Stuarts

ANNE 209
terms her, "by turns all woman-kind"; in respect of the influence she
wielded over Anne, and over her husband, she was a truly great character,
and it needs far more space to do justice to her commanding qualities than
can here be spared. For this reason, and because the great "Atossa" was
not a Stuart, we must not enter into details of her life and disposition which
are, to be sure, sufficiently well known. But there is a story about her which
Lady Mary Wortley Montague relates, so full of personal interest that it
must be recalled to the reader's memory. It is apropos her beautiful hair.
"The best thing I had," she says herself, "was the colour of my hair." In
a fit of spleen she cut off her tresses and laid them in an ante-chamber
through which she knew her lord must pass.
As he showed no sign of displeasure, she concluded her husband had
not seen the hair, and hurried to the room to secure it. No trace of it could
be seen. After the Duke's death she found the ringlets carefully preserved
in a cabinet wherein he kept whatever he held most precious.
"At this point of the story," says Lady Mary, "the Duchess regularly
fell a-crying." As to the place her husband really held in her affections,
her well-known reply to the Duke of Somerset, who wished to marry her,
though she was then sixty-two, is sufficient evidence. When this proud
old man proposed for her widowed hand, she made answer that had she
been but half her age, and if he were the Emperor of the world, she would
not permit him to succeed in that heart which had been devoted to John,
Duke of Marlborough.
The portrait given of Sarah Jennings represents her in the plenitude
of her charms ; it is from the fine painting in the National Portrait Gallery
by Sir Godfrey Kneller, and shows the imperious, mutinous character of the
woman. Without doubt she and her husband were a handsome pair, and
Macaulay, though he likes not the Duke, cannot deny the victor of Blenheim's
physical beauty. He says : " John Churchill was a fine youth, early dis-
tinguished as a man of fashion and of pleasure. His stature was command-
ing, his face handsome, his address singularly winning, yet of such dignity
that the most impertinent fops never ventured to take any liberty with him ;
his temper, even in the most vexatious and irritating circumstances, always
under perfect command. His education had been so much neglected that
he could not spell the most common words of his own language : but his
acute and vigorous understanding amply supplied the place of book-learning.
" He was not talkative, but when he was forced to speak in public, his
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