Lord Clare, or, to call him by his subsequent title, the Duke of Newcastle, appears, however, to have had higher and juster views of the state of matrimony than most of the noblemen of his day, who regarded it as a mere tie of convenience, or means of aggrandisement, and who troubled themselves very little about the disposition or sentiments of the family into which, for sundry reasons, they entered. The character of Pelham Holles, Duke of Newcastle, seems, at the period of the correspondence of which he was the subject, to have been singularly discreet and amiable. He was not, indeed, a man of high qualities, nor of such extensive and solid attainments as to justify the extraordinary success which afterwards, in attaining the highest posts in the government, he enjoyed. Devoted to politics, and to the party of Townshend and Walpole; a zealous promoter of the Protestant succession; he led a life of bustle, and was constantly in search of popularity; always in confusion, often promising what he could never grant, yet performing well the domestic duties of his station. Kind, though exact, as a master, and energetic in all his official duties, he might certainly be deemed highly respectable. Not foreseeing the great eminence to which he was destined to rise, the young nobleman, at this period of his life, earnestly desired to connect himself in marriage with some family suitable to his own in wealth and influence. His views might not have been directed to the Marlborough family, had not the Duchess, to whom Vanburgh was at that time a willing agent, imparted from her grace some hints that a matrimonial connexion between her granddaughter and Lord Clare would not be unacceptable.[237] Vanburgh, like a true votary of the great, in those days of patronage, took his cue from the Duchess’s expressions; and as the dramatist had many opportunities of sharing Lord Clare’s leisure hours, the Duchess could not, in some respects, have employed any person more likely to promote her speculations. Vanburgh thus described the commencement of those operations which were intended to unite the great houses of Churchill and Pelham Holles. Writing to the Duchess, he says—“I have brought into discourse the characters of several women, that I might have a natural occasion to bring in hers, (Lady Harriott’s,) which I have then dwelt a little upon, and, in the best manner I could, distinguished her from the rest. This I have taken three or four occasions to do, without the least appearance of having any view in it, thinking the rightest thing I could do would be to possess him with a good impression of her, before I hinted at anything more.”[238]