Week 7

The Tories

The Tories, a name given to them by the Whigs, were first led by Danby when Charles II was king. The party was formed in the last months of the Cavalier Parliament and the Exclusion Crisis. The names ‘Tory’ or ‘Tories’ were initially terms of abuse used by Whigs – also initially a term of abuse – and it meant ‘Irish Catholic Bandits’. However, under the effective leadership of Danby the name was adopted by the party. Danby was a master at management and he used the position he had in politics to advance those who he felt would best support his policies.

The Tories believed in Divine Right, the king’s prerogative and hereditary succession. They were also strong supporters of the Anglican Church against Catholics and Dissenters. Such beliefs as a whole were challenged in the reign of James II. His drive to push the country to Catholicism was bound to conflict with the Tory belief in upholding the Anglican Church. There were those Tories who sided with James simply because he was king, but there were also those who sided with the Whigs in the 1688 Revolution that removed James from the throne. He was replaced by the Protestant William of Orange and Mary.

Even the settlement caused upset in the ranks of the Tories. Some, clinging to the belief of divine right, thought that William and Mary should act as regents until the time that James could make some form of peace with the government and people. Other Tories believed that Mary should have supremacy over William simply because she was a blood relation to James whereas William was not. William insisted on full regal powers and such was the memory of the recent civil war that politicians were content to accept this so that the monarchy and country appeared once again to be stable.

The 1688 settlement ended up splitting the Tories into the Court Tories and the Country Tories. The Court Tories did all that was expected of those who wished to be influential at court. The Country Tories tended to be more radical especially in the area of religion. They believed scientific advances weakened the Church and threatened society. They also believed that the so-called ‘financial revolution’ would also destabilise society as it could allow those from a less than noble social position to climb the social ladder and dilute the social elite. There were Country Whigs who shared some of these beliefs and both united to become the Country Party led by Harley.

Court and Country Tories reunited in the reign of Anne – the last of the Stuart monarchs. She was seen as the legitimate monarch and a figure all could rally behind. However, the party was severely weakened by a bitter rivalry between Harley and another leading Tory, Bolingbroke. Their rivalry was such that on August 1st, 1714, when Anne died, the party was so disorganised and lacking focus that the Whigs took the lead in the Hanoverian succession. George I became inextricably associated with the Whigs when Bolingbroke fled abroad to involve himself in the Old Pretender’s campaign. The Whigs were able to persuade George that the Tories were associated with the 1715 Jacobite rebellion. This was to condemn the party to many years in the political wilderness as the Whigs held the power in Georgian England.

The Whigs

The term Whig was initially a term of political abuse used by the Tories. It was meant to discredit those who held different beliefs to the Tories and roughly translated it meant ‘Scottish Presbyterian rebels’. First used in the reign of Charles II, by the time of the Exclusion Crisis (1679 to 1681) it had become an accepted political label. The first Whig ‘leader’ was Shaftsbury and his opponent in the Tories was Danby.

The first Whigs were a difficult group to summarise in terms of their wholesale beliefs. However, such a disparate group all shared one value at this time – that the future James II should be excluded from the throne as a result of his Catholicism. 

The first Whigs were curious political bedfellows. They included former Roundheads who were opposed to the Royal Court on ideological grounds; former Cavaliers who had become disillusioned with Charles II; Presbyterians who disliked the Restoration religious settlement; backbench gentry who opposed the Royal Court for its licentious behaviour and extravagance and career politicians who saw the Whigs as their best passport to political advancement. Such an interesting group proved difficult to manage but the fact that they covered so many different parts of society was also a strength.

What were the ideological beliefs of the Whigs?

They believed that the consent of the people was the source of political power and authority and that monarchs were in power only as a result of a contract with the community. If the community believed that the reigning monarch had failed them, they had the right to resist him/her. Their other main belief was that Dissenters should be tolerated.

In the reign of James II this was clearly an issue when it became clear that the king wanted nothing more or less than a Catholic society – history would have informed the Whigs that a fervent Catholic was highly unlikely to tolerate Dissenters. The Whigs played a fundamental role in the 1688 Revolution that removed James from the throne and placed on it the more tolerant William and Mary.

In the reign of William and Mary, the Whigs split in two. Two separate groups were formed: the Court Whigs and the Country Whigs. Their titles give away their allegiance and it was to the Country Whigs that the more radical elements of the party drifted. The Country Whigs aligned with the Country Tories to form the New Country Party led by Robert Harley.

The Court Whigs took office under William III and between 1694 and 1698 they developed a series of traits that stayed with them for over a century. The Whigs were seen to be the party of privilege where money counted. They were the richer gentry, noblemen who had made fortunes out of the financial revolution. They were keen supporters of patronage as a means of ensuring that ‘their men’ were in high places both centrally and in the localities. Even at the end of Queen Anne’s reign they maintained their link to the monarchy by effectively organising the accession of George I in 1714. Their association with the crown became, for them, an accepted right and it was during the reign of George I that they managed to discredit the Tories with Jacobitism – a charge that kept the Tories out of political power for most of the C18th, especially in the wake of the last Jacobite uprising in 1745. For many people in power, the Whigs were considered to be the established party of order.

The Vicar of Bray is a song that describes the career of the Vicar of Bray, an Anglican minister in a town just south of Dublin, Ireland. Over the course of the song, the monarchy changes hands between different factions, including the Whigs and Tories, forcing the pastor to change his religious and political principles over and over again so that he can retain his ecclesiastic position. The song makes many very specific allusions to English religious and political doctrines so please check out the lyrics with annotations below: 

The Vicar of Bray
In good King Charles' golden days, When loyalty no harm meant, A zealous High Churchman was I, And so got my preferment; To teach my flock I never missed, Kings are by God appointed, And damned are they that dare resist, Or touch the Lord's anointed	High Churchmen were those who embraced the Roman Catholic elements in the Church of England - especially stressing elaborate ceremonial and the sacraments. In the reign of James I and Charles I, High Churchmen were the greatest supporters of royal power. (Puritans held Low Church principles and stressed preaching). Preferment = career advancement. The injunction not to touch the Lord's anointed is based on I Samuel 24, where David insisted that no hand should be raised against Saul, even when the King had acted unjustly
And this is the law, that I'll maintain, Until my dying day, Sir, That whatsoever King may reign I'll be the Vicar of Bray, Sir-	The Church of England was governed and regulated by the King in Parliament. In Tudor and Stuart times, regimes in power could and did expel ministers who refused to conform to its religious and political edicts.
When Royal James possessed the crown And popery grew in fashion, The penal laws I houted down And read the Declaration; The Church of Rome I found would fit Full well my constitution, And I had been a Jesuit, But for the RevolutionAnd this is the law, etc..	After the Restoration of Charles II a series of laws to enforce religious conformity were passed (in particular, the Clarendon Code of 1661-65 and the Test Act of 1673). These penal laws required that all holders of government jobs acknowledge the Royal Supremacy and take the sacrament of Holy Communion according to the rites of the Anglican Church. The laws were intended to exclude Roman Catholics and Protestant Nonconformists from public office. James II was a Roman Catholic and in 1687, he issued a Declaration of Indulgence suspending the penal laws in an attempt to help his co-religionists. A number of prominent Anglican Clergymen, including the Seven Bishops refused to read the Declaration at Church Services as ordered. Jesuit priests (members of the Society of Jesus) were known as the most fervent Catholics with an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.
When William our deliverer came, To ease the nation's grievance, I turned the cat in pan again And swore to him allegiance. Old principles I did revoke, Set conscience at a distance, Passive obedience is a joke, A jest is non-resistance.And this is the law, etc...	To turn the cat in the pan is an old phrase meaning to change sides slickly and glibly. Many of James II's supporters (and some of his opponents) refused to swear allegiance to William III, because they believed him to have usurped the throne. These "Non-jurors" (who included five of the Seven Bishops) lost their jobs. Passive obedience was the idea that subjects should refuse to obey a royal command against divine law, but show their obedience by submitting to any punishment that resulted. Non-resistance was the doctrine that it was never legitimate actively to oppose the king. The two doctrines were key components of the the theory of the Divine Right of Kings.
When glorious Anne became our queen The Church of England's glory, Another face of things was seen, And I became a Tory: Occasional conformists base, I damned, and moderation, And thought the Church in danger was, From such prevarication.And this is law, etc.…	For much of Queen Anne's reign, the Tories were predominant in government and the nation. The Tory party wanted to preserve the Anglicans' monopoly of power. They were particularly angered by Dissenters who circumvented the penal laws by taking the sacrament in the Church of England only often enough to satisfy the legal requirements for office, whilst attending Nonconformist congregations for the rest of the time. The Occasional Conformity Act (1711) tried to end this form of evasion. Those Anglicans who wanted to adopt a more conciliatory approach to Protestant Dissenters and modify the Church of England's services to satisfy them were known as Moderate Men. True Tories condemned them  for "giving up the Church, and sacrificing its order and constitution to peace and moderation." (A Letter to a Friend Concerning the New Distinction of High and Low Church, 1689)
When George in pudding time came o'er, And moderate men looked big, sir, My principles I changed once more, And so became a Whig, sir; And thus preferment I procured From our great faith's defender, And almost every day abjured The Pope and the Pretender. And this is the law, etc..	The reign of George I (the first king of the House of Hanover) began a long period of Whig ascendancy. Pudding is the sweet course of a meal (dessert), and so pudding time was the part that everyone looked forward to. George I was the first English monarch to use the title (Fidei Defensor) Defender of the Faith on his coins. (Ironically, the title had been given to Henry VIII by Pope Leo X for a polemical defense of the seven sacraments against Protestants). The Oath of Abjuration was a solemn assertion made by all holders of government office repudiating the right of the Stuart Pretenders (James II's son, James Edward, and grandson Charles Edward) to the crown. It was imposed by law under William III and George I.
The illustrious house of Hanover, And Protestant succession, To these I do allegiance swear, While they can keep possession; For in my faith and loyalty I never once will falter, And George my lawful King shall be- Except the times should alter.And this is the law, etc...	In 1701, an Act of Settlement was passed to determine that the House of Hanover would succeed to the throne of England on the death of Anne. The Act also required that only communicating members of the Church of England should be allowed to ascend the throne. This requirement for aProtestant succession excluded not only the offspring of James II but other Roman Catholic descendants of James I.

Important Terms: 
Divine Right: a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving the right to rule directly from the will of God.
Jacobitism:was a political movement in Great Britain and Ireland that aimed to restore the Roman Catholic Stuart King James II of England and his heirs to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland.
Whiggamor: Cattle Driver 
Tóraidhe: Outlaw (Irish Gaelic)






Additional Resource: Whigs and Tories History