Politics in the reigns of the first two Georges ( 1715-1760) have
usually been looked at from the point of view of the reign of
George III ( 1760-1820), which is viewing them through a distort-
ing mirror. Political thinking was still dominated by the great events
of the Revolution of 1688 and the Restoration of 1660, much as ours
still is by those of the Second and First World Wars. In dealing
with the eighteenth century, and with the Tory party in particular,
historians have often been guilty of hindsight and of knowing
consistently better than contemporaries.

Traditionally the Tories stood for the support of the Crown and
the Anglican Church, and for hatred of a standing army which they
equated with the rule of Oliver Cromwell. Basking in the sun of
royal favour under Charles II and in the early years of James II's
reign, they had enjoyed a monopoly of office to the exclusion of the
dissenters and Roman Catholics. They showed little concern at the
private religion of James until he threatened their entrenched
position by the rashness with which he attempted to force through
the repeal of the Test Act and Penal Laws and the admission of
dissenters and Roman Catholics to office. This alienated those who
would have been his strongest adherents, so that when, in answer to
an 'Invitation' sent by a small group of influential people, some
Whigs, some Tories, known to history as the Immortal Seven,
William of Orange landed at Torbay in November 1688 with an
army of 15,000 veterans from the wars against Louis XIV, he met
with virtually no opposition. James's army had been increased from
20,000 to about 30,000 since his accession, despite protests from
prominent Tories in the 1685 Parliament, but part of it was in
Ireland, and with Protestant officers in England refusing to act with

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