Author: Fitzgerald Molloy

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2018-01-13

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 9780428975326

Excerpt from The Queen's Comrade, Vol. 1: The Life and Times of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough In relating the eventful story of her days it is indispensable that pictures should be given of the courts in which she figured, the incidents that amused or the storms that shook them, the political events that led to comedy or tragedy, the characters who played important parts as kings or queens, princes and princesses, sycophants or conspirators, great officers of the state, courtesans, whispering pages of the back stairs, bedchamber women, petty clerks of the palace; all puppets of a brief hour, unconsciously posturing for posterity, their antics illustrating the Annals ofa reflection of their writers' minds - have occasionally been given at length, to illustrate a character, or describe an event. And though no statement is made without authority, and scandal is not sedulously avoided, the unnecessary task of pointing a moral, that so frequently disfigures a tale, is unheeded. Many of the heretofore unpublished statements, ancedotes, and letters in this strange eventful life story, have been found in the thirty-four volumes of manuscripts originally collected by Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, as materials for the memoirs of her husband; only an inconsiderable part of which could be used by their writer, Archdeacon Coxe; who in describing the historic exploits of the duke, left himself little space to speak of the social episodes in the career of the indomitable duchess. At the biographer's death, these papers passed to the peaceful security of the British Museum, where time-stained and faded they still bear silent witness to the ambitions, passions, schemes, and ferments that stirred the souls of those whose actions made history. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.