General John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, 1st Prince of Mindelheim, 1st Count of Nellenburg, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire (26 May 1650 – 16 June 1722 O.S.) was a British army officer and statesman. From a gentry family, he served as a page at the court of the House of Stuart under James, Duke of York, through the 1670s and early 1680s, earning military and political advancement through his courage and diplomatic skill. He is known for never having lost a battle.
Churchill's role in defeating the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685 helped secure James on the throne, but he was a key player in the military conspiracy that led to James being deposed during the Glorious Revolution. Rewarded by William III with the title Earl of Marlborough, persistent charges of Jacobitism led to his fall from office and temporary imprisonment in the Tower of London. William recognised his abilities by appointing him as his deputy in Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium) before the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701, but not until the accession of Queen Anne in 1702 did he secure his fame and fortune.
Marriage to Sarah Jennings and her relationship with Anne ensured Marlborough's rise, first to the captain-generalcy of British forces, then to a dukedom. As de facto leader of Allied forces in the Low Countries, his victories at the battles of Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706), Oudenarde (1708), and Malplaquet (1709) ensured his place in history as one of Europe's great generals. His wife's stormy relationship with the Queen, and her subsequent dismissal from court, was central to his own fall. Incurring Anne's disfavour, and caught between Tory and Whig factions, Marlborough was forced from office and went into self-imposed exile. He returned to favour with the accession of George I to the throne in 1714, but a stroke in 1716 ended his career.
Marlborough's leadership of the main Allied army against Louis XIV from 1701 to 1711 helped to consolidate Britain's emergence as a front-rank power, while his ability to maintain unity in the fractious coalition demonstrated his diplomatic skills. He is often remembered by military historians as much for his organisational and logistic skills as his tactical abilities. Marlborough's military exploits have resulted in successive historians describing him as one of the finest military commanders in history.
Churchill was the second but eldest surviving son of Sir Winston Churchill of Glanvilles Wootton, Dorset, and Elizabeth Drake, whose family came from Ash, Devon. Winston served with the Royalist army in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms; he was heavily fined for doing so, forcing his family to live at Ash House with his mother-in-law. John Churchill was a descendant of Edward I through his daughter, Joan of Acre.
After the 1660 Restoration of Charles II, Winston became Member of Parliament for Weymouth and from 1662 served as Commissioner for Irish Land Claims in Dublin. On returning to London in 1663, he was knighted and received a position at Whitehall, with John attending St Paul's School.
The family fortune was made in 1665 when Arabella Churchill became maid of honour to Anne Hyde and began an affair with her husband, James, Duke of York (later James II). This lasted over a decade; James had four acknowledged children with her, including James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick. Their relationship led to appointments for her brothers: John was appointed page to James, and in September 1667 made an ensign in the Foot Guards.
Assertions that Churchill served with the Tangier Garrison cannot be confirmed, but he is recorded as being with Sir Thomas Allin in the Mediterranean from March to November 1670. He returned to London, where in February 1671 he engaged in a duel with Sir John Fenwick. He allegedly had an affair with Barbara Villiers, a mistress of Charles II, and may have fathered her daughter Barbara Fitzroy, although he never formally acknowledged her.
In 1670 Treaty of Dover, Charles II agreed to support a French attack on the Dutch Republic and supply a British brigade of 6,000 troops for the French army. Louis XIV paid him £230,000 per year for this. When the Franco-Dutch War began in 1672, Churchill was present at the Battle of Solebay on 28 May, possibly aboard James's flagship, the Prince, which was crippled.
Shortly thereafter, Churchill was commissioned Captain in the Duke of York's Admiralty Regiment, part of the British brigade, commanded by the Duke of Monmouth. The alliance with Catholic France was extremely unpopular and many doubted the brigade's reliability against the Dutch. As a result, it served in the Rhineland against the Holy Roman Empire, although Churchill, Monmouth and other volunteers took part in the French siege of Maastricht.
England withdrew from the war with the 1674 Treaty of Westminster, but to keep his subsidies, Charles encouraged members of the Anglo-Scots force to remain in French service; many did so, including Monmouth and Churchill, who became Colonel of one such regiment, serving under Marshal Turenne. He was present at Sinsheim in June 1674, Enzheim in October, and possibly at Sasbach in July 1675, where Turenne was killed.
Sometime around 1675, Churchill met the 15-year-old Sarah Jennings, who came from a similar background of minor Royalist gentry, ruined by the war. The family moved to London after her father died and in 1673, Sarah and her sister Frances joined the household of Mary of Modena, James's second Catholic wife. Despite opposition from his father, who wanted him to marry the wealthy Catherine Sedley, Churchill married Sarah in the winter of 1677–78, helped by Mary.
The couple had five children who survived to adulthood: Henrietta Churchill, 2nd Duchess of Marlborough, Lady Anne Churchill, John Churchill, Marquess of Blandford, Elizabeth, and Mary.
In November 1677, William of Orange married James's eldest daughter, Mary, and in March 1678, the Earl of Danby negotiated an Anglo-Dutch defensive alliance. Churchill was sent to the Hague to make arrangements for an expeditionary force, although English troops did not arrive in significant numbers until after the Peace of Nijmegen ended the war on 10 August.
James publicly confirmed his conversion to Catholicism in 1673; as heir to the throne, this led to a political crisis that dominated English politics from 1679 to 1681. In the 1679 General Election, Churchill was elected MP for Newtown; the majority supported James's exclusion and he spent the next three years in exile, Churchill acting as his liaison with the court.
Charles defeated the Exclusionists and dismissed Parliament in 1681, allowing James to return to London. In 1682, Churchill was made Lord Churchill of Eyemouth in the peerage of Scotland and the following year, colonel of the King's Own Royal Regiment of Dragoons. These rewards allowed him to live in some style and comfort; in addition to a house in London, he purchased Holywell House, near St Albans. He also gained control of the Parliamentary constituency of St Albans; his brother George Churchill held the seat from 1685 to 1708.
His brother Charles Churchill served at the Danish court, where he became friends with Prince George of Denmark, who married James's younger daughter Anne in 1683. His senior aide was Colonel Charles Griffin, brother-in-law to Sarah, appointed Lady of the Bedchamber to Anne. The Churchills and their relatives formed a central part of the so-called 'Cockpit circle' of Anne's friends, named after her apartments in Whitehall. Churchill was reportedly concerned at being too closely associated with James, particularly since Sarah's sister Frances was married to Irish Catholic Richard Talbot, appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1687. This was offset by their connection with the Protestant Anne, while Sarah herself was renowned for being virulently anti-Catholic.
Despite his Catholicism, James succeeded Charles as king in February 1685 with widespread support. Many feared his exclusion would lead to a repetition of the 1638–1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms but tolerance for his personal beliefs did not apply to Catholicism in general. His support collapsed when his policies appeared to threaten the primacy of the Church of England and created the instability his supporters wished to avoid.