Apart from the corporation, the chief interest at Berwick was in the Government, derived from the local revenue officers, the garrison and the ordnance. In 1715, 1722 and 1727 the Government carried both seats, but on 24 Nov. 1732 one of the sitting Members, George Liddell, reported to Walpole, that ‘my corporation have named several candidates for a third man, to make some sport, as they call it’.

In 1715 Lord Hertford, the Duke of Somerset’s son, a Whig, and Thomas Forster, a Tory, both of whom had held their seats since 1708, were re-elected without opposition. The chief Whigs in the county were the Duke of Somerset, through his marriage to the heiress of the Percy estates; the Earls of Carlisle and Tankerville; and the Liddells. The chief Tories were the Earl of Derwentwater, the Forsters, and the Blacketts, all of whom were Jacobites.

Under George I the chief interest at Peterborough was in its Whig custos rotulorum, the 2nd Earl Fitzwilliam [I] of Milton, 3½ miles from the city, which he represented from 1710 till his death in 1728. During this period the other seat was held by Charles Parker, of a Tory town family, till 1722, when he was defeated by Sidney Wortley, formerly Montagu, a wealthy Whig coal owner, M.P. Peterborough 1698-1710. The dean and chapter, a pro-government body, appointed the returning officer.

Northampton politics were dominated by two neighbouring families, the Montagus of Horton, earls of Halifax, and the Comptons of Castle Ashby, earls of Northampton. The corporation were an important factor from the power of the mayor and bailiffs as returning officers. In 1715 their patron was the Earl of Halifax, whose family held one seat in every Parliament from 1705 to 1734. The other seat was held by a Tory, William Wykes. In 1722 Wykes was ousted by William Wilmer, a Whig sponsored by Halifax, who rejected a Tory suggestion that he should ‘let his brother and Mr.

Brackley, a town of about 250 houses, was controlled by the dukes of Bridgwater, the lords of the manor, which their family acquired by marriage in 1597. The franchise was vested in the corporation, consisting of the mayor, 6 aldermen and 26 capital burgesses. The mayor, who was the returning officer, was nominated by the lord’s steward out of the aldermen. Vacancies among the aldermen were filled by the corporation out of two capital burgesses nominated respectively by the steward and the mayor.Bridges, Northants. i.

From 1701 to 1730 the Northamptonshire seats were held by two Tory country gentlemen, Sir Justinian Isham of Lamport and Thomas Cartwright of Aynhoe, after 1705 without opposition. The first contest occurred on Isham’s death in 1730, when a Whig candidate, William Hanbury, appealed to the freeholders ‘to assert their ancient and just rights of election’, of which it was suggested, they had been deprived for over 20 years by an unholy compact between the great local landowners ‘to preserve the peace of the county’.

The representation of Thetford was controlled by the owner of the adjoining estate of Euston. In 1715 Euston belonged to the dowager Duchess of Grafton, whose second husband, Sir Thomas Hanmer, nominated two Tories at that election. From 1722 both Members were Whigs, nominated by her son, the 2nd Duke of Grafton, to whom the estate passed on her death in 1723.

Norwich, which claimed to be the second city in the kingdom, was governed by the mayor, sheriffs, citizens, and commonalty in common council assembled, consisting of twenty-four aldermen, sitting for life, and sixty common councillors, elected annually by the resident freemen. There was also a court of mayoralty, made up of the mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen, sitting by themselves and combining legislative, executive, and judicial functions. The court of mayoralty or, as it was sometimes called, of aldermen, was Whig and the common council Tory at George I’s accession.

Except in 1715, when one Tory was returned, the representation of Yarmouth was monopolized by the Townshends and Walpoles, each family providing one Member. When in 1732 Sir Robert Walpole notified the mayor of Yarmouth that he proposed to put up his son, Edward, vice his brother, ‘old’ Horace, at the next general election, the corporation unanimously expressed their thanks for this ‘extraordinary favour’.C. J. Palmer, Great Yarmouth, ii.

In 1715 one seat at Castle Rising was controlled by Walpole, whose father had purchased 25 burgages there,H. L. Bradfer-Lawrence, ‘Castle Rising and the Walpoles’, in A Supplement to Blomefield’s Norfolk, 33-34. the other by Lady Diana Feilding, the lord of the manor, which she had inherited from her first husband, Thomas Howard, M.P.