From 1710 to 1727 both Yorkshire seats were held by Tories, Lord Downe and Sir Arthur Kaye, since 1713 without a contest. At a by-election caused by Kaye’s death in 1726, his nephew, the Tory candidate, was defeated by Cholmley Turner, a Whig, largely owing to the influence of Sir Thomas Wentworth, who had recently succeeded to the vast Wentworth estates in Yorkshire. Returned unopposed with Turner at the ensuing general election, Wentworth secured the return of another Whig, Sir George Savile, on his own elevation to the peerage as Lord Malton in 1728. In 1734 a Tory, Sir Miles Stapylton, assisted by an opposition Whig, Edward Wortley Montagu, who stood to split the Whig vote, recovered one seat after a hard fought contest, followed by costly but abortive petition proceedings, initiated by Lord Malton, now the head of the Yorkshire Whigs. In 1741 Stapylton was re-elected unopposed with Lord Morpeth, an opposition Whig, put up by his father, the 4th Earl of Carlisle, whose accession to the earldom had transferred the Castle Howard interest to the side of the Opposition. At a by-election in 1742, caused by Lord Morpeth’s death, Cholmley Turner, who had retired in 1741, was persuaded to stand, defeating George Fox, the Tory candidate. In 1747, Stapylton was re-elected unopposed with Conyers Darcy, a ministerial Whig, Turner refusing to stand again. In 1750, when Stapylton, having gone over to the Government, vacated his seat by accepting an office, he was succeeded by another converted Tory, Lord Downe, whose grandfather had also represented the county as a Tory. Thus by the middle of the century the Government had regained both Yorkshire seats.1