The local background to the 1722 election

Both before and after the 1715 election, the Whigs used their power to purge the Tories from offices held both nationally and locally. Lord Trevor, who had bought the Biddenham, Bromham and Stagsden estates in 1708, was removed from the post of Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, which he had held throughout Anne’s reign. The lord lieutenants and justices of the peace were similarly purged of Tories.

In January 1716 there was a major drive to force office holders, clergy, constables and voters generally to swear allegiance to the King and against transubstantiation, the Roman Catholic view of the Eucharist. On 11th of the month, before William Smith of Warden, Rowland and Richard Alston and Richard Orlebar, justices, about 450 people took the oath of allegiance, supremacy and abjuration.

In May 1716 the Septennial Act was passed. Holding elections after every seven years reduced the ruinous candidates’ and supporters’ expenses that led to at least three Bedfordshire families being forced to sell their estates and leave the county. These were the Gostwicks of Willington in 1731, the Chernockes of Hulcote in 1734 and the Rolts of Milton Ernest in 1748. In 1718 the restrictions placed on Protestant nonconformists by the occasional conformity and schism Acts, originally enacted by Tories, were finally repealed by Whigs.

In November 1715 the Jacobite armies were decisively defeated at Preston in Lancashire. The borough of Bedford, rejoicing, sent a Humble Address to the King.