Marriage a la Mode is the fourth chapter in the biography of Thomas, Marquess of Wharton (Tom to his family and eventually to the political world of England). The chapter picks up the narrative about 1666, when young Tom returns from three years in France; and it deals with the attempts of Lord Wharton, his father, to negotiate a suitable seventeenth-century style marriage for him. Though the episodes deal with the Wharton family in particular, they illustrates some of the general problems of aristocratic marriages during the Restoration era; and they form a complete story in themselves.
The tables of abbreviations and short titles which are included to help the reader through the (voluminous) notes are the lists for the whole biography, not merely Marriage a la Mode.</p
