Oxford University Press London Edinburgh Glasgow Copenhagen New York Toronto Melbourne Cape Town Bombay Calcutta Madras Shanghai Humphrey Milford Publisher to the UNIVERSITY A History OF THE TORY PARTY 1640-1714 BY KEITH FEILING Student of Christ Church "The ground whereupon government stands will OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1924 Soth. PREFACE THE continuous history of the original Tory party, which may be said to have disappeared in 1714, has not yet been written. The great British masters of this period-Hallam, Lingard, Macaulay, Lecky-approached the subject from a very different standpoint. On the Continent Mazure, Ranke, and Klopp touched upon it only as part of a much greater whole. Special monographs, such as Mr. Roylance Kent's Early History of the Tories, or Salomon's brilliant work on the last ministry of Queen Anne, deal, on the contrary, only with sections of the party's history. To supply an introduction to that history, viewed as a whole, is the primary purpose of this book, but I hope it may have a secondary use in breaking here and there some of the preliminary ground which is still to be cultivated by students of our political biography; for we are still without modern authoritative studies of Clarendon, Danby, Shrewsbury, Sunderland, Nottingham, and Harley-to name only men in the first flight. Within the time at my disposal, I have been able to explore only a part of the boundless field of material, printed and manuscript, which faces students of the late seventeenth century, and my debt to the great writers mentioned above, as to others, will be apparent to those who have worked on the period. But I have (after 1660) based my study throughout on the original sources, and where possible endeavour to provide a second check by using unprinted material. If, in pursuing the narrow and elusive thread of a single party's development, I appear to ignore matters of permanent interest or to take the general history too much for granted, I can only plead that to discuss every point of contact between a great party and the nation at large would have carried me far beyond the limits of time and space allowed me. The acknowledgements I must make are many. Sir Charles Firth assisted me with invaluable criticism on four of my chapters. Mr. L. G. Wickham Legg, of New College, and Mr. J. C. Masterman, my colleague at Christ Church, performed similar service in respect of others. Mr. C. R. L. Fletcher kindly read the whole in manuscript and helped me with his advice and encouragement at every stage. Το Mr. G. N. Clark I am most grateful for his reading and criticism of my proof-sheets. I have to thank the Warden and Fellows of All Souls College for allowing me to use Sir William Trumbull's manuscript memoir, as well as for the liberal use of the Codrington Library. To the staff of that library, of the manuscript room at the British Museum, of the Public Record Office, and of the Bodleian Library I owe grateful thanks for essential and long-suffering assistance. My deepest debt is to my own College, Christ Church: not only to the Wake Trustees for permission to use the manuscripts in their custody, but to the Governing Body as a whole for the indulgence which made possible the completion of this book. KEITH FEILING. January 1924. |