‘This Waye of Proceeding would Remoove the Umbrage, and Uneasynesse, of Courte, and Country Heere’: The Earl of Abercorn's 1708 Scheme for Reforming the Election of the Scottish Representative Peers

Abstract

The 1707 Anglo-Scottish Act of Union established the Scottish representationin the house of lords at Westminster as 16 peers elected by the rest ofthe Scottish peerage. The first such election in 1708 displayed all the pressuresand corruption of the English parliamentary system with government interference in order to elect its own list of candidates. The reign of Anne saw a growing Scottish backlash against the importation of Englishparty electioneering, and an early manifestation was the scheme putforward by the earl of Abercorn immediately after the 1708 election tochange the method of selecting the 16 representative peers. Abercornwanted to replace electing the peers by a mixture of rotation and balloting.The Scottish peerage would be divided into three ‘classes’, each of 44peers, and one class only in rotation would be put forward at succeedinggeneral elections from which the selection would be made. The top tworanks of the peerage - dukes and marquesses - in each class would be automaticallybe selected, and the representatives from the remaining peers inthe class would be chosen by the first dozen or so names drawn in a ballot.The scheme was designed to end all pressure and interference from bothgovernment and opposition. It got nowhere, but the ideas embodied in itwould remain in circulation for much of the eighteenth century, resurfacingat time of political crisis. However, the original 1707 election processremained in place until it was abolished in 1963 when all Scottish peerswere allowed to sit in the Lords.