Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough was born Sarah Jennings in Sandridge, near St. Albans, on June 5, 1660.
Her father died when she was eight, and five years later she went to live with her mother and her elder sister, who was a maid of honor to the first Duchess of York, in St. James's Palace. There she shared society life with the second daughter of the Duchess of York, Princess Anne, with whom she became close friends.
In 1683 she became lady of the bedchamber to Princess Anne, after the latter married Prince George of Denmark. She acquired great influence over Anne and helped induce her first to abandon her father at the revolution of 1688 and then to waive her own claims at the time of the revolutionary settlement.
Both of them disliked King William III, whom they called "the Dutch abortion" and "Caliban. " When Anne became queen in 1702, Sarah was given important positions at court.
But she grew bored with the card-playing, gluttonous queen and became a partisan of the Whig leaders when Anne favored the Tories. Partly because she neglected the queen, she began losing favor from about 1705, although she was retained in office because of her husband's success as a general.
In April 1710 she saw Anne for the last time and at the end of an unpleasant scene burst into tears. Later she sent the queen a contrite letter by her husband, but she was dismissed from all her posts.
In widowhood she intrigued against Sir Robert Walpole, helped the poet Alexander Pope, wrote a defense of her conduct (1742), and absorbed herself in the completion of Blenheim Palace after refusing the architect, Sir John Vanbrugh, permission to enter its gates. She was immensely rich when she died, and she startled the world by leaving £10, 000p10, 000 to William Pitt.
Quotations: "Prithee, do not talk to me of books, " she once remarked. "I know only men and cards. "
As early as 1676 she quarreled with her mother, as later she was to quarrel with most other people.
Of strong personality, high-strung, greedy for money, and overweeningly ambitious, she was nicknamed "Queen Zarah. "
At court she met the handsome Colonel John Churchill, who, apparently after less honorable suggestions, proposed marriage. She was haughty and demanding, though she knew that Churchill's parents opposed the match. They were secretly married in 1678, and she accompanied her husband--who was a gentleman in waiting to James, Duke of York--to Holland and Scotland.
She was devoted to her husband, "My dear Lord Marl. ," and could not ruffle him even when she differed with him over politics or when in 1704 she accused him of infidelity.
After his death in 1722, when she was asked in marriage by the Duke of Somerset, she said, "If I were young and handsome as I was, instead of old and faded as I am, and you could lay the empire of the world at my feet, you should never share the heart and hand that once belonged to John, Duke of Marlborough. "
Countess of Sunderland
2nd Duchess of Marlborough
Marquess of Blandford
1st Duke of Marlborough
