Politics under the Later Stuarts: Party Conflict in a Divided Society, 1660-1715

Studies in Modern History

by Tim Harris

The first major study of party conflict in England over the later Stuart period from the reign of Charles II to its culmination under Anne. Tim Harris shows how the party configuration of subsequent British politics emerged in these crucial years. He deals not only with high politics and with the organisation of the new parties, but also with the ideological roots of party strife.

Genres: History

260 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

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Tim Harris received his BA, MA and PhD from Cambridge University and was a Fellow of Emmanuel College from 1983 before moving to Brown in 1986. He teaches a wide range of courses in the political, religious, intellectual, social and cultural history of early modern England, Scotland and Ireland. A social historian of politics, he has written about the interface of high and low politics, popular protest movements, ideology and propaganda, party politics, popular culture, and the politics of religious dissent during Britain's Age of Revolutions.

Reviews

[Boone Ayala · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best introduction to the politics of the period. Harris convincingly argues that the religious and constitutional issues which would come to define the Whig/Tory divide resulted from the failure of the Restoration to establish consensus. The 1660s and 70s were characterized by court-country tensions, but future Whigs and Tories could be found on both sides - the parties had not actually emerged as coherent, principled organizations.

The exclusion crisis brought about the birth of the Whig and Tory parties. Constitutional solutions varied somewhat between the groups, but by and large the issue of dissent served as the primary polarizing factor. Would a Catholic King or dissenters be a greater threat to English liberty and religion? This issue, wrapped up in the question of the succession, polarized the two factions into coherent Whig and Tory blocks.

For most of the 1680s the systematic campaigns against Whigs and the absence of Parliaments meant that no two-party system existed. This changed following the Revolution, when regular parliaments meant that the two parties were able to compete on the issues of the day. Harris concludes by defending his endpoint, arguing convincingly that politics under the Hanoverians also took place outside of a traditional two party system, as the Tories were effectively blocked from power until the 1760s.

[JR Roach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent introduction to the first era of British electoral party politics. Harris's most important interventions are to emphasize that the roots of the Tory/Whig divide stretch back to the Restoration in 1660, especially in the unresolved religious divides between High Church Anglicanism and the many varieties of Dissent. The shifting relationship between the monarchy and religion (which it's important to recognize still colored foreign policy in this era) often dictated both parties' turnabouts on constitutional issues, as the Tory and Whig relationships with Court and Country reversed. Although Harris does not emphasize this, it's clear that preciously "democratic" politics of this era (around 25% of British men could vote) were a product of a temporarily weak crown, which lacked the legitimacy and resources to fully manage Parliament and national politics - necessitating dependence on the great parties of the day. Once the national debt expanded the crown's fiscal resources and the Hanoverian succession re-established dynastic stability the stage was set for the suppression (although not total elimination) of party politics for most of the eighteenth century.