The Rage of Party

Electronic book text

Between 1695 and 1715, there were ten general elections, and political partisanship gripped Britain to an extent never known before and seldom, if ever, since. Tory and Whig engaged in a ferocious and all-consuming political battle royale over issues of religion, monarchical succession, foreign policy, finance and much more besides.

This political conflict - usually known as the 'Rage of Party' - was extraordinary in intensity and duration. At the level of high politics, it was a tale of peculation, betrayal, attempted assassination, whoring and outrageously cynical parliamentary scheming. It crept into every aspect of British public life, from the Queen's bedchamber and the House of Commons down to the crevices of everyday life. Local postmasters were chosen for their partisanship, so that they could tamper with the correspondence of their party enemies and foil their electioneering plans. A doctor might lose clients if he declared too warmly for one side. The Church, the Army and the Navy were riven with Whig-Tory rivalry. Tories and Whigs drank in different coffee houses and taverns.

In addition, the era saw a sparkling and caustic literary battle featuring some of the giants of English literature. Jonathan Swift became the chief champion of the Tories in a series of devastating articles and pamphlets in which he pitilessly assailed the Whigs. Moderates could rely on the pen of Daniel Defoe to make the case for a sensible course avoiding the extremes of both sides, the Whigs claimed the services of Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, while the Tories counted Alexander Pope and John Gay among their partisans.

It was also an era of extraordinary, albeit now largely forgotten, political personalities whose moral deficiencies make those of Boris Johnson look positively trivial, such as Thomas Wharton, the notoriously debauched and irreligious rake who masterminded the 'Junto' that ran the Whig Party who was infamous for a youthful indiscretion wherein he drunkenly broke into a church before urinating onto an altar and defecating into a pulpit.

Although complex, at its heart the Whig-Tory divide was between Tory 'Old England' and the mobile, innovative, cosmopolitan forces of Whig progress. For all that some of the issues at stake might seem antiquarian now, in many ways they map onto the divisions we see today between Brexiteers and Remainers, 'Somewheres and Anywheres', conservative provinces and progressive cities. It was, in some ways, a precursor of our modern 'culture wars' and intense political polarisation.