The county members were usually elected unopposed from among the leading Whig families, particularly the Powletts, Dukes of Bolton, the most important family in Hampshire, who owned large estates at Basingstoke, Alresford and Lyndhurst in the New Forest. In 1715 the election was compromised but on 25 Feb. 1722 the 3rd Duke of Bolton, the lord lieutenant, wrote to Sunderland:
From 1715 Cornwall was represented by Tory country gentlemen, who were returned unopposed. There was a threat of a contest at a by-election in 1744, when Sir John St. Aubyn wrote from London to a leading Tory, James Buller:
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