A Passion for Government

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.