Whatever Happened to the Whigs?

In a recent post I explained why British Conservatives are known colloquially as "Tories." The name goes back to 17th century British politics, as does the name "Whig." The Whigs represented the rival party or outlook to that of the Tories. "Tory" remains in common use politically in the UK, but "Whig" has disappeared. Why is that?

The names Whig and Tory emerged at the end of the 1670s during what became known as the Exclusion Crisis. The crisis arose from the efforts of some leading politicians to exclude James Stuart, Duke of York, from following his brother Charles II to the throne. 

Charles had fathered no legitimate heir. According to the normal rules of succession, James was next in line to be monarch. Supporters of James called his opponents Whigs, then a term denoting a sect of extreme Scots Protestants.

The Tories were firm supporters of strict hereditary succession. They defended James's right to succeed Charles, despite the fact he had converted to the Roman Catholic faith. 

The Tories were also firm supporters of the Protestant Church of England, so the choice was not easy. The great majority of the British people then were not only Protestant but fervently "anti-papist." Many of them belonged to recently emerged and politically radical sects like Baptists and Congregationalists. Whig efforts to prevent James from becoming king thus rested on broad public support.

But the Tories and the King prevented the Whig Exclusion Bill from being enacted in Parliament. In the aftermath, the Whigs were greatly weakened. Their leader Lord Shaftesbury fled to the Netherlands, where he died shortly after. [Image: Anthony Ashley Cooper, First Earl of Shaftesbury]. 

James became king upon Charles' death in 1685, but his reign was short. He appointed Catholic allies to key positions in the government, the army and navy, and the courts. Some leading Tories, fearing that he intended to restore Catholicism as the established religion, turned against him. 

They joined with leading Whigs who feared James intended to rule as an absolute Catholic monarch in the style of Louis XIV of France. At the time, large numbers French Protestants (Huguenots) were migrating into England, bringing tales of their persecution in France. 

The timing could not have been worse for James. The same was true of the recent birth of a son to James and his second, Catholic wife. James had two Protestant daughters from his first marriage, Mary and Anne, but the male baby would take precedence in the line of succession.  

With the prospect of a Catholic dynasty before them, a group of Whig and Tory leaders secretly appealed to William of Orange, the Protestant Stadtholder of the Netherlands, to intervene. William was married to James' eldest daughter Mary, and was himself descended from Charles I. 

William concocted a bold and risky plan. He assembled an army and fleet and landed them in the West of England on November 5, 1688.  He began a march toward London. James prepared for battle but lost his nerve and fled to France. Thus began the "Glorious Revolution."

After a great deal of negotiation, Parliament installed William and Mary as joint monarchs. The arrangement was a clear violation of the law of hereditary succession and laid the ground for future conflicts. Parliament, not God, had decided who should rule.

William at first employed both Tories and Whigs in his government. But he gradually leaned more heavily on the Whigs, who were more comfortable with the results of the "Revolution." 

Whig dominance in British politics increased in the early 18th century after the death of Queen Anne (1702-1714). Anne was the last of the Protestant Stuart line. She had many children, but all died at birth or not long after. [Image: Queen Anne]

Parliament addressed this issue at the beginning of her reign with an Act of Succession. It declared that on her death the Crown should pass to her closest Protestant relative. At the time that was a German princess, Sophia of Hanover. 

Sophia died before Anne, however. Her son George became King of England and Scotland in 1714. George suspected that the Tories were behind efforts to restore the Catholic Stuarts to the throne. Some were. He and his son George II generally chose their ministers from the Whigs. 

The period 1714-1760 is often known as the Whig Supremacy, so dominant were Whig politicians. The Tories were virtually eliminated as a political force. It was not until the early 19th century that a new Tory Party emerged and held power. It changed its name officially to Conservative in the 1830s, but the old name stuck.

The use of Whig as a political term, however, gradually disappeared. In part this was due to the emergence of a lose group of Radicals who favored extension of democracy and modernization. It was also due to a split in the Conservative Party. The key issue was free trade, which some Tories supported, and others opposed. The division came to a head in 1846, during the Irish Famine. 

The Tory Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, decided that it was necessary to abolish the Corn Laws (tariffs on imported grain) to ensure supplies of food for the masses. The majority of Tories opposed him. His free trade bill passed only with the support of Whigs and Radicals. 

The Tory majority kicked Peel and his supporters out of the party. For a time, they sat together as "Peelites." In the 1850s, they gradually merged with the Whigs and Radicals to form what became known as the Liberal Party. 

The Liberals enjoyed great political success during the next few decades, especially under the leadership of William Gladstone. But "Whig" soon disappeared from political usage in the UK. [Image: W. E. Gladstone]

PS. In other posts I have referred to the use of "Whig" and "Tory" in the context of the American Revolution. I should add that in the 19th century, a Whig Party thrived in the USA between the 1830s and 1850s. The Whigs were the rivals of the Jacksonian Democrats. Their party fell apart in the early 1850s.Its place was taken by the new Republican Party that elected Abraham Lincoln in 1860. In Liberia, the "True Whig Party" was the dominant party for about a century after being founded in 1869. In recent decades, post-modern historians have used the term "Whig" to describe a progressive, linear, triumphal concept of history. 

 

        

   

  

  

The Peterloo Massacre, 1819: British Soldiers Attack Peaceful Protesters

On 16 August 1819, a huge crowd of men, women, and children, estimated at between 60,000 and 80,000, assembled at St. Peter’s Fields near the rapidly growing industrial city of Manchester.

According to historian Joyce Marlow, the meeting is believed to have been the largest to date in British history. The purpose was peaceful, to hear speakers promoting a much-needed reform of Parliamentary representation.

At the time, most men and all women were denied the right to vote or run for Parliament. The legislature and the government were controlled by a tiny fraction of the population, mostly aristocrats and their clients. Since the defeat of Napoleon, the masses had suffered from high unemployment. Food prices had skyrocketed, in part a result of the recently enacted Corn Laws. These acts placed high tariffs on imported grain, in a bid to keep domestic prices up. 

Radicals blamed the dire conditions in the country on a government that represented narrow landed (aristocratic) interests, hence their call for a reform that would make parliamentary representation more democratic. 

A pro-reform organization, the Manchester Patriotic Union, organized the mass demonstration at St. Peter’s Fields. For their headline speaker, they chose a popular radical, Henry Hunt. He had been an outspoken advocate of parliamentary reforms for years, but he favored tactics of mass persuasion rather than violence. His Tory enemies mocked his reputation as a speaker, calling him “Orator” Hunt.  The name stuck.

The clamour for reform, added to the unrest in the country, had long alarmed the authorities. They feared (or claimed to fear) that Britain was headed for a revolution similar to that in France in 1789. Hunt's popularity added to their concern.

On the day of the Manchester meeting, the local militia and regular soldiers were out in force. Hundreds of heavily armed cavalry and infantrymen surrounded the meeting place. Contemporary accounts claim that the crowd was well behaved, and included families dressed in their Sunday clothes.

As Hunt got up on the platform to speak, the crowd erupted with a huge roar of approval. The head of the local magistrates issued a warrant for Hunt’s arrest. 

The man charged with serving the warrant requested military assistance. The upshot was that cavalry charged into the crowd, wielding sabers to clear the way and disperse the crowd. As they became entangled among the mass, more cavalry rode into their rescue. Before the melee finished, they had killed about a dozen people and injured about 700. One of the dead was a two year old boy, Joseph Fildes.

The actions of the soldiers sparked immense outrage throughout the country, especially in the popular press. In pointed, shameful contrast to the victory at Waterloo, it soon became known as Massacre of Peterloo. Among other things, it led to the foundation of the radical Manchester Guardian and inspired Percy Bysshe Shelley to write his oft-quoted poem, The Masque of Anarchy.

Peterloo was the subject of many contemporary prints. The one below was published only a few days after the event and depicts the moment of Hunt's arrest. 

Perhaps the most famous image of Peterloo was that produced by George Cruikshank, who later illustrated some of Dickens' writings.

Peterloo did not have any immediate effect on reform. In fact, the terrified Tory government quickly passed a series of acts designed to repress the radical movement, the infamous Six Acts.

The acts were not rigorously enforced, however, and the reform movement continued to attract popular support in the wake of Peterloo. Fears of popular revolt grew again after another French Revolution deposed King Charles X in 1830, but on this occasion the British government conceded some of the popular demands. 

In 1832 a Whig dominated Parliament passed the Great Reform Act. Ironically, the ministry that drew it up it was the most aristocratic in British history. (The Prime Minister, Earl Grey, later had a bergamot flavored tea named after him.)

Far from democratic, the Great Reform Bill did extend representation to many new voters, mostly from the middle class. It also eliminated many corrupt electoral practices. It was followed by other reform bills in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries that gradually extended political rights to all men and then women. In that sense, Peterloo was stage on Britain's evolution into a democracy.

Further reading: Joyce Marlow, The Peterloo Massacre, 1969.