Lot 309: Charles Boit (Swedish, 1663-1727) Duke of Marlborough (1650–1722), wearing breast plate armour and white cravat

Duke of Marlborough (1650–1722), wearing breast plate armour and white cravat.
Enamel, gilt-metal frame with leaf cresting, engraved with monogram AM and PETITOT. PINX. on the reverse.
Oval, 30mm (1 3/16in) high (restored)

John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough was a prominent English soldier and statesman whose career spanned the reigns of five monarchs throughout the late 17th and early 18th centuries. His marriage to the hot-tempered Sarah Jennings, Queen Anne's intimate friend, ensured Marlborough's rise, first to the Captain-Generalcy of British forces, then to a dukedom. Becoming de facto leader of Allied forces during the War of the Spanish Succession, his victories on the fields of Blenheim (1704), Ramillies (1706), Oudenarde (1708), and Malplaquet (1709) ensured his place in history as one of Europe's greatest generals. Caught between Tory and Whig factions, Marlborough, who had brought glory and success to Anne's reign, was forced from office and into self-imposed exile following his wife's dismissal from court. He returned to England and to influence under the House of Hanover upon the accession of George I to the British throne in 1714, but following a series of strokes in later age his health gradually deteriorated, and he died at Windsor Lodge in 1727.