Courting Her Highness_ The Story of Queen Anne - Jean Plaidy [176]
Poor Godolphin! But perhaps he was fortunate for he would not have to stay and fight his way back to power. There he lay on his bed oblivious to all that was happening about them—an old man now; yet it did not seem so long ago that they had all laid plans together.
She left the bedchamber, for she heard sounds of arrival. John had come to Windsor.
She ran into his embrace but she knew before he spoke, that the worst had happened. He had lost. He was disgraced. He was discredited.
They were silent as they clung together. She was thinking bitterly of her own violent nature which had brought them to this; he was blaming his avarice. He loved money for its own sake; he loved it as much as he loved fame and power—almost as much as he loved Sarah.
He had amassed great wealth—not always by fair means. He had founded his fortune on a gift of five thousand pounds given to him by an ageing woman whose lover he had been. He had never been particular as to how he found money. All that had mattered was that it came to him.
Now he was exposed. The man who had used the war to enrich himself! All the arrangements with suppliers, all the bribes and golden rewards—nothing could take away the glory of Blenheim and the rest. But none the less the Queen had dismissed him; he was a ruined man.
“There is nothing left for us in England while this Queen lives, Sarah,” he said.
She looked at him in fear. “You are going away, John?”
He nodded, but she shook her head violently.
“You will be with me,” he assured her. Then his eyes brightened. “As long as this Queen lives we shall be in exile … but she will not live forever.”
“And then!”
“George of Hanover will be George I of England. I fancy he will have a use for our services.”
“So, it is a game of patience,” she said.
“Never your greatest gift, my dearest.”
“But we shall be together.”
“Together,” he said, “playing the waiting game.”
Lord Godolphin died soon afterwards and Marlborough immediately made plans to leave the country.
Sarah quickly joined him.
QUEEN ANNE IS DEAD
ady Masham waited for Lord Oxford to leave the Queen. She had seen him before he went into her presence; he had staggered a little and he had not bothered to change his coat on which were stains of snuff and wine.
Yet the Queen did not seem to notice the disgusting appearance of her first minister. Nor had she remarked that he was less respectful than he had once been. He must be drinking very heavily, thought Abigail.
It might be that wine dulled his perceptions. He had certainly grown very careless since taking office.
His head was full of financial schemes—so much more to his taste than war. His thoughts were mainly occupied with enlarging British Commerce and he was a governor of that great enterprise known as the “Company of Merchants of Great Britain trading to the South Seas and other Parts of America.” People had rushed to invest their money believing that they would make a fortune in a very short time. He was also involved in the slave trade which he believed could bring a great source of revenue. The word assiento was on every lip. This meant the right to provide Spanish colonies with slaves.
Lord Oxford, nodding over his wine, sleeping the sleep of intoxication every night, dreamed dreams of doing for England through commerce what Marlborough had done through war.
Abigail was pregnant once more and this brought home to her the fact that she would soon have a growing family for which to provide. Samuel would never do very much and it rested with her. Her son would be Lord Masham in due course, but she wanted to give him something more than a title.
When Lord Oxford left the Queen and she met him as if by accident, he would have bowed and passed on. She was angry although she gave no sign of it, and there was more than one reason for her emotion. What a fool he was! With all his chances, to throw them away as surely as Sarah Churchill had thrown away hers. Why was it that success corrupted? Why, when people achieved it, did they lose their sense of proportion? Why did they build