Though Perthshire was a centre of Jacobitism, the predominating interest belonged to the dukes of Atholl, its hereditary sheriffs, who supported the Whig Government. In 1715 the 1st Duke’s son, Lord James Murray, was returned against Sir Henry Stirling, later a Jacobite agent in Russia.1 Re-elected unopposed in 1722, he succeeded to the dukedom in 1724, thereby vacating the seat, which was filled for the rest of that Parliament successively by two local Whig landowners, David Graeme and Mungo Haldane of Gleneagles. In 1727 Haldane was defeated by John Drummond, an Atholl candidate,2 whose daughter subsequently married the 2nd Duke. From 1734 the 2nd Duke’s half-brother, Lord John Murray, who had recently come of age, was returned unopposed with the support of Lord Ilay, Walpole’s election manager in Scotland.