The principal interest in the borough lay in the Ducketts, who owned the manors of Calne and Calstone, usually returning one Member. Another interest was attached to the prebend manor of Calne, leased by the Stiles family till 1747, when they sold it to the Northeys. Two other neighbouring landowners, Sir Orlando Bridgeman of Bowood and Walter Hungerford of Studley, also had some influence.

The Wiltshire Members were drawn from six Tory families, all long settled in the county and with landed estates there. Only in 1715 was there any opposition and then it was not pressed to a poll.

At George I’s accession the chief interests at Appleby were those of the Tory earls of Thanet, who owned Appleby castle, and of two Whig Westmorland families, the Lowthers, Viscounts Lonsdale, and the Sandfords of Howgill castle. On 9 Oct. 1714 the bishop of Carlisle wrote to James Lowther:

Westmorland elections were usually settled without a contest by agreement between the Lowthers, the Wilsons of Dallam Tower, Whigs, and the Grahmes of Levens, Tories, whose estates passed in 1730 to Henry Bowes, 4th Earl of Berkshire, through his wife, the daughter and heiress of James Grahme. The only contest occurred in 1741, when both Lord Berkshire’s son, Lord Andover, and Sir Philip Musgrave of Edenhall laid claim to the seat hitherto held by Anthony Lowther, who died later that year. In a letter of 31 Mar.

Up to 1734 Warwick returned Tories for both seats on the recommendation of William Greville, 7th Lord Brooke, recorder of the borough. At a hard fought by-election in November 1722 Lord Brooke, by gaining the support of a majority of the corporation, was able to secure the return of his nominee, Sir William Keyt, against a Whig opponent, Henry Delves, at great expense. His London agent was

The chief interest in Coventry was that of the corporation, which was dominated by the nonconformists,

From 1715 to 1754 Warwickshire, ‘a county with hardly a Whig in it’,Stuart mss 65/16. was represented by Tory country gentlemen, who were all unopposed.

Steyning was an independent venal borough, always returning government supporters, except in 1715, when on a petition against Robert Leeves, a Tory,

it was proved that thirty-four of the sitting Member’s voters received bribes for their votes from the sitting Member a few days before the election; some had five pounds, and others four guineas a piece, and that several hogs and some corn were distributed to them by the sitting Member’s orders.CJ, xviii. 535.

Shoreham was a thoroughly venal borough, usually returning wealthy merchants, able not only to spend money freely on individual voters but ‘to assist in building merchant vessels, it being the chief manufacture of this borough’.Namier, Structure, 129. The Government had a certain influence from the local customs officers and also from Shoreham men employed at Woolwich and Deptford.

In 1715 the chief interest at Midhurst was in the Viscounts Montagu, the lords of the manor, Roman Catholics, who at this time took no active part in elections. The borough was controlled by the Duke of Somerset, and, successively, by William Woodward and Bulstrode Peachey, who both took the name of Knight on their marriage to Elizabeth Knight, an heiress owning the neighbouring manor of West Dean. The Duke and Bulstrode Peachey each purchased burgages from the 6th Viscount Montagu, undertaking ‘to assist each other’s interest upon all occasions should either be attacked’A. A.