On the Duke of Marlborough

sively in nearly all the reviews. With the narrower contention of the book, I am not here concerned directly; with the wider contention o£ the critics, I am very much concerned indeed. The first half of the question is this: was the great Duke of Marlborough really guilty of all, or even most, of the wicked actions attributed to him? I can easily believe that the right answer to this question is: probably not. The second half of the question is this: are his bad actions justified because they were in a good cause, and (incidentally) were they in a good cause? For it has been almost entirely on this latter question that the reviewers have spread themselves, in most of the reviews that I have read. Not having read the original documents or details, I am willing to imagine that many of the ugly stories against Churchill can be denied. But I am not inquiring about the stories that are denied, but about the stories that are accepted. And I am inquiring whether those ugly stories do really become pretty stories because they are parts of a pretty story which is still sometimes called Progress, but which was known in my childhood as Little Arthur's History of England. Anybody who thinks can see at once that the logical distinction between these issues is clear. It is one thing to say that we can acquit Churchill of writing certain letters, or living by certain expedients, because the evidence is insufficient to convict htm. It is quite another thing to say that we must forgive Churchill for using certain expedients, because his. purpose was so noble and public-spirited that his very loftiness of principle obliged him to depend on expediency. In the first case we are trying the man for a crime, and may acquit him. In the second case we are trying the Cause in which the man admittedly committed the crime. If we are to excuse the badness of the crime for the goodness of the cause, we naturally want to know rather more about the cause. And we shall not be altogether contented if at the end (as happens to be my own case) we come honestly to the conclusion that the cause was rather worse than the crime. I have my doubts, to start with, whether such a man is really doing evil that good may come. But it does make a slight difference, if I happen to believe that he is doing evil that evil may come.

For the journalists whom I have found supporting Mr. Churchill's thesis are quite brazen and cynical in maintaining the theory that the end justifies the means. They defend Marlborough's treacherous desertion of James II, wholly and solely upon the ground that it was necessary for the glorious invasion of William III. Without disputing with the journalists a morality which they quite falsely attributed to the Jesuits, we may at least say that in that case we are entitled to inquire exactly how glorious was the invasion of William III? Was William of Orange really so supernatural and beautiful a blessing, such a pearl of great price, such an ideal object of human desire, that a man might practise any degree of deception or desertion, if only he might see in England, like a beatific vision, the face of that divine Dutchman? Was the successful invasion and conquest of England by a Dutch army an object so purely and perfectly patriotic that a great English General was justified in committing mutiny and treason and refusing to lead his own country's army to defend his own country? The fact is that there is no defence of Marlborough in this matter, upon the normal notions about a patriot, a soldier, or a gentleman. The fact can be established b$ a very simple test. Those who have condemned Marlborough most strongly have been men of normal moral feeling; but men actually inheriting and representing the Whig or Protestant Settlement, for the sake of which he is supposed to have sold his master.

This is what makes it so monstrously amusing that the desperate defence of Marlborough now involves a violent and belated attack on Macaulay. Well, to us who believe in the older English tradition, it is no news that Macaulay talked nonsense. But it siems to be quite forgotten that he talked nonsense entirely on the same side as the apologists of Marlborough. He might well have thought that nothing could be too good or bad to glorify the Glorious Revolution. He was probably the only sane human being who ever lived who really did regard William of Orange as an ideal object and a pearl of great price. If Marlborough had really been only a hero of the Glorious Revolution, I cannot imagine what motive Macaulay could have had for describing him as anything but heroic. Mr. Churchill seems to suggest that Macaulay got all his bias against Marlborough by meekly and credulously swallowing everything to be found in Jacobite pamphlets. A rather extraordinary suggestion to anybody who happens to have read Macaulay, and remembers how he speaks about those very same Jacobite pamphlets. He blackens them as baseless slanders against William of Orange; why should he not have equally disregarded their slanders against Marlborough? Marlborough was everything that Macaulay admired: a great Whig, a great maker of the Revolution, a vety great English soldier; and Macaulay's patriotism was not small. It seems to me staringly self-evident that Macaulay is rather a reluctant witness, if anything, against the great warrior of the Whigs. But Macaulay also had a moral sense; an old Victorian piece of furniture which is now not much in fashion. Anyhow, I confess there is at least one other authority who counts with me much more than Macaulay. He is even more of an example of an independent witness testifying, if anything, against his own side. If we allow anyone to criticize the Duke of Marlborough, it might well be the Duke of Wellington. Nobody says Wellington was a romantic Jacobite or a sentimental Fenian regretting the victory of the Boyne. But Wellington did regret the treason of Marlborough; and regret is a very mild term. He said he could not conceive any soldier doing such a thing; and his word will not be easy to erase.

But the question still remains — if treason was done that truth might triumph, was it really the truth that triumphed? Was Truth the outstanding quality of that long agitation against the last Stuarts which began with the statements of the Rev. Titus Oates and ended with the Story of the Warming-Pan? Was truth, or even justice, or, for that matter, even liberty, particularly characteristic of the system and the dynasty which the Revolution substituted for the Stuarts: the progress whose practical stages in history bear the names of Glencoe and Limerick and Wood's Halfpence and the South Sea Bubble? I never could see, for the life of me, that there was any particular improvement of any kind, in the matter of freedom and enlightenment, merely following on the usurpation by William of Orange. The last Stuarts were much more in favour of freedom and enlightenment; of religious toleration; of international peace; of culture and comprehension o£ the arts. I admit that a new sort of freedom and enlightenment, for good or evil, came long afterwards from the French Revolution. But there is not a scrap of logical link between the French Revolution and the Glorious Revolution. The latter, as Macaulay truly said, was glorious only for William of Orange; and its spirit now remains only in a few Orangemen. With all respect to them, they do not exactly represent the widest philosophy of modern times.

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XIX On the Crank and the Cad

WE should naturally think that vulgarity and eccentricity were at opposite extremes; that whatever the vulgarian might do, he would scorn doing anything eccentric; and that whatever the eccentric might do, he would korn doing anything vulgar. When o£ the energetic Mr. Bundleton-Brown, who has just bought the shooting from the impecunious Duke, it is first faintly whispered that he is "rather common," it is certainly meant that there are rather too many of him; even by those who know only a few, and wish there were fewer still. But when of Mr. Gurley Wow, the enthusiast who, so far from shooting birds, stands still for days that they may comfortably nest in his hair, when of him it is said that he is "rather eccentric," it serves at least to clear his reputation of the charge of commonness, of dull conventionality, of snobbish acceptation of a uniform suburban etiquette, and all such things. By being a lunatic, he has at least purged himself of the foul stain of being a regular guy. And we should naturally suppose that the regular guy would be equally satisfied with the thought that he was not a lunatic. And yet