Go To Section
Roxburghshire
County
Available from Boydell and Brewer
Background Information
Number of voters:
about 60
Elections
Date | Candidate |
---|---|
4 Mar. 1715 | WILLIAM DOUGLAS |
18 Apr. 1722 | SIR GILBERT ELLIOT of Minto |
6 July 1726 | SIR GILBERT ELIOTT of Stobs vice Elliot of Minto, appointed to office |
John Scott | |
15 Sept. 1727 | WILLIAM DOUGLAS |
16 July 1728 | DOUGLAS re-elected after appointment to office |
30 May 1734 | JOHN RUTHERFURD |
1 June 1741 | JOHN RUTHERFURD |
18 Feb. 1742 | WILLIAM DOUGLAS vice Rutherfurd, appointed to office |
14 July 1747 | WALTER SCOTT |
Main Article
The chief interest in Roxburghshire was that of its hereditary sheriff, Archibald Douglas of Cavers, whose son, William, represented it in the 1715 and 1727 Parliaments. In 1722, when William Douglas moved to Dumfries Burghs, he was succeeded by Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto, who was replaced in 1726 by his kinsman Sir Gilbert Eliott of Stobs. In 1734 and 1741, the Douglases having gone into opposition, John Rutherfurd, a member of the Squadrone, married to an Elliot of Minto, was returned. He was succeeded in 1742 by William Douglas, now the head of his family, who resigned the sheriffdom of the county to a younger brother. In 1747, though he was included in a ministerial list of proposed Members for Scotland, he was replaced by Walter Scott of Harden, in whose favour the Marquess of Lothian claimed to have ‘cast the balance’.1
Author: Eveline Cruickshanks
Notes
- 1. Newcastle (Clumber) mss; Lothian to Newcastle, 27 Aug. 1747, Add. 32712, f. 438.