The Whig party slowly evolved during the 18th century. Both parties were founded on rich politicians, more than on popular votes there were elections to the House of Commons, but a small number of men controlled most of the voters. The leader of the Whigs was Robert Walpole, who maintained control of the government in the period 1721–1742 his protégé was Henry Pelham (1743–54).īoth parties began as loose groupings or tendencies, but became quite formal by 1784, with the ascension of Charles James Fox as the leader of a reconstituted "Whig" party ranged against the governing party of the new "Tories" under William Pitt the Younger. The Whigs thoroughly purged the Tories from all major positions in government, the army, the Church of England, the legal profession and local officials. The "Whig Supremacy" (1715–60) was enabled by the Hanoverian succession of George I in 1714 and the failed Jacobite rising of 1715 by Tory rebels. The Whigs took full control of the government in 1715, and remained totally dominant until King George III, coming to the throne in 1760, allowed Tories back in. The Whigs played a central role in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and were the standing enemies of the Stuart kings and pretenders, who were Roman Catholic.
The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule.
The Whigs were a party in the Parliament of England, Parliament of Great Britain, and Parliament of the United Kingdom, who contested power with the rival Tories from the 1680s to the 1850s.
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