County

During the seventeenth century both the shire and borough of Carmarthen were dominated by the Vaughans of Golden Grove. In 1713 the male line of the main branch of the family ended with the death of the 3rd Earl of Carbery. His only daughter and heiress married the Marquess of Winchester, who was returned as a Whig in 1715. He vacated his seat on being summoned to the House of Lords in 1717, thus clearing the way for other local families to assert old or new claims to a share in the county representation.

The Cardiganshire Whigs were headed by the Lisburnes of Crosswood and Thomas Johnes of Llanfair; the Tories by the Pryses of Gogerddan and the Powells of Nanteos. In 1715 Lewis Pryse defeated the sitting Member, Johnes, but was expelled for contempt in 1716. At the ensuing by-election and in 1722 Tories were returned with the support of the Gogerddan and Nanteos interests.Lewis Pryse to Wm. Powell, 30 Oct. 1714; O. Brigstocke to Wm. Powell, 6 Jan. 1717; F. Cornwallis to Wm. Powell, 7 Apr. and 23 Nov.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century Caernarvonshire was controlled by a group of Tory families, headed by the Bulkeleys of Baron Hill in Anglesey. In 1713, however, William Griffith of Cefnamwlch, the Tory Member for the Caernarvon Boroughs, allied himself with the local Whigs, led by Thomas Wynn of Glynllivon, and was returned for the county against the official Tory candidate.

From 1705 to 1734 Breconshire returned successively two local Tory country gentlemen, Sir Edward Williams of Gwernyfed and William Gwyn Vaughan of Trebarried. In December 1733 a report on the county was sent to Walpole, stating that there were 1,200 freeholders, of whom Roger Jones of Buckland, who had stood against Vaughan unsuccessfully in 1722, could poll 400; while 150 each were at the command of John Jeffreys of the Priory and of Sir David Williams of Gwernyfed. According to the report,

At George I’s accession Anglesey was dominated by the Bulkeleys of Baron Hill, a Tory family, whose tenure of the seat had been challenged in Anne’s reign by the local Whigs under Owen Meyrick of Bodorgan. In 1715 Lord Bulkeley, to avoid the trouble and expense of a contest, came to an agreement with Meyrick, under which Meyrick was returned unopposed for the county, on an undertaking to resign at Lord Bulkeley’s request. But in 1722, when Lord Bulkeley decided to stand again, Meyrick refused to honour his pledge and was defeated after a bitter and expensive contest.

From 1710 to 1727 both Yorkshire seats were held by Tories, Lord Downe and Sir Arthur Kaye, since 1713 without a contest. At a by-election caused by Kaye’s death in 1726, his nephew, the Tory candidate, was defeated by Cholmley Turner, a Whig, largely owing to the influence of Sir Thomas Wentworth, who had recently succeeded to the vast Wentworth estates in Yorkshire.

Under George I and George II the chief interests in Worcestershire were those of the 5th and 6th Earls of Coventry, lord lieutenants of the county, Whigs, and of the 1st and 2nd Lords Foley of Witley, Tories. After a contest in 1715, when one of the former Tory Members, Sir John Pakington, was returned, but the other, Samuel Pytts, was defeated by a Whig, the next two elections were compromised, each party taking one seat.

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.

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.