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Event Description
Join Melanie King as she shares the origins of Blenheim Palace and its first occupants. Blenheim Palace is the ancestral seat of the 12th Duke of Marlborough and receives almost a million visitors a year. It is a magnificent house situated near a small Oxfordshire town called Woodstock. The land and palace were given to John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, as a gift from Queen Anne and the nation for his victory over Louis XIV of France at the Battle of Blindheim in 1704, one of the wars of the Spanish Succession.
(1) Blenheim: A Duke, a Battle and a Palace
The British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was quite rightly proud to be descended from John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough. One of the greatest military leaders in history (he never lost a battle), John Churchill spent many decades at the heart of English politics and European history. He survived various political intrigues and even trumped-up charges of insurrection, a stint in prison, and a spell of exile on the Continent. This talk will focus not on his military genius, but on how he overcame tremendous personal and political difficulties to triumph as one of the most vital figures in eighteenth-century English history.
(2) The Duchess of Well-Being: Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough's Pursuit of Health and Happiness
At the age of 17, Sarah Jenyns, daughter of an MP for St Albans, married John Churchill, a dashing officer whom she had met at Court. A forceful and controversial figure, later the Duchess of Marlborough and a close friend of Queen Anne, Sarah was an inveterate seeker after wellness at a time when medicine was still at a fairly primitive stage. Sarah’s obsession with finding cures for her various conditions — gout, scurvy, erysipelas and excruciating rheumatism — gives us a glimpse into eighteenth-century medical practice and also medical tourism. Sarah took the waters at various spas around England, braved Sir Walter Raleigh’s ‘Great Cordial’, and treated herself with snail water and ass’s milk.
- Duration: 60 mins x 2
- Online Zoom event: Join from your computer, phone or tablet (a recording will be available)
Meet the Host, Melanie
Melanie King has published eight books of historical non-fiction, covering subjects from prophecy and espionage to the history of chocolate. Her latest book, The Secret History of English Spas, was released September 2021.
Melanie graduated from Sussex University and has worked in Bangkok as a staff writer for the Nation, in Brussels with eurocrats, in the publications department at Chatham House, and in London with refugees and victims of torture. She earns a living as a writer and speaker, exploring the oddities of little-known byways of history.
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