105 



MARKLAND, JEREMIAH. 



MARLBOROUGH, DUKE OF. 



106 



is mentioned in the 'Acts of the Apostles' (xii. 12, 25; xiii. 5, 13; 

 xv. 37). It is most probable that Johu was his Jewish name, and that 

 be took the surname of Marcus when he went to preach among the 

 Gentiles. He was the son of Mary, a pious woman at Jerusalem, in 

 whose house the disciples were wont to meet (Acts xii. 12), and the 

 nephew of Barnabas (Col. iv. 10). He left Jerusalem with Paul and 

 Barnabas about A.D. 44 (Acts xii. 25), and accompanied them in their 

 return to Antioch ; and thence in their mission (Acts xiii. 5) as far as 

 Perga in Pamphylia, where he parted from them, and returned to 

 Jerusalem (Acts xiii. 13). About A.D. 53 we find him again at Antioch, 

 when Paul proposed to Barnabas to visit the Asiatic churches. Barnabas 

 wished to take Mark with them, but Paul refusing on account of his 

 having deserted them in their former journey, they separated from each 

 other, and Mark accompanied Barnabas to Cyprus (Acts xv. 37-39). 

 Paul appears to have been reconciled to him afterwards, for we find 

 him at Rome with the apostle during his imprisonment, and he is 

 honourably mentioned in some of Paul's Epistles (CoL iv. 1 ; Philemon, 

 ver. 24 ; 2 Tim. iv. 11). We also find him with Peter in Asia (1 Pet. 

 v. 13 ; see Steiger's ' Commentary on the First Epistle of Peter,' in 

 loco) ; and it is supposed that he accompanied that apostle to Rome. 

 According to Kusebius, Epiphanius, and Jerome, he afterwards went 

 to Egypt, and founded a church at Alexandria, where he died and was 

 buried, according to Jerome, in the eighth year of Nero's reign, A.D. 62. 

 But this date appears to fix his death earlier than other circumstances 

 in his history will warrant. 



All the early writers affirm that Mark was intimately acquainted 

 with St. Peter: Papias, Irenaeus, and Tertulliau call him 'Peter's 

 interpreter.' It has been supposed that he was converted to Chris- 

 tianity by St. Peter, as that apostle calls him ' iny son' (see Kuiuoel's 

 note on Matt. xii. 27). Some of the later fathers mention him as one 

 of the seventy evangelists ; but there is DO good authority for this 

 tradition, and it H contradicted by Papias, who expressly says that he 

 had heard from the presbyter John, who was contemporary with the 

 apostle?, that Mark was not a hearer nor a follower of Christ, but of 

 Peter. (Eusebius, ' Ecc. Hist.,' fit 39.) 



MARKLAND, JEREMIAH, was bom on the 29th of October 1693 

 at Child wall, in Lancashire, of which parish his father was vicar. He 

 was educated at Christ's Hospital, London, whence he was sent to St. 

 Peter's College, Cambridge, in 1710. He took his degree of M.A. in 

 1717, and was soon afterwards elected a fellow and tutor of his college. 

 After residing at Cambridge for some time, he removed to Punsborn 

 iu Hertfordshire, to undertake the education of Mr. Shode'a son, and 

 afterwards travelled with his pupil on the Continent. During the 

 latter part of his life he resided at a small village near Dorking, in 

 Surrey, where he died on the 7th of July 1776. 



Markland lived in the greatest retirement, and devoted a long life 

 to the diligent study of the Greek and Roman writers. He was one 

 of the best English scholars and critics of the last century, but wrote 

 very little. He edited the 'Sylvso* of Statius (Lond., 172?), the 

 'Supplices' (1763), and the two Iphigenias of Euripides (1771), which 

 have been republished by Gaiaford. Subjoined to his edition of the 

 ' Supplices' are his ' Explications veterum aliquot Auctorum.' He 

 also contributed some observations to Taylor's edition of Lysias, to 

 Bowyer"s reprint of Kiister on the ' Middle Verb iu Greek,' and to 

 Musgrave's edition of the ' Hippolytus.' In 1745 he published 

 ' Remarks on the Epistles of Cicero to Brutus, and of Brutus to Cicero, 

 in a Letter to a Friend,' in which he attempts to prove that they could 

 not have been written by Brutus or Cicero ; and in an Appendix to 

 this work he also maintains that the four orations which occupy a place 

 in Cicero's works, under the titles of 'Pro Dorno sua apud Pontifices,' 

 'De HaruspicumResponsis,' 'Post Reditum in Senatu,' and 'Ad Quirites 

 pool Reditum, 'are also spurious. This opinion has been supported by 

 F. A. Wolff and many other able critics. 



MARLBORUUGH, JOHN CHURCHILL, DUKE OF, the ablest 

 general and most consummate statesman of his times, wan born at 

 Ashe, in Devonshire, on the 24th of June, 1C50. He was the second 

 sou of Sir Winston Churchill, a gentleman of ancient family, whose 

 fortunes had suffered severely in the civil war, through his devotion 

 to the royal cause; and whose loyalty, after the restoration, was 

 rewarded with sundry small offices under tho crown for himself, and 

 with the more questionable benefit of appointments for his children in 

 the profligate court of Charles II. Arabella Churchill, his daughter, 

 became first maid of honour to theDucluss of York, and next mistress 

 to her husband, the duke, afterwards James II. ; and John Churchill, 

 who was appointed page to the same prince, doubtless owed his early 

 advancement to this disgraceful connection. It is remarkable that one 

 of its fruits, James Fitzjames, duke of Berwick, proved a commander 

 of renown only less illustiious than his maternal uncle. 



The natural talents and merits of Churchill however were of too 



l.i^h an order to be solely dependent on the patronage which had 



sullied the honour of his house. Notwithstanding the disadvantages 



of a neglected education, which seems to have bi-en confined to a short 



nee at at Paul'* School, ho ave early indications of spirit and 



intelligence ; and his desire for a military lite having been gratified by 



-iron with a commission, he invariably distinguished himself iu 



each of hi* early campaigns : in the defence of Taugiers against the 



, and in the iuccessive operations in which the English troops 



shared ts auxiliaries to the French armies under Louis XIV. during 



the unprincipled alltanca of Charles II. with that monarch against the 

 Dutch. On the great theatre of continental warfare, in which Churchill 

 continued to serve from 1672 to 1677, his brilliant courage and ability, 

 no less than the singular graces of his person, attracted the notice of 

 the illustrious Turenne, who pronounced, with prophetic sagacity, that 

 "his handsome Englishman" would one day prove himself a master 

 of the art of war. 



On the conclusion of the peace of Niineguen, Churchill, now a 

 colonel, returned to England, and was happily rescued from too 

 licentious a career of dissipation by an ardent attachment for the 

 celebrated woman who became his wife, and who, for good and evil, 

 influenced the whole tenor of his subsequent life. This was Sarah 

 Jennings, a young lady of birth, genius, and beauty, whose irreproach- 

 able purity in a vicious age might have rendered her worthy of the 

 uxorious love of the hero, if her imperious temper had not disgraced 

 his submission to its tyranny, alienated his political friends, and 

 embittered his domestic peaca. She had been placed, like himself, at 

 an early age in the household of tha Duke and Duchess of York, 

 where she had become the favourite associate of their daughter the 

 Princess Anne, and bad acquired over the spirit of the future queen 

 that commanding influence which it belongs to the stronger to exercise 

 over the weaker mind. Her marriage separated neither her husband 

 nor herself from their service in the dueal household : Churchill was 

 confidentially employed by the Duke of York on many political 

 occasions, and when the Princess Anne was married, his wife was, by 

 her express desire, made a lady of her bed-chamber. Churchill had 

 previsusly been raised, through the interest of James, to a Scotch 

 barony ; and when that prince succeeded his brother on the throne, 

 he was further promoted to an English peerage by the style of Baron 

 Churchill of Saudrid^e. Under this title he contributed by very 

 effectual military service to the suppression of Monmouth's rebellion, 

 and was rewarded with his master's unbounded reliance on his fidelity. 



This confidence he basely betrayed, before and after the landing of 

 William of Orange, with a deliberate treachery, which sophistry has 

 vainly laboured to justify, and the infamy of which no excuse, even in 

 the difficult circumstances of the times, can be found to palliate. After 

 offering his services to the Prince of Orange, he accepted the command 

 of a Urge body of James's troops to oppose him ; after accepting that 

 command, he deserted to the prince ; and when William became king, 

 he received at his hands the title of Earl of Marlborough, aud the 

 offices of privy-councillor and lord of the bed-chamber, as the reward 

 of his ingratitude. His subsequent conduct throughout the reign of 

 William was consonant to this outset, for he corresponded and intrigued 

 with the exiled king. By this double treason and perjury he took from 

 the former desertion of his deluded sovereign the extenuation of a 

 conscientious principle ; he broke his allegiance to the new king whose 

 favours he had accepted ; and he branded his own inconsistency with 

 the motives of self-interest and self-preservation. 



William III., who knew equally well how to estimate the capacity 

 and the sincerity of Marlborough, alternately imprisoned and employed, 

 cashiered and re-commissioned, the man whom he is said on his death- 

 bed to have recommended to his successor as the fittest person to " lead 

 her armies and direct her councils." The favour of Marlborough's wife 

 with Queen Anne was probably a more powerful, though less rational, 

 motive for the appointment which he now received to the command of 

 the allied forces in the war of the Spanish succession ; and bo imme- 

 diately entered on a course of glorious achievement which since the 

 days of Henry V. had never been equalled, and which until our own 

 eventful times was never surpassed by any British commander or 

 army. 



When Marlborough landed at the Hague, in June 1702, to take the 

 command of the allied army, tho French under the skilful Boufflers, 

 by the superior force and vigour of their preparations, had already 

 b- eu able everywhere to assume the offensive ; the very frontiers of 

 the Seven Provinces were threatened; and it was feared that the 

 efforts of the English general must ba restricted to the defence of the 

 republican territory. Moreover, he had to encounter the petty 

 jealousies and disobedience of the other allied commanders, and the 

 opposition of the Dutch deputies, whom the states-general sent into 

 the field to control the movements of their troops, and whoso ignor- 

 ance of war aud dread of responsibility were grievous impediments to 

 every bold enterprise. Yet, notwithstanding these obstacles, which 

 shackled all his operations and heavily t.ixed his forbearance, he 

 succeeded, by a series of masterly movements, in compelling tho 

 French armies to retreat in all quarters, delivered the Dutch frontiers 

 from their presence, and closed the campaign by the sieges and capture 

 of Veiiloo, Ruremond, Stevenswaert, and Liege. These services, short 

 as they fell of the results which might have been attained if the genius 

 of the commander had been allowed its full play, wero so far boyoud 

 the anticipation of the allies, that the stutes-general loaded him with 

 eulogy, and Queen Anne elevated him to the ducal title. 



The following campaign of 1703 presented a repetition of the same 

 obstacles to the enterprising spirit of Marlborough. Arrested by the 

 timidity of the field-deputies, and harassed by the misconduct of the 

 Dutch generals, he was allowed to effect nothing iu the Netherlands 

 except the reduction of Bonn, Huy, Limburg, and Guelders: while the 

 elector of Bavaria with his own troops, and the French under Villars, 

 broke into tho Imperial dominions on the Danube, signally defeated 



