Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/581

Rh ment. In 1881 the population of the municipal borough (area 186 acres) was 3343, and of the parliamentary borough (area 4665 acres) 5180.

The name has been a frequent matter for discussion, some declaring it to be the hill (berg) or fortress (burg) of Merlin the Briton, others the Marl borough, in allusion to the surrounding soil, which, however, is chalk. A great British mound exists at the south-west extremity of the town, and a castle was erected around it by William the Conqueror. This became a somewhat notable place. Henry I. kept Easter here in 1110, and Henry II. granted it to John Lackland. Henry III. held his last parliament here in 1267, and passed the &quot; Statutes of Marleberge. &quot; Later the castle served as an occasional royal residence ; it was probably dismantled during the Wars of the Roses. The town was besieged and taken during the civil wars, and a few years later (1653) was almost entirely consumed by fire. A large mansion was erected by Lord Seymour in the reign of Charles II. near the site of the castle, and this, after various vicissitudes, was in 1843 converted into &quot;Marlborough College,&quot; a public school designed mainly for the education of the sons of the clergy. A large group of buildings chapel, schools, dining hall, racket courts, &c. soon sprung up around the original building, and the school numbered five hundred and eighty in 1882.

MARLBOROUGH, a town of the United States, in Middlesex county, Massachusetts, about 25 miles west from Boston, with stations on the Old Colony and the Fitchburg Railways. It lies in a fertile hilly district, and contains a beautiful sheet of water 160 acres in extent, known as Williams Lake. Shoemaking is the staple industry, some of the factories in the department rivalling the largest in the world. There is a good public library; and three weekly newspapers are published in the town. The population increased from 8474 in 1870 to 10,126 in 1830. Marlborough, colonized by settlers from Sudbury in 1655, and incorporated in 1661, occupies the site of the Christian Indian village of Okommakamesitt.  MARLBOROUGH, (1650-1722). In the small manor house of Ashe, situated in the parish of Musbury in Devonshire, but hardly a stone s throw beyond the parish of Axminster, John Churchill the first duke of Marlborough was born 24th of June 1650. Arabella Churchill, his eldest sister, and the mother of the duke of Berwick, was born in the same house on the 28th of February 1648. They were the children of Winston Churchill of Glanville Wotton in Dorset and Elizabeth the fourth daughter of Sir John Drake, who after the close of the civil war received his son-in-law into his own house. For a year or two after the Restoration John Churchill went to St Paul s school, and there is a tradition that during this period he showed the bent of his taste by reading and re-reading Vegetius De Re Militari. When fifteen years old he obtained a place in the household of the duke of York, and about the same time his sister Arabella became maid of honour to the duchess, two events which contributed greatly to the advancement of the Churchills. Next year, in 1666, he received, through the influence of his master, a commission in the guards, and left England for service at Tangiers. Such fighting as was waged with the Moors did not accord with his feelings, and he soon returned to his own country. For a few years afterwards Churchill remained in attend ance at the court, and it was during this period that the natural carefulness of his disposition was shown by his investing in an annuity a present of 5000 given him by a court beauty. In 1672, when England to her shame sent six thousand troops to aid Louis XIV. in his attempt to subdue the Dutch, Churchill formed one of the company, and soon attracted the attention of Turenne, by whose profound military genius the whole army was directed. At the siege of Nimeguen Churchill acquitted himself with such success that the French commander predicted his ultimate rise to distinction. When Maestricht was besieged he saved the life of the duke of Monmouth, and received the thanks of Louis XIV. for his services. Early in 1678 he was married to Sarah Jennings, the favourite attendant on the Princess Anne, the younger daughter of the duke of York. Her father Richard Jennings, a Hertfordshire squire, had twenty-two brothers and sisters ; one of the latter married a London tradesman called Hill, and their daughter Abigail Hill afterwards succeeded her cousin the duchess of Marlborough as favourite to Queen Anne. Sarah Jennings had as little money as her husband, but this deficiency was more than compensated for by an abundance of energy and ambition. On the accession of James II. the Churchills received a great increase in fortune. Colonel Churchill had been created a Scotch peer in 1682, and as a reward for his services in going on a special mission from the new monarch to Louis XIV. he was advanced to the English peerage under the title of Baron Churchill of Sandridge in Hertfordshire, the village in which the Jennings s property was situated. A step in the army was at the same time conferred upon him, and when the duke of Monmouth attempted his ill-fated enterprise in the western counties the second position in command was bestowed on Lord Churchill. Through his vigilance and energy victory declared itself on the king s side. After the death of Monmouth he withdrew as far as possible from the administration of public business. Whilst on his embassy to the French court he had declared with emphasis that if the king of England should change the religion of the state he should at once leave his service, and it was not long before the design of James became apparent to the world. Churchill was one of the first to send overtures of obedience to the prince of Orange. Although he continued in a high position under James, and drew the emoluments of his places, he promised William of Orange to use every exertion to bring over the troops to his side. James had been warned against putting any trust in the loyalty of the man on whom he had showered so many favours, but the warnings were in vain, and on the landing of the Dutch prince at Brixham Churchill was sent against him with five thousand men. When the royal army had advanced to the downs of Wiltshire and a battle seemed imminent, James was disconcerted by learning that in the dead of night his general had stolen away like a thief into the opposite camp. For this timely act of treachery Churchill received another advancement in the peerage. He had now become the earl of Marlborough and a member of the privy council, a mark of royal favour which during this and the next reign was more than an unmeaning honour. William felt, however, that he could not place implicit reliance in his friend s integrity; and, with a clear sense of the manner in which Marlborough s talents might be employed without any detriment to the stability of his throne, he sent him with the army into the Netherlands and into Ireland. For some time there was no open avowal of any distrust in Marlborough s loyalty, but in May 1692 the world was astonished at the news that he had been thrown into the Tower on an accusation of treason. Though the evidence which could be brought against him was slight, and he was soon set at liberty, there is no doubt that Marlborough was in close relations with the exiled king at St Germains, and that he even went so far as to disclose to his late master the intention of the English to attack the town of Brest. The talents of the statesmen of this reign were chiefly displayed in their attempts to convince both the exiled and the reigning king of England of their attachment to his fortunes. The sin of Marlborough lay in the fact that he had been favoured above his fellows by each in turn, and that he betrayed both alike apparently without _ scruple or without shame. Once again during the Fenwick plot he was charged with treason, but William, knowing that if he 