76 ROYAL GARDENS 



the old palace gardens to the Duke and Duchess. The 

 supplement to the Gazette of April i8, 1709, says, "Her 

 Majesty having been pleased to grant to his Grace the 

 Duke of Marlborough the Friary next St. James's Palace, 

 in which lately dwelt the Countess du Roy, the same is 

 pulling down in order to re-build the house for his Grace, 

 and about a third of the garden, lately in the occupation of 

 the Right Hon. Henry Boyle, her Majesty's principal Secre- 

 tary of State, is marked out in order to be annexed to the 

 house of his Grace the Duke of Marlborough." In this 

 manner the gardens passed from the Crown, and for a little 

 over one hundred years were in the occupation of the 

 Churchill family. 



The Duke employed Sir Christopher Wren to build his 

 new mansion ; and, with the exception of a top story having 

 been added to the main block, it is now very much as it was 

 left two hundred years ago by England's greatest architect. 

 Defoe, writing some ten years after its completion, says in 

 his Journey through England, "The Palace of the Duke of 

 Marlborough is in every way answerable to the grandeur 

 of its master. Its situation is more confined than that 

 of the Duke of Buckinghamshire, but the body of the 

 house is much nobler, more compact, and the apartments 

 better composed. It is situated at the west end of the King's 

 garden on the Park side, and fronts the Park, but with no 

 other prospect than that view." Very many people must 

 have wondered why Marlborough House to this day has 

 " no other prospect," and Thornton, in his Survey of London 

 and Westminster, gives the reason : " When this noble struc- 

 ture was first finished the late Duchess of Marlborough 

 intended to have opened a way to it from Pall Mall directly 

 in front of it, as appears from the manner in which the court- 

 yard is formed. But she reckoned without her host. Sir 

 Robert Walpole having purchased the house before it, and 

 not being on good terms with the Duchess, she was prevented 

 from executing her design." 



At the present time Marlborough House is quiet and 



