County

The leading Forfarshire families were the Maules, the Ogilvies, the Carnegies, and the Lyons. Under George I these families were in eclipse owing to their participation in the rebellion of 1715, for which the heads of the first three were attainted, forfeiting their estates and fleeing the country, the fourth being killed at the battle of Sheriffmuir. From 1716, when John Carnegie, who had been re-elected for the county in 1715, was expelled from the House for taking part in the rebellion, the seat was filled by James Scott, a government supporter.

In 1715 Sir John Anstruther, the head of one of the leading local Whig families, was returned, presumably with the support of his cousin, the Earl of Rothes, hereditary sheriff of the county and a member of the Squadrone. The defeated candidate, Sir Alexander Erskine, 2nd Bt., of Cambo, the lord lyon king of arms, later engaged in the 1715 rebellion. Anstruther continued to represent the county until 1741, when he was succeeded by David Scott, an opposition Whig.

The hereditary sheriff of Elginshire was the 7th Earl of Moray, who had been implicated in the Fifteen and thereafter took little part in politics. The chief interest was that of the Grants of Grant. After Alexander Grant’s death in 1719, the head of the Grant family, Sir James Grant, who was sitting for Inverness-shire, supported another local family, the Brodies, for the seat. In 1735 he made over the Grant estates to his son Ludovick, who was put up as the government candidate for the county in 1741.

In 1715 John Baird, a government supporter and a ‘creature’ of Sir David Dalrymple, the lord advocate, was returned unopposed, George Lockhart of Carnwarth, the previous Tory Member, not standing as he knew that the sheriff appointed by the Crown would return a Whig in any case. In 1722 Lockhart assured Dundas, Dalrymple’s successor, that if he would preserve the estates of some Jacobites from being forfeited ‘I would take care so as to manage matters that he should be elected for this shire in opposition to Mr. Baird’.Lockhart Pprs. ii.

From the Union till George III’s accession the representation of Dunbartonshire was virtually monopolized by John Campbell, uncle of the 2nd and 3rd Dukes of Argyll, and from 1727 by his son and namesake, who became the 4th Duke in 1761.

The chief interests in Dumfriesshire were those of the dukes of Queensberry, its hereditary sheriffs,and of the marquesses of Annandale. In 1715 Sir William Johnstone, a government supporter and a member of a junior branch of the Annandale family, was returned. He was succeeded in 1722 by Charles Areskine, on the joint Queensberry-Annandale interests.More Culloden Pprs. iii.

Cromartyshire was controlled by the earls of Cromarty, who held the hereditary sheriffdom of the county. On 24 Jan. 1715 Lord Elibank wrote to the 2nd Earl of Cromarty:

The chief interest in Clackmannanshire was that of William Dalrymple, its hereditary sheriff. The interest of the Erskines, earls of Mar, was temporarily eclipsed by the attainder of Lord Mar after the Fifteen. Sir John Shaw, a government supporter, who held the estate of Sauchie in the county, was returned in 1722, but was defeated in 1734 by James Erskine, Mar’s brother, who had joined forces with the Squadrone and was supported by the Dalrymples.Stair Annals, ii.

The chief interest in Caithness-shire was in the Sinclairs of Ulbster, who purchased the hereditary sheriffdom of the county from the Earl of Breadalbane c.1715.CJ, xxi. 189. At the 1715 election, Sir James Sinclair of Dunbeath, who had represented Caithness-shire in the last Parliament of Scotland, stood, but John Sinclair of Ulbster, the sheriff, returned Sir Robert Gordon.

Bute was controlled by the earls of Bute, its hereditary sheriffs, whose nominees were invariably returned without a contest.