A borough of this size was too large to fall under the dominance of a local landowner as was usual in the case of the smaller constituencies in the Unreformed Parliament, and Maidstone remained comparatively free with elections sometimes vigorously contested (and usually expensive for the candidates), although the Finch and Marsham families both had a degree of influence over results in the 18th century. Namier describes in detail the Maidstone election of 1761, showing how at this period the organised divisions among the rank-and-file voters in competitive constituencies tended to be religious rather than party-political; the Whig faction in Maidstone drew its strength from the Nonconformists while the Tories were the Anglican establishment. Yet so complicated was the politics of the period that although the local Whigs had asked Rose Fuller, a personal friend of the Whig Prime Minister The Duke of Newcastle, to stand as their candidate Newcastle refused to support him; indeed, Newcastle used his government patronage to force those of the electors employed in the naval dockyard at Chatham to vote for the incumbent Tory MPs, to whom he had already promised his support before Fuller's candidacy was mooted. In the event, though, Fuller succeeded in being elected, many of the government employees defying Newcastle to support him.