Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough

CL , not her husband, seems to have been always the family bread-winner, and she was always struggling with poverty. The Duchess of Newcastle (a grand-daughter of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough ) helped her with...

The anonymous Secret History of Queen Zarah , and the Zarazians; being a Looking-Glass for —— In the Kingdom of Albigion may possibly be DM 's first political scandal fiction—or it might not be hers at all.

The secret history Queen Zarah, possibly by DM , was reprinted to cash in on the notoriety both of the New Atalantis and of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough . It was advertised in the...

Queen Zarah purports to be translated, not from French but from Italian. In it England is Albigion. The critical preface is in fact a translation of part of Morvan de Bellegarde 's Lettres curieuses...

The New Atalantis is crammed with offensive personal attacks on individuals (women as well as men); most though not all of them pertain to the misuse of political or sexual power. Particularly notorious is the...

A series of various keys attached to later editions fed curiosity about the originals of DM 's portraits, without actually giving very much away. Her work can claim some credit for the collapse of...

MCC made some good friends at Court. She was particularly fond of Charlotte Clayton (later Lady Sundon) . Her close relationship with Penelope Schutz (née Madan) became a liability when Penelope fell out of favour...

MCC and her husband exchanged affectionate letters from before their marriage. Some years before George I succeeded to the English throne she established contact with his chief minister, Baron Bernstorff , by letter. Her correspondence...

Her husband had also kept a political diary for some years. She began hers after her appointment on 24 October, though the first event she describes is the Coronation on...

She now sought the friendship of those in political power, like James Craggs , Charlotte Clayton , and members of the royal family. But she was closest to outsiders like Lady Stafford (an almost certainly...

The other novels in the series are The Three Crowns (1965), about William of Orange ; The Haunted Sisters (1966), about Mary , who marries William and reigns jointly with him in England, and Anne

Always attentive to the undercurrents of political behaviour (she reported the demeanour of Elizabeth Cellier in the pillory in a tone that sounds sympathetic although they were on different sides of the party divide), LRR

The novel offers in passing an amusing catalogue of an old-fashioned library, whose first items are heroic romances like Ibraham; Cassandra; Cleopatra [by Madeleine de Scudéry and Gauthier de La Calprenède ]. Several...

Both Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough , and Gilbert Burnet were concerned in the payment of CT 's mother's pension, restored under Queen Anne .

She had been working on it for two years, and saw it as an attempt to reform the stage.Congreve sent her detailed suggestions for revision, which sought to improve not her literary...