Editing Whigs (British political party) (section)

==== Two-party system ====
[[File:A-Block-for-the-Wigs-Gillray.jpeg|thumb|upright=1.35|In ''A Block for the Wigs'' (1783), caricaturist [[James Gillray]] caricatured [[Charles James Fox]]'s return to power in a coalition with [[Frederick North, Lord North]] ([[George III]] is the blockhead in the centre)]]
Dickinson reports the following:
{{blockquote|All historians are agreed that the Tory party declined sharply in the late 1740s and 1750s and that it ceased to be an organized party by 1760. The research of Sir Lewis Namier and his disciples [...] has convinced all historians that there were no organized political parties in Parliament between the late 1750s and the early 1780s. Even the Whigs ceased to be an identifiable party, and Parliament was dominated by competing political connections, which all proclaimed Whiggish political views, or by independent backbenchers unattached to any particular group.<ref>H. T. Dickinson, "Tories: 1714–1830", in David Loades, ed. ''Reader's Guide to British History'' (2003) 2:1279.</ref>}}

The North administration left power in March 1782 following the [[American Revolution]] and a coalition of the Rockingham Whigs and the former Chathamites, now led by the [[William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne|Earl of Shelburne]], took its place. After Rockingham's unexpected death in July 1782, this uneasy coalition fell apart, with [[Charles James Fox]], Rockingham's successor as faction leader, quarrelling with Shelburne and withdrawing his supporters from the government. The following Shelburne administration was short-lived and Fox returned to power in April 1783, this time in an unexpected coalition with his old enemy Lord North. Although this pairing seemed unnatural to many at the time, it was to last beyond the demise of the coalition in December 1783. The coalition's untimely fall was brought about by George III in league with the House of Lords and the King now brought in Chatham's son [[William Pitt the Younger]] as his prime minister.

It was only now that a genuine two-party system can be seen to emerge, with Pitt and the government on the one side, and the ousted Fox-North coalition on the other. On 17 December 1783, Fox stated in the House of Commons that "[i]f [...] a change must take place, and a new ministry is to be formed and supported, not by the confidence of this House or the public, but the sole authority of the Crown, I, for one, shall not envy that hon. gentleman his situation. From that moment I put in my claim for a monopoly of Whig principles".<ref>Parliamentary History, xxiv, 213, 222, cited in Foord, ''His Majesty's Opposition'', 1714–1830, p. 441</ref> Although Pitt is often referred to as a Tory and Fox as a Whig, Pitt always considered himself to be an independent Whig and generally opposed the development of a strict partisan political system. Fox's supporters saw themselves as legitimate heirs of the Whig tradition and they strongly opposed Pitt in his early years in office, notably during the regency crisis revolving around the King's temporary insanity in 1788–1789, when Fox and his allies supported full powers as regent for their ally, the [[Prince of Wales]].

The opposition Whigs were split by the onset of the [[French Revolution]]. While Fox and some younger members of the party such as [[Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey|Charles Grey]] and [[Richard Brinsley Sheridan]] were sympathetic to the French revolutionaries, others led by [[Edmund Burke]] were strongly opposed. Although Burke himself was largely alone in defecting to Pitt in 1791, much of the rest of the party, including the influential House of Lords leader the [[William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland|Duke of Portland]], Rockingham's nephew [[William Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl Fitzwilliam|Lord Fitzwilliam]] and [[William Windham]], were increasingly uncomfortable with the flirtations of Fox and his allies with radicalism and the French Revolution. They split in early 1793 with Fox over the question of support for the war with France and by the end of the year they had openly broken with Fox. By the summer of the next year, large portions of the opposition had defected and joined Pitt's government.