Although the Cunynghames of Livingstone, the Dundases of Dundas, and the Hamiltons of Ballencrieff had strong local interests, control of Linlithgowshire lay in the 2nd Earl of Hopetoun, who, as hereditary sheriff of the county, saw to it that the Members returned suited his own interest. In 1722 his deputy as sheriff refused to accept the return of the sitting Member, Sir James Cunynghame, an Argyll Whig, substituting George Dundas, a member of the rival faction, the Squadrone, to whose leader, the Duke of Roxburghe, then secretary of state for Scotland, he owed his election as a representative peer that year. Cunynghame presented a petition which was supported by another from several freeholders, pointing out that Hopetoun’s proceedings at this election
if not put a stop to, will, at once, put an end to the freedom of elections, and give a handle to the sheriffs to return such persons as they please, notwithstanding the majority of the freeholders.
The petitions were referred to the elections committee, where they rested, being renewed in three successive sessions, till 26 Apr. 1726, when Dundas was declared to have been duly elected. A motion that the merits of the election as distinct from those of the return should be considered was rejected.
In 1727, Roxburghe having been dismissed from his post, Dundas was replaced by Alexander Hamilton, a government supporter. In 1734, when Hopetoun was made a lord of police, with a pension of £400 a year for one of his sons,
In 1741 Hopetoun, though re-elected a representative peer through the influence of Lord Ilay, Walpole’s manager for Scotland, either did not or could not prevent Dundas’s return, backed by Ilay’s opponents, the Squadrone, now joined by the Duke of Argyll. But when after the 2nd Earl’s death in 1742, Dundas sought re-election on accepting office, he was defeated by the new Earl of Hopetoun’s brother, himself a government supporter, who held the seat till 1768.
Number of voters: about 40