John Stewart, 7th Earl of Galloway, a courtier who thought his parliamentary interest superior to almost any in Scotland ‘excepting the Duke of Queensberry’, and whose main ambition was a British peerage, had ‘the chief interest’.PRO 30/8/138, f. 42; Pol. State of Scotland 1788, p. 344. From 1768 until 1784 his nominees were unopposed.
The compiler of the opposition survey of 1788 considered the influence of Lady Sutherland and her husband Lord Gower, who the previous year had returned Gen. James Grant, a personal friend of Henry Dundas, to be virtually impregnable. At the same time, he noted that the excessive creation of life-rent votes had
Sir Thomas Dundas of Kerse, Member since 1768, whom his fellow Whigs believed to be ‘beloved by men of all parties’, had a ‘great estate and great personal interest’. He had not faced a contest since 1774: although James, Marquess of Graham (who in September 1790 succeeded his father as 3rd Duke of Montrose) as representative of a ‘very considerable interest’ on the ministerial side, had seemed likely to oppose Sir Thomas in 1784, he had desisted on John Francis Erskine of Mar’s declaring for Sir Thomas, or so Erskine claimed.R. M. Sunter, ‘Stirlingshire Pols.
The principal interest was that of the 3rd Duke of Buccleuch. The sitting Member Mark Pringle had a good interest and went along with the duke, as well as with Henry Dundas, so he was secure in his seat.Pol. State of Scotland 1788, p. 315. It appears that an opposition was intended to Pringle in 1802 and, although it was given up,Add. 33049, f. 354. he made way for another friend of Buccleuch’s, Rutherfurd.
In February 1788 the two leading interests of John Ker, 3rd Duke of Roxburghe, a courtier, and Henry Scott, 3rd Duke of Buccleuch, a ministerialist, divided the county into two parties. The sitting Member, Sir George Douglas, put up in 1784 by the former with the latter’s concurrence in order to exclude the Whig Member, Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto, was now challenged by John Rutherfurd of Edgerstone, to whom Buccleuch had transferred his interest.
The dominant interest in Ross-shire was that of the earls of Seaforth, restored to supremacy in 1784 and subsequently strengthened through further creations of life-rent votes by the Whig Francis Humberston Mackenzie, chief of the clan. In 1788 Lawrence Hill credited Seaforth with 24 votes under direct control and estimated that he could probably rely on a further 20.
The leading interest was that of Sir Michael Stewart of Blackhall, ‘the head of one of those considerable Whig families in the county, which had made uncommon exertions in the cause of opposition’, combined with that of his heir John Shaw Stewart. They were estimated to control 45 votes out of 114, with William McDowall of Castle Semple, a friend of Henry Dundas and of Pitt’s administration, in second place, commanding 26 votes.Pol. State of Scotland 1788, pp. 278-93; Ginter, Whig Organization, 21; NLS mss 2, f.
The most powerful interest in Perthshire was that of the 4th Duke of Atholl, a supporter of government, whose uncle Gen. James Murray was the sitting Member in 1790 and whose family had enjoyed general supremacy since the Union. His chief aristocratic rival was the Whig 4th Earl of Breadalbane, but in county politics party strife was usually a sub-plot to the main theme of conflict between Atholl and the ‘independent freeholders of middling estates’, who were thick on the ground.Pol. State of Scotland 1788, pp.
The Duke of Queensberry nominally had the principal interest, but such was the ascendancy gained over him by Lord Chief Baron Montgomery, who had sat as the duke’s Member from 1768 to 1775, that the latter was able to secure the return of his two sons in turn. Indeed by 1802, the lord chief baron was credited with the leading interest in the county, and in 1806 and 1810 his son Sir James was said to be sitting on his own interest.Pol. State of Scotland 1788, p. 250; Add. 33049, f. 356; Add. 51917; NLS mss 1, ff. 206-9.
Although Sir Thomas Dundas of Aske, a friend and follower of Fox, had ‘by far the most considerable estate and interest’ in Orkney, his own neglect and ‘a spirit of jealousy among the smaller proprietors’ seriously undermined his position in the late 1780s. The main threats came from the Honyman family of Graemsay whose head, Patrick, had conveyed his estates to his son William, a lawyer under obligations to Henry Dundas; and from the Balfours of Trenabie. Between the Balfours and the Dundases there was bad blood.
