Among Hume’s most important discussions of party can be found in his History of England, especially in the volumes on the seventeenth century. Hume explained to Adam Smith that he had begun his historical investigation with the Stuart period partly because the factions, which he believed still informed British politics in the eighteenth century, arose at that time. His own historical work, however, was a conscious attempt to rise above faction and to see things both ways, which he believed English historiography had failed to do before him. This chapter places Hume’s History in the context of Rapin and Bolingbroke, but also in the broader context of debate around ancient constitutionalism and Whig history. This chapter points to the important influence of Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws, which had a notable impact on Hume between his essays and the publication of the History.

This chapter demonstrates the importance of Paul de Rapin-Thoyras (1661–1725) for subsequent discussion of political parties in the eighteenth century. Before his famous Histoire d’Angleterre (1724–7), the Frenchman had already made a name for himself by writing a pamphlet entitled Une Dissertation sur les Whigs et les Torys (1717), which is the chief focus of this chapter, although the Histoire is also briefly surveyed and contextualised. The chapter examines Rapin’s intervention against the backdrop of his expulsion from France along with other Huguenots in 1685, the Glorious Revolution of 1688–9, and the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713. By focusing on Rapin’s Dissertation, this chapter demonstrates the centrality of religion and religious denominations in the construction of political parties. In political theory, Rapin’s Dissertation can be regarded as an intellectual milestone, as it was the first clear expression of the idea that balance between parties, as distinct from Machiavelli’s social orders, is recommendable as a way to achieve proper balance in a mixed constitution.