Sir William Cunynghame of Livingstone, Member since 1774, had survived a contest organized against him by Henry Dundas in 1784, in which Capt. George Dundas of Dundas was his opponent. As an avowed Whig, he was again a target in 1790, when Henry Dundas put up a much stronger candidate, his future brother-in-law John Hope, brother and heir of James, 3rd Earl of Hopetoun, whose interest in the county had originally guaranteed Cunynghame’s return and was now combined with that of the Dundases of Dundas against Cunynghame. Cunynghame’s friends were aware of the threat by April 1789, when Cunynghame alleged that Dundas was ‘moving heaven and earth’ against him. The Duke of Portland assured William Adam, 24 July 1789, that Cunynghame deserved ‘every exertion that can be made for him’; Cunynghame himself spared ‘neither my purse nor person in the cause’. It was to no avail, as government secured Lord Torpichen’s votes for Hope, if required, despite the Duke of York’s intervention, and by December 1789 Cunynghame was relying on the court of session accepting six claims rejected at the Michaelmas court. Even then his confidence depended upon the election taking place before 1 July. On being defeated, Cunynghame protested about the participation in the election of the lord advocate, Sir Alexander Livingston, and George Dundas of Dundas, whom he asserted to be peers. A county meeting in January in his interest had deprecated the interference of peers in elections. He objected to other votes, but the majority against him was decisive. His only consolation was Dundas’s oath ‘that the damned fellow Cunynghame has cost him more trouble than the half of Scotland’. His interest decayed subsequently and by 1802 his estate was to be sold.
John Hope was elected unanimously in absentia in 1796, though Henry Dundas had been warned the preceding September that there was ‘much mischief a-hatching’ in the county:
It is well known, there are a vile set of disaffected democratic people in the county and those, and everybody else he can get hold of, Harry Erskine [of Ammondell], now a considerable proprietor, and his pretty brother the peer of Buchan, have been assembling at parties of pleasure, strawberry feasts at the old Castle of Nidding, house warming at New Year and the world knows what all without making a fuss, very unlike them if they had not some object in it ... as Colonel Hope is absent ... it would not be amiss to have somebody of common sense inquire into what is going forward.
Edinburgh Advertiser, 31 May-3 June 1796; SRO GD51/5/17.
Nothing came of this then and Hopetoun’s interest was strong enough to substitute John Hope’s brother Alexander for him in 1800 and secure his unopposed return at the election of 1802. On the advent of the Whig ministry in January 1806, however, Henry Erskine, now appointed lord advocate, renewed his campaign. Lord Melville therefore hoped that reports of Hope’s neglect of some of his constituents were not true. The Prince of Wales lobbied Lord Moira on Erskine’s behalf at once, but received no encouragement from him, Moira asserting that he could not hope to influence the county except through Melville.
In 1807 Erskine renewed the contest and, despite some anxiety expressed by Hope’s friends, fared little better. He informed Lord Grenville, 17 May: ‘I am afraid that Lord Melville will be too strong for me in the county of Linlithgow. Nothing that power can do to remove enemies and make friends has been spared.’
Number of voters: 62 in 1790 rising to 63 in 1811