The Duke of Marlborough never lost a battle, yet still lost his job
John Churchill triumphed at Blenheim in 1704 and in a string of later clashes with France, and is remembered as a general who was never beaten in battle. What undid him was court politics: his wife Sarah fell out with Queen Anne, and caught between Whigs and Tories, he was pushed from office into exile.
Churchill was born on 26 May 1650 into Dorset gentry. His father, Sir Winston Churchill, had fought for the Royalists and paid heavy fines for it, so the family lived with his mother-in-law in Devon. After the Restoration his father entered Parliament and a post at Whitehall, and John went to St Paul's School. The family's real break came in 1665, when John's sister Arabella became mistress to James, Duke of York, the future James II, bearing him four acknowledged children. John became James's page and in 1667 an ensign in the Foot Guards.
His early career mixed soldiering and scandal. He duelled Sir John Fenwick in 1671 and was rumoured to be the lover of Barbara Villiers, a mistress of Charles II. Under the 1670 Treaty of Dover, Charles supplied troops to France for a French subsidy, and Churchill fought at the sea battle of Solebay in 1672, joined the siege of Maastricht, and later served under Marshal Turenne as a colonel.
Loyalty proved flexible. Churchill helped crush the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685 and secure James's throne, then joined the military plot that toppled James in the Glorious Revolution. William III made him Earl of Marlborough, though suspicions of Jacobite sympathies briefly landed him in the Tower of London.
Queen Anne's accession in 1702 was his making, helped by Sarah's close friendship with her. As captain-general and then duke, he effectively led the Allied armies against Louis XIV from 1701 to 1711, holding together a quarrelsome coalition and impressing historians as much with logistics as tactics. His campaigns helped establish Britain as a leading power. When George I took the throne in 1714 Marlborough regained royal favour, only to be sidelined for good by a stroke two years later. He died on 16 June 1722.
Source: John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough
