Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough

Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (1660-1744), English noblewoman, influential as lady of the bedchamber for Anne, queen of Great Britain and Ireland. Marlborough was born Sarah Jennings in Sandridge, near Saint Albans, England. Her father died when she was eight, and five years later she went to live in Saint James’s Palace with her mother and her elder sister, who was a maid of honor to the 1st duchess of York. There she shared society life with the second daughter of the duchess of York, Princess Anne, with whom she became a close friend. At court she met Colonel John Churchill, later 1st duke of Marlborough, and the two were secretly married in 1678. Sarah accompanied her husband—who at the time was a gentleman in waiting to James, duke of York—to The Netherlands and Scotland.

In 1683 Churchill became lady of the bedchamber to Princess Anne, after Anne married Prince George of Denmark. Churchill acquired great influence over Anne and helped induce her to accept the overthrow of her father, King James II, during the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688, the revolt of Protestants against James’s Catholic stance. Once Anne became queen in 1702, Churchill and her husband were partly responsible for Anne’s exclusion of the Tories from office, and Churchill was given important positions at court. Partly because she began neglecting Anne, Churchill lost favor with the court beginning in about 1705, although she was retained in office because of her husband's success as a general. She was later dismissed from all her posts.