SCIPIO OR CRASSUS? THE CONTESTED HEROIC IMAGE OF JOHN CHURCHILL, 1ST DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH (1650-1722)

On 18 September 1714, George I, Elector of Hanover, arrived in Great Britain to be crowned king. When he and his son, later George II, disembarked at Greenwich, they first addressed one of their new subjects, whom they both had known for a long time: 'My lord Duke, I hope your troubles are now all over.'1 The man addressed by the Sovereign was John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, Great Britain's first commander-in-chief after the Act of Union with Scotland of 1707 and one of the most successful generals of his time. By 1714, Marlborough had returned from exile in Germany and had already become a figurehead of the Protestant Hanoverian Succession. This article will explore how military successes had led to Churchill's representation as a military hero amongst his contemporaries and will examine the style of heroic image generated. Central to the question of his status as a military hero was his contemporaries' perception of the man and the myth. The article will also show how and why certain individuals rejected the hero-image and how a print and material-cultural modelling of this image served to create a national figure in the early eighteenth century and thereafter.