Party Politics in the Reign of William and Mary (AQA A-Level History): Revision Notes
Party politics in the reign of William and Mary
The period following the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89 witnessed a profound transformation in English political culture. The Revolution's legacy included the deepening entrenchment of party politics, with contemporaries describing this era as one of "the rage of party". Under the 1694 Triennial Act, which mandated elections every three years, partisan competition in both the House of Commons and individual constituencies reached unprecedented intensity. This chapter examines the issues that divided the emerging Whig and Tory parties during William and Mary's reign.
Origins and early development of political parties
In the early seventeenth century, organised political parties did not exist. The term 'parties' carried negative connotations, being equated with 'factions' - divisive groups seen as harmful to the kingdom. Political activity centred on the Court and the monarch's favourites rather than on Parliament. This arrangement reflected the post-Elizabethan age of personal monarchy and occasional parliaments, where the Court served as the source of patronage.
Although factions sometimes coalesced around particular individuals or against them (as occurred with the Duke of Buckingham), the concept of forming a semi-permanent parliamentary group to oppose royal policies would have been considered treasonous. Even during the civil wars, when Parliament divided between Presbyterians and Independents, these groupings remained unaligned and lacked any resemblance to party organisation.
The reign of Charles II marked the beginning of party formation. A 'Country' party emerged in response to widespread concerns that the Court harboured pro-Catholic and pro-French sympathies. Facing mounting opposition to the King's government, the Earl of Danby deliberately created a 'Court' faction in the 1670s to expedite royal business through Parliament. This represented not yet a political party but rather a core group of supporters upon whom the Crown could rely to advance its agenda.
However, during the Exclusion Crisis, the Country and Court factions rapidly evolved into the Whig and Tory parties over the succession question. The Earl of Shaftesbury emerged as the Whigs' first national leader. By 1681, the Whigs had become identifiable through their opposition to a Catholic succession, whilst the Tories distinguished themselves by insisting that social order depended upon the observance of legal and political rights, beginning with the Duke of York's right to succeed.
From 1681 to 1688, the Tories gained ascendancy as the Crown manipulated local politics through quo warranto proceedings - legal challenges that allowed the Crown to revoke borough charters and rebuild Tory support in local government. These proceedings involved the Crown questioning by what warrant (authority) a borough held its privileges, then using this process to install more compliant officials.
The Glorious Revolution and shifting party positions
The Glorious Revolution restored confidence to the Whig party, delivering the Protestant monarch they had sought. However, many Tories also supported James II's overthrow, though they could only reconcile themselves to this action by arguing that the King had abdicated by abandoning his kingdom.
Fundamental Disagreement over 1688
The Whigs and Tories developed diametrically opposed explanations for the events of 1688:
- Tories maintained: James had abdicated by abandoning the kingdom
- Whigs contended: James had been lawfully overthrown for violating the social contract existing between a monarch and his people
For the Tories, the notion that the people possessed a 'right' to depose a monarch proved dangerous and unacceptable.
This fundamental disagreement between party positions widened further over the religious settlement and the treatment of Dissenters. A strange reversal had occurred in Whig and Tory attitudes since the Revolution: by the mid-1690s, the Whigs found themselves defending royal prerogative through their close association with the Court, whilst the Tories became associated with the old 'country' suspicion of government and its centralising tendencies.
In 1696, responding to their tenuous position, a group of Tory businessmen attempted to create a 'Land Bank' to offer credit without funding a national debt. The project failed to attract substantial support. As the Whigs attempted to dissociate themselves from their radical past, the political alliance between the Tories and the 'old Whigs' of the 1680s strengthened.
Nevertheless, the Whigs received reinforcement from the revelation of a plot to assassinate William III, which they exploited to identify opponents by requiring an oath of loyalty. Some 19 Tory peers and 90 MPs refused this oath. In 1696, an 'association oath' was employed to purge Tory doubters from local offices, with vacancies filled by Whig placemen - individuals appointed to positions through political patronage rather than merit.
Divisions in the political nation
The Nine Years War exerted considerable impact on party politics. The financial costs of the war, combined with concerns about maladministration and corruption, forged a realignment of political parties whereby country Whigs and Tories gradually worked together to curb the Crown's financial excesses.
Initially, both parties supported the war effort and accepted its considerable costs. James II's invasion of Ireland in 1690 forced William to confront him there, where James suffered defeat at the Battle of the Boyne. However, the war brought home the threat of invasion when the French achieved victory at the Battle of Beachy Head, temporarily helping to smooth relations between Whigs and Tories in Parliament.
The two parties co-operated during William's first parliament (1690-94) to pass the financial legislation required to prosecute the war. Yet the war also led to much closer parliamentary scrutiny of wartime spending. Parliament developed the practice of calling royal officials to account for public expenditure and began appropriating grants of money for specific uses.
These 'innovations' worried Tories because they perceived in them an attack on royal prerogatives - the Crown's traditional rights and powers. By approximately 1693, relations between the Whigs and Tories were deteriorating steadily.
William III grew increasingly disillusioned with the nature of English politics. His chief ministers, the Earls of Nottingham and Danby, had survived the failure of the Exclusion Crisis and found their way back into government. Needing the support of a more capable parliamentary manager, William turned to the Earl of Sunderland. On Sunderland's advice, William promoted Whigs to numerous prominent government positions.
The Whig Junto, 1695-1701
From 1695 to 1701, parliamentary politics fell under the domination of a group of Whig politicians known collectively as the Junto. This oligarchy comprised:
- Sir John Somers
- Philip Lord Wharton
- Charles Montague (Lord Halifax)
- Admiral Edward Russell
- Sir John Trenchard
Their power and influence derived from their ability to gain parliamentary supplies for the war with France. Their chief aim appears to have been controlling royal patronage and government offices.
With the Whigs in the ascendant, the Tories began defining themselves as united in opposition to the direction of Whig policy. Four issues now divided Whig and Tory opinion. Perhaps chief among these was Tory opposition to the strategy of continental war, which required large armies and high taxation.
This opposition linked to growing suspicion that England's wealth was being appropriated by the Dutch to fight a foreign war. Like Parliament in 1618-24, the Tories preferred a 'blue water strategy' - an approach focusing on naval power and attacks on French commerce rather than land campaigns. As with James I and his Scottish advisers, resentment grew at William's Dutch connections and the influence of Dutch advisers at Court.
Four key issues dividing Whigs and Tories
Religion
Religious questions remained contentious throughout this period. The Whigs proved more likely to support religious dissent and backed the Toleration Act, which granted Protestant Dissenters freedom of worship. They opposed the Test and Corporation Acts, which excluded Dissenters from public office by requiring Anglican communion.
The Tories, by contrast, supported the Church of England and opposed dissent. They believed the Toleration Act promoted atheism and irreligion. Tories opposed occasional conformity - the practice whereby Dissenters took Anglican communion once annually to qualify for office - and supported maintaining the Test and Corporation Acts as safeguards for the established Church.
The constitution
The legitimacy of the 1688 Revolution remained a source of profound disagreement. The Whigs justified the Revolution through three possible theoretical frameworks:
Whig Theoretical Justifications for the Revolution:
- Resistance theory - held that the people possessed the right to resist a tyrant
- Contract theory (associated with John Locke) - maintained that the people had the right to depose a ruler who broke the 'contract' existing between king and subject
- Ancient constitution - argued that James II was guilty of violating his sacred coronation oath
Whigs generally held that sovereignty lay with the people.
The Tories rejected revolutionary interpretations. They insisted that 1688 was not a revolution; rather, James II had either abdicated the throne or deserted it. Some argued that William III became king by right of conquest. Tories maintained that sovereignty resided with the 'King-in-Parliament' - the monarch acting with parliamentary consent - rather than with the people alone. They remained unhappy with all theories positing a right of resistance to lawful authority, viewing such doctrines as subversive to social order.
The succession
Following the death of Queen Mary in 1694 and particularly after the death of the Duke of Gloucester in 1700, the succession question acquired renewed urgency.
The Whigs supported the Hanoverian succession and therefore backed the Act of Settlement in 1701, which designated the Protestant House of Hanover as heirs to the throne. Whigs accused Tories of being Jacobites - secret supporters of the exiled James II and his son James Edward Stuart.
The Tories, whilst unsettled by Mary's death in 1694 and Gloucester's death in 1700, remained anxious to support the principle of legal succession. They resented Whig accusations of Jacobitism, though some Tories did maintain clandestine contacts with the exiled Stuart court. The Tories' commitment to the hereditary principle made them uncomfortable with bypassing closer Catholic claimants in favour of more distant Protestant ones.
The war with France
The Whigs supported prosecuting the war on the continent and became chief beneficiaries of the 'financial revolution' - the establishment of the Bank of England (1694), the development of government borrowing through long-term debt, and new taxation systems. Some Whigs benefitted financially from war contracts and the expansion of government.
The Tories, beyond preferring a blue water strategy, grew suspicious of the Dutch and increasingly viewed the war as detrimental to British interests. They argued that the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) had removed Louis XIV's opposition to William III's monarchy and thus eliminated the principal cause of conflict. Many Tories questioned whether continuing hostilities served English interests or merely Dutch ones.
Collapse of the Whig Junto
Between 1697 and 1701, the Whig Junto collapsed under pressure from public reaction against the war, its financial costs, and the expansion of government that it had produced. When the Nine Years War ended in 1697, the Tories seized their opportunity. Like the Presbyterians of the late 1640s, they sought to return power to the traditional rulers in the provinces - the JPs and landowning gentry who resented high taxation and centralised government interference in local affairs.
The discovery that William III intended to maintain a standing army despite the coming of peace led to a short-lived alliance between Tories and some Whigs. Some historians have termed this a 'new Country party', representing a spontaneous reaction against high taxation and foreign alliances.
William's reason for wishing to keep the army intact was his fear that the Spanish succession issue would soon precipitate another war with Louis XIV. This fear was realised in 1700 with the death of Charles II of Spain and the outbreak of war in 1702.
In 1701, the Duke of Gloucester's death forced the succession issue back to the forefront, leading to the Act of Settlement. During the final years of William's reign, the distinctions between Whigs and Tories broke down to a remarkable degree as the nation united in opposition to war, high taxation, and centralisation. However, two new controversies emerged over religion, the succession, and the renewal of war against Louis XIV's France. These became the issues that continued to divide the Whig and Tory parties until the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) and the death of Queen Anne in 1714.
Context: The Spanish Succession Crisis
Both William III and Louis XIV attempted to prevent another large European war over the Spanish succession. An international crisis was brewing because Charles II of Spain had no children and appeared likely to leave Spain and its empire to Louis XIV's grandson, Philip, Duke of Anjou. Such an outcome would have created an immensely powerful Bourbon monarchy in Western Europe and upset the balance of power.
In 1698, and again in 1700, William and Louis signed Partition Treaties aimed at dividing the Spanish inheritance to avoid conflict. Both monarchs wanted to preserve their armies after 1697 to make their diplomacy credible. The Partition Treaties were undermined by a series of untimely deaths, and in 1702 Louis XIV went to war supporting Philip V's claim to the Spanish throne. The resulting War of Spanish Succession (1702-14) proved even larger and more expensive than the Nine Years War.
Timeline of party politics under William and Mary
- 1689: Parliament declared the throne 'vacant' and offered it to William and Mary; Toleration Act passed; Bill of Rights enacted; Grand Alliance against France formed
- 1692: Tories demanded adoption of a 'blue water strategy'
- 1693: Triennial and Place Bills vetoed by William III
- 1694: Formation of the Whig Junto; Tory attacks on Whig finance and the continental war; death of Queen Mary; Triennial Act passed
- 1695: Tory Land Bank initiative failed
- 1696: Approximately 90 Tory MPs refused to swear an oath of loyalty to William III
- 1697: Treaty of Ryswick ended Nine Years War; parliamentary attacks on William's standing army
- 1700: Death of the Duke of Gloucester
- 1701: Act of Settlement secured Hanoverian succession
- 1702: Death of William III; succession of Queen Anne
Key Points to Remember:
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The Glorious Revolution fundamentally altered party positions: Whigs became defenders of royal prerogative whilst Tories adopted 'country' opposition to centralised government
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Four principal issues divided Whigs and Tories:
- Religion (toleration and dissent)
- The constitution (legitimacy of 1688)
- The succession (Hanoverian line versus hereditary principle)
- War strategy (continental versus blue water approach)
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The Whig Junto (1695-1701) dominated parliamentary politics through control of war finance but collapsed under public opposition to high taxation and government expansion
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The Nine Years War initially united parties but ultimately deepened divisions over war costs, military strategy, and the extent of parliamentary oversight of royal expenditure
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The Spanish succession crisis and Queen Anne's uncertain succession ensured that party divisions would persist beyond William and Mary's reign, setting the pattern for eighteenth-century politics