Scotland

Wigtown Burghs failed to implement the order of rotation prescribed by the act of the Scottish parliament for settling the post-Union representation. Ignorance rather than calculation of advantage caused this uniquely aberrant behaviour; but the right of presiding at elections was particularly significant in a four-burgh district, where the presiding burgh’s casting vote in a tied election would be decisive.

The most obvious features of this district were its wide geographical spread and the diversity of electoral influences. Competition for control centred upon the bitter clan rivalry between the Rosses (with their allies the Munros) and the Mackenzies. This struggle dominated local politics in the Ross-shire towns of Tain and Dingwall. The Rosses, led by the 12th Lord Ross of Halkhead, were in the ascendant at Tain, the head burgh of the shire.

Comprising five towns spread across four counties in the Forth valley, Stirling Burghs was not amenable to control by any single interest. As the century progressed this district developed an unenviable reputation for venality, but paucity of evidence makes it impossible to establish how far corruption influenced elections in this period. Undoubtedly, some inducements were given.

Electoral influence in Wigtownshire was divided among the Agnews of Lochnaw, the Dalrymples of Stair, and the Stewarts, Earls of Galloway, with the lesser freeholders providing a volatile fourth element in an already unstable situation. At a by-election to the Scottish parliament in October 1700, the county even proved vulnerable to a challenge from the Duke of Hamilton’s brother, Lord Basil Hamilton, who built a strong Country platform out of local disaffection with the Galloway-Stair interest and the national campaign for redress of grievances over the Darien episode.