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The Whigs were a political party in the Parliaments of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. Between the 1680s and the 1850s, the Whigs contested power with their rivals, the Tories. The Whigs became the Liberal Party when the faction merged with the Peelites and Radicals in the 1850s.
Generally, the Tories were associated with lesser gentry, the Church of England and the Episcopal Church in Scotland while Whigs were more associated with trade, money, larger land holders or land magnates and the Nonconformist Protestant churches. Both were still committed to the political system in place at that time.
At the turn of the 18th century, the Whig influence in Parliament was rising. The Whigs and Tories’ major disagreements were in regards to who should run the country. [1] The conservative, Tory, party supported the influence of the monarchy of the inner-goings of government, while the Whigs insisted that Parliament take on a greater role. [1]
The Pittite coalition of Tories and pro-government Whigs had supported Pitt through the Revolutionary Wars with France. His principal opposition was the relatively weak faction of Whigs, led by Charles James Fox. For four years after 1797 opposition attendance at Westminster had been sporadic as Fox pursued a strategy of secession from Parliament.
The Tories were opposed to this exclusion, while the "Country Party", who were soon to be called the Whigs, supported it. While the matter of James's exclusion was not decided in Parliament during Charles's reign, it would come to a head only three years after James took the throne, when he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
The Whigs also lost seats in county constituencies – which were not liable to charter manipulation – dropping from around sixty county seats in 1681 to only eight. [3] In the new parliament, the Tories now had their own majority in both houses, Commons and Lords. The exact breakdown of members returned at the election is not clear, but of ...
Tories are monarchists, were historically of a high church Anglican religious heritage, and were opposed to the liberalism of the Whig party. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] The philosophy originates from the Cavaliers , a royalist faction which supported the House of Stuart during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms .
Polling took place in July and August [3] and the Tories won a plurality over the Whigs, but division among Tory MPs allowed Earl Grey to form an effective government and take the question of electoral reform to the country the following year. The eighth United Kingdom Parliament was dissolved on 24 July 1830.