Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T07:14:59.732Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Origins of ‘Whig’ and ‘Tory’ in English Political Language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Robert Willman
Robert Willman
Affiliation:
Bowdoin College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Although ‘Whig’ and ‘Tory’ are among the most historic words in the language of English politics, their origins have never been subjected to modern scholarly study. Modern historians of the Exclusion Crisis are attracted by other aspects of the period; we find in the words little of die immediate relevance or historical continuity which Macaulay saw when he wrote glowingly of ‘two nicknames which, diough originally given in insult, were soon assumed with pride, which are still in daily use, which have spread as widely as the English race, and which will last as long as the English literature’.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , June 1974 , pp. 247 - 264
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Macaulay, T. B., The History of England from the Accession of James the Second (1913), I, 244.Google Scholar

2 Ogg, David, England in the Reign of Charles II (2nd ed., Oxford, 1956), II, 608.Google Scholar

3 Burnet, Gilbert, History of My Own Times (Oxford, 1833), II, 281.Google Scholar

4 Laurence Echard, The History of England (3rd ed., 1720), 988Google Scholar

5 A Review of the State of the British Nation, VII, # 75 (16 Sept. 1710), 295–298.

6 Roger North, Examen: or An Enquiry into the Credit and Veracity of a Pretended Complete History (1740), 320–22. The Examen was a reply to White Kennet's Whiggish Complete History of England (1706). North complained that Kennet's use of party names was unfair to the Tories: ‘ he mentions the Distinction of Whig and Tory, without any Character or Solution of the Terms, what they mean, and which is better or worse ’ (Examen, 319).

7 D.N.B.; The Lives of the Norths (1890), III, 103–23.Google Scholar

8 Moore, J. R., Daniel Defoe: Citizen of the Modern World (Chicago, 1958), 33, 38.Google Scholar

9 e.g., the battle of Bothwell Brig (1679) is placed in 1681 and made a part of the Cameronian rising, although Defoe was supposed to be an expert on Scottish affairs.

10 Sir George Reresby Sitwell, The First Whig (Scarborough, privately printed, 1894), Appendix; for Sitwell's influence, cf. Trevelyan, G. M., England Under the Stuarts (1904), 411; Mengel, E. F. Jr, ed., Poems on Affairs of State: Augustan Satirical Verse, 1660–1714, II (New Haven, 1965)Google Scholar, xxiv. Defoe's version was quoted in extenso in the Edinburgh Review, L (1829), 403ff., and Macaulay must have seen it; but no trace of it is to be found in the History of England. Macaulay distrusted Defoe as a historian: ‘ The “ History of the Plague ” and the “ Memoirs of a Cavalier ” are … wonderfully like true histories; but, considered as novels, which they are, there is not much in them ’: Trevelyan, G. O., The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay (New York, 1875), II, 383.Google Scholar

11 Dalberg-Acton, J. E. E. (Lord Acton), Lectures on Modern History (1906), 22–23.Google Scholar

12 State Trials (1776), III, 992.

14 Lords' Journals, XIII, 623–25;Google ScholarH.M.C. House of Lords MSS, II (1887), 251–52.Google Scholar

14 The N.E.D. dates this use of ‘ Whig ’ from ca. 1679 and ‘ Tory ’ from 1679—80, but the passage cited for ‘ Whig ’ was written in 1683 or later (Andrew Clark, ed., The Life and Times of Anthony Wood [Oxford, 1892], 11, 431), and the date for ‘ Tory ’ is based on the passage of the Examen quoted above.

15 ‘ The Character of an Honest Man, whether stiled Whig or Tory’ (1683), Somers Tracts, VIII (1812), 359.Google Scholar

16 Essex Papers, ed. Airy, O., I (Camden Society, 1890), 147–48.Google Scholar

17 Ibid., 306–9; H.M.C. Ormonde MSS., V (1902), 254–55.Google Scholar

18 Carte, Thomas. The Life of James, Duke of Ormonde (1851), iv, 618;Google ScholarRanke, L. von, History of England (Oxford, 1875), iv, 121–22;Google ScholarArber, E., The Term Catalogues, 1, 380;Google ScholarThe Domestick Intelligence, or, News both from City & Country, # 31, 21 Oct. 1679; The True Protestant Mercury, # 36, 11 May 1681.

19 Lauderdale Papers, ed. Airy, O., 1 (Camden Society, 1884), 245–46, 248–49;Google Scholaribid., III (Camden Society, 1885) 162–63; H.M.C. Ormonde MSS., v, 135. Oldham, , “ Satires Upon the Jesuits,” Poems on Affairs of State, II, 42 (Satire II).Google Scholar

20 Burnet, , Own Times, 11, 301–302;Google ScholarThe Impartial Protestant Mercury, # 1, 27 April 1681; # 10, 26 May 1681; The Loyal Protestant and True Domestick Intelligencer, # 4, 19 Mar. 1681; # 6, 26 Mar. 1681; # 7, 29 Mar. 1681.

21 Grey, Anchitell, Debates in the House of Commons, 1667–1694 (1763), VII, 53 (25 03 1679); VIII, 157 (15 Dec. 1680).Google Scholar

22 Calendar of State Papers Domestic, 1679–1680, 429 (3 April 1680), ‘ Yorkist’; George Hickes, The Spirit of Popery speaking out of the Mouths of Phanatical-Protestants … 1679, 23 (‘ Tantivy’ ).

23 Citt and Bumpkin. In a Dialogue over a Pot of Ale (4 eds. in 1680); CSPD 1679–1680, 596; H.M.C. House of Lords MSS, n, 246.

24 ‘ The Grand Interest of England Explained’ (1673), Harleian Miscellany, VIII (1808), 32.Google Scholar

25 ‘ The King's Health’. The Songs of Thomas D'Urfey, ed. Day, C. L. (Cambridge, Mass., 1953). 47.Google Scholar

28 ‘ Strange's Case, Strangely Altered’, Poems on Affairs of State, 11, 370;Google Scholar H.M.C. Ormonde MSS., v, 520; The Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome, # 37, 18 Feb. 1681.

27 Heraclitus Ridens, # 21, 21 June 1681; ‘ The Tory Ballad on their Royal Highnesses Return from Scotland’ (March, 1682).

28 ‘ Britannia and Raleigh 20’ (1674), Poems on Affairs of State, 1 (ed. G. de F. Lord, New Haven, 1963). 233Google Scholar

29 State Trials (1776), III, 394; cf. the caricature of James as‘Mack’, Nov. 1680, reproduced in Poems on Affairs of State, 11, facing p. 372.

30 State Trials, III, 275–76.

31 ‘ Popish Politics Unmasked’ (1680), Poems on Affairs of State, II 383–84;Google Scholar ‘ Strange's Case, Strangely Altered’ (1680), ibid., 373; cf. ‘ A Bill on the House of Commons Door’, April 15, 1680, ibid., 373; The Anti-Roman Pacquet, # 21, 26 Nov. 1680.

32 Jones, J. R., The First Whigs: the Politics of the Exclusion Crisis, 1678–1683 (1961), 147.Google Scholar

33 Haley, K. H. D.. The First Earl of Shaftesbury (Oxford, 1968), 618;Google ScholarCommons' Journals, IX, 703.Google Scholar

34 CSPD 1680–1681, 98, H.M.C. Ormonde MSS., v, 520.

35 H.M.C. Ormonde MSS., v, 473–74; 530–31; 535–37; CSPD 1680–1681, 623–25; briefly discussed in Prendergast, J. P., Ireland from the Restoration to the Revolution (1887), 115.Google Scholar I hope to pursue the details of this curious incident in a forthcoming article.

36 H.M.C. Ormonde MSS., v, 471.

37 The True Protestant Mercury, # 5, n Jan. 1681; Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome, # 36, 11 Feb. 1681.

38 Heraclitus Ridens: or, A Discourse between Jest and Earnest, # 3, 15 Feb. 1681.

39 State Trials, III, 361.

40 Feiling, K. and Needham, F. R. D., ‘ The Journals of Edmund Warcup’, E.H.R., XL (1925), 251–52,Google Scholar where the date given is ‘ 12° [Feb.] ’; but March must be correct. The warrant for Fitzharris's arrest was dated 26 Feb. (CSPD 1680–1681, 184), and the King ordered Fitzharris to the Tower after hearing him testify before the Council on March it (H.M.C. Ormonde MSS., v, 609).

41 The Loyal Protestant and True Domestick Intelligencer, # 9, 5 April, 1681.

42 Somers Tracts. VIII, 233. This tract has been ascribed to Halifax, but Miss Foxcroft rejects the attribution: Foxcroft, H. C., Life and Letters of Sir George Savile, First Marquis of Halifax (1898), II 532–33–Google Scholar

43 Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome, # 49, 13 May 1681.

45 Heraclitus Ridens, # 3, 15 Feb. 1681.

45 The Observator in Question and Answer, # 13, 14 May 1681. L'Estrange had no corner on vulgarity; cf. Henry Care's response to the first numbers of the Observator: ‘Some indeed say, That as formerly he pretended a Patent for Fart-Cracking; so not to go too far out of his old Road, he now intends a Monopoly, for supplying all the Bog-houses in Town with Bum-Fodder.’ (Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome, # 46, 22 April 1681).

46 The Observator, # 13, 14 May 1681.

47 The Impartial Protestant Mercury, # 18, 24 June 1681; The Observator, # 28, 29 June 1681. Janeway was a well-known Whig publisher who had recently issued Tyrell's Patriarcha Non Monarcha and Neville's Plato Redivivus.

48 Heraclitus Ridens, # 23, 5 July 1681; # 24, 12 July 1681.

49 Burnet, , Own Times, II, 216; The Impartial Protestant Mercury, # 11, 31 May 1681.Google Scholar

50 Luttrell, Narcissus. A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs (Oxford, 1857), 1, 124.Google Scholar

51 John, Prologue Dryden to ‘ Absalom and Achitophel ’, Poems on Affairs of State, II, 455.Google Scholar

52 Heywood, Oliver, Autobiography and Diaries, II (1881), 285.Google Scholar

53 Examen, 319, referring to Kennetr, , Complete History of England, III (1706), 381.Google Scholar

54 State Trials, III, 352.