War of the Spanish Succession
3 autograph letters signed to John Webb, victor of Wijnendale, 1708-9
Estimate: £500 - £800
Auction: 05 February 2025 from 10:00 GMT
Description
Tipped into a 19th-century brown morocco album, and comprising:
Marlborough, John Churchill, 1st Duke of (1650-1722). Autograph letter signed, The Hague, 9th January 1708. 4to (22.6 x 18.2cm), 2 pp., signed ‘Marlborough’, addressed on verso of conjugate leaf to ‘Major Generall Webb’, anticipating that ‘the Ffrench make great preperations [sic] for the next campaign, threatning us with their being in the field early, so that I desire you will order your affairs so as that I may have your assistance at my return, which must be before the month of May … but I hope God will blesse the next campagne with such success as may give a safe and honourable peace to England’, old folds and repairs;
Raby, Thomas Wentworth, 3rd Baron, later 1st Earl of Strafford (1672-1739). Two autograph letters signed, Berlin, 18th October 1708 and Carlsbad, 12th August 1709, both 4to, 4 pp. and 2 pp., each signed ‘Raby’, respectively addressed ‘Major Gen[er]all Web’ and ‘Lieut Gen[er]all Web’ at foot of first page, first letter reads ‘You will easily immagin wt true joye all those who are realy your friends & who truly loves you must have to hear of your glorious victory against La Motte … wch when it comes to the King of Swedens ears must vex extreemly that young Prince (who thinks he has acquired an immortal renown by beating, with inferior numbers; the misarable Poles, & more misearable Muscovites) to see that you have beaten above three times your number of the most disciplined troops in Europe … My lord Duke has sent me an ample relation of the action in wch he has done you all imaginable justce …', and ‘the great presents the King has ben obliged to give among the officers of the other two Kings lately with him may be a very great obstacle since I am assured … that the prevy purse … is extreemly indebt, however be assure that at my return I will press the matter again …', each letter slightly spotted and creased.
The album also containing autograph letters signed from: Richard Llwyd (possibly the Welsh author and ‘Bard of Snowdon’, 1752-1835), 1824, relating to the provenance of the Webb letters; Duke of Wellington, 1823; Field Marshal Douglas Haig (2 letters), 1920; Prince Ranjitsinhji, cricketer, 1904; H. Rider Haggard, 1921, on the death of his sister; John Masefield; Sheila Kaye-Smith, author (3 letters); and 7 others, all these (except Llwyd and Wellington) loose
Provenance
Select items from the estate of the late Lady Penn.
Footnote
On 28th September 1708 John Webb achieved a brilliant victory over a vastly superior French force at Wijnendale in Flanders. As a result of Marlborough's perceived failure to provide adequate recognition of his role in the battle, Webb ‘soon left the army and became a vocal political critic of Marlborough’ (ODNB), though not before participating in Marlborough's own great triumph at Malplaquet in 1709, in which he received a disabling thigh wound (and would be noted years later by Jonathan Swift as still walking with a stick). Webb later ‘turned to Jacobitism, and was sent a commission by the Pretender in 1722, his name frequently cropping up in the trials in the aftermath of the failure of the Atterbury Plot’ (History of Parliament). Thomas Wentworth, Lord Raby, saw active service under Marlborough before serving as ambassador extraordinary to Brandenburg-Prussia between 1706 and 1711, during which time he too became alienated from Marlborough owing to his jealousy of Marlborough's authority.