At the
1708 British general election Lord Willoughby was returned as a
Member of Parliament for
Lincolnshire with his father's support. Although his father was a Whig, Willoughby acted as a Tory. He sat on a drafting committee for the
Boston church bill, and a committee of inquiry into the laws excluding
placemen. He acted against the Whigs in an electoral dispute. Although nominated to the committee examining the arrangements for the trial of
Dr Sacheverell, he voted against the impeachment in 1710. He was returned as a Tory at the
1710 election and listed as one of the 'worthy patriots' who detected the mismanagements of the previous administration, and a 'Tory patriot' who opposed the continuation of the
war in 1711. He was also a member of the
October Club. He sat on drafting committees for bills to build a waterworks near Boston and to help drain the
Ancholme Level. As a
Hanoverian Tory, he voted against the expulsion of Richard Steele in March 1714. He did not stand at the
1715 general election but was summoned to the
House of Lords by a
writ of acceleration in his father's
Barony of Willoughby de Eresby on 16 March 1715. He was appointed
Lord Lieutenant of Lincolnshire in succession to his father in 1724. He was receiver of the Duchy of Lancaster rents in Lincolnshire from 1728 to his death, and Lord Warden and Chief
Justice in Eyre north of the Trent from 1734 to his death. He had a seat on the
Foundling Hospital's board of governors when the charity was founded in 1739. ==Personal life==