Orkney and Shetland

In the seventeenth century the islands of Orkney and Shetland were granted by the Crown to the earls of Morton, subject to a right of redemption, which was abolished by a private Act of Parliament in 1742. All the Members returned were related to the earls of Morton, the hereditary stewards. The only contest occurred in 1722, when the 11th Earl’s grandson, James Moodie, who had been returned unopposed in 1715, was defeated by the 13th Earl’s brother, George Douglas, petitioning unsuccessfully on the ground that the deputy steward had admitted a number of Douglas’s friends, who were not entitled to vote.1CJ, xx. 44. When the grant was made absolute in 1742, the local lairds launched a campaign against the Morton ‘tyranny’, unsuccessfully challenging it in the courts.2J. Mackenzie, General Grievances and Oppressions of Orkney and Shetland.