Blenheim Palace

The First State Room

The three apartments intercommunicating between the Saloon and the Long Library, on the south front, are known as the First, Second and Third State Rooms. The third is sometimes called the Boule Room, after the furniture it contains. The walls of all three rooms are hung with tapestries of Marlborough's campaigns. Marlborough himself in fact commissioned them of the designer de Hondt, and the Brussels weaver, Judocus de Vos. ÒIt is the realistic fidelity in every detail,' wrote Dr Reid, 'no less than the artistic beauty of these tapestries which commands admiration; and the circumstance that they are almost contemporary immeasurably enhances their appeal.Ó The tapestry on the right-hand wall of the first State Room, next to the Saloon, shows Marlborough approaching the Schellenberg, a fiercely defended hilltop fortress taken by the allies on their way to Blenheim. In the foreground, dragoons are loading their horses with fascines, or faggots, to help the infantry cross the enemy's trenches; while in the background the walled city of Donauworth prepares its defences. The other tapestries in this room are of the siege of Lille, the lines of Brabant and the Battle of Malplaquet (1709). Over the chimney-piece Carolus Duran's portrait of Consuelo 9th Duchess of Marlborough, at the age of seventeen, catches the eye. 'My mother', she remembered, 'wished my portrait to bear comparison with those of preceding duchesses who had been Id painted by Gainsborough, Reynolds, Romney and Lawrence. In that proud and lovely line I still stand over the mantelpiece of one of the state rooms, with a slightly disdainful and remote look as if very far away in thought.'

In this state room too are the cradle in which she rocked the 10th Duke; the 1st Duke's hastily scribbled dispatch from the battlefield of Blenheim, to tell Duchess and Queen of Òa glorious victoryÓ; and the Blenheim Standard, sent as quit-rent to the Sovereign at Windsor each year since the Battle of Blenheim on the anniversary date (13th August) . The chairs, by Hertaut, are from Versailles.

The boiseries, or gilded woodwork, in these state rooms were commissioned by the 9th Duke soon after his accession in 1892, at a time when, as he afterwards admitted, he was 'young and uninformed'. The French decoration, he added, was quite out of scale. In the opinion of present-day experts, however, the Duke was too modest. The craftsmanship of his team of cabinet-makers, imported from Paris, was superb; highly skilled as they were in copying the boiseries of Louis XlV's bedroom at Versailles.