Thomas Dalmahoy

In his final years, being a noble Scotsman, among a minority of all members supportive of Lauderdale in the Cabal and the succession of James II and VII — considered one of the Court Party and not holding a Pocket Borough — he lost the 1679 election to exclusionist Morgan Randyll.

In the last 20 years of his life he owned and lived at "The Friary", Guildford and Wanborough Manor, Surrey, having inherited from his first wife Lady Elizabeth Maxwell (died 1659), widow of William Hamilton, 2nd Duke of Hamilton and the co-heir of her father, James Maxwell, 1st Earl of Dirletoun; the year before he died he married Elizabeth Clerke, widow of Sir William Clerke, 2nd Baronet.

[1] Samuel Pepys, meeting the "Scotch gentleman" on his way to the exiled Court in May 1660, found him "a very fine man", and Speaker Onslow, who was young kin to Dalmahoy’s second wife born at East Horsley, called him "genteel and generous".

A consistent supporter of the Government, he joined forces with Sir Nicholas Carew /kɛəri/ of the country party to oppose the Wey Navigation bill in 1665, and secured its rejection on first reading.

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).

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: the Duke of Lauderdale has been banished and imprisoned by the late usurped powers from 1648 till the King’s Restoration; and hopes he deserves not such severity.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).

In 1678 he was appointed to the committee to draw up the address for the removal of (privy) counsellors, yet acted twice with Charles Kerr, 2nd Earl of Ancram as teller for the adjournment to avoid such a debate on the Duke of Lauderdale.