We have seen how successfully the Duchess of Marlborough contrived to connect her family, by alliances of her daughters, with several of the most exalted families in the kingdom. Her energetic mind now devoted itself with equal zeal and perseverance to the proper settlement of her eldest granddaughter, the Lady Harriot Godolphin, in whose matrimonial prospects she took a lively interest, notwithstanding that the Countess of Godolphin, the young lady’s mother, was still alive. The Duchess fixed her hopes, as a son-in-law, on Thomas Pelham Holles, maternal nephew of John Holles, Duke of Newcastle, whose title he obtained by creation. Pelham Holles, at the time when the Duchess’s speculations were first directed towards him, was Earl of Clare, under which designation we find, in the correspondence between her grace and her confidential agent, that the future Duke was mentioned. It was in the beginning of 1714 that a marriage treaty between the house of Marlborough and that of Newcastle was first contemplated by the Duchess.[236] It is needless to specify, what is well known, that in those times, and in the rank which the Duchess filled, marriage was seldom an affair in which those mainly interested were allowed to judge, or to reject. It was usually a contract between relations, acting, as they considered, most effectually for the happiness of two individuals whom they wished to see betrothed; the condition being that the parties were well assorted in station, the portion of the lady competent, and the fortune of the gentleman equivalent to what she or her friends had a right to expect. The negociation which is unfolded in the correspondence of the Duchess and Sir J. Vanburgh, is a perfect specimen of this species of contract, in which the parties had not even seen each other, until matters had advanced somewhat too far to be withdrawn.