Devizes

Borough

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1690-1715, ed. D. Hayton, E. Cruickshanks, S. Handley, 2002
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Background Information

Right of Election:

in the freemen

Number of Qualified Electors:

68 in 1695, otherwise about 50-601

Number of voters:

at least 41 in 1710

Elections

DateCandidateVotes
7 Mar. 16902WALTER GRUBBE553  
 SIR THOMAS FOWLE23314275
 JOHN METHUEN36 22
  Double return of Fowle and Methuen. FOWLE declared elected, 29 Mar. 1690   
 METHUEN  vice Fowle, on petition, 22 Dec. 1690   
8 Nov. 16956SIR EDWARD ERNLE,    
 JOHN METHUEN   
 Sir Francis Child   
25 July 1698SIR FRANCIS CHILD   
 JOHN METHUEN   
4 Jan. 1701SIR FRANCIS CHILD   
 FRANCIS MEREWETHER   
 John Methuen   
24 Nov. 1701SIR FRANCIS CHILD   
 JOHN METHUEN   
17 July 1702SIR FRANCIS CHILD   
 JOHN METHUEN   
14 Nov. 1702JOHN CHILD vice Child, chose to sit for London   
3 Mar. 1703FRANCIS MEREWETHER vice Child, deceased   
11 May 1705SIR FRANCIS CHILD   
 JOHN METHUEN   
 Josiah Diston   
 Thomas Richmond Webb   
11 Dec. 1706JOSIAH DISTON  vice Methuen, deceased   
 Thomas Richmond Webb   
5 May 1708JOSIAH DISTON   
 PAUL METHUEN   
 Thomas Richmond Webb   
28 Dec. 1709METHUEN re-elected after appointment to office   
7 Oct. 1710SIR FRANCIS CHILD2119 
 THOMAS RICHMOND WEBB2117 
 JOSIAH DISTON2030 
 PAUL METHUEN207308 
  Double return. CHILD and WEBB declared elected, 16 Dec. 1710   
28 Aug. 1713ROBERT CHILD25  
 JOHN NICHOLAS24  
 Francis Eyles19  
 Josiah Diston189  
 Thomas Richmond Webb 10   

Main Article

Devizes was still one of the most important centres of the Wiltshire woollen industry, its prosperity impressing Celia Fiennes and Defoe. The ‘clothing interest’ was of considerable significance in elections, both in terms of individual wealth and numbers of voters, a fact that accounts for the presence of London merchants alongside townsmen and country gentlemen as parliamentary candidates. There was also a substantial Dissenting population, with the Baptists particularly prominent, which was the foundation of the Whig faction in the corporation. The 1690 election, however, demonstrated the residual strength of Toryism. Despite the decision to poll the freemen, which had been the unsuccessful demand of the defeated Whig candidates in 1689, and the fact that these now outnumbered the corporators, Walter Grubbe, the outgoing Tory Member, was re-elected with the support of all but five of the voters, and his fellow Tory Sir Thomas Fowle, a London banker of distant Wiltshire origins, put up a hard fight against the powerful local Whig John Methuen. His own riches, the backing of Tory magnates like Lords Abingdon and Weymouth (Thomas Thynne†), and, most important, the assistance of the mayor, Richard Hillier, and the recorder of the borough, Charles Danvers (in 1688 a commissioner of inquiry into fines on recusants and Dissenters), enabled Fowle to recover from a slow start. When the town clerk, Methuen’s ally, unilaterally closed the poll with Methuen holding a majority of 13 over Fowle, Hillier overruled him, and at his direction a further eight votes were taken for Fowle, all, according to the Whigs, non-resident freemen who had been admitted under the now defunct charter of 1685. By this time the clerk had departed amid scenes of ‘great tumult’ and his place had been taken by one of Fowle’s supporters. Presumably at Fowle’s suggestion, Hillier proceeded to a scrutiny. Methuen seems to have acquiesced in this, and he likewise did not oppose the adoption by the scrutineers of the principle, apparently canvassed by Danvers, that failure to take the oaths or sign ‘the declaration of the test’ was to mean disqualification. The effect was to strike off over a third of Methuen’s voters, a reflection of his stronger following among the Dissenters, and thus to convey the majority to Fowle. This the town clerk and other Whig freemen refused to accept. They made their own return of Grubbe and Methuen using the common seal, while the mayor, the proper officer, returned Grubbe and Fowle under his own seal. The House seated Fowle on the merits of the return, whereupon Methuen renewed his petition. The committee found against him, but their decision was overturned in the House.11

Fowle’s death in 1692, and Grubbe’s withdrawal, might have left the way clear for Methuen at the next election, but instead he faced serious opposition from two local interests, one old and the other relatively new. Sir Edward Ernle, 3rd Bt., whose estate of Etchilhampton lay near the town, had come of age and wished to challenge for the seat his grandfather had once held. At the same time another outsider of Fowle’s type, Wiltshireman turned City financier Sir Francis Child, had had his attention turned towards the borough by the influence his brother John had acquired there. A ‘capital burgess’ since before the Revolution, John Child had risen to be mayor in 1694, a strategic position he retained for the 1695 election. He owed his success partly to his appointment in 1689 as county receiver. Long afterwards Defoe was to observe how Devizes, and indeed the whole county, had come to be

corrupted and abused by the ‘Iron Chest’, a modern proverb now known in this country as universally as the alphabet. The meaning is the receiver-general . . . is Sir Francis Child’s brother, whose influence so rules by lending money that whoever is needy is sure to be bought off.

There was also a fourth contestant, the new recorder, Thomas Richmond Webb. He had replaced Danvers in January 1695 and intended to try his luck, treating the voters ‘but without much hopes’. The party alignment of the candidates was unusually complex. Methuen was an undoubted Whig; Webb, though a Tory, was a nephew of the Whig John Smith I* and at this stage probably looked to him for patronage; Ernle was also a Tory with a strong Whig connexion, namely his father-in-law Thomas Erle*; Child had been a Whig but was in the process of changing his party allegiance, and in this election sought the help of the Duke of Leeds (Sir Thomas Osborne†). Ernle and Child seem to have joined together, while Webb, until his withdrawal, partnered Methuen. At any rate when Child was defeated it was Methuen he petitioned against, his case being referred to the committee, where it lapsed. Child took heed of this result, and in the ensuing years not only worked hard to build up his interest but also sought a resolution of the differences in the corporation, which his brother had been fomenting, and an electoral rapprochement with Methuen. It was probably in connexion with this settlement that the common council acted in 1697 to halt the proliferation of freemen, which had reached a peak in 1695, by ordering that no more be chosen until the total of non-corporator freemen had been reduced ‘by death or otherwise’ to 20. One of the intentions behind the move was undoubtedly to prevent the parliamentary electorate from being swamped by additions of freemen, and to preserve the predominance in that electorate of the corporators themselves, which a series of admissions had only recently restored. The alternative expedient of excluding freemen from the poll was not tried, probably because each faction relied too much on its freemen supporters, and on no occasion in this period were their votes challenged. On the other hand, not even during the internecine feuding in the corporation in 1706–14 did they ever come to outnumber the corporators again. In Child’s decision to seek an agreement with Methuen and the Whigs, considerations of party politics played little or no part, except that Ernle had transformed himself by 1698 into a Court Whig in his father-in-law’s image, and had thus forfeited any claim to loyalty on this count. More significant was the weakness of Ernle’s position in the borough, possibly the outcome of neglect, which allowed him to be squeezed out without even a contest. He put a brave face on his retreat, writing to Erle:

I went some time since to the Devizes, and, not finding things according to expectation, I slipped it and haven’t been there since, which has put the candidates into all the confusion in the world, for I having so many votes to dispose of can make who I will one, as they think, and all expect ’em. Sir Francis Child, who has been making an interest ever since the last election, and in joining with Mr Methuen has broke my interest, and almost his own by disobliging those that were my friends, now comes begging me for help.

Whatever the truth of this last remark, Ernle now abandoned the borough to Child and Methuen, who dominated the representation of the borough until 1705. In the first 1701 election, however, Methuen was in Ireland and a local man, Francis Merewether, probably a Tory at this point, took the opportunity to stand, defeating Methuen. At the second election of 1701, Merewether appears to have stood down, leaving Child and Methuen to be returned unchallenged. In 1702 it was Child who stood down, having been returned for London as well, and he was able to leave his seat to his son John. At the by-election in November 1703, brought about by the young John Child’s early death, Merewether was chosen again ‘unanimously’. At this stage there was little evidence of factional strife in the corporation itself, where the two parties were fairly well balanced. The loyal address of October 1701 had a Whiggish tinge, but against this should be set the re-election of Child’s brother John as mayor in 1702.12

A resurgence of conflict came with the appearance in 1705 of yet another wealthy Londoner, Josiah Diston, who combined considerable financial resources with a background of Nonconformity and involvement in the clothing trade, all valuable assets in Devizes. At the prospect of a contest Methuen, then in Portugal, was alarmed. He was still prepared to co-operate with Child against the outsider, and sent assurances to this effect. What worried him was the likely reaction of John Child: ‘in truth Sir Francis must engage his brother to act privately in concert with my friends . . . if his brother should not act kindly or fairly it may spoil all, and draw a great trouble on us both’. Whether or not John Child was to blame, the understanding between Methuen and Sir Francis broke down. Methuen formed a Whig front with Diston; Sir Francis joined with Thomas Richmond Webb, now an unequivocal Tory. Such was the strength of the two outgoing Members’ interests that both were returned. It was a different story, however, at the by-election the following year, after Methuen’s death. In the interim a blow had been struck at the Childs with the removal of John from the county receivership, while a coup had also been carried out in the corporation, by a Whig faction closely associated with, and almost certainly funded by, Diston and headed by another newcomer, John Eyles. Like John Child, Eyles was the representative of an important local family which had made its fortune in London and was now reviving an interest in its native borough. In justifying their campaign in the corporation in 1706–7 Eyles and other Whigs claimed their actions were defensive. It was John Child, they said, who had been trying ‘to fill up the many vacancies in the corporation with his friends and party in order by himself and his son-in-law Mr [Robert] Nicholas wholly to govern the town’. Child had ‘set up as absolute governor in our borough’, not hesitating to use threats, even of imprisonment, to keep opponents away from common councils when he feared for his majority there. The crisis came in 1706 because of the prospect that Child’s friend Richard Hillier (the mayor who had worked for Fowle in 1690) would be chosen again as mayor and that Child would exploit the opportunity to intrude his own men into the several vacancies among the capital burgesses and common councilmen. He had already prevented these places from being filled during a Whig mayoralty in 1705, before the parliamentary election, ‘lest it might prejudice Sir Francis Child’s interest’, and again in December 1705, by organizing a Tory boycott of common councils arranged for the purpose. Now, probably encouraged by Diston, the Whigs threw down the gauntlet. When the Tories again boycotted common councils in April and May 1706, the Whigs went ahead on their own and chose five new capital burgesses, together with nine common councilmen and three freemen (one of them John Eyles). With this infusion of support, the mayoral election later in May, at which only capital burgesses and common councilmen could vote, resulted in a clear victory for the Whig Richard Hope (the pro-Methuen town clerk from the 1690 election) over Hillier. This the Tories refused to accept. They argued that the common councils they had boycotted had been for that reason illegal, and thus that the new votes which made up Hope’s majority were invalid. Child and others stayed behind after the election, chose their own capital burgesses to the vacancies and elected Hillier as mayor. At the swearing of the mayor on Michaelmas Day two separate ceremonies took place, Hillier’s supporters forcing their way into the council chamber to swear their man. The Whigs succeeded in obtaining a quo warranto against Hillier, but the Tories counter-attacked and their case had not been decided by the time the by-election arrived. Webb was the agreed candidate of the Tory interest, but the Whigs were faced at the outset with the dangerous possibility of a split ticket, for as well as Diston John Methuen’s son Paul had expressed a desire to follow in his father’s footsteps. In several respects, however, Diston held an advantage. He was on the spot while Paul Methuen was out of the country; he was committed to stand himself while Methuen was being advised to sell his interest to a Treasury nominee; and he could outspend Methuen, whose own mother had refused to contribute to his expenses. Money proved the decisive factor, as a Tory noted in his report of Diston’s eventual success:

by a majority of six voices of the old [free] burgesses and four of the new . . . There was no possibility of carrying it for Mr Methuen for the Whig party, being apprised of such a design, resolved to vote unanimously for Mr Diston, lest by any division amongst themselves they should give the other side the majority for the recorder, but before this agreement they made an offer to Mr Methuen of Bradford that if his nephew would defray the charge of the law they are engaged in concerning the corporation he should be chosen, but this his uncle refused to stand engaged for, and so they fixed upon one that I suppose has answered their demands . . . All that the Church party now aim at is to keep up their interest against the next election.

Webb petitioned, on the grounds that Hillier and not Hope, to whom the precept had been given, was the rightful mayor, but withdrew the petition. The Whigs had thus not only won the election, they had secured a significant recognition of their mayoral election, and soon afterwards the Tory bid for a quo warranto against Hope collapsed.13

During 1707 the conflict within the corporation became even more bitter and violent. Each side set itself up as the rightful common council, the Whigs meeting under Hope at the guildhall and the Tories, ignoring the quo warranto against them, under Hillier at the weavers’ hall. As the Whigs pressed home their advantage, installing Diston and others on the common council and removing John Child and Webb (who was also replaced as recorder), some Tory support ebbed away, and the Tories, and John Child in particular, resorted to desperate tactics. ‘Great clamours’ were made of the prosecutions to be set on foot against Whig common councilmen, and ‘riots and disorders’ were ‘daily committed’ against the officer of the Whig council. One of the most serious took place in the corn market when Hope, Diston himself (in his capacity as a justice of the peace) and others, attempting to levy the toll after the Tories had already done so, were set upon by a crowd egged on by John Child and Hillier, who used the names of the Tory knights of the shire, ‘Howe and Hyde’, as a ‘watchword’ to signal the attack. Some ‘uttered very hard expressions such as “Why don’t we kick the guts of them out?”’, the town alarm bell was rung, and the Whig constables and beadle suffered actual physical injury. On another occasion the guildhall windows were broken while the Whig council was in session, by a mob including Webb. The climax was reached in October 1707 after the mayor-making. The Whigs had chosen John Eyles, the Tories a town grocer, Richard Bundy Franklin. On the Sunday following, each set out to occupy the mayoral pew in the two parish churches. After a fracas in the morning at St. Mary’s, which ended with Eyles seated and Bundy Franklin standing in front of him throughout the service, hostilities were recommenced in the afternoon at St. John’s. Bundy Franklin arrived late to find Eyles ensconced and the door locked. He forced an entry and in the ensuing mêlée ‘got his head between the mayor’s legs, lifted him up and, had it not been for some other persons at hand, had thrown the mayor into the next seat’. For all that these events contained strong elements of farce, the persistent outbreaks of violence, which Bishop Burnet and others brought to the notice of Secretary Sunderland (Charles, Lord Spencer*) and which resulted in numerous prosecutions and some convictions, seem to have convinced leading Whigs, both locally and nationally, that a compromise was desirable. A writ of mandamus was issued for the election of replacements for Eyles and the other officers of the Whig corporation ‘for the preservation of the peace of the borough, and for the better government of the corporation’. However, before these municipal elections could be held came the parliamentary election, and a renewal of party conflict. Diston was sure of the backing of the Whigs, 22 of whom had given him a written guarantee in October 1707, so long as he continued ‘to support us in our rights and privileges, against our adversaries in the suits and controversies that are and shall be between them and us in relation to the corporation of this borough’. They had also promised their second votes to Methuen on the same condition. Despite the meddling of Methuen’s mother, who, he was informed, had managed to antagonize Hope and several more ‘without whose help you can hardly hope to succeed’, this latter agreement had also been confirmed. Child, whose brother Sir Francis had been frightened off by Diston’s money, was anxious to find a partner for Webb, and approached Henry St. John II*. Five votes were all that were needed, St. John was told, and they ‘may be purchased for about £400’. A further £500 to ‘buy one of Mr Diston’s friends’ on the common council would secure the investment, as at present the two parties were evenly matched there, and if Child could obtain even the smallest majority he could ‘elect a mayor and as many burgesses living in or out of the borough, as they please’, and thereby settle parliamentary elections ‘for ever’. The ‘bribing of the five votes’ would be a risk, but the purchase of the common councilmen would be safe enough, since ‘that will not be bribery within the power of the House of Commons, it being only to elect a mayor’. Fortunately for St. John, a friend informed him of the true state of play:

The Low Churchmen are so firmly united that I believe no money will prevail on them to do anything in prejudice of their party, and Mr Diston spares no pains or cost to support their interest, and on all occasions they are countenanced by my Lord Sunderland, my Lord Wharton [Hon. Thomas*] and a great number of justices of the peace in the neighbourhood; and I am sure if you will give £500 for a common councilman Diston will give a thousand and outbribe you on all occasions. Mr Child wants five votes who will vote singly for you, or for you and Mr Webb, or else you can’t prevail, for they are now nine votes before Mr Child; but . . . can you think that whilst your party are bribing those five men Diston will not bribe off some of Mr Child’s?
To be short in this matter, Sir Francis Child and Mr Diston have spent I verily believe £3,000 a year in law and bribes since the last election, and Diston has still been too hard for Sir Francis, and now Sir Francis is away [John] C[hild] finds he labours in vain. He would give out, or rest a little and let you try if your purse can outdo Mr Diston’s, but I hope you’ll do nothing unless Sir Francis joins in the expense, which will be endless.

St. John took the advice, and Webb was obliged to carry on alone to inevitable defeat. His petition, which lapsed when Parliament was prorogued before the appointed hearing at the bar in April 1709, was based on the allegation that the mandamus had voided Eyles’s election as mayor. The mayoralty being vacant, Webb claimed that he himself, as recorder, had been the acting chief officer, and should therefore have had the precept. He and his fellow Tories had indeed demanded it from Eyles and on being denied had absented themselves from the election. They carried over this obstructionism into municipal affairs, boycotting the mayoral election in May 1708 when a Whig was chosen, and subsequent council meetings. In their absence, the Whigs readmitted Eyles, Diston, Methuen and others as freemen, and re-elected two capital burgesses and seven common councilmen whom they had also brought in earlier. After a Whig had defeated Child for the mayoralty in 1709, it would seem that the corporation again split into two. The Whigs, aided by writs of mandamus to legitimize their actions, once more removed Child and his son-in-law Robert Nicholas, and made further additions of capital burgesses, common councilmen and freemen. Though the Tories made no separate return at the parliamentary by-election in December 1709 (necessitated by Methuen’s accepting a place on the Admiralty Board), Tory councilmen seem to have kept up a separate corporate existence. The flood of lawsuits did not abate: in September 1709 the Whig council was obliged to go to Chancery to force the former Tory chamberlains to render their accounts; and there were unsuccessful Tory processes against the Whig officers, which the ministry helped defeat by various means, including in the last resort entries of nolle prosequi. Then in 1710, bolstered by the prospect of another general election and by High Church euphoria in the aftermath of Dr Sacheverell’s impeachment, the Tories challenged the mayoral election. Again there were two elections and, as a result, two rival mayors: a clothier, James Sutton, being chosen by the Whigs and John Child by the Tories.14

Encouraged, like the Tory corporators, by the revival in his party’s fortunes in the country at large, Sir Francis Child came back to contest Devizes in the 1710 election in conjunction with Webb. Assisted by ‘about 30 loyal gentlemen of the neighbourhood’ who ‘came to countenance their election’, they improved their standing with the ‘old burgesses’, that is the pre-1706 freemen, to get the better of the Whigs by one vote, but by polling the ‘new burgesses’ Sutton was able to return the outgoing Members. As in December 1706 the Tories seem to have attended the election presided over by the mayor and only when this went against them to have taken their own poll and made their own return. Both petitions against the double return concentrated on the issue of the disputed mayoralty, though this time ‘bribery and other corrupt practices’ were also alleged against each side. The Tories had the more striking evidence, being able to show that Sunderland had ‘ordered £700 from the Treasury for managing against Sir Francis Child’ (probably money disbursed in 1708 to forward prosecutions of Tory rioters), and making great play with the evidence of one voter that Methuen had offered him a silver tankard. Counsel’s explanation that the purpose of the gift (which had been paraded around the market place on the day of the poll) was to ‘purchase the favour’ of the elector’s beautiful daughter proved a faux pas, since this was considered ‘a shameful plea’. But it was not the force of their arguments so much as the numerical superiority of their party in the House that made the Tories confident. The merits of the return and of the election were heard together at the bar on 16 Dec. 1710 and Child and Webb carried the day by a majority of 120. This news, according to Dyer, produced ‘a universal joy’ in Devizes. ‘The mobile dressed up Mr Diston in effigy and carried him round the town, shouting and huzzaing, and at last threw him into a bonfire, and burnt him as a martyr to the dying Whig cause.’ There was talk of prosecutions of the Whig mayor and council, and, Dyer added, ‘they’ll scarce find such favour as they [the Whigs] did under the late ministry, to be defended by public money out of the Exchequer . . . and to obtain nolle prosequis from the attorney-general when they were prosecuted’. In fact no such Tory prosecutions were now initiated, and the Whig councilmen survived the four years of Tory government unscathed. It is likely, however, that there remained an alternative Tory common council until at least 1714, and Toryism continued to be a powerful force in the town. The peace was celebrated in July 1713 with elaborate processions and festivities, despite the ‘affronts’ given to the revellers ‘in a scurrilous manner by a gang of Whigs’, and Devizes produced a vigorously Tory address of thanks, denouncing opposition as the work of ‘the fomenters of a restless faction’. In the general election the following month the decision of the Commons in 1710 was used to confine the poll to the ‘old [free] burgesses’, and the two Tories, John Child’s nephew Robert and Robert Nicholas’ son John, were to their own party’s surprise able to improve on their previous thin majority. The presence of a third Tory candidate in the person of Webb made no impact whatsoever. A petition from Diston and his partner Francis Eyles†, brother of John, alleged ‘undue practices’, but was never reported. With the accession of George I and the fall of the Tory ministry, Child and his friends probably gave up their struggle in the corporation. There was no Tory challenge in the 1715 general election, when Diston and Francis Eyles were returned unopposed.15

Author: D. W. Hayton

Notes

  • 1. Wilts. RO, Devizes bor. recs. G20/1/19, min. bk. 1688-1749 (unfol.)
  • 2. CJ, x. 351 gives 17 Mar. as the date of the election.
  • 3. Town Clerk's poll.
  • 4. Mayor's poll.
  • 5. Scrutiny.
  • 6. The election may in fact have been held on 26 Oct.: B. H. Cunnington, Devizes Bor. Annals, i. 194.
  • 7. Child’s and Webb’s poll: Post Boy, 10–12 Oct. 1710.
  • 8. Diston’s and Methuen’s poll: Post Man, 7–10 Oct. 1710.
  • 9. Bodl. Ballard 18, f. 49.
  • 10. HMC 15th Rep. VII, 212.
  • 11. G. D. Ramsay, Wilts. Woollen Industry in 16th and 17th Cents. 110; VCH Wilts. x. 255–6, 295–6; Journeys of Celia Fiennes ed. Morris, 8; Defoe, Tour ed. Cole, i. 281; J. Waylen, Annals of Devizes, 15; idem, Hist. Devizes, 354–5; Devizes bor. recs. G20/1/19; Cal. Treas. Bks. viii. 1803–6; Bath mss at Longleat House, Thynne pprs. 12, f. 97; 24, ff. 161, 164.
  • 12. Add. 70018, ff. 69, 94, [Thomas Erle?] to Robert Harley*, 15 Oct. 1695, J. F[reke] to same, 22 Oct. 1695; 46554–9, bdle. 7, Leeds to Lexington, 21 Sept. 1695 (Horwitz trans.); 7078, f. 60; Cunnington, i. 174, 193–6, 201; ii. 156; Devizes bor. recs. G20/1/19; Cal. Treas. Bks. ix. 131; Defoe Letters, 104; Churchill Coll. Camb., Erle mss 2/19, Ernle to Erle, ‘Thursday’ [c.July 1698]; CSP Dom. 1700–2, pp.194–5; Waylen, Chronicles of Devizes, 266.
  • 13. Univ. Kansas Spencer Research Lib. Methuen–Simpson corresp. C163, John Methuen to Sir William Simpson, 17 Mar., 20 Apr., 7 May 1705, Simpson to Paul Methuen, 8 Oct., 12 Nov. 1706; Devizes bor. recs. G20/1/19; G20/1/90/4, 6, 23 33, 62; Parlty. Lists Early 18th Cent. ed. Newman, 64, 68; Thynne pprs. 25, f. 428.
  • 14. Luttrell, Brief Relation, vi. 31; Devizes bor. recs. G20/1/90/6, 18, 19, 21–23, 42–43, 45, 60, 64, 69, 69, 78–80, 83; G20/1/19; Add. 61652, ff. 19, 35; Cunnington, i. 203–5; ii. 157; Wilts. Arch. Mag. xlvi. 533–4; HMC 8th Rep. pt.1 (1881), 45; HMC Portland, iv. 175–6, 486; viii. 352; Methuen–Simpson corresp., Simpson to Methuen, 1 July 1707; Herts. RO, Panshanger mss D/EP/F123 (unfol.), mss relating to Devizes, 1709; HMC Bath, i. 190.
  • 15. Add. 70421, newsletters 10, 12 Oct., 19, 23 Dec. 1710; Post Boy, 10–12 Oct. 1710, 14–16 July 1713; Waylen, Hist. 360; Nicolson Diaries ed. Jones and Holmes, 522; Cal. Treas. Bks. xxii. 423, 442; Methuen mss at Corsham Court, Paul Methuen to Harley, 28 Oct. 1710; SRO, Montrose mss GD220/5/807/10, Mungo Graham* to Montrose, 16 Dec. 1710; Devizes bor. recs. G20/1/19; London Gazette, 14–18 July 1713; Ballard 18, f. 49; Bagot mss at Levens Hall, Weymouth to James Grahme*, 24 Aug. 1713.