The Duke of Marlborough

"Wouldst fashion for thyself a seemly life?--
Then fret not over what is past and gone;
And spite of all thou mayst have lost behind,
Yet act as if thy life were just begun.
What each day wills, enough for thee to know;
What each day wills, the day itself will tell.
Do thine own task, and be therewith content;
What others do, that shalt thou fairly judge;
Be sure that thou no brother-mortal hate,
Then all besides leave to the Master Power."
~ Goethe

The passage above was the life motto of the 9th Duke of Marlborough, Charles Spencer-Churchill, childhood friend and cousin to Sir Winston Churchill. I learned today that the Duke and Winston grew up together and were very nearly the same age. Winston Churchill's father was the younger of two brothers, hence the title of Duke fell to Churchill's cousin instead of to him. Churchill included the above passage in a very kind obituary he wrote for his friend upon his passing in 1934. I read the obituary this afternoon while wandering the halls of Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill and residence of the current Duke of Marlborough.

Blenheim Palace itself, listed as one of 93 World Heritage Sites within the United Kingdom, owes its continued existence to the life and persistent efforts of the 9th Duke. In his obituary, Churchill observed that the Duke was born in 1871 and served as a conservative statesman in a time when a mere 300-400 families controlled the entirety of politics and governmental affairs in the United Kingdom. The Duke's original title and the palace itself were given to the Churchills by Queen Anne after the Duke's ancestor, John Churchill, saved Britain by defeating Spanish and French armies through an unbroken string of military victories during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714).

Over the course of his life, Winston Churchill's cousin watched the aristocracy of his birth utterly swept away. Alert to the changing times and determined to pass the property on to his posterity, the Duke devoted much of his adult life to preserving the estate that we enjoyed visiting today. To those of us who visited, today it stands as a tribute not only to the life of Great Britain's beloved Prime Minister, but also to the Great Britain of his birth, a time when Dukes and the nobility of the land were entrusted with the future of the nation. If by chance you ever have occasion to visit the Palace, may I commend the Rose Garden to you? I assure you, a visit there will not lead to disappointment.