This article is taken from the October 2024 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

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After being in office from 1710 to 1714, the Tories spent the next 46 years in opposition as the Whigs ruled the roost under George I and George II.

During Queen Anne’s reign (1702–14), Toryism’s meaning was clear: the defence of the national interest, the Church of England and social stability. England had been at war with France from 1702 to 1713, and the Tories advocated a “blue water” policy of focusing on the navy and being cautious about excessive commitment to alliances and to European interventionism.

In contrast to the Whigs, who were heavily committed to both, the Tories pushed through peace and the Treaty of Utrecht — to the annoyance of the Elector of Hanover, soon to be Britain’s George I.

The Tories were pushed into opposition by George’s suspicion that they were sympathetic towards Jacobitism, the cause of the exiled Stuarts. This, in turn, kept alive an ongoing Jacobite threat.

The Tory failure in the 1715 general election was followed by the Septennial Act of 1716 which extended the maximum length of a British parliament from three to seven years, a major change. As a result of these developments, the Tories would have required a “force multiplier” to avoid sinking into irrelevance after 1716. Moreover, the Whig ministry’s ability to secure the Septennial Act suggested that the rules would be perpetually changed in order to ensure that this irrelevance continued.

This situation did not leave the Tories without options, but it conditioned the attitudes with which they considered them.

One possibility was a change of royal views, but that was unlikely as far as George was concerned. Although the new king showed favour to individual Tories, notably Lords Harcourt and Trevor, and displayed enough flexibility to show interest in devising an oath of allegiance that Roman Catholics could take, Tory officeholders at both national and local level were purged.

This resulting weakness within the political system actively encouraged many but by no means all Tories to contemplate the advantage of a different king: the exiled Stuart heir, “James III” (and “VIII” of Scotland). Their reasoning was not just because they could expect to enjoy his favour and patronage; it was also a matter of policy. A major change in British foreign interests appealed to those concerned about the financial and political costs of Hanoverian priorities and Whig continental interventionism.

These prospects seemed plausible in 1714–15. But it was unclear, successively, whether Anne might not designate her half-brother James as her successor, whether George would succeed without a struggle, and whether the Jacobite rising of ’15 would lead to a change in ruler. However, this early opportunity foundered once George survived that crisis, and in early 1716 “James III” fled from Scotland to seek sanctuary from the Pope.

If Britain thereafter remained at peace, the prospects for a Tory revival were dim. War, however, opened up the potential of foreign support for Jacobitism, as, indeed, occurred in the case of Spain with an unsuccessful invasion attempt in 1719. This factor alone ensured that foreign policy was of central significance — in practice more so than for most of the period from 1750 until 1940.

The risk of foreign support for a potent domestic movement that had already displayed a willingness to rise in rebellion concerned more than Britain’s foreign policy. Overthrowing the dynasty risked destroying everything bound up with the Glorious Revolution and the Revolution Settlement — the maintenance of which was only the objective for some “Hanovarian Tories”.

Those Tories who sought a change in royal attitude, but were unwilling to commit to, or risk, the Jacobite option — or who felt the prospect of a propitious domestic and international context for Jacobitism was not likely to occur — could hope that George, Prince of Wales, the future George II, would be more favourable.

Lord Townshend: “Nothing can be more dangerous than to enter into negotiations with the Tories”

Until his succession, it made sense for Tories to seek a “force multiplier” through cooperation with opposition Whigs and call on a wide range of political opinion, particularly on foreign policy. Whilst the opposition Whigs under William Pulteney in 1725–27 were a small group, no more than ten strong in the Commons according to some observers (but more later), and particularly weak in the Lords (initially but, again, with a change later), they could be seen as giving point and direction to the Tories, even although the latter retained good debaters in both chambers.

At the same time, these factors operated differently depending on whether the relationship was considered from the perspective of the Tories or that of the opposition Whigs. Neither the Tories nor the opposition Whigs were coherent groups. The latter proved especially inconstant because they had the prospect of returning to government. However, the Tories were also badly divided, with the rivalry between Jacobites and Hanoverian Tories a matter of loyalty and inclination, as well as of tactics and personal links.

Unlike Robert Harley, the leading Tory minister in 1710–14 (the last years of Queen Anne), the Whig administration’s leader Robert Walpole condemned the idea of a mixed ministry. When, in 1723, the Tory Lord Bolingbroke proposed one to him, Walpole “answered it was both impossible and unadvisable for me to enter into any such negotiation”.

That summer, Lord Townshend wrote to Walpole about another approach for a mixed ministry: “I think the manner in which you received Lord Kinnoull’s overtures was exactly right, since nothing can be more dangerous than to enter into negotiations with the Tories, or even to labour under the suspicion of it at this time.” Walpole argued that the Tories were sympathetic to the Jacobite cause.

This remained Walpole’s attitude throughout his ministry. He was convinced that Jacobitism was a serious threat and that the Tories were willing to support it. The extent to which this was true has been debated by historians without any generally accepted conclusion being reached.

However, though determined to prevent the Tories from gaining power, Walpole, when in office, followed policies that did not challenge Tory views excessively. This was at odds with alarmist Tory propaganda, for there was no comparison between Walpole’s policies and those attributed to the Whigs in such Tory tracts as Francis Atterbury’s “English Advice to the Freeholders of England” (1715). Walpole’s policies were convergent, not divergent: there was a Walpolean consensus politics.

His foreign policy, with its stress on minimising foreign commitments and thus ending the need for subsidy treaties with foreign states and enabling the ministry to reduce taxation, corresponded with traditional Tory notions. In 1723, Walpole responded to an apparent Baltic crisis by writing “my Politics are to keep free from all engagements as long as we possibly can”. Chavigny, the French ambassador, claimed in 1734 that Walpole and the opposition shared common views on foreign policy.

Two years later, he reported a conversation with Walpole in which the latter expressed delight that he was free of the bad system that Stanhope had left him with and that Britain was no longer closely involved in European affairs.

These were views that the Tories could accept. In 1718, the ministerial MP Sir David Dalrymple claimed that the opposition through their “enmity to the Government have wrought up this nation to a hatred of war though unavoidable and the country gentlemen … cry out against taxes”.

That year, when in opposition, Walpole had joined with the Tories in attacking both the Quadruple Alliance (by which Britain had become closely involved in Italian politics) and the dispatch of a fleet to the Mediterranean to protect the Austrian position in Italy against Spanish attack. In 1732, 1733 and 1734, when the Austrians pressed the Walpole ministry to send a fleet to prevent a similar attack (which materialised in 1733 and was developed in 1734), no ships were sent.

Similarly, the Walpole ministry resisted pressure to become involved first in the contested election of 1733 for the throne of Poland and then in the subsequent War of the Polish Succession of 1733–35. In this respect Walpole’s stance corresponded more closely with that of the Tories than it did either with some of his ministerial colleagues or with the group of opposition Whigs led by Pulteney, both of which sought intervention in the war on the Austrian side. War was seen by Walpole as a threat to the political order.

The Tory party tended to see itself as the defender of the Anglican Church, threatened by the Dissenters and their political allies the Whigs. The strength of religious feeling and the continued vitality of religious divisions in early 18th century Europe must not be underestimated, and Britain, as in so much else, was no exception to the wider European situation.

Religious divisions played a major role in late 17th century politics and had been largely responsible for the bitterness of the party struggle between the Whigs and Tories. Walpole’s refusal to legislate in favour of the Dissenters was a major factor in reducing the political consequences of religious differences and in encouraging the strengthening of Whig Anglicanism.

In 1718, when in opposition to the dominant Whig group under Stanhope and Sunderland, Walpole spoke vigorously in defence of the position of the Church of England, and this became his policy when in office. Walpole pointed out to Tories, such as Edward Harley, that he took “care of the Church”. After 1719 the Whigs dropped Church reform and relief for Dissenters from their legislative programme. In 1736, Walpole opposed repeal of the Test Act, although he was careful not to criticise the Dissenters.

The political difficulties that arose in 1736, when Church issues were again widely debated in Parliament, confirmed the wisdom of the policy for the intervening years — as did the tension created by earlier attempts by anti-clerical Whigs to pass reform measures. Walpole preferred to manage the Church and universities by means of patronage, rather than by legislation and administrative innovation.

Filling vacant bishoprics was a more congenial form of management, and the staunchly Anglican Whig Lord Perceval was able to write in 1722: “When a few more of the Dignitaries drop off and a little care shall be taken of the Universities, we may hope to see a thorough change in the clergy, and then they will recover the esteem which they have forfeited through the misbehaviour of too many yet remaining amongst them.” Five years later, a Jacobite complained that the ministry had the support of all the bishops that attended Parliament.

The cry of “the Church in danger” was heard less frequently in the 1720s and early 1730s, when an effective co-operation between Walpole and the most influential cleric, Bishop Gibson of London, replaced the tension between the Stanhope–Sunderland ministry and Archbishop Wake.

Walpole’s policy was to avoid provoking the Tories, but this did not mean that they were satisfied. Their opposition was contained, not conciliated. They remained proscribed, and careers in some of the professions (so valuable for the younger sons of the landed gentry) were effectively closed to the Tories. The armed forces had been purged in 1714–15, and few Tories were appointed thereafter. A new Commission for Army Debts was established in 1715 to replace the Tory one. Promotion to senior positions in the Church, the law, the diplomatic service and at Court was far easier for Whigs, and many of the Tories appointed owed their positions to willingness to avoid political commitments.

Allying with the opposition Whigs and with Frederick, Prince of Wales, the Tories helped bring about Walpole’s fall in 1742, but were then kept from office in the series of deals between Whig leaders that produced and led to political crises during the reign of George II.

In contrast, George III came to the throne in 1760 without being beholden to the Whigs. Tory ideas and parliamentarians came to the fore, although they generally did not adopt the Tory label. Instead, as with Frederick, Lord North and William Pitt the Younger, they were thus typecast by their opponents.

The political world of the 18th century was totally different to that of three centuries later. However, there are pertinent lessons concerning the role of contingency; the reality of exclusion from a Whig hegemony that was entrenched across the governmental system — including the Church — but that was also willing to be receptive to many Tory ideas, the extent to which constitutional change and manipulation by the Whigs played a major role; and the serious problems that division created for the Tories.