Tiverton, then, we may take it as certain, did not enjoy the right of returning members until the thirteenth year of the reign of James I., when the Mayor, Capital Burgesses, Assistant Burgesses of the town and parish, or the major part of them, were empowered to choose and nominate two discreet and sufficient men to be burgesses of the Parliament. The charter was renewed in the same terms in the fourth year of James II., and again in the reign of George II., so that we need feel no surprise that, when the potwallopers from time to time threatened to assert their supposed right, the members of the Common Council, assured of their legal position, treated such vapourings with calm superiority. Until the tidal wave of reform demolished the bulwarks of their monopoly, the twenty-four were sole masters and arbiters. It was they who had the right to decide who should sit in Parliament for the ancient town—they and they alone. But how that right was exercised, if we except the bare list of the Council’s nominees, there is for a long period no evidence to show. However, there was always material for a deal, and in the former half of the eighteenth century Tiverton already figures as a political tied-house. The overlordship afterwards acquired by the Ryder family was then vested in a politician of some note, who in 1728 was one of the representatives of Tiverton, though the Parliamentary connection of his house with Honiton was even closer and of much longer standing, lasting, indeed, from 1640 to 1796. We allude to Sir William Yonge. Martin Dunsford, the first real historian of Tiverton, describes him as “a popular man and closely attached to the minister, Sir Robert Walpole,” adding that he “had great influence over the leading members of the Corporation of Tiverton, and generally directed their choice of burgesses.” The same writer, referring to Sir Edward Montague and Charles Gore, Esquire, who in 1761 held one of the seats successively, makes bold to assert that “there is reason to believe these members were never in Tiverton, but bargained for their seats at a distance either with Sir William Yonge or with Oliver Peard, Esq., the _primum mobile_, of the Corporation.” With regard to the former, there is clearly some misapprehension, as he had died in 1755, but the tradition that this eminent Devonshire worthy was dictator at Tiverton must have rested on a solid foundation. It behoves us, therefore, to render some further account of him.