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Whiggism orWhiggery is apolitical philosophy that grew out of theParliamentarian faction in theWars of the Three Kingdoms (1639–1653) and was concretely formulated byLord Shaftesbury during theStuart Restoration. The Whigs advocated thesupremacy of Parliament (as opposed to that of the king),government centralization, andcoerciveAnglicisation through the educational system. They also staunchly opposed grantingfreedom of religion,civil rights, orvoting rights to anyone who worshipped outside of theEstablished Churches of the realm. Eventually, the Whigs grudgingly conceded strictly limitedreligious toleration forProtestantdissenters, while continuing thereligious persecution anddisenfranchisement ofRoman Catholics andScottish Episcopalians. They were particularly determined to prevent the ascension of a Catholicheir presumptive to the British throne, especially ofJames II or his legitimate male descendants and instead granted the throne to the ProtestantHouse of Hanover in 1714.[1] Whig ideology is associated with earlyconservative liberalism.[2]
Beginning with theTitus Oates plot andExclusion Crisis of 1679–1681, and theGlorious Revolution of 1688–1689, Whiggism dominatedEnglish andBritish politics until about 1760, after which the Whigs splintered into differentpolitical factions. In the same year, KingGeorge III was crowned and allowed the Tories back into the Government. Even so, some modern historians now call the period between 1714 and 1783 the, "age of the Whigoligarchy".[3]
Even after 1760, the Whigs still included about half of the newest noble families in England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, as well as most merchants, dissenters, and themiddle classes. The opposingTory position was held by the other great families, thenon-juring andhigh church factions within theChurch of England, many Catholics and Protestant Dissenters, most of thelanded gentry and the traditional officer class of theBritish armed forces. Whigs especially opposedregime change efforts by adherents ofJacobitism, a movement oflegitimistmonarchists which promisedfreedom of religion and civil rights to all outside theEstablished Churches,devolution in the United Kingdom,linguistic rights forminority languages, and many other political reforms, and which shared a substantial overlap with and heavily influenced both early Toryism and what is now termedtraditionalist conservatism. While in power, Whig politicians frequently denounced all their political opponents and critics as "Jacobites" or "dupes of Jacobites".
The terms "Old Whigs" andPatriot Whigs were also used inGreat Britain for those Whigs who formed a de facto coalition with the Tories and jointly opposedRobert Walpole as part of theCountry Party.[4] Whiggism originally referred to theWhigs of theBritish Isles, but the name of "Old Whigs" was largely adopted by the AmericanPatriots in theThirteen Colonies ofBritish North America. Before and during theAmerican Revolution, American Whiggism, in a deeply ironic reversal, weaponized Whig political philosophy about thesocial contract enforced by theright of revolution against both the Whig-dominated government in Westminster and the Hanoverian monarchs. In the process, American Whiggism ultimately transitioned from monarchism intorepublicanism andFederalism, while also co-opting many traditionally Jacobite,Counter-Enlightenment, and early Tory positions. A similar but far more discreet co-opting was also taking place in theBritish Isles among many self-described Whigs, includingEdmund Burke,Henry Grattan,William Wilberforce,Daniel O'Connell, andWilliam Pitt the Younger. Even though they were often influenced in this regard by the writings of early Tories and other intellectual critics of the Whig party likeJonathan Swift,Lord Bolingbroke, andDavid Hume, these reformist Whigs, similarly to American Patriots, refused to use the word "Tory" as anything other than a term of abuse against those with more traditionalist Whig ideology, which ultimately changed the word's meaning completely.Whig history, which was largely developed byThomas Babington Macaulay to justify the party's political ideology and past practices, remained theofficial history of theBritish Empire until serious challenges were raised to its claims byJohn Lingard,William Cobbett,Hilaire Belloc,G.K. Chesterton,Roger Scruton,Saunders Lewis, andJohn Lorne Campbell.
Quickly following the adoption of "Whig" as the name of a political faction, the word "Whiggism" arose from the appendage of the suffix "-ism", creating a term for the Whigs' political ideology. It was already in use by the 1680s. In 1682,Edmund Hickeringill published hisHistory of Whiggism.[5] In 1702, writing satirically in the guise of aTory,Daniel Defoe asserted: "We can never enjoy a settled uninterrupted Union and Tranquility in this Nation, till the Spirit of Whiggisme, Faction, and Schism is melted down like the Old-Money".[6] The name probably originates from a shortening of Whiggamore referring to theWhiggamore Raid.[7]
The word "Whiggery", deriving from "Whig" and the suffix "-ery", has a similar meaning and has been used since the late 17th century.[8]
The true origins of what became known as Whiggism lie in theWars of the Three Kingdoms and the power struggle between theParliament of England andKing Charles I, which eventually turned into theEnglish Civil Wars, but only after the example of the successful use of violent opposition to the king set by theBishops' Wars, which were fought between the same king in his capacity as king ofScotland on the one side and theParliament of Scotland and theChurch of Scotland on the other. However, the immediate origins of the Whigs and Whiggism were in theExclusion Bill crisis of 1678 to 1681, in which a country party battled a court party in an unsuccessful attempt to excludeJames, Duke of York, from succeeding his brotherCharles II as king ofEngland,Scotland andIreland. This crisis was prompted by Charles's lack of a legitimate heir, by the discovery in 1673 that James was aRoman Catholic, and by the so-calledPopish Plot of 1678.[9]
While a major principle of Whiggism was opposition topopery, that was always much more than a mere religious preference in favour ofProtestantism, although most Whigs did have such a preference.Sir Henry Capel outlined the principal motivation of the cry of "no popery" when he said in theHouse of Commons on 27 April 1679:
From Popery came the notion of astanding army and arbitrary Power... Formerly the Crown of Spain, and now France, supports this root of Popery amongst us; but lay Popery flat, and there's an end of arbitrary Government and power. It is a mere chimera, or notion, without Popery.[10]
Although they were unsuccessful in preventing the accession of the Duke of York to the throne, the Whigs in alliance withWilliam of Orange brought him down in theGlorious Revolution of 1688. By that event, a new supremacy of parliament was established, which itself was one of the principles of Whiggism, much as it had been the chief principle of theRoundheads in an earlier generation.[11]
The great Whiggish achievement was theBill of Rights of 1689.[12] It made Parliament, not the Crown, supreme. It established free elections to the Commons (although they were mostly controlled by the local landlord), free speech in parliamentary debates, and asserted the prohibition of "cruel or unusual punishment".[13]
Lee Ward (2008) argues that the philosophical origins of Whiggism came inJames Tyrrell'sPatriarcha Non Monarcha (1681),John Locke'sTwo Treatises of Government (1689) andAlgernon Sidney'sDiscourses Concerning Government (1698).[14] All three were united in opposingSir Robert Filmer's defence ofdivine right andabsolute monarchy. Tyrrell propounded a moderate Whiggism which interpreted England's balanced and mixed constitution "as the product of a contextualized social compact blending elements of custom, history, and prescription with inherent natural law obligations".[15] Sidney, on the other hand, emphasised the main themes ofrepublicanism and based Whig ideology in the sovereignty of the people by proposing a constitutional reordering that would both elevate the authority of Parliament and democratise its forms. Sidney also emphasised classical republican notions of virtue.[16] Ward says that Locke's liberal Whiggism rested on a radically individualist theory of natural rights and limited government.[17] Tyrrell's moderate position came to dominate Whiggism and British constitutionalism as a whole from 1688 to the 1770s.[18] The more radical ideas of Sidney and Locke, argues Ward, became marginalised in Britain, but emerged as a dominant strand in American republicanism. The issues raised by the Americans, starting with theStamp Act crisis of 1765, ripped Whiggism apart in a battle of parliamentary sovereignty (Tyrrell) versus popular sovereignty (Sidney and Locke).[19]
Whiggism took different forms in England and Scotland, even though from 1707 the two nations shared asingle parliament.[20] While English Whiggism had at its heart the power of parliament, creating for that purpose aconstitutional monarchy and a permanentlyProtestant succession to the throne, Scottish Whigs gave a higher priority to using power for religious purposes, including maintaining the authority of theChurch of Scotland, justifying theProtestant Reformation and emulating theCovenanters.[20]
There were also Whigs in the North American colonies and while Whiggism there had much in common with that inGreat Britain, it too had its own priorities. In the unfolding of theAmerican Revolution such Whiggism became known asrepublicanism.[21]
In India, Prashad (1966) argues that the profound influence of the ideas ofEdmund Burke introduced Whiggism into the mainstream of Indian political thought. The Indians adopted the basic assumptions of Whiggism, especially the natural leadership of an elite, the political incapacity of the masses, the great partnership of the civil society and the best methods of achieving social progress, analysing the nature of society and the nation and depicting the character of the ideal state.[22]
... For Whig liberalism is also known as 'conservative liberalism' ...
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