This is a highly readable account of a woman at the centre of power, whose life spanned the traumatic period from the Restoration to the fall of Walpole. Born in 1660, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough succeeded during the course of her long life in overcoming many of the contemporary constraints on her sex to become one of the most influential, as well as the most loved and hated, of Augustan women.

Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, was a woman with a "passion for government": a compulsion to wield power not only in her own family but in public affairs as well. The first complete scholarly biography of the Duchess, this book makes full use of recently available manuscript sources to tell the colorful story of a woman at the center of power, whose life spanned more than eighty years from the Restoration to the fall of Walpole. Harris sets Sarah's life and personal relationships in the context of her time, drawing a vivid portrait of a woman whose character and life are as fascinating and contentious today as they were to her contemporaries.

significantly deepens our understanding of the dynamics of politics from 1702 to 1714.