John Hill

Rise under the Tories

By 1710, Hill's sister, Lady Masham, had supplanted her cousin in the Queen's affections and now joined Robert Harley to weaken Marlborough and advance her brother. The Queen, prompted by Harley, solicited for Hill the colonelcy of the late Earl of Essex's Regiment of Dragoons. Marlborough refused to promote Hill over officers more experienced and deserving, placing additional strain on his relationship with the Queen. In April, he was forced to accede to the Queen's demand that Hill be promoted brigadier general. In May, Hill also received a pension of £1000 p.a. during the lifetime of the Queen. Marlborough and the Whigs in Parliament attempted to have Lady Masham removed from Court, an unsuccessful move which ultimately precipitated Marlborough's own political demise.

Hill, in the meantime, was returned as a Member of Parliament for Lostwithiel in 1710. He showed little activity in the House of Commons, although, as his one-time patroness, the Duchess of Marlborough sourly noted, he did trouble himself to vote once, when ill, to support Harley's attacks on Marlborough.She bitterly continued " this once ragged boy whom I clothed, happening to be sick in bed, was nevertheless persuaded by his sister to get up,wrap himself in warmer clothes than those I had given him, and go to the House to vote against the Duke.

According to Sarah's descendant Winston Churchill, The Duchess was annoyed that her generosity had prepared her own undoing and her husband's fall at the moment when the consummation of all his victories and toils seemed so near. "'One of the traceble causes of her catastrophe."

Moreover, this author, who understood the nature of armies and politics, considered that the promotion of Hill was an insult "of the most carefully studied character" which effectively undermined Marlborough's authority over the British forces. He quotes Sarah again; "The dispute was not between the queen and my lord Duke, as some will have it, but whether Mrs Masham and her party should have a disposal of all the vacancies in the army, and by degrees, of everything else." Thus the tories obtained, through the demise of Marlborough, a fatal blow to the integrity and potency of the alliance against Louis XIV.

Expedition against Quebec

Well-connected with the Harley Ministry, Hill's star continued to rise. When Henry St John in 1711 revived a plan for the capture of Quebec, Hill was proposed as commander-in-chief to gain the Queen's favor. 5 000 troops under Hill's command,

in thirty transports escorted by ten ships of the line under Sir Hovenden Walker, embarked for Quebec, but eight transports with 800 men were wrecked in the Saint Lawrence River on 11 August 1711 owing to fogs and gales. Hill and Walker, after a Council of War, abandoned the enterprise without firing a shot and returned to England. Jonathan Swift, a confidant of Hill, noted that Hill's friends privately blamed him for his irresolution and lack of leadership. Hill's Tory connections, however, allowed him to escape any check in his career arising from this disaster.

Further promotion

In June 1712, Hill became Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance, the Whig Thomas Erle having been turned out, and received the office of Governor of Dunkirk after the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht. In July he was promoted major general, and sworn of the Privy Council in November. Perhaps impelled by hopes of a never-offered peerage, he did not stand for election in 1713. In London, Hill was elected to the society of wits headed by Swift and St John, and was known for his great conviviality. He returned to Dunkirk in February 1714 as a commissioner to inspect the fortifications, but came back to England in August for the accession of George I.

Later life

With the death of Anne and the accession of George I, Hill lost his offices, but retained his commission as major-general. He sold his colonelcy to Edward Montagu in July 1715 and retired. Both he and Lady Masham retained Tory sympathies in their later years, which Hill spent at his seat in Egham and his London house in Jermyn Street, where he died. He left his estate to his nephew Samuel Masham, 2nd Baron Masham.