Well Ray you are probably going to fall out with me as I have recently completed an article for WI in which I may be (unjustly) accused of being a Marlborough hater!
I just want to say BEFORE the brickbats begin to blot out the sun, for the record, that I do NOT hate Marlborough, I just think there is a little bit of a cult around him that has hijacked the WSS. For it to be called the Marlburian Period is, in my opinion more than a bit rich. Blenheim was a great victory but the other three were nowhere near as decisive and Malplaquet was such a pyrrhic win as to be less than useless. His notices(or lack of thereafter) proving that.
The army was never more than a third British either. It is not surprising but a little disappointing that Eugene and others get next to no press in anglo centric writings. He is rather written 'around' than written about... the gay Italian bloke...
I think Marlborough was in life a bit of an opportunist, in military terms probably as good as anyone could have been in the era but not in any way deserving of the hugely glowing legacy cultivated in the English speaking world since. I have always clung on to the theory that he was probably a Jacobite at heart but his ambition suppressed it for a large proportion of his life.
If that makes me a Marlborough hater, then guilty as charged M'Lud. If it seperates me from the unquestioning acolytes of Corporal John I'll settle for that
I have read about him extensively even during his 'wannabe' period 1680 - 1697. I have even paid to hear Richard Holmes speak about him in London last year before his untimely death so I ground my opinions in as near factual evidence as I could get my hands on.
We will of course address the WSS, have no fear!
although the byline will be
Le Comte D'iltone and Clarence Marquis de Chesapeake!
Have to go under cover 
