Tory Party

The Tory Party was formed to oppose the Whigs, who represented newer mercantile and economic interests and became the dominant parliamentary force after the Glorious Revolution. Its significance lay not simply in opposing a rival party: alongside other competing interests and institutional restraints, it helped prevent the Whigs from converting parliamentary ascendancy into a new absolutism.

Formation and Parliamentary Opposition

The Whigs had been founded in the 1670s to represent new mercantile and economic interests, and they became the principal organization behind the Glorious Revolution. After the revolution, their power was substantial but not absolute. The Tory Party formed to oppose them, adding an organized parliamentary counterweight to the new governing order.

The revolution’s political settlement rested on a pluralistic coalition rather than the victory of one elite acting alone. Merchants, industrialists, the gentry, and the aristocracy allied with William of Orange and later with the Hanoverian monarchs who succeeded Queen Anne in 1714; none was strong enough to impose its will unilaterally. Within Parliament, the Tories were an especially important check on Whig ambitions.

Power and Institutional Restraint

The Whigs dominated Parliament from 1714 to 1760. Their new position offered opportunities to encroach on others’ rights, but they faced both competing groups—particularly the Tory Party—and the institutions they had fought to establish against absolutism and a Stuart restoration. The restraints therefore worked in more than one way: party competition limited the governing faction, while the institutional settlement constrained the use of power itself.

The book connects this pluralism to the development of the rule of law. The Glorious Revolution brought together a broad coalition of gentry, merchants, manufacturers, Whigs, and Tories against Stuart absolutism. Because power was shared among multiple groups, laws and constraints had to apply across them; otherwise, one faction could accumulate enough power to undermine the pluralistic order. The Tory presence in Parliament formed part of this wider balance, not a guarantee that every group in society had equal influence.

Limits of Representation and Wider Significance

Parliamentary pluralism did not mean democracy. In the eighteenth century, fewer than two percent of the population could vote, and those voters had to be men. Industrial cities such as Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, and Sheffield lacked independent parliamentary representation, while rural areas were overrepresented. The Tory Party’s role in checking the Whigs thus belonged to a system that constrained concentrated political power while still excluding most people from formal political participation.

The continuing threat of Stuart restoration also shaped the setting in which party competition operated. After James II died in 1701, his son James Francis Edward Stuart was recognized as the lawful heir by France, Spain, the pope, and Jacobite supporters in England and Scotland. Attempts to restore the Stuarts followed, including unsuccessful efforts in 1708 and major Jacobite revolts in 1715 and 1719; in 1745–46, James’s son Charles Edward Stuart led another unsuccessful attempt. Against that background, the Tory Party’s opposition to Whig dominance existed within a broader political settlement formed to prevent both absolutist monarchy and the unchecked rule of a single parliamentary faction.