Life
Arabella was the child of Sir Winston Churchill (an ancestor of the Prime Minister of the same name) and Elizabeth Drake. Her brother was John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. The Churchill's loyalty to the royal household was ardent; and their only feeling about Arabella's seduction by King James II seems to have been a joyful surprise that a so plain girl had attained such high preferment.
She began her relationship with James, then Duke of York, around 1665, while he was still married to Anne Hyde. Arabella became the duchess's lady-in-waiting in that year, and gave birth to two children during Anne's lifetime. Churchill was described as a "tall creature, pale-faced, and nothing but skin and bone." She often displayed the quick wit and lively intelligence which bound James to her through ten years and four children. Some time after 1674, she married Charles Godfrey and had three more children. They lived happily together for 40 years. Godfrey died in 1714, at the age of 67.
Read more about this topic: Arabella Churchill (royal Mistress)
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth, that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The secret of a long life is knowing when it’s time to go.”
—Michele Shocked (b. 1962)
“But the mother’s yearning, that completest type of the life in another life which is the essence of real human love, feels the presence of the cherished child even in the debased, degraded man.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)