Sarah Churchill Was The Worst “Best Friend” In History D
Sarah Churchill was by all accounts a horrible person her ruthless ambition and cold heart made her one of the most powerful women in Europe but she saved her absolute worst for her so-called best friend Queen an of great ridden and the things she did to her were utterly brutal we’ll get more into that later Sarah Churchill Duchess of marbor was born Sarah Jennings in 1660 to Rich Jennings and Francis thornhurst as the daughter of a parliamentarian with a good name she was comfortably uper middle class and rubbed shoulders with royalty but she wanted more so much more so she started rubbing the right shoulders she saw her humbler Beginnings as an opportunity she found work as the maate of honor to Mary of Mona the stepmother of the young Princess Anne
Sarah who was 13 at the time time was 5 years older than an but the two of them quickly became close friends by this point Sarah was already set on climbing the social ladder and for a young woman in the 17th century the only way to do that was through a man luckily when she was just 15 years old she caught the eye of John Churchill he was 10 years older than Sarah but felt madly in love with her you see Sarah and and Churchill had found the perfect social climbing match in each other but the fish greed that they had brought out in each other frighten their families both of their families refused to support the match so the couple got married in secret and began plotting their ruthless rise to the top Sarah’s close friendship with Princess Anne was her source of power
and influence at court but hitching her her wagon to the princess was just as risky as it was rewarding in 1688 both women found themselves in terrible danger princess Anne’s own father King James II placed Sarah and Anne under house arrest on suspicion of treason Sarah knew she was in big trouble she knew that the king wouldn’t behead his very own daughter but she was a lot less certain about what he would do to her so she convinced Anne that their only hope of survival was to escape the two of them easily slipped away from the palace and waited for the political winds to change and boy did they ever Sarah and Princess an survived the king’s Reign but an Sister Mary Rose to power next and that’s where the jealousy started by that time everyone knew that
Sarah exerted total control over Anne and the Royal Court grew weary of her power Mary demanded that an dismiss Sarah but Anne refused Sarah’s hooks were already too deep into her side Sarah put all of her eggs in the Anne basket and her gamble was about to pay off big time in 1702 Anne finally ascended to the throne and it was time for Sarah to cash in using her dark influence she managed to secure a sizable income for her and her husband and became the keeper of the privy purse in other words she had access to all of Anne’s money all of it at this point it seemed like Sarah had gotten everything that she wanted but this is where things really started to go wrong despite being the best of friends Sarah had never really
been an’s social equal and this presented a lot of problems regardless of everything Anne had always wanted a genuine friend Sarah had always spoken plainly and openly to her maybe even insolently but once she became Queen Anne there was an entire Kingdom that separated them in rank and well Sarah just couldn’t tolerate that things were about to get messy eventually everyone could see that her friendship with an was paying off in Spades the queen kept giving her fancy new appointments and lavishing titles and honors on her husband John Churchill but there was one gift in particular that was almost too generous even by Royal standards Anne gave Sarah and Churchill a palace the massive Blendon
Palace now Sarah and Anne were truly equal in all but title and surprise surprise s ‘s head got a little too big her blunt honesty had always been something that Anne appreciated but it quickly turned outright disrespect which got to a point that not even Anne could tolerate little by little Sarah started to overstep her position and overpower the queen in her own Court her strong personality was okay with Anne when it worked in her favor but the realities of Palace politics were about to get between good friends Sarah’s political maneuvering at court started to irritate her best friend the queen because the two had radically opposing political views Sarah was pushing for more Progressive reforms that an considered against the interests of the crown which
you know was resting on top of her head was only a matter of time before Sarah finally went too far her open Defiance of the queen in matters pertaining to parament was becoming intolerable but the relatively weak willed Anne was essentially powerless to do anything about her domineering friend Sarah started to spend even more time away from Court overlooking the construction of lenon Palace but she forgot just how she had risen so high in the first place by sticking close to Anne and little did she know that while she was away the queen was already finding her replacement Abigail mashem Sarah’s cousin was cozying up to Anne and pushing Sarah out of the picture around this time things were really starting to fall apart for Sarah
though she had a loving marriage to Churchill their fortunes weren’t always so great Sarah lost her last surviving son to small pox in 1703 and no amount of Royal favor was going to bring him back to life in her grief she lashed out at Anne by refusing to respond to her letters or even worse responding with chilling brevity clearly she did not know how to process grief when she finally returned to court she continued her open Defiance of the queen and carrying on like the world’s worst best friend when ant’s husband passed the whole Court went into mourning except Sarah she was incredibly rude in fact she declined to wear morning clothes at all it was a clear sign that she disdained the Queen’s grief an felt like Sarah had betrayed her by abandoning the court to work on Blen and
Palace but having her back at court was no walk in the park either the two continued fighting like cats and dogs and over trivial things too on the way to a Thanksgiving service off they had an argument over the jewels that Anne was wearing it quickly turned ugly the carriage ride to the church service was definitely tense but the mass itself turned their fight from a small spot into an allout Feud once inside the church Anne tried to continue the argument but Sarah using way too much sass when speaking to a queen lashed out and snapped be quiet now Queen Anne could put up with a lot but her best friend was really starting to push it she was skating on thin ice and embarrassing the queen in public was the straw that broke the
camel’s back from this point on an decided that she wasn’t going to let Sarah run rough shot over her anymore for once Sarah had to apologize for her rudess but it was too little too late she might have thought twice about mouthing off to the queen if she had any idea just how Frosty their friendship had become and just how replaceable she actually was behind her back an had provided her new friend Abigail with the dowy for her secret wedding of course as far as Sarah was concerned the Queen’s money was her money so she did not take the news well as at all she definitely felt jealous of Abigail’s growing influence with Anne after all she knew just how profitable it could be to be in the Queen’s favor Sarah started desperately pushing her
political agenda on Anne all in an attempt to reassert her position but Anne wasn’t having any of it this time she continued showering Abigail with the kind of favors that Sarah had once received and eventually it became obvious to everyone what was really happening decades earlier courus had tried to force Queen Anne to get rid of Sarah because of her growing influence now it was Sarah’s turn to try to force Abigail out she went to Parliament and tried to force Anne to get rid of her new companion of course by now she had learned a lot about court politics this time to get her way she was prepared to to play dirty she actually managed to whip up a lot of support in Parliament to have Abigail dismissed but for once Anne wasn’t going to let her bossy best friend tell her what she could and
couldn’t do she was going to be the stubborn one Anne refused Sarah’s demands and kept Abigail close by and now it was crystal clear that Sarah had bitten the hand that fed her she and her husband Church had been something of a power couple for decades JN kept winning battles in Spain and Sarah kept spinning his victories into political power and buckets of money but her latest games in court had been a step too far for Anne the queen fired Jon on trumped up charges of embezzlement for the first time ever it was Sarah who was on the outside and it was only going to get worse [Music] her final meeting with Anne was a chilly affair she pleaded to know why their friendship had deteriorated into an
allout Feud and refused to answer her and only repeated the rehears lines I shall make no answer to anything you say and you may put it in writing Sarah was so distraught in her meeting that she immediately broke out in tears she called an’s coolness inhuman and proceeded to threaten the queen saying that God would seek Vengeance for how she had been treated that one hit a nerve with the religious Queen feeling extremely insulted and dismissed Sarah and her husband from all of their Court appointments and stopped funding Sarah’s Pet Project the palace she and her husband had to leave England in this disgrace of course it was no secret that the two women had fallen out the whole of Europe was waiting to see if these friends would kiss and make nice near the end of her life one
eyewitness claimed to have heard Queen Anne ask a telling question apparently she asked whether or not the maros had come ashore yet Perhaps even insinuating that she had invited them back herself well if she’d heard what Sarah Churchill would do to her after she was gone she probably would have changed her tune Sarah ended up returning to England on the very same afternoon that an passed away and the new king immediately welcomed the maros back to court Sarah continued influencing Court life but her real occupation was overseeing the construction of Blen and Palace of course now that Anne was gone she had to fund the construction of her new home out of her own purse and while she spent the Queen’s money freely Sarah was a penny pincher when it came to her
own coin she hired cheaper workers and was a constant thorn in the side of the primary architect based on what we’ve heard about her we probably could have guessed that part after Queen Anne passed Sarah took the time to thoroughly drag her in her memoirs she essentially called an an idiot of a queen who would never have gotten anywhere without her and I’m not just talking about some Stone words here she really went for it when it came time to drag Anne’s name through the mud she wrote nobody can maintain that Anne was wise nor entertaining in conversation she was ignorant in everything but what the passons had taught her when she was a child being very ignorant very fearful with very little judgment talk about brutal and that wasn’t even the worst thing that she ever did to the
queen when Sarah tried to get Parliament to force Anne to fire Abigail she knew asking nicely wouldn’t be enough oh no she had to give them a reason Sarah went so far as to accuse Anne of carrying on a romantic affair with Abigail now that was the kind of allegation that Parliament might listen to it didn’t work but you can’t say that she wasn’t willing to play dirty so it’s no wonder she had such a horrible reputation how do you feel about Sarah Church Hills actions let us know in the comments below be sure to like And subscribe and we’ll catch you in the next video
