Material manoeuvres: Sarah churchill, duchess of marlborough and the power of artefacts

The first Duchess of Marlborough has been recognized as a powerful figure in court politics under Queen Anne. Her patronage of artists, sculptors, and architects - Laguerre, Rysbrack, Talman, Wren, Vanbrugh - has been examined by scholars. In this essay I take a different tack. I focus on a series of artefacts that played an important part in the Duchess's life: the jewels she amassed, the Turkish tent that her husband the Duke of Marlborough had used on the battlefield, and a sculpture of Queen Anne that she erected at Blenheim. Drawing on a wide range of sources from her own correspondence and contemporary biographies to caricature and popular print, I ask how an elite woman of immense wealth, but little formal education, strategically employed material things to exert influence socially and politically, and what were the unpredictable consequences thereof.