Why Are UK Conservatives Called Tories?

The Conservative Party in the UK is known colloquially as the Tory Party. Its supporters are generally called Tories. Why? 

Many Americans may assume that it derives from the American Revolution. In the USA, the term "Tory" is generally associated with the War for Independence. People who supported the British government during the war were generally called Tories by their "Patriot" enemies.

American "Tories" did not embrace that term. Instead, they called themselves "Loyalists." The Patriots often called themselves "Whigs." Both Tory and Whig derived from British politics of the previous century, from a succession crisis during the reign of Charles II (1660-1685). 

Charles had no legitimate heir. According to the rules of hereditary succession, the Crown would pass on his death to his brother, James, Duke of York. [Images: Charles II and James II, by Sir Peter Lely]

 

Normally, James's succession would not have been a problem. What made it a problem was that James had converted to Catholicism. The great majority of people in England and Scotland were by this time Protestants of one kind or another. (Ireland was a different matter).

The Protestants generally feared and detested the "Papists." In their view, the Roman Catholic faith was not only religiously wrong, but politically dangerous. They associated it with the royal absolutism of Louis XIV of France. Many of them wanted James to be excluded from the thrones of England and Scotland. 

In the late 1670s a group within Parliament mounted a campaign to exclude James. Opponents of their "Exclusion Bill" called them Whigs, then a word used to describe fanatical Scots Presbyterians. 

The Whigs opposed what they saw as a trend toward absolute monarchy in Britain. They supported religious toleration for all Protestant sects, but not Catholics. The Whigs called their opponents in Parliament Tories. Tory was then a term used for Irish bandits. As political labels, both Whig and Tory originated as terms of insult. 

The Tories in Parliament were Protestant. But they were staunch defenders of the established Church of England who opposed any form of religious toleration. They were also firm royalists who did not want the monarch's power to be too restricted.  

The Tories foiled the Whig attempt to exclude James from the throne. Some radical Whigs plotted against the government, which struck back with arrests and executions. The Whig leader Lord Shaftesbury fled to the Netherlands where he died soon after. [Image: Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, by John Greenhill]

James became king when Charles died in 1685. But three years later Whig and Tory leaders cooperated to force James from power in what became known as the Glorious Revolution. Some leading Tories had also become alarmed by James's arbitrary and pro-Catholic actions.   

In the aftermath of the Revolution, Whigs and Tories continued to compete for ascendancy in Parliament. Between 1714 and 1760 the Whigs all but eliminated the Tory opposition, a period known as the Whig Supremacy. 

The Supremacy collapsed after George III came to the throne in 1760. He believed the Whigs had gained too much power and had corrupted the political system. He sought the support of "new men" outside the Whig oligarchy. Many of them were disaffected Whigs. 

The Old Whig establishment blamed George III for their decline. They claimed he was bent on tyranny, which was not the case. He considered his role to be that of a constitutional monarch, although he sometimes acted in a clumsy and ill-advised manner. (George wasn't "mad" either until almost 30 years later).

British Whig attacks on King George influenced events in North America. The colonists' real problem was not with the king, but with the British Parliament, which claimed the right to tax them. But the American Whigs adopted the rhetoric of their British namesakes and attacked the king. They called his supporters Tories, although none of them used or accepted that term. 

By the 1780s, what some historians call the Second Tory Party was emerging. Its supporters did not call themselves Tories but "Independent Whigs" or "Pittites," after their leader, William Pitt the Younger. It was only around 1812 that Pitt's successors began to use the term "Tory" to describe themselves. 

The Tories of the early 19th century are the true ancestors of the present-day Conservatives. In 1834, they changed their name officially to the Conservative Party. In the 1880s, they officially became the Conservative and Unionist Party, after a merger with Liberals opposed to Irish Home Rule. That bulky term is little used nowadays. But everyone still calls them Tories, a term they use themselves. 

"Whig" is no longer used to describe a political party. Why not? That is a subject for another post.

   

   

The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill; or Somebody Else

Winston Churchill was famous, often infamous, for his biting, pithy wit. Historians and biographers may disagree as to exactly what he said to whom, or even if he said or originated certain lines attributed to him. There is little doubt, however, that he had a way -- often his way -- with words.

The recipients, or alleged recipients, of his wit were often his fellow politicians and fellow upper class folks. But they included all sectors of society. Even the voters, of whom he said (perhaps), "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."

That line jars uneasily (or does it?) with another of his famous statements about democracy, that it was "the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried." But did he really say that? Inquiring minds disagree.

One of his most famous quotations was directed against a woman he disliked, Tory MP Lady Nancy Astor. She had said to him at a social gathering, "Winston, if you were my husband, I would put poison in your coffee." He reputedly replied, "My dear, if you were my wife, I would drink it." Did he really say that? Churchill biographer and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson says no. But Johnson also said that Brexit would provide an extra £350 million a week for the NHS. (below: Lady Astor)

Deserved or not, Churchill had a reputation for indulging in large quantities of strong drink. One day in 1946, when he was leaving Parliament, he was accosted by Lady Astor or Labour MP Bessie Braddock (depending on which version you read). The woman in question accused him of being disgustingly drunk. "Yes," he shot back, "but you are ugly, and I shall be sober in the morning." (Below: Bessie Braddock)

He once explained his relationship with liquor as follows: "I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me."   

If the date of the ugly-sober quip, 1946, is correct, Churchill had reason to be in a foul mood. The previous year, the voters had kicked him out of office after he had led the country through World War II, by giving the Labour Party the reins of government. 

His replacement as Prime Minister, was Clement Attlee. Churchill famously called Attlee "a modest man, who has lots to be modest about." Did Churchill also originate the lines, "an empty car drove up, and Clement Attlee got out," and "He is a sheep in sheep's clothing."? Well.... (Below: Attlee)

The following story of an exchange between Churchill and Attlee is almost surely apocryphal, but sounds like something Winnie might well have said at the time. It was during the late 1940's, when Labour was nationalizing many large industries. 

One day, Churchill walked into the gents' toilet at the House of Commons to find Attlee already busy at one of the urinals. Churchill grunted and walked to the urinal farthest away from Attlee. "Winston," Attlee remarked, "why are you being so unsociable?" "Clement," Churchill replied, "I'm not being unsociable. It's just that every time you see some thing big, you want to nationalize it."

Churchill was hardly kinder to his Conservative colleague and former boss, Stanley Baldwin, Prime Minister for much of the 1920's and 30's. Once friends, during the 30's they fell out and Baldwin removed Churchill from the cabinet. When someone asked Churchill why he hadn't sent Baldwin a card on his 80th birthday, he allegedly retorted, "I wish Stanley no ill, but it would have been much better if he had never lived." That's believable enough. (Baldwin, below, died a few months later.)

Churchill often criticized himself, but could combine self-criticism with arrogance in a humorous way, as the following: "I have often had to eat my own words, but I must confess I have always found it a wholesome diet."

Churchill wrote a lot of history and it was generally complimentary, to him. But he warned us about it, humorously, of course: "History will be kind to me, because I intend to write it." 

I think that is accurate.