The impression conveyed to the English Whig ministry in 1708-10 by one of the competing factions in Ross-shire that the recent political upheavals in the county were a local manifestation of the great national conflict of parties, contained some elements of the truth but underplayed the most important, namely that the two sides were defined by family allegiance.
Neither the hereditary sheriff the Earl of Eglintoun (who was also hereditary bailie of the regality of Paisley), nor the other principal magnates who were thought to exercise influence in the county, the dukes of Hamilton and Montrose, played much of a role in elections in Renfrewshire after the Union. Instead, the electoral court in this period was the province of the lesser barons.
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.
In 1686 the hereditary sheriffdom of Peeblesshire had been sold by the Earl of Tweeddale, together with Neidpath Castle and its estates, to the 1st Duke of Queensberry, and in 1693 Queensberry transferred these lands and the sheriffdom to his second son, William, created Earl of March. In the 1702 election to the Scottish parliament, the county returned two loyal followers of the 2nd Duke of Queensberry: Alexander Horsburgh of that ilk and William Morison of Prestongrange.
Despite a small electorate and an overweening magnate interest, electoral politics were far from moribund in Orkney and Shetland during this period. The earls of Morton, whose grant of crown lands in the islands had been revoked under Charles II, only regained control in 1707. The original dispensation of 1643 was a reward to William Douglas, Earl of Morton (d. 1648) for his financial support of the Royalist cause.
Three families had traditionally predominated in Nairnshire: Brodie of Brodie, Campbell of Calder (Cawdor) and Rose of Kilravock. A fourth, Forbes of Culloden in neighbouring Inverness-shire, having purchased a large estate in Nairn, had the potential to develop into a major force, but was hampered to some extent by the unpopularity engendered by the statutory exemption from excise duty enjoyed by the laird of Culloden in respect of his distillery at Ferintosh.
The lesser nobility and wealthier resident lairds held centre-stage in Linlithgowshire elections, despite the constant, formidable presence of the Duke of Hamilton in the wings, and an occasional passing interest shown by other magnates.
The 4th Duke of Hamilton and his mother, the dowager 3rd Duchess (who herself retained the office of hereditary sheriff), expected to be able to dictate parliamentary returns for Lanarkshire, but the endorsement of their recommendation could not be taken for granted.
In the last Scottish parliament the stewartry’s two members opposed the Union: William Maxwell of Cardoness, a professional soldier firmly in the Revolution interest and usually loyal to the Court, who voted in favour of the 1st article but ended by opposing ratification of the treaty; and Alexander McKie of Palgown, from the cavalier wing of the opposition, who voted consistently against it throughout. Both commissioners, therefore, placed themselves out of the running for selection as Scottish representatives to the first Parliament of Great Britain.
On the only occasion in the period when there was an opportunity of making a return to Parliament, Kinross-shire witnessed a highly controversial election. Party animosities, of a sort, seem to have been the cause. The county’s commissioner to the last Scottish parliament, (Sir) John Bruce (2nd Bt.*), who owned the most considerable estate in the shire, found himself disqualified as hereditary sheriff from election to Westminster. His nomination of the Squadrone politician Mungo Graham of Gorthy, factor to Bruce’s stepson the Duke of Montrose, aroused the hostility of an opposing interest.
