near the present village of Evanton. Scotland's share in the Parliament of Great Britain at the Palace of Westminster was 15 burgh members and 30 from the shires and at the general election of 1710 Robert was chosen under the limited franchise of those days by the northern constituency of Tain Burghs (the burghs of Dingwall, Tain, Dornoch, Wick and Kirkwall), which he was to represent through five more elections for a period of 31 years. With his Whig sympathies—which probably cost him his rank in the army on his return from Flanders—the young M.P. could always be relied on to oppose Tory measures, including their efforts to subvert the Protestant succession. The health of Queen Anne and the threat of invasion were matters of concern, and some weeks after her death in August 1714, her successor George I of Great Britain arrived from Hanover to assume the throne with Whig support. Robert by now was moving in high political circles, reading his letters from Scotland to Robert Walpole and his colleagues. London politicians liked to think that the Tories in Scotland would give no trouble in taking the oaths to King George, "but I that know them don't believe it", he wrote. When the king was proclaimed at Inverness there was something like a riot, and at Tain people were mustering and arming, with "guards upon all houses". Support for the ministers in office was usually rewarded, just as opposition was penalised. After the arrival of George I, Robert reported sadly more than once that "there is nothing yet done" for him; but in December he was offered and accepted a commission (backdated to 9 August) to replace a Mackenzie as Captain of an Independent Company raised ten years earlier to help in policing the northern Scottish Highlands. This was one of three such companies, forming distinct units unconnected with each other, and responsible for peace and security in their own area—one commanded by Captain Campbell of Fonab operating "besouth the braes of Athole and Angus", Captain William Grant's "benorth Dee", and the third to the north and west of Loch Ness. They wore no special military uniform, being clothed in "plads, tartan coats, trousers and hose" like other Highlanders. Captain Robert Munro (who had John Campbell of Carrick as his first Lieutenant, and Alexander Fraser of Culduthel as second) commanded his company for less than two years, as