Admiral of the Blue George Churchill (20 February 1654 – 8 May 1710) was a Royal Navy officer and politician who served as a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty from 1699 to 1702 and sat on the Lord High Admirals Council from 1702 to 1708. He was Member of Parliament for St Albans from 1685 to 1708, then Portsmouth from 1708 until his death in 1710. While considered by some an effective administrator, he achieved high office through Prince George of Denmark, husband of Queen Anne. He died in May 1710 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, next to his sister Arabella. He never married but left the bulk of his property to his illegitimate son, George Churchill (1687–1753).
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Life
George Churchill was born at Minterne Magna, Dorset on 20 February 1654, second surviving son of Sir Winston Churchill (1620–1688) of Glanvilles Wootton, Dorset and Elizabeth Drake, whose family came from Ash, in Devon. Winston served with the Royalist Army in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and was heavily fined as a result, forcing his family to live at Ash House with his mother-in-law.
George had three surviving brothers, John, later Duke of Marlborough (1650–1722) and Charles (1654–1714). Another brother, Theobald, died in 1685. Charles often served as John's subordinate and both were political Whigs, while George was a Tory; they quarreled in later life and neither was an executor of his will.
He was closer to his sister Arabella (1648–1730), mistress of James II from 1665 to 1674 and mother of his eldest son, the Duke of Berwick (1670–1734). His will made a bequest to Francis Godfrey, another of Arabella's sons, and she was buried next to him in Westminster Abbey.
Although he never married, he acknowledged a son, George Churchill, from a relationship with a Mary Cooke, of whom little is known. Apart from the bequest to Francis, George inherited the bulk of his father's estate and became a general in the British Army.
Career
In 1665, Arabella Churchill became Maid of Honour to Anne Hyde and began an affair with her husband James, then Duke of York. This led to appointments for her three brothers and in 1666, George was commissioned as Lieutenant in the Royal Navy. He did not serve at sea, instead acting as page to the Earl of Sandwich, envoy to Spain from 1666 to 1668.
Returning from Spain in 1668, his father's financial troubles meant George spent a brief period as a Draper's apprentice, one of the powerful trade associations that dominated the City of London. He returned to military service during the Third Anglo-Dutch War in 1672 and thereafter held a series of positions in the army and navy.
Charles Churchill had previously served at the Danish court, where he became friends with Prince George of Denmark. In 1683, Prince George married James' younger daughter, 18-year-old Anne; John's wife Sarah Churchill was appointed Anne's Lady of the Bedchamber, while her brother-in-law Colonel Charles Griffin became Prince George's senior aide. The Churchills and their relatives formed a central part of the so-called 'Cockpit circle', named after Anne's apartments in Whitehall Palace. George was particularly close to Prince George and owed much of his later success to their friendship.
Later suggestions of a homosexual relationship between the two Georges appear to have originated with Sarah Churchill. She made similar allegations against Abigail Masham, who supplanted her as Anne's closest friend and often quarreled with her brother-in-law. Since Anne was very close to her husband and pregnant on no less than 18 occasions, such accusations were unwise and Sarah later withdrew them. The wider question on George's sexuality cannot be established; for a variety of reasons, younger sons often remained unmarried.
Despite his Catholicism, James succeeded his brother Charles as king in 1685 with widespread support, particularly among the High Tory faction to which George belonged. Many did so on the principle of hereditary succession, especially important in a highly structured society, and fears his exclusion would lead to a repetition of the civil wars. In 1683, John Churchill purchased Holywell House, near St Albans, giving him control of the Parliamentary constituency of St Albans and in March 1685, George was elected Member of Parliament or MP. A few months later, James suspended Parliament for refusing to pass his measures; his Tory backers began to desert him after 1686, when his policies increasingly seemed to threaten the primacy of the Church of England.