Roxburghshire

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. He was succeeded in 1742 by William Douglas, now the head of his family, who resigned the sheriffdom of the county to a younger brother. In 1747, though he was included in a ministerial list of proposed Members for Scotland, he was replaced by Walter Scott of Harden, in whose favour the Marquess of Lothian claimed to have ‘cast the balance’.1Newcastle (Clumber) mss; Lothian to Newcastle, 27 Aug. 1747, Add. 32712, f. 438.