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Tories (political faction)
Encyclopedia
The Tories were members of two political parties which existed, sequentially, in the Kingdom of England
, the Kingdom of Great Britain
and later the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
from the 17th to the early 19th centuries.
, when they opposed the Whig-supported Exclusion Bill
which set out to disinherit the heir presumptive
and future king to be James, Duke of York
(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 Younger
followed by Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool
.
The Earl of Liverpool was succeeded by fellow Tory Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
, whose term included the Catholic Emancipation
, which occurred mostly due to the election of Daniel O'Connell
as a Catholic MP in Ireland. When the Whigs subsequently regained control, the Representation of the People Act 1832 disenfranchised many rotten borough
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 Peel
. With Peel's establishment of the Tamworth Manifesto
the name Conservative had begun to be used, but he lost many of his supporters by repealing the Corn Laws
, which caused the party to break apart. One faction, led by the Earl of Derby
and Benjamin Disraeli
, survived to become the modern Conservative Party
, whose members are sometimes still referred to as Tories.
which divided England between the Royalist
(or "Cavalier
") 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 Parliament (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'état
which shifted power from Parliament itself to the Parliamentary New Model Army
, controlled by Oliver Cromwell
. The Army had King Charles I
executed, and for the next eleven years the British kingdoms were under military dictatorship. The Restoration of King Charles II
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 Revolution
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 England
. Charles II's first "Cavalier Parliament
" 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 War
) 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 Whigs
. 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 plots
. 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 France
; second, that his younger brother and heir presumptive
, James, Duke of York
, had in fact converted to Catholicism, an act that in the 1670s was felt to be one step below high treason.
As a political term, Tory entered English politics during the Exclusion Bill
crisis of 1678–81. The Whigs
(initially an insult — 'whiggamore,' a cattle driver,) were those who supported the exclusion of James, the Duke of York
from the succession to thrones of Scotland and England
& Ireland (the 'Petitioners'), and the Tories (also an insult, derived from the Middle Irish word tóraidhe, modern Irish
tóraí — outlaw
, robber, from the Irish word tóir, meaning 'pursuit', since outlaws were "pursued men".) were those who opposed the Exclusion Bill
(the Abhorrers
). 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 Parliament
) to strip the monarchy of its essential prerogative
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 rebellion
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 Prayer
, and subscribing to a specific doctrine
, 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 church
to promote policies that undermined the church's own unique status in the state, led some Tories to support the Glorious Revolution
of 1688. The result was a King established solely by Parliamentary title, and subject to legal controls
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 III
was James II's nephew, and William's wife Mary
was James's elder daughter. The Act of Toleration 1689
also gave rights to Protestant dissenters that were hitherto unknown, while the elimination of a large number of bishops who refused to swear
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.
. 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.
. 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 Marlborough
and Lord Godolphin
.
(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 Marlborough
deteriorated. This situation also became increasingly uncomfortable to many of the non-Junto Whigs, led by the Duke of Somerset
and the Duke of Shrewsbury
, 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 Sacheverell
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.
, Chancellor of the Exchequer (later Lord Treasurer) and Viscount Bolingbroke
, 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 Hanover
); the peace was enacted despite a Whig majority in the House of 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.
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 1715–16
, 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 Act
and the Septennial Act 1715
, 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 II
, though occasionally individual Tories held office in these monarchs' Whig ministries. For most of this period (at first under the leadership of Sir William Wyndham
), 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 Walpole
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 seats
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 Elder
, and the Duke of Devonshire
. They remained, however, outside of government.
, the old political distinctions dissolved. The Whig factions became, in effect, distinct parties (such as the Grenvillites
and the Bedfordites
), 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 Johnson
, 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 Bute
(1762–1763) and Lord North
(1770–1782); but these politicians considered themselves Whigs.
Applied by their opponents to Parliamentary supporters of the younger William Pitt
(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 Fox
. The fear of the Jacobins in France it could be argued helped to make the term 'Tory' respectable once again – by contrast the Foxite
Whigs were portrayed as revolutionary demons by cartoonists like James Gillray
. However, Pitt rejected the Tory label, preferring to refer to himself as an 'Independent Whig', for, unlike the Tories of the first half of the eighteenth century, he believed in the current constitutional arrangement as being well balanced, without particular favour towards the royal prerogative.
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 ministers in the Portland
government (1807–1809) called themselves the "Friends of Mr Pitt" rather than Tories. Portland's successor, Spencer Perceval
(Prime Minister, 1809–1812), never adopted the label of Tory and after his death (1812) the members of the government of Lord Liverpool
(1812–1827) firmly rejected it in a ministerial memorandum to the Prince Regent:
Generally, the Tories were associated with lesser gentry and the Church of England
(and in Scotland the Episcopal Church
), 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 emancipation
. 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.
, who was an industrialist rather than a landowner. Peel in his 1834 'Tamworth Manifesto
' 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 Peelite
s (Peel's Conservative supporters) joined the Whigs and Radicals to form the Liberal Party
. The remaining Tories, under the leadership of the Earl of Derby
(a former Whig), and Disraeli
(once a Radical candidate for Parliament), adopted the 'Conservative' label as the official name of their party.
Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...
, the Kingdom of Great Britain
Kingdom of Great Britain
The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...
and later the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
from the 17th to the early 19th centuries.
Overview
The first Tories emerged in 1678 in EnglandKingdom of England
The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...
, when they opposed the Whig-supported Exclusion Bill
Exclusion Bill
The Exclusion 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 thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland because he was Roman Catholic...
which set out to disinherit the heir presumptive
Heir Presumptive
An heir presumptive or heiress presumptive is the person provisionally scheduled to inherit a throne, peerage, or other hereditary honour, but whose position can be displaced by the birth of an heir or heiress apparent or of a new heir presumptive with a better claim to the position in question...
and future king to be James, Duke of York
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of 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 Younger
William Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th 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 Liverpool
Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool
Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool KG PC was a British politician and the longest-serving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since the Union with Ireland in 1801. He was 42 years old when he became premier in 1812 which made him younger than all of his successors to date...
.
The Earl of Liverpool was succeeded by fellow Tory Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
, whose term included the Catholic Emancipation
Catholic Emancipation
Catholic 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'Connell
Daniel O'Connell
Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell (6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847; often referred to as The Liberator, or The Emancipator, was an Irish political leader in the first half of the 19th century...
as a Catholic MP in Ireland. When the Whigs subsequently regained control, the Representation of the People Act 1832 disenfranchised many rotten borough
Rotten borough
A "rotten", "decayed" or pocket borough was a parliamentary borough or constituency in the United Kingdom that had a very small electorate and could 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 Peel
Robert Peel
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet was a British Conservative statesman who served as 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 Manifesto
Tamworth Manifesto
The 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 Laws
Corn Laws
The Corn Laws were trade barriers designed to protect cereal producers in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland against competition from less expensive foreign imports between 1815 and 1846. The barriers 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 Derby
Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby
Edward 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. He was known before 1834 as Edward Stanley, and from 1834 to 1851 as Lord Stanley...
and Benjamin Disraeli
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC, FRS, was a British Prime Minister, parliamentarian, Conservative statesman and literary figure. Starting from comparatively humble origins, he served in government for three decades, twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom...
, survived to become the modern Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
, whose members are sometimes still referred to as Tories.
Pre-Tories
The first Tory party could trace its principles and politics, though not its organization, to the English Civil WarEnglish Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
which divided England between the Royalist
Royalist
A 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 "Cavalier
Cavalier
Cavalier was the name used by Parliamentarians for a Royalist supporter of King Charles I and son Charles II during the English Civil War, the Interregnum, and the Restoration...
") supporters of King Charles I and the supporters of the Long Parliament
Long Parliament
The Long Parliament was made 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 dissolution until after the English Civil War and...
which he had declared war on for not allowing him to get money without agreeing to certain terms. In the beginning of the Long Parliament (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'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
which shifted power from Parliament itself to the Parliamentary New Model Army
New Model Army
The New Model Army of England was formed in 1645 by the Parliamentarians in the English Civil War, and was disbanded in 1660 after the Restoration...
, controlled by Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
. The Army had King Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
executed, and for the next eleven years the British kingdoms were under military dictatorship. The Restoration of King Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms 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...
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 Revolution
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...
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 England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
. Charles II's first "Cavalier Parliament
Cavalier Parliament
The 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 War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
) 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 Whigs
British Whig Party
The Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. 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 plots
Popish Plot
The Popish Plot was a fictitious conspiracy concocted by Titus Oates that gripped England, Wales and Scotland in Anti-Catholic hysteria between 1678 and 1681. Oates alleged that there existed an extensive Catholic conspiracy to assassinate Charles II, accusations that led 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 France
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
; second, that his younger brother and heir presumptive
Heir Presumptive
An heir presumptive or heiress presumptive is the person provisionally scheduled to inherit a throne, peerage, or other hereditary honour, but whose position can be displaced by the birth of an heir or heiress apparent or of a new heir presumptive with a better claim to the position in question...
, James, Duke of York
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of 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
Exclusion Bill
The Exclusion 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 thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland because he was Roman Catholic...
crisis of 1678–81. The Whigs
British Whig Party
The Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule...
(initially an insult — 'whiggamore,' a cattle driver,) were those who supported the exclusion of James, the Duke of York
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of 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 England
Throne of England
The 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 has been used in the coronations of British kings for eight centuries...
& Ireland (the 'Petitioners'), and the Tories (also an insult, derived from the Middle Irish word tóraidhe, modern Irish
Irish language
Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
tóraí — outlaw
Outlaw
In historical legal systems, an outlaw is declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, this takes the burden of active prosecution of a criminal from the authorities. Instead, the criminal is withdrawn all legal protection, so that anyone is legally empowered to persecute...
, robber, from the Irish word tóir, meaning 'pursuit', since outlaws were "pursued men".) were those who opposed the Exclusion Bill
Exclusion Bill
The Exclusion 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 thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland because he was Roman Catholic...
(the Abhorrers
Abhorrers
Abhorrers, 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 Parliament
Long Parliament
The Long Parliament was made 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 dissolution until after the English Civil War and...
) to strip the monarchy of its essential prerogative
Royal Prerogative (United Kingdom)
The Royal Prerogative is a body of customary authority, privilege, and immunity, recognised in the United Kingdom as the sole prerogative of the Sovereign. Many of the executive powers of British government, vested in a monarch, have been bestowed under the mandate of the Royal...
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 rebellion
Monmouth Rebellion
The Monmouth Rebellion,The Revolt of the West or The West Country rebellion of 1685, was an attempt to overthrow James II, who had become King of England, King of Scots and King of Ireland at the death of his elder brother Charles II on 6 February 1685. James II was a Roman Catholic, and some...
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 Prayer
Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...
, and subscribing to a specific doctrine
Thirty-Nine Articles
The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion are the historically defining statements of doctrines of the Anglican church with respect to the controversies of the English Reformation. First established in 1563, the articles served to define the doctrine of the nascent Church of England as it related to...
, 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 church
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
to promote policies that undermined the church's own unique status in the state, led some Tories to support the Glorious Revolution
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...
of 1688. The result was a King established solely by Parliamentary title, and subject to legal controls
Bill of Rights 1689
The Bill of Rights or the Bill of Rights 1688 is an Act of the Parliament of England.The Bill of Rights was passed by Parliament on 16 December 1689. It was a re-statement in statutory form of the Declaration of Right presented by the Convention Parliament to William and Mary in March 1689 ,...
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 III
William III of England
William III & II was a sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau 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...
was James II's nephew, and William's wife Mary
Mary II of England
Mary II was joint Sovereign of England, Scotland, and Ireland with her husband and first cousin, William III and II, from 1689 until her death. William and Mary, both Protestants, became king and queen regnant, respectively, following the Glorious Revolution, which resulted in the deposition of...
was James's elder daughter. The Act of Toleration 1689
Act of Toleration 1689
The 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 allowed freedom of worship to Nonconformists who had pledged to the...
also gave rights to Protestant dissenters that were hitherto unknown, while the elimination of a large number of bishops who refused to swear
Non-juror
A 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 of Great Britain
Anne ascended the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland on 8 March 1702. On 1 May 1707, under the Act of Union, two of her realms, England and Scotland, were united as a single sovereign state, the Kingdom of Great Britain.Anne's Catholic father, James II and VII, was deposed during the...
. 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 WhigsWhig Junto
The 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 Marlborough
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, Prince of Mindelheim, KG, PC , was an English soldier and statesman whose career spanned the reigns of five monarchs through the late 17th and early 18th centuries...
and Lord Godolphin
Sidney Godolphin, 1st Earl of Godolphin
Sir Sidney Godolphin, 1st Earl of Godolphin, KG, PC was a leading English politician of the late 17th and early 18th centuries...
.
Opposition
However, the stresses of the War of the Spanish SuccessionWar of the Spanish Succession
The War of the Spanish Succession was fought among several European powers, including a divided Spain, over the possible unification of the Kingdoms of Spain and France under one Bourbon monarch. As France and Spain were among the most powerful states of Europe, such a unification would have...
(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 Marlborough
Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough
Sarah 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 figures...
deteriorated. This situation also became increasingly uncomfortable to many of the non-Junto Whigs, led by the Duke of Somerset
Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset
Charles 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 Shrewsbury
Charles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury
Charles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury, KG, PC was an English statesman. Born to Roman Catholic parents, he remained in that faith until 1679 when—during the time of the Popish Plot and following the advice of the divine John Tillotson—he converted to the Church of England...
, 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 Sacheverell
Henry Sacheverell
Henry Sacheverell was an English High Church clergyman and politician.-Early 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 Mortimer
Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer KG 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...
, Chancellor of the Exchequer (later Lord Treasurer) and Viscount Bolingbroke
Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke
Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke was an English politician, government official and political philosopher. He was a leader of the Tories, and supported the Church of England politically despite his atheism. In 1715 he supported the Jacobite rebellion of 1715 which sought to overthrow the...
, 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 Hanover
George I of Great Britain
George I was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1 August 1714 until his death, and ruler of the Duchy and Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg in the Holy Roman Empire from 1698....
); the peace was enacted despite a Whig majority in the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
, 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
Jacobite Rising of 1715
The Jacobite rising of 1715, often referred to as The 'Fifteen, was the attempt by James Francis Edward Stuart to regain the British throne for the exiled House of Stuart.-Background:...
, 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 Act
Riot Act
The Riot Act was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain that authorised local authorities to declare any group of twelve or more people to be unlawfully assembled, and thus have to disperse or face punitive action...
and the Septennial Act 1715
Septennial Act 1715
The Septennial Act 1715 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. It was passed in May 1716. It increased the maximum length of a parliament from three years to seven...
, 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 II
George II of Great Britain
George 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.George was the last British monarch born outside Great Britain. He was born and brought up in Northern Germany...
, though occasionally individual Tories held office in these monarchs' Whig ministries. For most of this period (at first under the leadership of Sir William Wyndham
Sir William Wyndham, 3rd Baronet
Sir 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 Walpole
Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG, KB, PC , 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 seats
Rotten borough
A "rotten", "decayed" or pocket borough was a parliamentary borough or constituency in the United Kingdom that had a very small electorate and could 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 Elder
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham PC was a British Whig statesman who led Britain during the Seven Years' War...
, and the Duke of Devonshire
William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire
William 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 nominal Prime Minister of Great Britain...
. They remained, however, outside of government.
Period of uncertainty
Upon the accession of George IIIGeorge III of the United Kingdom
George 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 Grenvillites
George Grenville
George Grenville was a British Whig statesman who rose to the position of Prime Minister of Great Britain. Grenville was born into an influential political family and first entered Parliament in 1741 as an MP for Buckingham...
and the Bedfordites
John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford
John 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 Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
, 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 Bute
John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute
John 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 North
Frederick North, Lord North
Frederick 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.
Pitt
William Pitt the Younger
William Pitt the Younger was a British politician of the late 18th and early 19th 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 Fox
Charles James Fox
Charles James Fox PC , styled The Honourable from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned thirty-eight years of the late 18th and early 19th 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 Foxite
Foxite
The 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 Gillray
James Gillray
James Gillray , 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 an 'Independent Whig', for, unlike the Tories of the first half of the eighteenth century, he believed in the current constitutional arrangement as being well balanced, without particular favour towards the royal prerogative.
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 ministers in the Portland
William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland
William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, KG, PC was a British Whig and Tory statesman, Chancellor of the University of Oxford and Prime Minister. He was known before 1762 by the courtesy title Marquess of Titchfield. He held a title of every degree of British nobility—Duke,...
government (1807–1809) called themselves the "Friends of Mr Pitt" rather than Tories. Portland's successor, Spencer Perceval
Spencer Perceval
Spencer Perceval, KC was a British statesman and First Lord of the Treasury, making him de facto Prime Minister. He is the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated...
(Prime Minister, 1809–1812), never adopted the label of Tory and after his death (1812) the members of the government of Lord Liverpool
Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool
Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool KG PC was a British politician and the longest-serving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since the Union with Ireland in 1801. He was 42 years old when he became premier in 1812 which made him younger than all of his successors to date...
(1812–1827) firmly rejected it in a ministerial memorandum to the Prince Regent:
It is almost unnecessary to observe that the British Government had for more than a century been and could only be a Whig Government; and that the present administration is, as every administration in this country must necessarily be, a Whig administration. For a Whig Government means now, as it has all along meant, nothing else than a Government established by laws equally binding upon the King and the subject.
Generally, the Tories were associated with lesser gentry and the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
(and in Scotland the Episcopal Church
Scottish Episcopal Church
The Scottish Episcopal Church is a Christian church in Scotland, consisting of seven dioceses. Since the 17th century, it has had an identity distinct from the presbyterian Church of Scotland....
), 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 emancipation
Catholic Emancipation
Catholic 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 PeelRobert Peel
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet was a British Conservative statesman who served as 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 Manifesto
Tamworth Manifesto
The 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 Peelite
Peelite
The 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 Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
. The remaining Tories, under the leadership of the Earl of Derby
Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby
Edward 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. He was known before 1834 as Edward Stanley, and from 1834 to 1851 as Lord Stanley...
(a former Whig), and Disraeli
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC, FRS, was a British Prime Minister, parliamentarian, Conservative statesman and literary figure. Starting from comparatively humble origins, he served in government for three decades, twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom...
(once a Radical candidate for Parliament), adopted the 'Conservative' label as the official name of their party.