The hereditary right of succession to titles of nobility granted by the Norman kings, without distinction of sex, greatly affected the position of women among the higher classes. They acquired a dignity and importance in the eyes of rulers which otherwise they would not have possessed. An heiress who could convey a title and lands to her husband was a personage to be reckoned with and considered. There are numerous instances of men claiming titles and privileges by virtue of their wives’ position. Richard Neville gained the earldom of Salisbury, and his son that of Warwick, by marriage with heiresses. But while a woman could thus confer advantages of a substantial kind upon her husband, she still lacked that control over her own property which characterized the position of a wife until recent times. Women’s marriage portions were denounced by writers in the seventeenth century as the cause of wedded misery and sin-- “men and women, being byassed by interest in marriage and not having that firm friendship and love for each other, do seek for a greater happiness abroad.” Marriages were arranged among people of good estate and condition with a very frank display of mercenary motives. For instance, we find various relatives of the excellent Sir Ralph Verney anxiously engaged in helping him, after his wife’s death in 1656, to find an heiress for his son. One, Mrs. Sherrard, writes that she has discovered a lady whom she thinks would be a suitable mate for young Edmund Verney-- “Her father will give her five thousand pounds, and hath but on dafter more, and she is sickly and never licke to mary, and if not shee will have more than enouf, for it is beleved that her father is worth above thirty thousand pounds, and dooth daily incres in welth. I hear shee is not but of a very good disposition.” Another relative writes-- “Here is a match for your sown, Mr. Wilson’s daughter of Surrey (formerly a cittizen) that I think worthy yur consideration; they offer £5,500.” People used plain language in the seventeenth century, and when a match was proposed it was in out-spoken terms. The young people were treated as pawns by their respective guardians, and instead of lawyers settling matters, it was the parents who wrangled over property and drove bargains. There is little difference in this respect between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the following letter of Lady Katherine Berkeley, though it belongs to the Tudor period, might well have been written a hundred years later. Lady Berkeley was wife of Henry, first Lord Berkeley, to whom she was married in the reign of Queen Mary. She is writing to her confidential man of business, John Smyth, about her son’s marriage.