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The
Tories were members of two political parties which existed, sequentially, in the
Kingdom of EnglandThe Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state and island country to the northwest of continental Europe. At its zenith, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands—what is today the legal unit of...
, the
Kingdom of Great BritainThe Kingdom of Great Britain, also known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain, was a sovereign state in northwest Europe, in existence from 1707 to 1801...
and later the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
from the 17th to the early 19th centuries.
Overview
The first Tories emerged in 1678 in the
Kingdom of EnglandThe Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state and island country to the northwest of continental Europe. At its zenith, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands—what is today the legal unit of...
, when they opposed the Whig-supported
Exclusion BillThe Exclusion Bill Crisis ran from 1678 through 1681 in the reign of Charles II of England. The Exclusion Bill sought to exclude the king's brother and heir presumptive, James, Duke of York, from the throne of England because he was Catholic...
which set out to disinherit the heir apparent and future king to be
James, Duke of YorkJames II & VII was King of England and Ireland as James II, and Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
(who eventually became James II and VII). This party ceased to exist as an organised political entity in the early 1760s, although it was used as a term of self-description by some political writers. A few decades later, a new
Tory party would rise to establish a hold on government between 1783 and 1830, with
William Pitt the YoungerWilliam Pitt, the Younger was a British politician of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
followed by
Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of LiverpoolRobert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool PC was a British politician and the longest-serving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since the Union with Ireland in 1801...
.
The Earl of Liverpool was succeeded by fellow Tory
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of WellingtonField Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, KP, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Anglo-Irish soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the nineteenth century....
, whose term included the
Catholic EmancipationCatholic Emancipation or Catholic Relief, was a process in Great Britain and Ireland in the late 18th century and early 19th century which involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the Penal Laws...
, which occurred mostly due to the election of
Daniel O'ConnellDaniel O'Connell , known as The Liberator, or The Emancipator, was an Irish political leader in the first half of the nineteenth century...
as a Tory MP in Ireland. When the Whigs subsequently regained control, the Representation of the People Act 1832 disenfranchised many
rotten boroughA "rotten" or "decayed" or pocket borough was a parliamentary borough or constituency in the United Kingdom that had a very small electorate and could thus be used by a patron to gain undue and unrepresentative influence within parliament...
s controlled by Tories. In the general election which followed the Tory ranks were reduced to 180 MPs. However, there was one more Tory Prime Minister after this:
Robert PeelSir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet was the Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 December 1834 to 8 April 1835, and again from 30 August 1841 to 29 June 1846...
. With Peel's establishment of the
Tamworth ManifestoThe Tamworth Manifesto was a political manifesto issued by Sir Robert Peel in 1834 in Tamworth, which is widely credited by historians as having laid down the principles upon which the modern British Conservative Party is based....
the name Conservative had begun to be used, but he lost many of his supporters by repealing the
Corn LawsThe Corn Laws were import tariffs designed to support domestic British corn prices against competition from less expensive foreign imports between 1815 and 1846. The tariffs were introduced by the Importation Act 1815 and repealed by the Importation Act 1846...
, which caused the party to break apart. One faction, led by
the Earl of DerbyEdward George Geoffrey Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, KG, PC was an English statesman, three times Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and to date the longest serving leader of the Conservative Party...
and
Benjamin DisraeliBenjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC, FRS, was a British Prime Minister, parliamentarian, Conservative statesman and literary figure. He served in government for three decades, twice as Prime Minister. A teenage convert to Anglicanism, he was nonetheless the country's first and thus...
, survived to become the modern
Conservative PartyThe Conservative and Unionist Party, more commonly known as the Conservatives, the Conservative Party, or Tory Party is a conservative political party in the United Kingdom...
, whose members are sometimes still referred to as Tories.
Pre-Tories
The first Tory party could trace its principles and politics, though not its organisation, to the
English Civil WarThe English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists. The first and second civil wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third war saw fighting between supporters of...
which divided England between the
RoyalistA royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of government, but not necessarily a particular monarch...
(or "
CavalierCavalier was the name used by Parliamentarians for a Royalist supporter of King Charles I during the English Civil War . Prince Rupert, commander of much of Charles I's cavalry, is often considered an archetypical Cavalier.-Early usage:...
") supporters of King Charles I and the supporters of the Long Parliament which he had declared war on for not allowing him to get money without agreeing to certain terms. In the beginning of the
Long ParliamentThe Long Parliament is the name of the English Parliament called by Charles I, on 3 November 1640, following the Bishops' Wars. It received its name from the fact that through an Act of Parliament, it could only be dissolved with the agreement of the members, and those members did not agree to its...
(1641), the King's supporters were few in number, and the Parliament pursued a course of productive reform of previous abuses. The increasing radicalism of the Parliamentary majority, however, estranged many reformers even in the Parliament itself, and drove them to make common cause with the King. The King's party was thus a mixture of supporters of royal autocracy, and those Parliamentarians who felt that the Long Parliament had gone too far in attempting to gain executive power for itself and, more especially, in undermining the episcopalian government of the Church of England, which was felt to be a primary support of royal government. By the end of the 1640s, the radical Parliamentary programme had become clear: reduction of the King to a powerless figurehead, and replacement of Anglican episcopacy with a form of Presbyterianism.
This form of settlement was prevented by a
coup d'étatA coup d'état , or coup for short, is the sudden unconstitutional deposition of a legitimate government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another, either civil or military...
which shifted power from Parliament itself to the Parliamentary
New Model ArmyThe New Model Army of Great Britain was formed in 1645 by the Parliamentarians in the English Civil War, and disbanded in 1660 after the Restoration. It differed from other armies in the same conflict in that it was intended as an army liable for service anywhere in the country, rather than being...
, controlled by
Oliver CromwellOliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader best known for his involvement in making England into a republican Commonwealth and for his later role as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland.He was one of the commanders of the New Model Army which defeated the royalists in...
. The Army had King
Charles ICharles I, , the second son of James VI of Scotland and I of England, was King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution. Charles famously engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England...
executed, and for the next eleven years the British kingdoms were under military dictatorship. The Restoration of
King Charles IICharles II was the King of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father King Charles I was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War. The English Parliament did not proclaim Charles II king at this time. Instead they passed a statute making such a...
produced a reaction, in which the King regained a large part of the power held by his father; however, Charles' ministers and supporters in England accepted a substantial role for Parliament in the government of the kingdoms. There would never again be an attempt by any king to rule without Parliament, and after the
Glorious RevolutionThe Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, was the overthrow of King James II of England in 1688 by a union of Parliamentarians with an invading army led by the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau who, as a result, ascended the English throne as William III of England...
in 1688, political disputes would be resolved through elections and parliamentary manoeuvring, rather than by an appeal to force.
Episcopacy was also restored in the
Church of EnglandThe Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England, the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the oldest among the communion's thirty-eight independent national and regional churches...
. Charles II's first "
Cavalier ParliamentThe Cavalier Parliament of England lasted from 8 May 1661 until 24 January 1679. It was the longest English Parliament, enduring for nearly 18 years of the quarter century reign of Charles II of England...
" began as a strongly royalist body, and passed a series of acts re-establishing the Church by law and strongly punishing dissent by both Roman Catholics and non-Anglican Protestants. These acts did not reflect the King's personal views, and demonstrated the existence of a Royalist ideology beyond mere subservience to the Court.
A series of disasters in the late 1660s and 1670s discredited Charles II's governments, and powerful political interests (including some who had been identified with the Parliamentary side in the
Civil WarThe English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists. The first and second civil wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third war saw fighting between supporters of...
) began to agitate for a greater role of Parliament in government, coupled with more tolerance for Protestant dissenters. These interests would soon coalesce as the
WhigsThe Whigs are often described as one of the two original political parties in England and later the United Kingdom from the late 17th to the mid-19th centuries. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...
. As direct attacks on the King were politically impossible and could lead to execution for treason, challenges to the power of the Court were framed as exposés of subversive and sinister
Roman Catholic plotsThe Popish Plot was a fictitious conspiracy concocted by Titus Oates which gripped England in anti-Catholic hysteria from 1678 until 1681. Oates alleged that there existed an extensive Catholic conspiracy to assassinate Charles II. These accusations would eventually lead to the execution of at...
. Although the matter of these plots was largely fictitious, they reflected two uncomfortable political realities: first, that Charles II had (somewhat insincerely) undertaken to take measures to convert the kingdom to Catholicism, in a treaty with
Louis XIV of FranceLouis XIV , popularly known as the Sun King , was King of France and of Navarre His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days, and is the longest documented reign of any European monarch.Louis began personally governing France after the death...
; second, that his younger brother and
heir presumptiveAn heir presumptive is the person provisionally scheduled to inherit a throne, peerage, or other hereditary honor, but whose position can be displaced by the birth of an heir apparent or of a new heir presumptive with a better claim to the throne...
,
James, Duke of YorkJames II & VII was King of England and Ireland as James II, and Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
, had in fact converted to Catholicism, an act that in the 1670s was felt to be one step below high treason.
1678-1688
As a political term,
Tory entered English politics during the
Exclusion BillThe Exclusion Bill Crisis ran from 1678 through 1681 in the reign of Charles II of England. The Exclusion Bill sought to exclude the king's brother and heir presumptive, James, Duke of York, from the throne of England because he was Catholic...
crisis of 1678–1681. The
WhigThe Whigs are often described as one of the two original political parties in England and later the United Kingdom from the late 17th to the mid-19th centuries. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...
s (initially an insult — 'whiggamore,' a cattle driver,) were those who supported the exclusion of
James, the Duke of YorkJames II & VII was King of England and Ireland as James II, and Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
from the succession to thrones of Scotland and
EnglandThe Throne of England is the English term used to identify the throne of the King of England. The term can refer to very specific seating, as in King Edward's Chair, which is used in the coronations of British kings for eight centuries. The term a refer to the specific chair used only by the...
& Ireland (the 'Petitioners'), and the Tories (also an insult, derived from the Middle Irish word
tóraidhe, modern
IrishIrish is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now only spoken natively by a small minority of the Irish population but also plays an important symbolic role in the life of the Irish state, and is used...
tóraí —
outlawAn outlaw or bandit is a person living the lifestyle of outlawry; the word literally means "outside the law".In the common law of England, a "Writ of Outlawry" declared the subject to be "Caput gerat lupinum" , and it followed not only that, since the subject was no longer human, he had no legal...
, robber, from the Irish word
tóir, meaning 'pursuit', since outlaws were "pursued men".) were those who opposed the
Exclusion BillThe Exclusion Bill Crisis ran from 1678 through 1681 in the reign of Charles II of England. The Exclusion Bill sought to exclude the king's brother and heir presumptive, James, Duke of York, from the throne of England because he was Catholic...
(the
AbhorrersAbhorrers, the name given in 1679 to the persons who expressed their abhorrence at the action of those who had signed petitions urging King Charles II of England to assemble Parliament....
). In a more general sense, the Tories represented the more conservative royalist supporters of Charles II, who endorsed a strong monarchy as a counterbalance to the power of Parliament, and who saw in the Whig opponents of the Court a quasi-Republican tendency (similar to that seen in the
Long ParliamentThe Long Parliament is the name of the English Parliament called by Charles I, on 3 November 1640, following the Bishops' Wars. It received its name from the fact that through an Act of Parliament, it could only be dissolved with the agreement of the members, and those members did not agree to its...
) to strip the monarchy of its essential
prerogativeThe Royal Prerogative is a body of customary authority, privilege, and immunity, recognized in countries such as the United Kingdom as belonging to the Sovereign alone...
powers and leave the Crown as a puppet entirely dependent upon Parliament. That the Exclusion Bill was the central question upon which parties diverged, did not hinge upon an assessment of the personal character of the Duke of York (though his conversion to Catholicism was the key factor that made the Bill possible), but rather upon the power of Parliament to elect a monarch of its own choosing, contrary to the established laws of succession. That the Parliament, with the consent of the King, had such power was not at issue; rather, it was the wisdom of a policy of creating a King whose sole title to the Crown was the will of Parliament, and who was essentially a Parliamentary appointee.
On this original question, the Tories were, in the short run, entirely successful; the Parliaments that brought in the Exclusion Bill were dissolved, Charles II was enabled to manage the administration autocratically, and upon his death the Duke of York succeeded without difficulty. The
rebellionThe Monmouth Rebellion of 1685, also known as the Pitchfork Rebellion, was an attempt to overthrow James II, who had become King of England at the death of his elder brother Charles II on 6 February 1685. James II was unpopular because he was Roman Catholic and many people were opposed to a...
of Monmouth, the candidate of the radical Whigs to succeed Charles II, was easily crushed and Monmouth himself executed. In the long run, however, Tory principles were to be severely compromised.
Besides the support of a strong monarchy, the Tories also stood for the Church of England, as established in Acts of Parliament following the restoration of Charles II — both as a body governed by bishops, using the
Book of Common PrayerThe Book of Common Prayer is the common title of a number of prayer books of the Church of England and of other Anglican churches, used throughout the Anglican Communion. The first book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English Reformation following the break with...
, and subscribing to a specific
doctrineThe Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion were established in 1563 and are the historic defining statements of Anglican doctrine in relation to the controversies of the English Reformation; especially in the relation of Calvinist doctrine and Roman Catholic practices to the nascent Anglican doctrine of...
, and also as an exclusive body established by law, from which both Roman Catholics and Nonconformists were excluded.
James II, however, during his reign fought for a broadly tolerant religious settlement under which his co-religionists could prosper -- a position anathema to conservative Anglicans. James' attempts to use the government-controlled
churchThe Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England, the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the oldest among the communion's thirty-eight independent national and regional churches...
to promote policies that undermined the church's own unique status in the state, led some Tories to support the
Glorious RevolutionThe Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, was the overthrow of King James II of England in 1688 by a union of Parliamentarians with an invading army led by the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau who, as a result, ascended the English throne as William III of England...
of 1688. The result was a King established solely by Parliamentary title, and subject to
legal controlsThe Bill of Rights is an act of the Parliament of England, whose title is An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown...
established by Parliament, the principles that the Tories had originally "abhorred". The Tories' sole consolation was that the monarchs chosen were close to the main line of succession —
William IIIWilliam III was a sovereign Prince of Orange by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. From 1689 he reigned as William III over England and Ireland, and as William II over Scotland...
was James II's nephew, and William's wife
MaryMary II reigned as Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1689 until her death. Mary, a Protestant, came to the thrones following the Glorious Revolution, which resulted in the deposition of her Roman Catholic father, James II and VII...
was James's elder daughter. The
Act of Toleration 1689The Act of Toleration was an act of the English Parliament , the long title of which is "An Act for Exempting their Majestyes Protestant Subjects dissenting from the Church of England from the Penalties of certaine Lawes".The Act granted freedom of worship to Nonconformists who had taken the oaths...
also gave rights to Protestant dissenters that were hitherto unknown, while the elimination of a large number of bishops who
refused to swearA non-juror is a person who refuses to swear a particular oath.* In British history, non-jurors refused to swear allegiance to William and Mary; see Nonjuring schism...
allegiance to the new monarchs allowed the government to pack the episcopate with bishops with decidedly Whiggish leanings. In both these respects the Tory platform had failed; however, the institutions of monarchy and of a state Church survived.
1688-1714
Despite the failure of their founding principles, the Tories remained a powerful political party during the reigns of the next two monarchs, particularly that of
Queen AnneAnne became Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland on 8 March 1702, succeeding her brother-in-law, William III of England and II of Scotland...
. During this time the Tories fiercely competed with the Whigs for power, and there were frequent Parliamentary elections in which the two parties measured their strength.
Balanced ministries
William III saw that the Tories were generally more friendly to royal authority than the Whigs, and he employed both groups in his government. His early ministry was largely Tory, but gradually the government came to be dominated by the so-called
Junto WhigsThe Whig Junto is the name given to a group of leading Whigs who were seen to direct the management of the Whig party and often the government, during the reigns of William III and Anne. The Whig Junto proper consisted of John Somers, later Baron Somers; Charles Montagu, later Earl of Halifax;...
. This tight-knit political grouping was opposed by the "Country Whigs", led by Robert Harley, who gradually merged with the Tory opposition in the later 1690s.
Although William's successor Anne had considerable Tory sympathies and excluded the Junto Whigs from power, after a brief and unsuccessful experiment with an exclusively Tory government she generally continued William's policy of balancing the parties, supported by her moderate Tory ministers, the
Duke of MarlboroughJohn Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough was a prominent English soldier and statesman whose career spanned the reigns of five monarchs throughout the late 17th and early 18th centuries...
and
Lord GodolphinSidney Godolphin, 1st Earl of Godolphin PC , was a leading British politician of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.-Family and early career:He came from an ancient family of Cornwall...
.
Opposition
However, the stresses of the
War of the Spanish SuccessionThe War of the Spanish Succession was fought among several European powers, principally the Holy Roman Empire, Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, Portugal, and the Duchy of Savoy, against the Kingdoms of France and Spain and the Electorate of Bavaria, over a possible unification of the Kingdoms of...
(begun in 1701) led most of the Tories to withdraw into opposition by 1708, so that Marlborough and Godolphin were heading an administration dominated by the Junto Whigs. Anne herself grew increasingly uncomfortable with this dependence on the Whigs, especially as her personal relationship with the
Duchess of MarlboroughSarah Churchill , Duchess of Marlborough rose to be one of the most influential women in British history as a result of her close friendship with Queen Anne of Great Britain.Sarah's friendship and influence with Princess Anne was widely known, and leading public...
deteriorated. This situation also became increasingly uncomfortable to many of the non-Junto Whigs, led by the
Duke of SomersetCharles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset , sometimes referred to as the "Proud Duke". The son of Charles Seymour, 2nd Baron Seymour of Trowbridge, and Elizabeth Alington, he succeeded his brother Francis Seymour, 5th Duke of Somerset, to the dukedom when the latter was shot in 1678...
and the
Duke of ShrewsburyCharles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury, KG, PC was the only son of the 11th Earl of Shrewsbury and his second wife, formerly Lady Anne-Marie Brudenell, a daughter of 2nd Earl of Cardigan .Talbot was a godson of King Charles II, after whom he was...
, who began to intrigue with Robert Harley's Tories. In early 1710, the prosecution by the Whig government of the ultra-Tory preacher Dr.
Henry SacheverellHenry Sacheverell was an English High Church clergyman and politician.-Life:The son of Joshua Sacheverell, rector of St Peter's, Marlborough,...
for sermons delivered the previous year, led to the Sacheverell riots and brought the ministry into popular discredit. In the spring of 1710, Anne dismissed Godolphin and the Junto ministers, replacing them with Tories.
Last Tory government
The new Tory ministry was dominated by
HarleyRobert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer , was a British politician and statesman of the late Stuart and early Georgian periods. He began his career as a Whig, before defecting to a new Tory Ministry. Between 1711 and 1714 he served as First Lord of the Treasury, effectively Queen Anne's...
, Chancellor of the Exchequer (later Lord Treasurer) and
Viscount BolingbrokeHenry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke , was an English politician and philosopher. He identified predominantly with the Tory faction, of which he was a prominent member for many years....
, Secretary of State. They were backed by a strong majority in the Parliament elected in 1710. This Tory government negotiated the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, which pulled Great Britain out of the War of the Spanish Succession (to the dismay of Britain's allies, including Anne's eventual successor,
George, Elector of HanoverGeorge I was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1 August 1714 until his death, and ruler of Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire from 1698....
); the peace was enacted despite a Whig majority in the
House of LordsThe House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is also commonly referred to as "the Lords". Parliament comprises the Sovereign, the House of Commons , and the Lords...
, which Anne defeated by creating new Tory peers.
In 1714, following a long disagreement between the ministers, Anne dismissed Harley; the arch-Tory Bolingbroke became in effect Anne's chief minister, and Tory power seemed to be at its zenith. However, Anne was extremely ill and died within a few days. Bolingbroke had not been able to formulate any coherent plans for dealing with the succession; if he thought of proclaiming the son of James II (the Pretender) as king, he made no moves to do so. The Elector George succeeded to the throne entirely peacefully.
1714-1760
In accordance with the laws of the time, the Queen's government was replaced by a Council of Regency until the new King should arrive from Hanover. Bolingbroke offered his services to the King but was coldly rejected; George I brought in a government composed entirely of Whigs, and the new Parliament, elected from January to May 1715, had a large Whig majority. With the Whigs now in a position to take revenge on their former political rivals, Bolingbroke fled to France and gave his service to the Pretender. The subsequent Jacobite rebellion of 1715-1716, though only a minority of Tories gave their adhesion to it, was used by the Whigs to completely discredit the Tories and paint them as traitors. It also gave the Whigs a pretext for various acts which greatly strengthened their power, including the
Riot ActThe Riot Act was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain which authorised local authorities to declare any group of more than twelve people to be unlawfully assembled, and thus have to disperse or face punitive action...
and the
Septennial Act 1715The Septennial Act 1715 was an Act of the Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain in May 1716 , to increase the maximum length of a Parliament from 3 years to 7 years....
, the latter act unilaterally extending a Parliament elected for three years to seven years.
The remaining Tories were now dismissed from office, and as a party were confined to the wilderness for half a century, corresponding to the reigns of George I and
George IIGeorge II was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Archtreasurer and Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 until his death....
, though occasionally individual Tories held office in these monarchs' Whig ministries. For most of this period (at first under the leadership of
Sir William WyndhamSir William Wyndham, 3rd Baronet , English politician, was the only son of Sir Edward Wyndham, Bart., a grandson of Sir William Wyndham and a great-great-grandson of Sir John Wyndham of Orchard Wyndham, Somerset, who was created a baronet in 1661.Educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, he...
), the Tories retained party cohesion, with occasional hopes of regaining office, particularly at the accession of George II (1727) and the downfall of the ministry of Sir
Robert WalpoleRobert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG, KB, PC and known before 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British statesman who is generally regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of Great Britain....
in 1742. They acted as a united, though unavailing, opposition to Whig corruption and scandals. At times they cooperated with the "Opposition Whigs", Whigs who were in opposition to the Whig government; however, the ideological gap between the Tories and the Opposition Whigs prevented them from coalescing as a single party.
The Whig government, backed by royal favour and controlling the levers of power, was able to maintain a series of majorities through the infrequent elections of the next several decades (only 7 in the 46 years of the first two Georges, as opposed to 11 in the 26 years from the Revolution to the death of Queen Anne). For much of the period, the Tories commanded a broad base of support in rural England, but the relatively undemocratic nature of the franchise and the
maldistribution of the borough seatsA "rotten" or "decayed" or pocket borough was a parliamentary borough or constituency in the United Kingdom that had a very small electorate and could thus be used by a patron to gain undue and unrepresentative influence within parliament...
ensured that this popular appeal was never translated into a Tory majority in Parliament. The Tories were therefore an effectively null factor in practical politics, a permanent minority in Parliament and entirely excluded from government. The latter exclusion, and the rigid party politics played by the Whigs, played a significant role in the cohesion of the Tories; the Whigs offered few opportunities for Tories who switched sides, and as a party the Tories found no possibilities for compromise with the Whigs.
The fall of Walpole removed the principal factor that had separated the government and opposition Whigs, and by the mid-1740s the Whigs were largely united on policy issues. Party organisation, however, was replaced by organisation by faction, and the individual followings of Whig leaders began to form the nucleus of new parties. In 1754, and again in 1757, the Tories gave limited support to the Whig governments of the Duke of Newcastle,
William Pitt the ElderWilliam Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham PC was a British Whig statesman who achieved his greatest fame leading Britain during the Seven Years' War...
, and the
Duke of DevonshireWilliam Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire, KG, PC , styled Lord Cavendish before 1729 and Marquess of Hartington between 1729 and 1755, was a British Whig statesman who was briefly titular Prime Minister of Great Britain.-Early career:He was elected MP for Derbyshire in 1741 and 1747, but left the...
. They remained, however, outside of government.
Period of uncertainty
Upon the accession of
George IIIGeorge III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of these two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death...
, the old political distinctions dissolved. The Whig factions became, in effect, distinct parties (such as the
GrenvillitesGeorge Grenville , was a British Whig statesman who served in government for the relatively short period of seven years, reaching the position of Prime Minister of Great Britain...
and the
BedforditesJohn Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford KG, PC, FRS was an 18th century British statesman. He was the fourth son of Wriothesley Russell, 2nd Duke of Bedford, by his wife, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of John Howland of Streatham, Surrey...
), all of whom claimed the Whig mantle, while the material distinction in politics was between the 'King's Friends' who supported the newly activist role of George III in government, and those who opposed the king.
The proscription on the employment of Tories in government offices ended, which resulted in the Tories dividing into several factions and ceasing to function as a coherent political party. Sentimental Toryism remained, as in the writings of
Samuel JohnsonSamuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson was a devout Anglican and political conservative, and has been...
, but in politics, 'Tory' was little more than an unfriendly epithet for politicians closely identified with George III. The label 'Tory' was, in this sense, applied to the Prime Ministers
Lord ButeJohn Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute KG, PC , styled Lord Mount Stuart before 1723, was a Scottish nobleman who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain under George III, and was arguably the last important favourite in British politics...
(1762–1763) and
Lord NorthFrederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford, KG, PC , more often known by his courtesy title, Lord North, which he used from 1752 until 1790, was Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1770 to 1782. He led Great Britain through most of the American War of Independence...
(1770–1782); but these politicians considered themselves Whigs.
Pittites
Applied by their opponents to Parliamentary supporters of the younger
William PittWilliam Pitt, the Younger was a British politician of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He became the youngest Prime Minister in 1783 at the age of 24 . He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death in 1806...
(1783–1801, 1804-1806), the term came to represent the political current opposed to the 'Old Whigs' and the radicalism unleashed by the American and French Revolutions. This was reinforced by the breakup of the Whig party in 1794 when the conservative group led by the Duke of Portland joined Pitt's government - leaving an opposition rump led by
Charles James FoxCharles James Fox was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned thirty-eight years of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and who was particularly noted for being the arch-rival of William Pitt the Younger...
. The fear of the Jacobins in France it could be argued helped to make the term 'Tory' respectable once again - by contrast the
FoxiteThe term Foxite generally refers to an 18th or 19th century British Whig politician who adhered to the ideals and political beliefs of Charles James Fox, the 18th century member of parliament and leader of the Whig party....
Whigs were portrayed as revolutionary demons by cartoonists like
James GillrayJames Gillray, sometimes spelled Gilray , was a British caricaturist and printmaker famous for his etched political and social satires, mainly published between 1792 and 1810.- Early life :He was born in Chelsea...
. However, Pitt rejected the Tory label, preferring to refer to himself as 'Whig'. The group surrounding Pitt the Younger came to be the dominant force in British politics from 1783 until 1830 and after Pitt's death (1806) the term 'Tory' was increasingly used by its members instead of 'Pittite' or 'Friends of Mr Pitt'. The first prominent 'new Tory' to accept the old name was
George CanningGeorge Canning was a British statesman and politician who served as Foreign Secretary and briefly Prime Minister.-Early life:Canning was born at his parents' home in Queen Anne Street, Marylebone, London...
. Despite this, as late as 1812 the government still preferred to label themselves a 'Whig Administration' but very soon after the description 'Tory' had come back into general use for
Lord LiverpoolRobert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool PC was a British politician and the longest-serving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since the Union with Ireland in 1801...
's government.
Generally, the Tories were associated with lesser gentry and the
Church of EnglandThe Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England, the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the oldest among the communion's thirty-eight independent national and regional churches...
(and in Scotland the
Episcopal ChurchThe Scottish Episcopal Church is a Christian denomination in Scotland and a member of the Anglican Communion, although it itself has pre-Anglican origins. It consists of seven dioceses in Scotland. Like all Anglican churches, it recognises the primacy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who does not...
), while Whigs were more associated with trade, money, larger land holders (or "land magnates") and the Nonconformist Protestant churches. Both were still committed to the political system in place at that time.
The new Tory party was distinct, both in composition and ideological orientation from the old. It consisted largely of former Whigs, alienated from the party that now bore that name. While it maintained a sentimental and conservative respect for the symbolic institutions of the British monarchy, in practice Tory ministries allowed the King no more freedom than Whig ones. The incompetence of George III's personal interventions in policy had been sufficiently shown in the American War (1775-1783); henceforward his active role was limited to negations of government policies, such as
Catholic emancipationCatholic Emancipation or Catholic Relief, was a process in Great Britain and Ireland in the late 18th century and early 19th century which involved reducing and removing many of the restrictions on Roman Catholics which had been introduced by the Act of Uniformity, the Test Acts and the Penal Laws...
. In foreign policy the differences were even more marked; the old Tory party had been pacific and isolationist, whereas the new one was bellicose and imperialistic.
Conservatives
The Tories became associated with repression of popular discontent after 1815. But later, the Tories underwent a fundamental transformation under the influence of
Robert PeelSir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet was the Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 December 1834 to 8 April 1835, and again from 30 August 1841 to 29 June 1846...
, who was an industrialist rather than a landowner. Peel in his 1834 '
Tamworth ManifestoThe Tamworth Manifesto was a political manifesto issued by Sir Robert Peel in 1834 in Tamworth, which is widely credited by historians as having laid down the principles upon which the modern British Conservative Party is based....
' outlined a new 'Conservative' philosophy of reforming ills while conserving the good. The subsequent Peel administrations have been labelled "Conservative" rather than "Tory", but the older term remains in use even today.
When the Conservative Party split in 1846 on the issue of Free Trade, the protectionist wing of the party rejected the term Conservative. They preferred to be known as Protectionists or even to revive the older term 'Tory' as an official name. However, by 1859, the
PeeliteThe Peelites were a breakaway faction of the British Conservative Party, and existed from 1846 to 1859. They were called "Peelites" because they were initially led by Sir Robert Peel, who was the British Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader in 1846....
s (Peel's Conservative supporters) joined the Whigs and Radicals to form the
Liberal PartyThe Liberal Party was one of the two major British political parties from the mid 19th century until the rise of the Labour Party in the 1920s, and a third party of varying strength and importance up to 1988, when it merged with the Social Democratic Party to form a new party which would become...
. The remaining Tories, under the leadership of the
Earl of DerbyEdward George Geoffrey Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, KG, PC was an English statesman, three times Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and to date the longest serving leader of the Conservative Party...
(a former Whig), and
DisraeliBenjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC, FRS, was a British Prime Minister, parliamentarian, Conservative statesman and literary figure. He served in government for three decades, twice as Prime Minister. A teenage convert to Anglicanism, he was nonetheless the country's first and thus...
(once a Radical candidate for Parliament), adopted the 'Conservative' label as the official name of their party.