Excerpt from Our Great Military Commanders: Sketches of the Lives of Duke of Marlborough, Lord Clive, Duke of Wellington, Sir Charles Napier, Lord Gough, Lord Clyde
The founder of our military glory in modern times was John Churchill, son of Sir Winston Churchill, the representative of an ancient knightly family in Devonshire. His father, like most gentlemen of the western counties, had been a loyal adherent of the King in the rebellion; and his honourable fidelity to his master had brought on him the vengeance of Cromwell and the confiscation of the greater part of his estate. His mother was a daughter of Sir John Drake of Ashe, a cousin of the famous sailor whose courage and skill had contributed so largely to the defeat of the Armada. Fortunately for his country Sir Winston Churchill had friends among the leading nobles of the royalist party, who, at the restoration, brought him under the notice of the royal family, and procured his son, then ten years old (he had been born in 1650), the appointment of page to the Duke of York. And his services in that post were rewarded, as soon as he was of sufficient age, by an ensign"s commission in one of the new regiments of foot-guards. His first years of service were employed at Tangiers, a small fortress on the coast of Northern Africa, which had been part of the dowry of the Portuguese princess, Catharine of Braganza, the queen of Charles the Second.
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