Then he went home to receive his honours, and the memorable
campaign of 1704 came to an end.
Marlborough was a statesman as well as a brilliant commander, and he
had his work at home as well as abroad, a work the winters enabled him
to deal with. He was now quite aware that his best friends, that is to
say, the chief supporters of his war schemes, were the Whigs, and he
was working more and more energetically to put their party in power.
Harley and St. John took the place of more violent Tories, and in 1705
a coalition of Whigs and Tories, called the Junto, managed public
affairs, more or less under Marlborough's direction. The Duchess still
held her sway over the Queen, and the two ladies addressed each other
as Mrs. Morley (the Queen) and Mrs. Freeman respectively. Already
there were influences at work to undermine the power of the
Marlboroughs, but their political downfall was not yet.
Scottish matters were giving a good deal of trouble to the English
government. Two years before, in 1703, the Scotch Parliament had
passed an Act of Security, the object of which was to proclaim a
different sovereign from that of England, unless Scotland should be
guaranteed her own religious establishment and her laws. Now this
year, 1705, the Parliament in London placed severe restrictions on the
Scotch trade with England, and ordered the Border towns to be
fortified.
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