his knees. Lord Stanhope, afterwards earl of Chesterfield, jestingly spoke of Peterborough as 'an old Don Quixote,' and in consequence received a challenge: the duel, however, was prevented by the civil power (Letters of Lady Mary Worthy Montagu, ed. Bohn, i. 352-3). After this, Miss Robinson, as she was to the world, quitted the stage and settled down in a house taken for her by Peterborough near Parson's Green, Fulham.

About the same time began a correspondence with Mrs. Howard, the mistress of the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II [see ]. A set of verses addressed to her, beginning `I said to my heart between sleeping and waking,' are not without merit, and led Walpole to include Peterborough in his list of `noble poets;' but the letters themselves, written by a man of seventy to a deaf woman of forty, are ' the silliest of superannuated philandering'. They may perhaps be counted as one of his literary amusements, in which, and in the society of literary men, more especially Swift and Pope, with Arbuthnot and Gay, much of his time was passed. Tours in France or other parts of the continent filled up the rest. Mr. Stebbing speaks too of his military duties. In May 1722 his commission as general of marines, originally given in 1710, was enlarged to 'General of all the Marine Forces of Great Britain;' but there were no marine forces at the time, and the only duty Peterborough could be called on to perform was to receive his pay.

He was always needy and in debt. He asserted that he had impoverished his estate by maintaining the army in Spain at his own cost; but he had no accounts to show in support of this statement, and no government could accept it. By reckless expenditure and by confusion between his own and the public money he unquestionably lavished a great deal, but not necessarily on the army. He had never been wealthy, and on the death of his uncle in 1697 the family estates, separated from the title, had gone to his cousin, Lady Mary, daughter of Henry Mordaunt, second earl of Petreborough [q. v.], in her own right Baroness Beauchamp and Mordaunt, and wife of Henry Howard, seventh duke of Norfolk [q. v.], from whom she was divorced in 1700. On the duke's death in 1701 she married Sir John Germain [q. v.], and though Peterborough endeavoured to recover the estates from her, the House of Lords, decided against him. At her death, in November 1705, Peterborough succeeded to the baronies, but she left the property to her husband. Peterborough contested Germain's right, but the House of Lords again decided against him. He found ways, however, of raising Rh