Marlborough's Victories Playing Cards

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Marlborough's Victories Playing Cards

Published in 1707, these are pictorially the most elaborately engraved set of playing cards ever issued, and demonstrate fully the adulation at that time accorded to the first Duke of Marlborough during his overseas battle campaigns.

Although primarily intended as a compliment to the Duke's successes, the pack deals with a variety of European political issues and includes several portraits of royalty connected with the campaigns. The spade suit comprises almost entirely a series of savage, not to say scurrilous, attacks upon the French king, Louis XIV.