Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, was a woman with a "passion for government": a compulsion to wield power not only in her own family but in public affairs as well. The first complete scholarly biography of the Duchess, this book makes full use of recently available manuscript sources to tell the colorful story of a woman at the center of power, whose life spanned more than eighty years from the Restoration to the fall of Walpole. Harris sets Sarah's life and personal relationships in the context of her time, drawing a vivid portrait of a woman whose character and life are as fascinating and contentious today as they were to her contemporaries.