Commons 1715-1754

The chief interest in Roxburghshire was that of its hereditary sheriff, Archibald Douglas of Cavers, whose son, William, represented it in the 1715 and 1727 Parliaments. In 1722, when William Douglas moved to Dumfries Burghs, he was succeeded by Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto, who was replaced in 1726 by his kinsman Sir Gilbert Eliott of Stobs. In 1734 and 1741, the Douglases having gone into opposition, John Rutherfurd, a member of the Squadrone, married to an Elliot of Minto, was returned.

At George I’s accession the chief interests in Ross-shire, where the sheriff was appointed by the Government during pleasure, were those of William, 12th Lord Ross, and his brother, General Charles Ross, the sitting Tory Member, who was re-elected unopposed. In 1722 Ross, according to his election petition, obtained 18 votes out of a poll of 31 electors, but the seat was awarded by the sheriff, Sir William Gordon, to Alexander Urquhart, a government man.

The hereditary sheriff of the county, the Earl of Eglintoun, does not appear to have intervened in Renfrewshire elections, in which the Earls of Dundonald and Glencairn sponsored candidates.

Though Perthshire was a centre of Jacobitism, the predominating interest belonged to the dukes of Atholl, its hereditary sheriffs, who supported the Whig Government. In 1715 the 1st Duke’s son, Lord James Murray, was returned against Sir Henry Stirling, later a Jacobite agent in Russia.See HMC Stuart, passim. Re-elected unopposed in 1722, he succeeded to the dukedom in 1724, thereby vacating the seat, which was filled for the rest of that Parliament successively by two local Whig landowners, David Graeme and Mungo Haldane of Gleneagles.

The principal interest in Peeblesshire belonged to the earls of March, who as hereditary sheriffs were able to control the elections. An unsuccessful attempt to break this control in 1727 was made by Sir James Nasmyth, whose petition on the grounds of the partiality of the sheriff made no progress. However, after the 2nd Earl of March’s death, leaving an infant son, in 1731, followed by that of his brother, the sitting Member, John Douglas, a year later, Nasmyth obtained the support of the deputy sheriff for the ensuing by-election, at which he was returned.

In the seventeenth century the islands of Orkney and Shetland were granted by the Crown to the earls of Morton, subject to a right of redemption, which was abolished by a private Act of Parliament in 1742. All the Members returned were related to the earls of Morton, the hereditary stewards.

The chief interest in Nairnshire was that of the Campbells of Cawdor (Calder), the hereditary sheriffs. Its Members not infrequently used Nairnshire as a second string after failing in other constituencies. Thus in 1722 John Forbes of Culloden, having been defeated for Inverness-shire, fell back on Nairnshire, which he had represented in Anne’s last Parliament.

Although the Cunynghames of Livingstone, the Dundases of Dundas, and the Hamiltons of Ballencrieff had strong local interests, control of Linlithgowshire lay in the 2nd Earl of Hopetoun, who, as hereditary sheriff of the county, saw to it that the Members returned suited his own interest.

Up to 1750 Lanarkshire was usually represented by relations of the Tory dukes of Hamilton, its hereditary sheriffs. The only exception was James Lockart, a Whig, who was returned in 1715, when the 5th Duke was a minor. On Lockhart’s death in 1718, the Duke being still under age, his uncle, Lord Archibald Hamilton, took the seat, twice defeating Lockhart’s kinsman, Sir James Stewart.

In 1715 and 1722 Alexander Murray of Broughton, a Whig related to the Marquess of Annandale, the hereditary steward, was returned unopposed. In 1724 riots against the enclosure of lands in Galloway led to disagreement among the leading county families as to how the rioters should be treated. Some, led by Patrick Heron, were in favour of