Battle of Blenheim

August 13, 1704

On a Bavarian plain beside the Danube, Marlborough and Prince Eugene shattered a Franco-Bavarian army in a single afternoon, ending Louis XIV's dream of hegemony. Fifty thousand corpses littered the fields. England, stunned by its own unexpected supremacy, began composing the myth of the invincible Duke. Queen Anne rewarded Marlborough with the estate of Woodstock, where Vanbrugh would build Blenheim Palace.