Knaresborough

The chief interests at Knaresborough were in two neighbouring landowners, Lord Burlington of Bolton Abbey, hereditary constable of Knaresborough castle, a Whig, who in 1715 appointed the steward of Knaresborough,T. Lawson-Tancred, Recs. of a Yorks. Manor 245. and Sir Henry Slingsby of Scriven, a Tory, whose family had frequently sat for the borough. In 1715 Slingsby, having been returned at a by-election in 1714, stood unsuccessfully with another Tory against two Whigs, Henry Coote and Robert Hitch. The defeated candidates petitioned on the ground that they had a majority of legal votes, but that

John Flesher, pretending to be the bailiff [i.e. the returning officer], and having taken upon himself the execution of the precept for the said election, has returned the said Mr. Coote and Mr. Hitch ...; and the said Flesher, to serve the said Mr. Coote and Mr. Hitch, some time before the said election, took upon him, without authority, to impanel a jury of thirty burgesses, the greatest number he knew to be in the interest of the said Mr. Coote and Mr. Hitch,

i.e. that he had rigged his own election as bailiff. The petition was ultimately withdrawn.CJ, xvii. 30, 368. On Coote’s death in 1720 the vacancy was filled by Burlington’s friend, Richard Arundell, also a neighbouring landowner, who was thenceforth returned unopposed with his Tory kinsman, Slingsby.