This district comprised five small coastal towns in Fife, two of which were under the control of a single family. Anstruther Easter and Wester had respectively returned, to the last Scottish parliament, the only son and younger brother of Lord Anstruther of the court of session. Both Sir John and Sir Robert Anstruther, 1st Bt.*, had acted equivocally over the Union, being content, however, to abstain on key divisions.
In size and wealth Aberdeen was effectively the capital of its region and immune from direct patronal influence. In a five-burgh district, however, no single burgh could dictate terms, and an Aberdonian monopoly of representation was only achieved with difficulty. Indeed, the most noticeable feature of elections, according to one observer in 1708, was that alignments were ‘so changeable that nothing can be depended upon until the event’. A constant feature, nevertheless, was the rivalry between Aberdeen and Montrose.
As the major territorial magnate in Perthshire, and hereditary sheriff besides, the Duke of Atholl could expect to command a considerable following. Because of his family’s residual reputation as Stuart loyalists, he enjoyed customary support from the lesser nobility of the shire and the numerous cavalier lairds whom the Jacobite agent Scot characterized as ‘of undoubted loyalty’. But these men could not be taken for granted. On the debit side, Atholl’s own political record admitted of more than a little ambiguity.
The principal interest belonged to the Stewarts earls of Galloway; they controlled Wigtown and Whithorn, and when either town was the presiding burgh could secure the return of their candidate. Stranraer was controlled by the Dalrymples, earls of Stair; and the Gordons of Kenmure had considerable influence in New Galloway.
This constituency was one of the most venal in Scotland, and no one family secured a lasting interest. The sitting Member at the dissolution in 1754, George Haldane, was in bitter conflict with the Duke of Argyll; and Argyll sponsored the candidature of Robert Cuninghame against him. Soon after Henry Pelham’s death Cuninghame withdrew in favour of Colonel Arthur Forbes, and in a list drawn up for Newcastle on 5 Apr. it was still considered doubtful which would carry it.
The burghs of Wick and Dornoch were at the beginning of the period under the control of the Sutherlands; until 1766 Kirkwall was commanded by Lord Morton, and thereafter by Sir Lawrence Dundas and his son Thomas; Tain was for most of the period in the hands of the Rosses of Inverchasley; while in Dingwall, which was very open, the Davidsons of Tulloch had influence.
‘These burghs’, wrote John Robinson in 1774, ‘are very open, venal, and expensive, and few choose to engage with them.’Laprade, 7. The leading interest at the beginning of this period belonged to the Earl of Rothes, whose son Thomas Leslie had represented the constituency since 1743.
Lanark was influenced by the Earl of Hyndford; Peebles by Lord March; the Duke of Hamilton and Sir Lawrence Dundas contended for control of Linlithgow; and Selkirk was usually influenced by the Duke of Buccleuch, and during the minority of the 3rd Duke by the Pringles of Haining.
At the general election of 1754, Nairn was at the command of Hugh Rose of Kilravock; Forres was controlled by Lady Brodie; Fortrose by Kenneth Mackenzie, Lord Fortrose; and in the burgh of Inverness the families of Grant any Macintosh had the chief influence. The sitting Member, Alexander Brodie, Lyon king-at-arms, died a month before Parliament was dissolved; his widow, Lady Brodie, then placed her interest at the disposal of the Duke of Newcastle. At the same time Hugh Rose had made common cause with Lord Fortrose, supporting him in Ross-shire, in exchange for his burgh of Fortrose.
Glasgow, already in the eighteenth century a great trading and manufacturing city, with a population rising from about 27,000 in 1755 to over 40,000 in 1775, had far outstripped the other burghs, none of which had a population of more than 2,000. Rutherglen, from its proximity to Glasgow, was largely dominated by the city’s wealthy merchants; Renfrew burgh politics usually followed those of the county; and Dumbarton was under the influence of the Duke of Argyll.