Marlborough was described by Thomas Bruce, 1st Earl of Ailesbury, to his son Lord Bruce in 1802, as ‘a friendly borough’. Friendly to him, seated five miles away, it certainly was, for his nominees, most of them members of his family, were returned without demur. As at Great Bedwyn, he had only to make his choice and fix his terms. The corporation, nominally 20 in number, had long been reduced to a dozen and consisted of a mere handful of reliable supporters in this period.1 In 1794 Ailesbury was warned of a conspiratorial bid by one Clarke to fetch ‘a candidate with money’ to oppose him, but nothing came of it.2 When in 1806 Lord Dalkeith was unable to attend his election, Ailesbury informed him that it was as well his colleague Stopford had done so, as ‘any chance disappointed candidates passing through the town might have taken the advantage of only one candidate appearing’.3 But there was no such excitement, in his time or when his son the 2nd Earl assumed the patronage in 1814.