This early breed of Toy Spaniel is named after Blenheim Palace, the seat of the Dukes of Marlborough at Woodstock in central England. It is no longer recognized as a distinct breed.
This is a 17th-century breed, easily identified by its bold red-and-white markings. The First Duke of Marlborough, John Churchill, was so attached to these dogs that it is said he insisted on having one with him as a mascot when he fought the Battle of Blenheim. Others were with his wife at the time and legend has it that she was so nervous that she pressed her thumb onto the forehead of a pregnant bitch sitting on her lap, and that when this bitch produced its puppies, each of them had a red thumb-mark on its head. Although the story is nonsensical, this red ‘beauty-spot’ became an ideal feature of the very best examples of the Blenheim after that date. In later years, however, the ‘Blenheim Spot’, as it came to be called, was not easy to obtain, and was recorded as ‘often missing’.
The ancestors of these Blenheim Spaniels were said to have come originally from Spain, and to be dwarf versions of sporting dogs similar to Cocker Spaniels, created by progressive inbreeding. (A rival theory suggests that they came from China. ) The 17th-century version was a bigger dog than its later ‘an. proved’ descendants, with longer legs and a longer, more pointed muzzle. They still had their longer faces when painted by Landseer in 1838, but during the Victorian period it became the fashion to select for smaller bodies and for flatter and flatter faces, and the Blenheim gradually lost its original shape.
At the start of the 20th century, the tradition of breeding Blenheim. Spaniels at Blenheim Palace itself was still active, and there the modernization of their breed was not met with approval. Working again. st the fashion of the day, the Palace insisted on keeping to the original type, and even went so far as to declare them a separate breed, calling their long-faced dogs Marlborough Blenheim Spaniels, or simply Marlborough Spaniels, to distinguish them from the flat-faced Blenheims of the show-ring.
In 1910, the Chairman of the Kennel Club in London took up the cause, publishing an attack on the flat-face extremes, stating: ‘The tendency of exhibitors is, unfortunately, often to encourage exaggerations of special points until the stage of monstrosity is reached… It is a great pity that this beautiful breed of Spaniel should be spoiled by the fancier’s mania for something outr.’
Help was on the way, but it would take another 18 years before steps were taken to support the Chairman’s remarks (see entry for Cavalier King Charles Spaniel). Before then, in 1923, any red-and-white individuals that still existed were officially reduced to a mere colour form of the King Charles Spaniel.
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