Editing Whigs (British political party) (section)

=== 18th century ===
Although William's successor [[Anne, Queen of Great Britain|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 [[John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough|Duke of Marlborough]] and [[Sidney Godolphin, 1st Earl of Godolphin|Lord Godolphin]]. However, as the [[War of the Spanish Succession]] went on and became less and less popular with the Tories, Marlborough and Godolphin were forced to rely more and more on the Junto Whigs, so that by 1708 they headed an administration of the [[Parliament of Great Britain]] dominated by the Junto. Anne herself grew increasingly uncomfortable with this dependence on the Whigs, especially as her personal relationship with the [[Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough|Duchess of Marlborough]] deteriorated. This situation also became increasingly uncomfortable to many of the non-Junto Whigs, led by the [[Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset|Duke of Somerset]] and the [[Charles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury|Duke of Shrewsbury]], who began to intrigue with [[Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer|Robert Harley's]] Tories. In the spring of 1710, Anne dismissed Godolphin and the Junto ministers, replacing them with Tories.<ref name="Keith Feiling 1714"/>

The Whigs now moved into opposition and particularly decried the 1713 [[Treaty of Utrecht]], which they attempted to block through their majority in the [[House of Lords]]. The Tory administration led by Harley and the [[Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke|Viscount Bolingbroke]] persuaded the Queen to create twelve new Tory peers to force the treaty through.<ref>The twelve peers consisted of two who were [[Writ of acceleration|summoned in their father's baronies]], Lords Compton (Northampton) and Bruce (Ailesbury); and ten recruits, namely Lords Hay (Kinnoull), Mountjoy, Burton (Paget), Mansell, Middleton, Trevor, Lansdowne, Masham, Foley and Bathurst. David Backhouse. [http://www.history.ac.uk/eseminars/sem17.html#3 "Tory Tergiversation In The House of Lords, 1714–1760"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060628080733/http://www.history.ac.uk/eseminars/sem17.html#3 |date=28 June 2006 }}.</ref>

==== Liberal ideals ====
{{main|Whiggism}}
The Whigs primarily advocated the supremacy of Parliament, while calling for toleration for Protestant dissenters. They adamantly opposed a Catholic as king.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Hamowy |first=Ronald |author-link=Ronald Hamowy|encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism|title=Whiggism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC  |year=2008 |publisher= [[SAGE Publishing|SAGE]]; [[Cato Institute]] |location= Thousand Oaks, California|isbn= 978-1-4129-6580-4|oclc=750831024|lccn=2008009151|pages=542–543}}</ref> They opposed the Catholic Church because they saw it as a threat to liberty, or as [[William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham|Pitt the Elder]] stated: "The errors of Rome are rank idolatry, a subversion of all civil as well as religious liberty, and the utter disgrace of reason and of human nature".<ref>{{cite book |first=Basil |last=Williams |title=The Whig Supremacy: 1714–1760 |year=1949 |publisher=Clarendon Press |page=75 |oclc=2963203 }}</ref>

Ashcraft and Goldsmith (1983) have traced in detail, in the period 1689 to 1710, the major influence of the liberal political ideas of [[John Locke]] on Whig political values, as expressed in widely cited manifestos such as "Political Aphorisms: or, the True Maxims of Government Displayed", an anonymous pamphlet that appeared in 1690 and was widely cited by Whigs.<ref>{{cite journal |first1=Richard |last1=Ashcraft |first2=M. M. |last2=Goldsmith |title=Locke, Revolution Principles, and the Formation of Whig Ideology |journal=Historical Journal |year=1983 |volume=26 |issue=4 |pages=773–800 |doi=10.1017/S0018246X00012693 }}</ref> The 18th-century Whigs borrowed the concepts and language of universal rights employed by political theorists Locke and [[Algernon Sidney]] (1622–1682).<ref>{{cite journal |first=Melinda S. |last=Zook |title=The Restoration Remembered: The First Whigs and the Making of their History |journal=Seventeenth Century |year=2002 |volume=17 |issue=2 |pages=213–34 |doi=10.1080/0268117X.2002.10555509 }}</ref> By the 1770s the ideas of [[Adam Smith]], a founder of [[classical liberalism]] became important. As Wilson and Reill (2004) note: "Adam Smith's theory melded nicely with the liberal political stance of the Whig Party and its middle-class constituents".<ref>{{cite book |first1=Ellen |last1=Wilson |first2=Peter |last2=Reill |title=Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment |year=2004 |page=298 }}</ref>

[[Samuel Johnson]] (1709–1784), a leading London intellectual, repeatedly denigrated the "vile"<ref>Boswell's Life of Johnson, Vol 2, p502</ref> Whigs and praised the Tories, even during times of Whig political supremacy. In his great ''Dictionary'' (1755), Johnson defined a Tory as "one who adheres to the ancient Constitution of the state and the apostolical hierarchy of the Church of England, opposed to a Whig". He linked 18th-century [[Whiggism]] with 17th-century revolutionary Puritanism, arguing that the Whigs of his day were similarly inimical to the established order of church and state. Johnson recommended that strict uniformity in religious externals was the best antidote to the objectionable religious traits that he linked to Whiggism.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Chester |last=Chapin |title=Religion and the Nature of Samuel Johnson's Toryism |journal=Cithara |year=1990 |volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=38–54 }}</ref>

==== Protectionism ====
At their inception, the Whigs were [[Protectionism|protectionist]] in economic policy, with [[free trade]] policies being advocated by Tories.<ref name="Ashley">{{cite book |first=W. J. |last=Ashley |title=Surveys: Historic and Economic |year=1900 |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_hh8aAAAAYAAJ }}</ref>{{rp|pp=270–71}} The Whigs were opposed to the pro-French policies of the Stuart kings Charles II and James II as they believed that such an alliance with the Catholic [[absolute monarchy]] of France endangered liberty and Protestantism. The Whigs claimed that trade with France was bad for England and developed an economic theory of overbalance, that is a deficit of trade with France was bad because it would enrich France at England's expense.<ref name="Ashley" />{{rp|pp=270–74}}

In 1678, the Whigs passed the [[Prohibition of 1678]] that banned certain French goods from being imported into England. The economic historian [[William Ashley (economic historian)|William Ashley]] claimed that this Act witnessed the "real starting-point in the history of Whig policy in the matter of trade".<ref name="Ashley" />{{rp|271}} It was repealed upon the accession of James II by a Tory-dominated House of Commons but upon the accession of William III in 1688 a new [[Trade with France Act 1688|Act]] was passed that prohibited the importation of French goods.<ref name="Ashley" />{{rp|283}} In 1704, the Whigs passed the [[Trade with France Act 1704|Trade with France Act]] that renewed protectionism against France. In 1710, Queen Anne appointed the predominantly Tory [[Harley Ministry]], which favoured free trade. When the Tory minister Lord Bolingbroke proposed a commercial treaty with France in 1713 that would have led to freer trade, the Whigs were vehemently against it and it had to be abandoned.<ref name="Ashley" />{{rp|pp=271, 299}}

In 1786, Pitt's government negotiated the [[Eden Agreement]], a commercial treaty with France which led to freer trade between the two countries. All of the Whig leaders attacked this on traditional Whig anti-French and protectionist grounds. Fox claimed that France was England's natural enemy and that it was only at Britain's expense that she could grow. [[Edmund Burke]], [[Richard Brinsley Sheridan|Richard Sheridan]], [[William Windham]] and [[Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey|Charles Grey]] all spoke out against the trade agreement on the same grounds.<ref>{{cite book |first=Henry Offley |last=Wakeman |title=Charles James Fox |location=London |publisher=Gibbings and Company |year=1909 |page=127 |oclc=679500221 }}</ref>

Ashley claimed that "[t]he traditional policy of the Whig party from before the Revolution [of 1688] down to the time of Fox was an extreme form of Protectionism".<ref>{{cite book |first=W. J. |last=Ashley |title=The Tariff Problem |location=London |publisher=Routledge |year=1998 |page=21 |isbn=0-415-19467-9 }}</ref> The Whigs' protectionism of this period is today increasingly cited with approval by heterodox economists such as [[Ha-Joon Chang]], who wish to challenge contemporary prevailing free trade orthodoxies via precedents from the past.<ref>{{Cite book |title=23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism |author=Ha-Joon Chang |year=2010 |publisher=Allen Lane |location=London |page=70 |isbn=978-1-84614-328-1 }}</ref>

Later on, several members from the Whig party came to oppose the protectionism of the [[Corn Laws]], but trade restrictions were not repealed even after the Whigs returned to power in the 1830s.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The 1815–46 Corn Laws: your guide to the crisis and why they were repealed |url=https://www.historyextra.com/period/victorian/corn-laws-guide-what-impact-why-repealed-benefit/ |access-date=2022-05-02 |website=History Extra |language=en}}</ref>

==== Whig Supremacy ====
[[File:Portrait of John Somers, Baron Somers.jpg|thumb|A {{circa|1705}} portrait of [[John Somers, 1st Baron Somers]] by [[Godfrey Kneller]].]]
With the succession of [[Prince-elector|Elector]] [[George I of Great Britain|George Louis]] of [[Hanover]] as king in 1714, the Whigs returned to government with the support of some [[Hanoverian Tories]]. The [[Jacobite rising of 1715]] discredited much of the [[Tories (British political party)|Tory]] party as treasonous [[Jacobitism|Jacobites]], and the [[Septennial Act 1716|Septennial Act]] ensured that the Whigs became the dominant party, establishing the Whig oligarchy. Between 1717 and 1720 the [[Whig Split]] led to a division in the party. Government Whigs led by the former soldier [[James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope|James Stanhope]] were opposed by [[Robert Walpole]] and his allies. While Stanhope was backed by George I, Walpole and his supporters were closer to the [[George II of Great Britain|Prince of Wales]]. Following his success in defeating the government over the [[Peerage Bill]] in 1719, Walpole was invited back into government the following year. He was able to defend the government in the Commons when the [[South Sea Company|South Sea Bubble]] collapsed. When Stanhope died unexpectedly in 1721, Walpole replaced him as leader of the government and became known as the first [[Prime Minister]]. In the [[1722 British general election|1722 general election]] the Whigs swept to a decisive victory.

Between 1714 and 1760, the Tories struggled as an active political force, but always retained a considerable presence in the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]]. The governments of Walpole, [[Henry Pelham]] and his older brother the [[Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle|Duke of Newcastle]] dominated between 1721 and 1757 (with a brief break during the also-Whig [[Carteret ministry]]). The leading entities in these governments consistently referred to themselves as "Whigs".<ref>{{cite book |first1=Basil |last1=Williams |first2=C. H. |last2=Stuart |title=The Whig Supremacy, 1714–1760 |year=1962 |publisher=Clarendon Press |oclc=827608 }}</ref>

==== George III's accession ====
This arrangement changed during the reign of [[George III of Great Britain|George III]], who hoped to restore his own power by freeing himself from the great Whig magnates. Thus George promoted his old tutor [[John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute|Lord Bute]] to power and broke with the old Whig leadership surrounding the Duke of Newcastle. After a decade of factional chaos, with distinct [[Bedfordite]], [[William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham|Chathamite]], [[Grenvillite]] and [[Rockingham Whigs|Rockinghamite]] factions successively in power and all referring to themselves as "Whigs", a new system emerged with two separate opposition groups. The [[Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham|Rockingham]] Whigs claimed the mantle of Old Whigs as the purported successors of the party of the Pelhams and the great Whig families. With such noted intellectuals as [[Edmund Burke]] behind them, the Rockingham Whigs laid out a philosophy which for the first time extolled the virtues of faction, or at least their faction. The other group were the followers of [[William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham|Lord Chatham]], who as the great political hero of the [[Seven Years' War]] generally took a stance of opposition to party and faction.<ref>{{cite book |first=Warren M. |last=Elofson |title=The Rockingham Connection and the Second Founding of the Whig Party 1768–1773 |year=1996 |publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press |location=Montreal |isbn=0-7735-1388-4 }}</ref>

The Whigs were opposed by the government of [[Frederick North, Lord North|Lord North]] which they accused of being a Tory administration. While it largely consisted of individuals previously associated with the Whigs, many old Pelhamites as well as the Bedfordite Whig faction formerly led by the [[John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford|Duke of Bedford]] and elements of that which had been led by [[George Grenville]], it also contained elements of the Kings' Men, the group formerly associated with Lord Bute and which was generally seen as Tory-leaning.<ref>{{cite book |first=Keith |last=Feiling |title=The Second Tory Party, 1714–1832 |year=1938 |publisher=Macmillan |location=London |oclc=932376 }}</ref>

==== American impact ====
The association of Toryism with Lord North's government was also influential in the American colonies and writings of British political commentators known as the [[Radical Whigs]] did much to stimulate colonial [[Republicanism in the United States|republican]] sentiment. Early activists in the [[Thirteen Colonies|colonies]] called themselves Whigs,{{example needed|date=November 2015}} seeing themselves as in alliance with the political opposition in Britain, until they turned to independence and started emphasising the label [[Patriot (American Revolution)|Patriots]].{{citation needed|date =September 2023|reason= When and how ow did the patriot label come about? }} In contrast, the American [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|Loyalists]], who supported the monarchy, were consistently also referred to as Tories.

Later, the [[United States Whig Party]] was founded in 1833 on the basis of opposition to a strong [[President of the United States|presidency]], initially the presidency of [[Andrew Jackson]], analogous to the British Whig opposition to a strong monarchy.<ref>{{cite book |first=Daniel Walker |last=Howe |title=The American Whigs: An Anthology |year=1973 |isbn=0-471-41671-1 }}</ref> The [[True Whig Party]], which for a century dominated [[Liberia]], was named for the American party rather than directly for the British one.

==== 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.