POLITICAL HISTORY 



The first step taken to defend the interest of the titles was the introduc- 

 tion into the House of Commons of the Nullum Tempus Bill, as it was 

 called, which proposed to take away the privilege of the Crown. After 

 a stormy debate it was rejected by a majority of twenty. Parliament 

 was immediately dissolved, and the election of 1768 was naturally fought 

 in Cumberland under conditions of great excitement. Money was freely 

 spent on either side, and the costs of the two parties are said to have been 

 not less than 130,000. After a severe contest, the poll being open for 

 nineteen days, the candidates returned were Henry Curwen and Sir 

 James Lowther. It was a drawn battle, a representative of each interest 

 having been elected. On petition, however, Sir James was unseated, and 

 Henry Fletcher, the other Portland nominee, was elected in his room. 

 The Nullum Tempus Bill was again introduced and passed, with a 

 clause inserted saving the rights of Sir James if he prosecuted them 

 within a year. This he undertook to do at once, serving more than 

 three hundred notices of ejectment on the tenants. The trial came on 

 in 1771, when Sir James was non-suited on the ground that the rents 

 reserved to the Crown under his lease were not sufficient to comply 

 with the provisions of the Civil List Act of Queen Anne. The real 

 claim of the Duke of Portland was therefore never decided. The 

 estates continued in his possession till they were ultimately sold to the 

 Duke of Devonshire in 1787.' 



After the political uproar of 1768, a concordat was agreed to 

 by the contending factions, under which each party was to return a 

 member for the county, both sides being apparently exhausted. 

 This local compromise was observed by the Whig and Tory leaders 

 till so late a date as 1 8 3 1 . In the art of unscrupulous electioneering, 

 Sir James Lowther seems to have had few equals, and to him was 

 due the notorious stratagem by which in 1784 no fewer than 1,195 

 freemen were added to the electors of Carlisle, 500 of them being 

 his own colliers. The artifice resulted in the return of his cousin, 

 John Lowther, for the constituency in 1786, but he was unseated on 

 petition. The committee appointed by the House of Commons reported 

 in 1791 that the right of election for the city of Carlisle was in the 

 freemen of the said city, duly admitted and sworn freemen, having been 

 previously admitted brethren of one of the eight guilds or occupations 

 of the said city, and deriving their title to such freedom by being sons of 

 freemen, or by seven years of apprenticeship to a freeman, residing 



1 The literature of this great contest is somewhat voluminous. In the present writer's possession 

 are three contemporary pamphlets : (i) The Case of His Grace the Duke of Portland respecting two 

 leases lately granted by the Lords of the Treasury to Sir James Lowther, Bart., with observations on the 

 motion for a Remedial Bill for quieting the possession of the subject. (2) An Answer to the Duke of 

 Portland's Case. (3) A Reply to a pamphlet entitled. ' The Case of the Duke of Portland respecting two 

 leases granted by the Lords of the Treasury to Sir James Lowther, Bart.' The three pamphlets 

 were printed in 1768. A full account of the political uproar of this period will be found in Mr. Richard 

 S. Ferguson's Cumberland and Westmorland M.P.'s, pp. 126-67. See also the account of the debate in 

 parliament in the Annual Register for 1768, pp. 78-82, and Walpolc's Memoirs of the Reign of George 

 III. (ed. Le Marchant), iii. 143-6, 161-3, 290-2. 



