Cambridge

Cambridge elections were controlled by the corporation, a Tory body, who were able to manipulate the franchise by creating honorary freemen. At George I’s accession the dominant interest in the corporation was that of Sir John Hynde Cotton, the head of the Cambridgeshire Tories, who had shared the representation since 1708 with Samuel Shepheard, a Hanoverian Tory, who had gone over to the Whigs. On 6 Sept. 1714 a Cambridge Tory reported that ‘we are preparing here to throw out Shepheard by promoting Mr. Sclater’s interest’, soon after which the corporation admitted 36 new freemen, whose votes resulted in Sclater’s defeating Shepheard by a majority of 19. Shepheard petitioned on the ground that these votes were invalid, as the meetings of the corporation at which the new freemen had been admitted did not contain a majority of the aldermen. Sclater’s return was upheld by the elections committee, who decided that a majority of the aldermen was unnecessary, but a resolution to this effect was rejected by the House of Commons, who awarded the seat to Shepheard.1HMC Portland, v. 493; CJ, xviii. 142-6. At the next general election Sclater, now Bacon, was unopposed with Cotton, who was replaced by another Tory, Gilbert Affleck, on choosing to sit for the county. In 1727 Cotton and Bacon were re-elected, defeating Henry Bromley, later Lord Montfort, a Whig. The tide turned at a by-election in 1737, when Cotton’s candidate was defeated by Affleck, supported by Shepheard’s interest. From that moment, according to Cole, the Cambridge antiquary,

it was visible that Sir John Cotton’s interest with the corporation was lost and gone, for the aldermen, though almost all of them were Tories in their hearts, wanted their Members to be more free with their money among them than they found Sir John Cotton was, who they gave out, never traded with them for the necessaries of his house at Madingley, but sent to London or anywhere else where he could purchase the cheapest ... and the court party, or Whigs, seeing the aldermen and managing men gaping for money, it was found for them by Lord Montfort and Mr. Shepheard.2Add. 5841, f. 337.

Thenceforth government supporters were returned for both seats without opposition.