The Tories, as
the Church party, disliked the Dissenters even more than they disliked
the Roman Catholics. The Whigs were then even inclined to regard the
Church as a branch of the Civil Service--to adopt a much more modern
phrase--and they were in favor of extending freedom of worship to
Dissenters, and in a certain sense to Roman Catholics. According to
Bishop Burnet, it was in the reign of Queen Anne that the distinction
between High-Church and Low-Church first marked itself out, and we find
almost as a natural necessity that the High-Churchmen were Tories, and
the Low-Churchmen were Whigs. Then as now the chief strength of the
Tories was found in the country, and not in the large towns. So far as
town populations were concerned, the Tories were proportionately
strongest where the borough was smallest. The great bulk of the
agricultural population, so far as it had definite political feelings,
was distinctly Tory. The strength of the Whigs lay in the
manufacturing towns and the great ports. London was at that time much
stronger in its Liberal political sentiments than it has been more
recently. The moneyed interest, the bankers, the merchants, were
attached to the Whig party. Many peers and bishops were Whigs, but
they were chiefly the peers and bishops who owed their appointments to
William the Third. The French envoy, D'Iberville, at this time
describes the Whigs as having at their command the best purses, the
best swords, the ablest heads, and the handsomest women. The Tory
party was strong at the University of Oxford; the Whig party was {19}
in greater force at Cambridge. Both Whigs and Tories, however, were in
a somewhat subdued condition of mind about the time that Anne's reign
was closing. Neither party as a whole was inclined to push its
political principles to anything like a logical extreme. Whigs and
Tories alike were practically satisfied with the form which the English
governing system had put on after the Revolution of 1688. Neither
party was inclined for another revolution. The civil war had carried
the Whig principle a little too far for the Whigs. The Restoration had
brought a certain amount of scandal on sovereign authority and the
principle of Divine right. The minds of men were settling down into
willingness for a compromise. There were, of course, among the Tories
the extreme party, so pledged to the restoration of the Stuarts that
they would have moved heaven and earth, at al