a by-election in 1664, with the "personal support" of the Duke of York, who was said in personal enemy Shaftesbury's work A Seasonable Argument, to have voted for him. A moderately active member, he was appointed to 49 committees, acted as teller in three divisions, and made ten recorded speeches. A consistent supporter of the Government, he joined forces with Sir Nicholas Carew of the country party to oppose the Wey Navigation bill in 1665, and secured its rejection on first reading. He was appointed to the committee for the continuation of the Conventicles Act in 1668. A friend of Ormonde who had been in exile with Charles I, he appeared on both lists of the court party in 1669-71. He submitted a proviso to the new Wey Navigation Bill, 1670, and was appointed to the committee. His name appears on the Paston List. Lauderdale’s brother, Lord Halton, gained the property next to his ancestral home, a neighbouring family whom he had to defend against the increasingly vociferous demands for ousting (see the Cabal). He pointed out in January 1674 that Lauderdale was not even in Scotland when the Scottish Parliament gave the Government the power to use the militia outside their own country. In the spring session of 1675, he was appointed to the committee to consider an alleged assault by Lauderdale’s servants on a witness, and reminded the House that: In the same session of Parliament, Dalmahoy submitted evidence in a case in the House of Lords concerning his first wife’s mother as a legatee. The four lawyers who had appeared for the appellant were sent to the Tower, and it was moved that Dalmahoy, like John Fagg I, should join them for betraying the privileges of the Commons; but he protested that he had neither directly nor indirectly applied himself to the Lords, or owned their power, and the fellow member's motion was rejected without a division (vote). Dalmahoy was named on the working lists and included by Sir Richard Wiseman among the government supporters. Lord Shaftesbury (formerly Lord Ashley) in 1677 marked him ‘doubly vile’. In A Seasonable Argument he was described as ‘a Scotch serving-man’ and ‘a creature of Lauderdale’s’. When the Duke of Norfolk’s estate was debated he defended the character of his absent colleague Arthur Onslow, one of the trustees — of the opposite party. When complaint was made of Scots regiments in