The Emergence of Court and Country ‘Parties’, 1667–78 (AQA A-Level History): Revision Notes

The Emergence of Court and Country 'Parties', 1667–78

Introduction to political division

The formation of distinct political groupings in England developed gradually during the late 1660s and 1670s. Parliament met in the old chapel at the Palace of Westminster, where seating arrangements naturally encouraged an adversarial format with members facing each other across a central aisle. This physical layout contributed to the development of opposing viewpoints, though organised parties did not emerge until opposition to the Court coalesced around a 'Country' perspective later in the decade.

The period following Clarendon's fall in 1667 witnessed complex interactions between foreign policy decisions, religious toleration debates, and the Crown's relationship with Parliament. Two ministerial groups shaped policy during this era: the Cabal (1667-1674) and subsequently the ministry of the Earl of Danby. Several attempts to broaden religious toleration for both Protestants and Catholics created tension, whilst Charles II's secretive foreign policy centred on France generated increasing suspicion. By the late 1670s, these factors had produced a growing division between Court and Country factions that would eventually evolve into the Tory and Whig parties. Danby attempted to navigate this difficult political landscape, trying to align royal policy with Country sentiment whilst maintaining his own grip on power, even as French power reawakened anti-Catholic feeling in England.

Foreign policy, religion and parliament

The Cabal, 1667-1674

Between 1667 and 1674, Charles II governed with advice from five ministers collectively known as the Cabal – a name derived from the first letters of their surnames. Unlike Clarendon, who had acted as chief minister, Charles deliberately played these advisers against each other, selecting policies that suited his own preferences. The Cabal therefore lacked coordinated policy direction and shared little beyond their High Church Anglicanism. The five members were:

• Sir Thomas Clifford – Treasurer of the Household and a Catholic sympathiser who advocated a pro-French and anti-Dutch foreign policy.
• Anthony Ashley Cooper, First Earl of Shaftesbury – Chancellor of the Exchequer and formerly a Royalist who switched allegiance in 1644 to join Parliament. He became a member of the Council of State in 1653 and participated in the 1660 delegation to The Hague inviting Charles Stuart to return. Cooper later moved into opposition and was dismissed from the Privy Council and his office as Lord Chancellor.
• George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham – Son of Charles I's favourite, Buckingham had fought for Charles Stuart at Worcester in 1651 before going into exile. After returning to England in 1657, he married Mary Fairfax, daughter of Parliament's 1640s Lord General. Imprisoned until 1660, he joined the Privy Council where he became one of Clarendon's principal opponents.
• Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington – Another Clarendon opponent, Arlington was a Catholic who advised Charles during his exile. He collaborated closely with Clifford, the other Catholic in the Cabal.
• John Maitland, Duke of Lauderdale – A Presbyterian Scot who had initially supported the Covenant but then backed the Engagement and the King during the Second Civil War in 1648. Captured at Worcester and imprisoned until 1660, he became Secretary of State for Scotland after the Restoration.

Rivalries existed within the Cabal, particularly between Buckingham and Arlington, making consistent policy difficult to identify. Two linked developments characterised this period: a pro-French foreign policy and attempts to increase toleration for Dissenters and Catholics. This lack of coherent direction created uncertainty in Parliament and fed growing suspicions that the King pursued his own concealed objectives.

The Secret Treaty of Dover, 1670

During the mid-seventeenth century, France replaced Spain as Europe's dominant power. Spanish decline and France's long-term reconstruction following the civil wars of the sixteenth century created this shift. After 1661, when Louis XIV began personal rule, his policies and reforms unlocked French economic and demographic potential – France's population of approximately 20 million compared to England's 4.5 million. This demographic and economic strength transformed France into a formidable military power.

Charles II favoured a pro-French policy for several reasons. Part of his exile had been spent at the French court, where his French mother, Henrietta Maria (aunt of Louis XIV), had influenced him. His favourite sister, Minette, married the Duke of Orleans, Louis's brother. The splendour of the French court at the newly constructed royal palace of Versailles represented the height of European culture. French achievements in language, music, art, philosophy and literature established the cultural tone across Europe.

Louis XIV's foreign policy during the 1670s increasingly placed Charles in opposition to English national sentiment, which was growing more anti-Catholic. Two wars demonstrated Louis's expansionist ambitions:

• The War of Devolution, 1667-68
• The Dutch War, 1672-78

In the War of Devolution, Louis pursued a dynastic claim to Spanish Netherlands territories, asserting they constituted the rightful inheritance of his wife, Maria Theresa. Louis XIV's military successes alarmed Charles II and the Dutch, leading them to end the second Anglo-Dutch War in January 1668 and form a Triple Alliance with Sweden.

Responding to the Triple Alliance, Louis XIV opened negotiations with Charles II to isolate the Dutch. In May 1670, Charles and Louis concluded the Secret Treaty of Dover, which had momentous consequences for Charles's reign. England and France agreed to attack the Dutch together. Assuming victory, both countries would partition the Dutch Republic, with the remainder governed by Charles II's nephew, William of Orange. Much of the Treaty's content became public knowledge in February 1672. What remained concealed, however, was Charles II's promise to declare himself Catholic when circumstances permitted, with Louis agreeing to pay Charles £225,000 annually.

Louis XIV could now use the threat of making the treaty public to blackmail Charles and compromise English foreign policy independence. Why Charles II signed the Secret Treaty of Dover remains debatable. He may have believed aligning with Europe's most powerful kingdom made strategic sense. Domestically, the treaty's consequences proved immensely damaging. During the 1670s, Parliament grew suspicious that the public treaty concealed additional secret elements. The Third Dutch War of 1672-1674 raised questions about whether England's interests or the Crown's interests governed the monarchy.

During the Exclusion Crisis in 1678, the former English ambassador to France, Ralph Montague, revealed to Parliament that Charles had been negotiating a secret subsidy treaty with Louis XIV, confirming parliamentary suspicions about the Secret Treaty of Dover's existence, though its full details never emerged.

In March 1672, allied with France, Charles II declared war on the Dutch. Initially the war progressed well for France, with captured towns forcing the Dutch to abandon their first defensive lines. England's war effort proved less effective, producing only inconclusive naval battles. The war generated important consequences: it provoked the first substantial continental coalition against Louis XIV, including the Dutch, the Emperor Leopold and the Elector of Brandenburg. In the United Provinces, war led to governmental change: Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelius were assassinated, bringing William of Orange to power as Stadtholder. In England, the war became unpopular as Catholic France's strength intensified anti-Dutch sentiment. Parliament refused to vote funds to continue the war, forcing Charles to make peace through the Treaty of Westminster in February 1674.

In 1674, the Earl of Danby finally replaced the Cabal as Charles's principal adviser. Danby pursued a much different policy: in November 1677 he negotiated an Anglo-Dutch treaty and arranged a marriage between James Duke of York's eldest daughter, Mary, and William of Orange, the new Stadtholder of Holland. In December 1677 he negotiated an Anglo-Dutch treaty in which England agreed to compel Louis XIV to make peace with Holland through military force if necessary. Parliament voted to raise an army of 30,000 men and £1 million for this purpose.

In August 1677, Ralph Montagu, the English Ambassador to Paris, negotiated a new secret arrangement with Louis: if England remained at peace with France and Charles kept parliament prorogued, Louis would grant Charles 2 million livres. Danby knew of this negotiation but occupied an impossible position, needing to please France and honour what he considered Charles's best interests. A further secret treaty was negotiated in May 1678. Charles agreed to disband the new army of 30,000 men and keep parliament prorogued in return for additional French money. This promise antagonised Louis by accepting the funds whilst keeping the army voted for him by parliament. By this stage neither the Dutch nor Louis trusted Charles, and in July 1678 they negotiated an end to the Dutch War with the Treaty of Nijmegen.

Parliament was deeply divided between Court and Country factions, the Court defending Charles's prerogative rights over foreign policy whilst the Country harboured deep suspicions about the King's motives. This volatile situation would eventually push the kingdom into a serious political and constitutional crisis.

Treatment of Dissenters and Catholics

Alongside uncertainties about Charles's foreign policy came doubt about his attitude towards religion and the laws governing religious practice established by the Cavalier Parliament. Before 1672, Charles and Clarendon had attempted unsuccessfully to reach a Church settlement allowing Presbyterians to work alongside Anglican bishops. During the early years of his reign, Charles appears to have used his royal authority to soften the Clarendon Code's impact. In 1668, the Conventicle Act expired without renewal, giving non-conformists opportunities to meet together in larger numbers. His interventionist efforts reached their height in 1672 when, on 15 March, he issued a second Declaration of Indulgence in England, claiming a dispensing power over penal laws against both non-conformists and Catholics.

Combined with the French alliance against the Dutch, this raised suspicions about Charles's Catholic sympathies, with his declared support for Protestant non-conformists appearing as camouflage for suspending penal laws against Catholics. Predictably, Parliament reacted by defending the law and denying that the King's dispensing power extended so broadly. In 1669, Parliament refused to grant the King a £300,000 subsidy in response to the lapsed Conventicle Act. In 1672, Parliament attacked the Declaration of Indulgence as unconstitutional, forcing Charles to withdraw the Declaration and issue instead a Test Act.

The revelation that James, Duke of York, was a Catholic

Playing on English fears of Catholicism, the Dutch initiated a propaganda campaign designed to drive a wedge between the King's policy and public opinion. The most effective pamphlet appeared in 1673 and circulated widely in England: Peter du Moulin's England's Appeal from the Private Cabal at Whitehall to the Great Council of the Nation drove home the message that 'France, Popery and Absolutism' formed interconnected parts of a hostile grand design.

Dutch propaganda therefore landed on receptive ground, and suspicions grew that Charles operated under Louis XIV's influence. These revelations and suspicions led to a noticeable change in Charles's relations with Parliament, which in late 1673 and early 1674 compiled a list of complaints and draft legislation similar to that produced by the Long Parliament before the civil war:

• A new Test Act was proposed to exclude Catholics from both Houses of Parliament
• In the event of Catholic succession, the King's children were to be educated by Protestants
• Parliament drafted legislation to limit the prerogative powers of a future Catholic monarch
• The French alliance faced criticism
• The Cabal came under attack – Buckingham and Lauderdale were to be excluded from the Privy Council and Arlington was to be impeached

Confronted by these developments, Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Earl of Shaftesbury, abandoned the Cabal. Convinced that Dutch propaganda was essentially accurate and that the King maintained a secret Catholic agenda, he urged Charles to divorce Catherine of Braganza and remarry to produce an heir. As Shaftesbury moved into opposition, Charles dismissed him from the Privy Council and from his office as Lord Chancellor.

Key dates: religion, dissent and finance

1671

• September: Crown resumed direct administration of customs duties

1672

• January: Stop of the Exchequer

1673

• February: Parliament granted the Crown £1,126,000; Declaration of Indulgence; Bill for Relief of Protestant Dissenters
• March: Declaration of Indulgence withdrawn; Test Act
• April: James, Duke of York, refused to take Holy Communion with the Anglican sacraments
• June: James, Duke of York and Clifford resigned their commissions; Danby became Lord Treasurer
• September: James, Duke of York married Mary of Modena; Shaftesbury dismissed from office of Lord Chancellor

1674

• January: New Test Act proposed; proposals to limit power of any future Catholic monarch; Parliament attacked remaining members of the Cabal

1675

• April: Test Bill introduced into the House of Lords
• October: Parliament granted only £300,000 and added an appropriation clause to the supply bill

1677

• February: Shaftesbury, Buckingham, Salisbury and Wharton imprisoned by Parliament for claiming that it had been dissolved; appropriation clause on supply bill defeated; Danby supported limits on power of any future Catholic monarch

1678

• January: Country MPs increasingly distrustful of the Court

Danby, Parliament and royal finances

After the Cabal's disintegration in 1674, Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby, acted as Charles's chief minister. Danby's aims were to:

• remain in power
• restore order to royal finances
• restore good relations between Crown and Parliament by returning to 'Cavalier' policies
• support a High Anglican policy of support for the Clarendon Code and the Church of England
• persuade Charles II to follow a pro-Dutch foreign policy

Although he held power for only four years, Danby oversaw changes that facilitated more professional state management. In 1672, Charles had been forced to introduce a Stop of the Exchequer, suspending for one year the repayment of loans to government creditors. The Stop made finding credit more difficult. Danby therefore inherited a challenging task, but he came to power when public finances were actually improving. This improvement resulted from a combination of factors, some economic and some directly related to growing state administrative competence and structure.

In 1670-71, the Crown's ordinary revenue totalled £840,170; by 1678-79 it reached £1,063,723. Danby's achievement was undercut by Charles's extravagance, so when he left the treasury in 1679 the royal debt stood actually £750,000 higher than it was in 1674, but beneath the debt was a more professional structure.

Court and Country divisions

During the 1670s, political opinion became increasingly divided between Court and Country, a process that developed into the Tory and Whig political parties. 'Country' sentiment was the first to appear and to make its presence felt in Parliament. This had occurred before, in the 1630s, when Country sentiment viewed the Court as Catholic, exclusive, corrupt and un-English. In 1642, this had produced important consequences when the King failed to find support among many of the country gentry. Now, in the 1670s, a similar process was developing.

Country opinion believed that Charles II's court was out of touch with the ideals and sentiments of most of the nation. In particular, Charles's known preference for pro-French policies were deeply unpopular because they contradicted the anti-Catholic prejudices of the population majority. The problem extended beyond this: Charles's Declarations of Indulgence and his known preference for toleration of both Catholics and Dissenters provoked Anglican opposition in a country which felt it had only just survived the religious radicalism of the civil war period. The influence of the Catholic members of the Cabal (Clifford and Arlington), the presence at Court of Henrietta Maria (until 1665), the authoritarianism of the Duke of York and the Queen's influence, all gave the impression that the Court remained essentially unreformed.

By 1673, the emergence of a Country party in Parliament was producing a noticeable impact on politics. 'France, Popery and Absolutism' became a common and effective criticism of royal policy. Consequently the parliamentary sessions of late 1673 and early 1674 were dominated by demands for a new Test Act to exclude Catholics from Parliament, attacks on royal ministers and demands that the King's children should be educated by Protestants. One historian Barry Coward has questioned whether any sort of organised party 'machine' existed in the 1670s, but even he concedes that Country MPs were coordinating their attacks on the King's government.

Historian Barry Coward writes that although evidence is limited, brief glimpses appear of MPs in the early 1670s meeting to coordinate tactics before and during parliamentary sessions. Inevitably those who did this were usually critical of the court, echoing the Crown's critics before 1640, accusing it of corruption and extravagance at the expense of impoverished gentry and harbouring conspiracies to introduce absolutism. By 1674 a hard core of such 'opposition' MPs existed, including Sir William Coventry, Lord Cavendish, William Russell, Sir Thomas Meres and William Sacheverell. Additionally, from summer 1673 onwards there was a strong political issue – James's Catholicism – around which opposition groups could coalesce. To that extent by 1673-74 a 'country party' had emerged.

The Cabal's fall and Danby's rise as Charles's chief minister has raised the possibility that a 'Court party' formed in response to 'Country' opposition. Danby's management of Parliament certainly aimed at countering and reassuring country sentiment. Perhaps for the first time since James I's reign, the Crown had a minister who understood MPs' motives and concerns. His purpose was to build a core of MPs who could be relied upon to support the Crown – in effect, a Court party. He achieved this through patronage, a mixture of bribes and offices and by entertaining individuals through his own personal largesse. Inevitably his efforts provoked a reaction that further helped to form a Country opposition to Court policies.

Conscious of the Country opposition to the Court, Danby pursued 'Cavalier' policies aimed at winning more popular support. The most important aspect of this was his support for the High Anglican Church settlement and for the Clarendon Code. From 1674 onwards Charles virtually gave up his earlier support for a policy of broad toleration and fell in with Parliament's preferred policy of persecuting Dissenters. Danby was unsuccessful, however, in his attempts to persuade Charles to adopt an anti-French foreign policy, possibly because Charles knew that Louis could expose the Secret Treaty of Dover if pushed too hard.

The consequences of this growing rift between 'Court' and 'Country' are difficult to pin down with certainty, and perhaps historians have been guilty of the classic historical trap of reading history backwards – knowing that the Tory and Whig parties emerged during the Exclusion Crisis after 1678, they have looked back at the earlier part of the decade and seen the prototypes of these associations in Court and Country sentiment. Nevertheless, the speed with which the Whigs and Tories identified their positions at the end of the decade does suggest that they were building on prepared ground. It also suggests that Charles II managed to squander the unity and goodwill of the Restoration by pursuing policies associated in many people's minds with absolutism, Catholicism, corruption and intrigue.