The principal interests in Rutland were held by the Noels of Exton and the Sherards of Whissendine, though from 1679 Sir Thomas Mackworth established a third force. The 3rd Viscount Campden, who had represented the county in the Long Parliament, had been a Royalist in the Civil War, and in the 1660 Convention Philip Sherard, who had avoided political commitment, was joined by an obscure Presbyterian, Samuel Browne. There was no opposition to Sherard in 1661; but Campden’s son, Edward Noel, who was barely of age, was challenged by Abel Barker, a wealthy sheep-farmer of yeoman origin and MP for Rutland under the Protectorate. It was apparently agreed at the assizes that there should be ‘no labouring for voices’, and Noel and Sherard were returned by ‘the major part of the county’. In 1679 Noel transferred to Hampshire, and Sherard was returned to the first Exclusion Parliament with Mackworth. Both were expected to support exclusion, but Mackworth abstained, and was replaced by Barker in the autumn. Shortly before the election Sherard’s nephew wrote to Sir Ralph Verney: ‘I know the lord Campden will oppose my uncle Sherard in Rutland, but nevertheless ’tis thought he will carry it, which I wish he will, for he goes very honestly in the House’. It is not known who the Noel candidate was, nor whether Mackworth stood, but on Barker’s death he was successful in a by-election. In 1681 Mackworth lost his seat to Edward Fawkener, an obscure exclusionist, but he regained it in 1685 and held it for the rest of his life. In James II’s Parliament he was accompanied by another Tory, Baptist Noel, and in 1689 he was returned unopposed with Sherard’s son, Bennet, a Whig.

Leics. RO, Barker mss, Barker to Sir T[homas] H[artopp], 22 Feb. 1661, to Sherard 16 Mar. 1661; BL, M636/33, Stewkeley to Verney, 28 July 1679.