THE

TORY TRADITION

I

LORD BOLINGBROKE

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY politics are not easy to understand. They cannot be understood by anyone who approaches them with his mind filled with our present parliamentary system. There were then no well-drilled parties working with a precision that makes a division in the House to-day little more exciting than the taking up of places for a new figure in the lancers. Parties undoubtedly existed, but the way to understand them is to watch them not in the Commons, but in the country. There they are clear enough, but at Westminster, leaders and groups pass and change so quickly that one

despairs of understanding what they are about.

Now England in the age of Anne fell into two camps, and no principle of division between them, which is offered us by historians, is completely satisfactory. The Whigs, they tell us, had the backing of the merchants; the Tory party was the Junker party, the party of the country gentry. The Tories were supported by the Church; among the Whigs were to be discovered the Dissenters and Freethinkers. Nations, from time to time, are divided into two sections, of which one stands for the future and the other for the past. In such a position was England in 1642, and the United States in 1862. The same partition ran through the England of Queen Anne, less apparent because no crisis in the history of the country served to make it show.

In 1702 the outstanding fact was the war which England, together with half Europe, was waging against the pretensions, in Spain and elsewhere, of Louis XIV. of France. The outstanding man was the Duke of Marlborough. In the House of Commons the Tories were all-powerful,

THE PARTIES AND THE WAR 3

and Marlborough started as their friend. He now broke with them. In truth, he had begun to realise that, while the war was acquiesced in by all parties at its outset, it was becoming daily less popular with the Tories. England, they said, had become the tool of the allies. The true supporters of a war policy were the monied classes, and with them Marlborough now allied himself. They were Whigs, and their leader was Godolphin.

In 1705 a Parliament was returned with a Whig majority, but in those days it was still thought best to gather into the Cabinet the most efficient men, irrespective of party. A coalition cabinet was therefore formed, and Godolphin, Marlborough, Harley, and St. John were members of it. The coalition could not work together. There was a traitor in their midst. For the Tory leader Harley not only obstructed Godolphin at the Council table, but poisoned the mind of the Queen, through Mrs. Masham, his confidante. Therefore, in 1708, Godolphin drove Harley out and St. John with him. From that day to this it has been the usual rule that cabinets should be drawn

exclusively from the party which has the majority in the House of Commons. The Whigs and Tories now faced each other, and it was the question of the peace which showed the nature of the cleavage.

In truth, it was the question of the peace that absorbed all Europe. After Blenheim and Ramillies, Louis XIV. was weary of the war, and Europe knew that he was weary. The result was that England feared that the allies would steal a march upon her and patch up a peace with Louis. The allies feared the same from England. As a matter of fact, they had nothing to fear from the Whigs. Godolphin and Marlborough were determined not to stop the war until they had forced Louis to give up all hope of asserting French influence in Spain, while their treaty with the Dutch, assuring that nation a proper boundary against the French, was meant to be a pledge of honest dealing. The Tories wanted

1 The Tatler, No. 12.

2 See Mrs. Weston's allusion, Tom Jones, bk. vii.. c. 3.

The Barrier Treaty.

THE PEACE OF UTRECHT 5

instant peace and did not care how they got it.

At this moment the situation was completely altered. The trial of Sacheverell sent through England a wave of feeling for throne and altar. The great Sarah fell from royal favour. The Whigs gave way to the Tories, and a ministry was formed under Harley, with St. John as his first lieutenant.

The period that follows is filled with the struggles of Whig and Tory for and against the peace. The Whigs formed a solid and well-disciplined force, and the pamphlets of Steele and Addison were their artillery. The Tories were less organised. It had not yet been settled who was to be leader, for the temporary popularity won by Harley as the result of his escape from an attempt at assassination was not enough in the eyes of St. John to settle that vexed question. In the end the Tories won the day and made the peace of Utrecht; but it cost them dear. They had to dismiss Marlborough from his command, and twelve peers had to be created to give them a majority for the peace in the House of Lords. They