The union, when once completed, seems to have afforded many means of happiness to the beautiful Lady Mary. As far as worldly advantages were to be considered, she encountered no disappointment. Soon after her marriage, the father of her husband was created a duke through the interest of her parents, and the reversion of the post of master of the wardrobe settled on his son through the influence of the Duchess of Marlborough, and, as she herself alleges, as part of her daughter’s portion.[12] An unbroken course of prosperity attended the long life of Lord Monthermer, who had not many years to wait before he attained a higher title, on the death of his father, the Duke of Montague.[13] The disposition and character of the Lord Monthermer, those most important points of all, were, notwithstanding the character given of him by the Duchess, said, by a keen-sighted judge, to have been truly amiable. “He was,” says Horace Walpole, writing to his friend Sir Horace Mann, “with some foibles, a most amiable man, and one of the most feeling I ever knew.” “He had,” says Lord Hailes, in reference to the Duchess’s description of the Duke’s childish propensities, “other pretty fancies, not mentioned in the memoranda of his mother-in-law; he did good without ostentation. His vast benevolence of soul is not recorded by Pope; but it will be remembered while there is any tradition of human kindness or charity in England.” The defects of this nobleman appear to have been a thirst for gain, producing an inveterate place-hunting, which detracted from his better qualities. “He was,” says Walpole, “incessantly obtaining new, and making the most of all: he had quartered on the great wardrobe no less than thirty nominal tailors and arras workers,”—employments which were dropped at his death. This corrupt proceeding he redeemed, in some measure, by great liberality, paying out of his own property no less than two thousand a year in private pensions. The Duke of Montague’s talents fitted him indeed for better things than the grovelling love of gain. Sir Robert Walpole entertained so high an opinion of his abilities, that he was very desirous that the Duke should command the forces,—a charge which his grace, fearful of his own experience, declined.[14] He received, with his bride, an addition to her portion of ten thousand pounds, presented on the occasion by the Queen, who had conferred a similar gift on Lady Bridgewater. What was of still more importance, the favour of Anne was continued to him when the Marlborough family was disgraced, and the high offices which he held under George the First and Second attested the continuance of royal regard.