rusive body acting spasmodically and hampering
instead of regulating the executive power of the Crown. The last Stuart
kings had still fancied that it might be reduced to impotence, and the
illusion had been fostered by the loyalty which meant at least a fair
unequivocal desire to hold to the old monarchical traditions. But, in
fact, parliamentary control had been silently developing; the House of
Commons had been getting the power of the purse more distinctly into its
hands, and had taken very good care not to trust the Crown with the
power of the sword. Charles II. had been forced to depend on the help of
the great French monarchy to maintain his authority at home; and when
his successor turned out to be an anachronism, and found that the
loyalty of the nation would not bear the strain of a policy hostile to
the strongest national impulses, he was thrown off as an intolerable
incubus. The system which had been growing up beneath the surface was
now definitely put into shape and its fundamental principles embodied in
legislation. The one thing still needed was to work out the system of
party government, which meant that parliament should become an organised
body with a corporate body, which the ministers of the Crown had first
to consult and then to obey. The essential parts of the system had, in
fact, been established by the end of Queen Anne's reign; though the
change which had taken place in the system was not fully recognised
because marked by the retention of the old forms. This, broadly
speaking, meant the supremacy of the class which really controlled
Parliament: of the aristocratic class, led by the peers but including
the body of squires and landed gentlemen, and including also a growing
infusion of 'moneyed' men, who represented the rising commercial and
manufacturing interests. The division between Whig and Tory corresponded
mainly to the division between the men who inclined mainly to the Church
and squirearchy and those who inclined towards the mercantile and the
dissenting interests. If the Tory professed zeal for the monarchy, he
did not mean a monarchy as opposed to Parliament and therefore to his
own dearest privileges. Even the Jacobite movement was in great part
personal, or meant dislike to Hanover with no preference for arbitrary
power, while the actual monarchy was so far controlled by Parliament
that the Whig had no desire to limit it further. It was a useful
instrument, not an encumbrance.

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