Berwickshire was dominated by the Hume Campbells, earls of Marchmont, sheriffs of the county during pleasure. From 1708 to 1734 they returned the 1st Earl’s son-in-law, George Baillie. In 1734 the 2nd Earl of Marchmont, now in opposition, returned his younger son, Alexander Hume Campbell, as the Squadrone candidate against a government supporter, who petitioned unsuccessfully.
The chief Banffshire parliamentary families were the Abercrombys, the Duffs, and the Ogilvies. From 1708 to 1727 the seat was held by Alexander Abercromby, the paid supporter of successive Governments, who wrote of himself in 1713 as having been ‘unanimously chosen, which I flatter myself I shall always be in this shire while I think it convenient or desirable’.HMC Portland, x. 305. In 1727 Abercromby was succeeded by William Duff of Braco, who in 1734 put up his brother-in-law, James Abercromby, the son of the previous Member.
The chief interests in Ayrshire were in the Campbells, earls of Loudoun, its hereditary sheriffs, and the Montgomeries, earls of Eglintoun. From 1710 to 1727 the seat was held by John Montgomerie, first cousin of the 9th Earl of Eglintoun, and from 1727 to 1741 by James Campbell, whose father was the 2nd Earl of Loudoun and whose mother was the daughter of the 7th Earl of Eglintoun.
Argyllshire was dominated by the dukes of Argyll, its hereditary sheriffs, who returned members of the Campbell clan, except in 1742,when the 2nd Duke nominated his nephew, Stuart Mackenzie.
Under George I Aberdeenshire was represented successively by two local landowners, Sir Alexander Cumming, a Tory, and Sir Archibald Grant, a Whig, who went into opposition. Before the general election of 1727 Walpole was informed that ‘the bulk of the Whig interest there’ was in the various branches of the Forbes family, of whom ‘the most considerable for his estate’ was Sir Arthur Forbes, then a minor.Cholmondeley (Houghton) mss 68. Grant was re-elected after a contest, defeating Alexander Fraser, the brother-in-law of Lord Ilay, Walpole’s election manager for Scotland.
Under George I and George II there were two main sources of electoral influence in Radnorshire: the Maesllwch estate, owned by Sir Humphrey Howorth, M.P. for the county 1722-55; and the stewardship of the King’s manors, comprising two-thirds of the county, granted to Lord Coningsby at George I’s accession. Coningsby used his power to destroy the influence of the Harleys,HMC Portland, v.
The leading Whig family in Pembrokeshire were the Owens of Orielton, who represented the county from 1689 to 1710 and from 1715 to 1727. In 1727 John Campbell of Calder, and of Stackpole Court, Pembrokeshire, joined with another local family, Philipps of Picton Castle, to turn out Sir Arthur Owen.NLW, Gen. Coll.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century the dominant interests in Montgomeryshire were those of Edward Vaughan of Llwydiarth, the Member since 1679, and of the Marquess of Powis, who did not recover his Jacobite father’s estates till 1722. On Vaughan’s death in 1718 his estate and influence passed to his son-in-law Watkin Williams Wynn, whose nominees were always returned unopposed for the county, with the support of the Marquess of Powis.
The Vaughans of Corsygedol, who possessed the leading interest in Merioneth, represented the county as Tories without opposition from 1701. Although Watkin Williams Wynn of Wynnstay had inherited the important Rhiwgoch estate in 1719, he made no attempt to interfere in the affairs of Merioneth.
Until 1734 Glamorgan was controlled by an alliance of three Tory peers, the Duke of Beaufort, Lord Windsor, and Lord Mansel. The Mansels represented it uninterruptedly from 1670 to 1712, when, in the absence of a Mansel candidate the alliance secured the unopposed election of a local Tory squire, Robert Jones, and on his death of another, Sir Charles Kemys. On the death of Kemys, Bussy Mansel, the then Lord Mansel’s uncle, was defeated by a Whig candidate, William Talbot, son of the lord chancellor, whose wife had inherited an estate in the county.
