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The politics of Queen Anne's reign are characterised as the rage of party; Whigs and Tories contended over religion, the constitution and the succession, and foreign policy. This struggle was taken to the electorate in five elections during Anne's reign, and these raise a question concerning electors' motivations, the answer to which remains elusive: were they acting according to principle, or reflecting the electoral interests to which they were subject? This article analyses the two surviving poll books for Dorset elections in the age of Anne, those at Wareham in 1702 and at Dorchester in 1705. It focuses principally on the voting behaviour of those engaged in the towns' governance structures: corporation members, councils of freemen and local parishes. However, it also considers the behaviour of other categories of voter: politicians, the clergy and non‐conformists. The analysis shows how electoral interest was mediated through the towns' governing institutions and suggests that (at least in these two cases) negotiation between the parties had a greater role in the outcome than has sometimes been suggested. It also demonstrates the limits of the electoral influence of the boroughs' elites: significant numbers of voters were simply not prepared to be led. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the resignation of Anne, Queen of Great Britain, and accession of George I, King of Great Britain and Ireland. It further discusses the downfall of the tory party in Ireland; consequence of the crystallization of 'party politics' in Ireland after 1702; combination of peerage creations, appointments and translations in the episcopate; and leadership of the family interest in the Irish house of commons.

The article presents the text of the speech "Dr Henry Sacheverells Speech, Relating to the Tumults," supposedly delivered by English High Church clergyman and politician Henry Sacheverell during his 1710 impeachment trial for controversial sermons. The speech was published by printer William Garnet and is held at Cambridge University Library in England. Topics include riots surrounding the trial and the possibility that the speech was written by Sacheverell's moderate tory supporters.

The article discusses and presents the document the "Case of Henry Sacheverell," by Charles Burd, likely compiled in 1711, concerning the 1710 impeachment trial of English High Church clergyman and politician Henry Sacheverell following his delivery of controversial sermons. The work is held by the Harvard University Law Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts and features satires and an original drawing. Whig and tory perspectives on the trial are considered.

The article discusses and presents texts of contributions by tory statesman Daniel Finch, the 2nd earl of Nottingham, to the 1710 impeachment trial of English High Church clergyman and politician Henry Sacheverell. It contains a draft version of a speech that Nottingham likely delivered during a debate in the British Parliament's House of Lords and his personal notes on the proceedings. Nottingham's role in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and post-Revolution politics are also considered.

The article discusses and presents the text of a manuscript called the "Account of the Trial of Dr Sacheverell," concerning the 1710 impeachment trial of English High Church clergyman and politician Dr. Henry Sacheverell, held at the Beinecke Library Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. It comments on scribal writing, the author's display of tory sympathies, and coverage of speeches during the trial.

Henry Sacheverell's speech in his own defence on the eighth day of his parliamentary trial (9 March 1710) was, by all accounts, a show-stopping performance. The speech was an effective political performance at a show trial originally designed to condemn the principles he had enunciated in his controversial 1709 sermons at Derby and St Paul's Cathedral. Sacheverell avoided any forthright or elaborate defence of his beliefs with regard to the legitimacy of resistance during the Glorious Revolution in order to appear humble, orthodox, and loyal to the queen and to the protestant succession. As such, he presented himself as a sort of living martyr for the high church cause. While this strategy was itself deeply controversial, it was also rather successful in spinning the debate from one about 'revolution principles' to one about the persecution of a loyal clergyman. In order to understand the form, the effectiveness and the purpose of Sacheverell's trial speech, one must take its pathetic form and its widespread distribution, both in print and manuscript reports, into account. The sympathy garnered for Sacheverell due to his speech was a public relations success for the tory cause in the short run, but it also entailed a solid commitment to the Hanoverian succession that remained deeply controversial within high church circles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the trial of Dr Sacheverell attracted considerable public attention in Ireland, and a great deal of the pamphlet literature generated in England was reprinted in Dublin, there is little explicit evidence of the invocation of Sacheverell's name by Irish tories, in parliament, at elections, or in the indigenous press culture. On the surface, this seems hard to explain, even though Irish protestants were naturally more sensitive than their English counterparts to any challenge to the legitimacy of 'Revolution principles', for at the same time the protestant Irish 'political nation' was bitterly divided by a conflict of parties on the English model, and, indeed, regarded their own struggles as an extension of the warfare of whigs and tories in England. This article seeks to account for the non-appearance of Dr Sacheverell in Irish political discourse by emphasizing the presence in Ireland of two surrogates: Francis Higgins, the roaring anglican controversialist who, like Sacheverell himself, courted 'persecution' by bishops and whig governments, and Sir Constantine Phipps, lord chancellor of Ireland 1710-14, who turned himself into a tory champion in Ireland by using some of Sacheverell's methods of self-promotion. The fact that both were closely associated with the Doctor - Higgins as a chosen replacement for Sacheverell in the pulpit in 1710, Phipps as a defence counsel at the impeachment - infused both with reflected glamour and enabled Irish tories to express their support for Sacheverell indirectly, without calling into question their loyalty to the Williamite settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the literature on the Sacheverell affair as it stood when it was delivered as a paper to the symposium held in March 2010 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of his impeachment. The basic narrative and prevalent interpretation of its significance were established by the late Geoffrey Holmes in his monograph The Trial of Doctor Sacheverell published in 1973. Holmes placed it in the context of a crisis in Church and state brought about by the Glorious Revolution and its aftermath. This led to the formation of the party conflict between high church tories and low church whigs. When the whigs, led by the junto, came to power between 1708 and 1710, their ascendancy provoked a reaction from tories claiming that the established Church was in danger. It was in this context that Sacheverell preached his provocative sermon on 5 November 1709, which brought on his impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanours. Holmes's detailed account of the trial, together with his separate analysis of the 'Sacheverell riots', have been generally accepted as definitive. Consequently, scholarly attention has tended to shift to the cultural aspects of the affair such as poems on affairs of state and political prints. These investigations have led, in turn, to attempts to establish an appropriate methodology for analysing their significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a notes and comments-style edition of two documents written by William North, Baron North and Grey, during the Sacheverell impeachment. The first of these was a response to arguments made by the Commons' managers before the Lords, the second was North and Grey's notes for his own speech in defence of Sacheverell. It is argued that together these encapsulate a strong tory's view of the impeachment and the revolution of 1688. Given the subsequently jacobite trajectory of North and Grey's career, it is suggested that these documents also offer an insight into the tory mentalité at the point when the first tory party was on the eve of its greatest political and electoral triumphs and before it turned against the Hanoverian dynasty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By the late 17th century it had been largely established as a part of the 'constitution' that the house of commons played the leading role in proposing financial legislation and that the house of lords by convention could not amend such bills, but only accept or reject them. From the late 1670s, the practice developed of the Commons 'tacking' money or supply bills to other, controversial legislation, to try to ensure that the Lords would pass the whole bill. This underhand proceeding sometimes worked, but at other times the Lords amended the non-monetary parts in such a way as to render the bill unacceptable to the Commons, but such actions sometimes resulted in the loss of financial legislation necessary for the king's government. From the 1690s, the whig-dominated Lords attempted to 'outlaw' tory-backed tacking by protesting at its unparliamentary nature. This culminated in a formal declaration by the House in 1702 of the unconstitutionality of tacking. The last major attempt at tacking took place over the Occasional Conformity Bills of 1702-4. The final bill of 1704 essentially failed, however, because of the party strengths in the Lords when the tories were outvoted by the whigs. The Lords, however, continued to condemn tacking until at least 1709. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The alliance between the tories and Frederick, Prince of Wales has usually appeared at best a passing interlude of opportunism in eighteenth-century politics, dismissed alike by scholars upholding 'jacobite' or 'Hanoverian' constructions of the party's identity. This article offers a re-examination of the relationship, assessing tory actions at Westminster against the larger hinterland of party literature and journalism. It argues that, especially after 1747, the association fronted a much more serious enterprise than is conventionally assumed, highlighting the continued political and ideological independence of the party into the 1750s and shaping the subsequent evolution of its identity. Intellectually, Frederick's image as a 'Patriot King' was driven by radical manifestos originating within the jacobite diaspora in Paris. Inside Westminster, his patronage changed the balance of power, bringing the tories to a point of primacy hitherto unmatched over the larger opposition. For four years, the promise of the prince of Wales provided the glue to hold the tory party together; his death threatened to unleash a process of fragmentation. The long-term legacy of the alliance informed the direction of those who remained tories into the following decade, determining the section of the party that would gain the ascendancy within the reign of George III. By showing how a member of the ruling dynasty could be recast in a favourable and highly partisan political complexion, the pact with Frederick represented a decisive stage in the reinvention of English toryism, and its movement from mid-century opposition towards rebirth as the loyalist champions of the house of Hanover. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discussion by King Charles II and his senior advisors in 1672 of the choice of a new Speaker for the forthcoming parliamentary session reveals both the way in which the appointment was prepared and the government's considerations in the appointment. Prominent among them was the Speaker's personal influence, and his personal views on the great issue to be debated, the Declaration of Indulgence. The choice of Sir Job Charlton, and the behaviour of his successor, Sir Edward Seymour, in the chair, mark a new phase in the history of the speakership, in which Speakers are less likely to be lawyers, for whom the office was a step on the road to high legal office, and more likely to be significant political leaders with their own influence and following. After the 1688 revolution, the tendency for Speakers to be party political leaders became still more marked. Nevertheless, the country ideology espoused by several of them, including Paul Foley, Robert Harley and the tory, Sir Thomas Hanmer, provides a pedigree for the model of the impartial speakership whose invention is often attributed to Arthur Onslow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents chapter 8 from the book "The House of Lords in the Age of George III (1760-1811),” by Michael W. McCahill, discussing the political dynamics of the British House of Lords from 1784 to 1811. Focus is given to the various political factions and parties which formed and acted during the final decades of King George III's active reign. Three major phases of internal alignment within the period are outlined and addressed, including that which immediately followed the collapse of Lord North's ministry until 1794, the realignment under Prime Minster William Pitt, and the emergence of the Tory Party after 1804.

The article presents chapter 9 from the book "The House of Lords in the Age of George III (1760-1811),” by Michael W. McCahill, discussing the political dynamics of the British House of Lords from 1784 to 1811. Focus is given to the power and role of the monarchy in relation to the Parliament during the final decades of the active reign of King George III. The decline of the king's personal participation with the affairs with the House of Lords and the actions of the "Party of the Crown," a group of lords loyal to the King's policies despite his absence, are discussed in depth. The additional influence of an "ultra" Tory faction is also addressed.

The parliamentary organisation of the whig Junto in the reign of Queen Anne was far superior to that of the tory party. At the centre were the meetings in which three or four of the five members of the Junto were present together with some of their followers. Evidence of such meetings is rare but here is presented a letter giving the details of a meeting of all five in April 1713 at the home of Lord Somers, together with their ally, the tory earl of Nottingham, probably to discuss the forthcoming peace proposals, to end the war of the Spanish Succession, and the protestant succession to the British throne. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzes the 1720 Cambridge University election in England. Interest of the tory party in the university election; Political factors that disoriented the tories; Ability of the tories to set aside their personal divisions and unite to support Willoughby.

Explains the circumstances surrounding the attribution of authorship of the tory chapter in the introductory survey of 'The House of Commons 1715-54' for the History of Parliament Trust. Correction of the dates of King James III's letter to Ormonde in December 1730 and January 1731; Suggestion made by Clyve Jones that the state of England was drawn up in Rome by Colonel John Hay, James' secretary of state.

Analyzes the validity of evidence on the predominance of jacobites in the Tory party in Great Britain up to 1745. Involvement in attempts to restore the Stuarts to the monarchy; Plunging of the Tory party into a state of crippling demoralization due to the Atterbury plot; Problems on characterizing jacobite allegiance.