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The seat at Ludgershall was never in the nature of a true political representation, and even when Member for Gloucester Selwyn seems to have attended but little to the House of Commons. He was one of a legion of sinecures a true specimen of the place-man of the age. Possessed of some political influence, he was able to find in politics a means of increasing his income.

He hated electioneering, but it is from Matson that the next letter, in the midst of the General Election of 1780, is dated. He lost his seat perhaps not without regret for he returned to the less irksome representation, if such it could be called, of Ludgershall. Pottinger, whom I wanted to avoid and so asked him in my confusion to dine with me, which you cannot forget that he accepted.

The representation was as much in their hands as the trees in the adjoining fields. In 1747 George Selwyn had found it convenient to enter the House of Commons. In Ludgershall there were no constituents to take him to task; to be able to go to Westminster when he wished added to the variety of life. It kept him in touch with the politicians and statesmen of St.

The merry and the sad, as my Lord Clarendon says, have employment enough, while these actors are dressing themselves up for the play, and rehearsing their parts. Lord Melbourne was returned with Selwyn as M.P. for borough of Ludgershall on September 12, 1780. The Duke of Portland succeeded Lord Carlisle as Viceroy of Ireland on the formation of the Rockingham Ministry.

If the explorer has penetrated as far as Tidworth a train can be taken three miles across the Down to Ludgershall, a very ancient place near the Hampshire border. It would seem to have been of some importance in earlier days. "The castell stoode in a parke now clene doun. To this castle came the Empress Maud and not far away the seal of her champion, Milo of Hereford, was found some years since.

He entered Parliament as the representative of the borough of Ludgershall, and soon earned for himself a considerable notoriety in Westminster. He had very fierce opinions; he attacked everybody and everything; his vehemence and vituperation were seasoned with a kind of wit, and he made himself, if not a power, at least an important factor in the House of Commons.

There is a little village of small red cottages with thatched roofs lying among the Wiltshire downs between Savernake Forest and Andover. It is called Ludgershall, and has a quiet out-of-the-world look. In the eighteenth century it was a pocket borough, returning two Members to Parliament, and was the property of the Selwyn family.