From 1705 to 1747 the representation of Bury was almost monopolized by its hereditary high steward, John Hervey, 1st Earl of Bristol, seated at Ickworth, three miles from the borough, which he had represented from 1694 till he was raised to the peerage in 1703. With one exception, the Members during this period consisted of his sons, his brother-in-law, his wife’s cousin, and the recorder, whose father had married a Hervey. The exception occurred in 1722, when Carr, Lord Hervey, lost his seat, because, in Lord Bristol’s words, he ‘had not industry enough to preserve [an interest] in an old borough, where never family had a more entire credit than my own’.1 This monopoly came to an end in 1747, when the Duke of Grafton secured the return of his son-in-law, Lord Petersham, on which Lord Bristol wrote to his son, Felton, who was returned with Petersham:

So long as Bury continued a chaste and constant mistress I loved and valued her; but since she is grown so lewd a prostitute as to be wooed and won by a man she never saw or heard of, let who will take her after you.2

Thenceforth the representation was shared by the Dukes of Grafton with the Earls of Bristol.