Date of Award
1-15-1971
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
History
Abstract
The concept of political parties as they existed in England during the reign of Queen Anne has been the source of considerable conflict among Stuart historians. The traditional view, postulated by G. M. Trevelyan, is that the Tory and Whig parties were organized in the 1670's as outgrowths of the Cavalier and Roundhead factions of the Civil War, changing very little in the process. The Tories were a "solid phalanx of squires and parsons," whereas the Whigs were united not by class or vocation but by their agreement on various political issues: religious toleration for all Protestants, war with France on sea and land, union with Scotland, and the Hanoverian Succession. In apposition with Trevelyan, Keith Feiling finds the genesis of both Whig and Tory elements in the religious differences among seventeenth-century Puritans and Anglicans. He stresses the factionalism within the Tory party during William's reign which resulted in a sharper definition of its tenets. Feiling asserts that the Tory party preserved certain "lasting conceptions of English politics- divinity of the State, the natural sanctity of order, the organic unity of sovereign and people, and the indisputable authority of the work of time."
Recommended Citation
Zehmer, Emily W., "Party lines drawn by the Spectator" (1971). Honors Theses. 796.
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/honors-theses/796