paper.2 Neo-classical Literature.

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Role of Political parties Whigs and Tories upon the writings of that era

Writer and the write-up are inter-vowel together. Writing is the result of process which is taking place in the mind of writer. The process is affected by so many subjects like- 1 Era in which he is born; 2 social, political, economical conditions; 3. Family background; 4 Education and so many other things like these. Our sole purpose here is to focus upon political condition.

Power always remains as the central theme of writings in any kind of era; irrespective of time, place and the way of governance. Whether the power is in form of Monarchy, Democracy, communist approach or any other way like that. Everything which is going around it takes place in literature also. But when it is about power or governing system, we have to check other references also. Why?

If a person is writing about particular king or queen, they would buy the writers to write the things they want to show to society. Same thing happens in democracy also. Writer is afraid of writing the things what he actually wants to write about. Political leader may harm him or his family members. So what happens is that he cannot write the things he want but it is difficult to bound creative people with any kind of chains. They will not write directly but they will make pun and satire of the things they want to put forward. The same situation is there in India today.  

Politics in this age-Augustan age plays very vital role of all. Augustan age was the rise of politics until that; it was secured under the reign of Queen Victoria. And something which is new will obviously go for whole the attention of people. Democracy was new at that time and it gained whole the attention of people.

This is the reason why the works are satirical works are there in the literature of Augustan age. Satire and Sarcasm played a vital role in the literature of 18^th century. We can have examples like Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope and so many writers like them.

Now let us see as a party whigs and tories have worked during the age. Let us see its origin, historical background of both the parties.

Tory-

The Tories were members of two political parties which existed, sequentially, in the Kingdom of England, the Kingdom of Great Britain and later the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from the 17th to the early 19th centuries.

The first Tories emerged in 1678 in England, when they opposed the Whig-supported Exclusion Bill which set out to disinherit the heir presumptive James, Duke of York (who eventually became James II of England and VII of Scotland). This party ceased to exist as an organised political entity in the early 1760s, although it was used as a term of self-description by some political writers. A few decades later, a new Tory party would rise to establish a hold on government between 1783 and 1830, with William Pitt the Younger followed by Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool.

The Earl of Liverpool was succeeded by fellow Tory Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, whose term included the Catholic emancipation, which occurred mostly due to the election of Daniel O'Connell as a Catholic MP from Ireland. When the Whigs subsequently regained control, the Representation of the People Act 1832 removed the rotten boroughs, many of which were controlled by Tories. In the following general election, the Tory ranks were reduced to 180 MPs. Under the leadership of Robert Peel, the Tamworth Manifesto was issued, which began to transform the Tories into the Conservative Party. However, Peel lost many of his supporters by repealing the Corn Laws, causing the party to break apart. One faction, led by the Earl of Derby and Benjamin Disraeli, survived to become the modern Conservative Party, whose members are commonly still referred to as Tories.

Whig-

The Whigs were a political faction and then a political party in the parliaments of England, Scotland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. Between the 1680s and 1850s, they contested power with their rivals, the Tories. The Whigs' origin lay in constitutional monarchism and opposition to absolute rule. 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 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 "Whig Supremacy" (1715–1760) was enabled by the Hanoverian succession of George I in 1714 and the failed Jacobite rising of 1715 by Tory rebels. 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 leader of the Whigs was Robert Walpole, who maintained control of the government in the period 1721–1742; his protégé was Henry Pelham (1743–1754).

Both 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. 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 Whig party slowly evolved during the 18th century. The Whig tendency supported the great aristocratic families, the Protestant Hanoverian succession, and toleration for nonconformist Protestants (the "dissenters," such as Presbyterians), while some Tories supported the exiled Stuart royal family's claim to the throne (Jacobitism), and virtually all Tories supported the established Church of England and the gentry. Later on, the Whigs drew support from the emerging industrial interests and wealthy merchants, while the Tories drew support from the landed interests and the royal family. By the first half of the 19th century, however, the Whig political programme came to encompass not only the supremacy of parliament over the monarch and support for free trade, but Catholic emancipation, the abolition of slavery and expansion of the franchise (suffrage).

Whig and Tory are the members of two opposing political parties or factions in England, particularly during the 18th century. Originally “Whig” and “Tory” were terms of abuse introduced in 1679 during the heated struggle over the bill to exclude James, duke of York (afterward James II), from the succession. Whig—whatever its origin in Scottish Gaelic—was a term applied to horse thieves and, later, to Scottish Presbyterians; it connoted nonconformity and rebellion and was applied to those who claimed the power of excluding the heir from the throne. Tory was an Irish term suggesting a papist outlaw and was applied to those who supported the hereditary right of James despite his Roman Catholic faith.

The Glorious Revolution (1688–89) greatly modified the division in principle between the two parties, for it had been a joint achievement. Thereafter most Tories accepted something of the Whig doctrines of limited constitutional monarchy rather than divine-right absolutism. Under Queen Anne, the Tories represented the resistance, mainly by the country gentry, to religious toleration and foreign entanglements. Toryism became identified with Anglicanism and the squirearchy and Whiggism with the aristocratic, landowning families and the financial interests of the wealthy middle classes.

The death of Anne in 1714, the manner in which George I came to the throne as a nominee of the Whigs, and the flight (1715) of the Tory leader Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, to France, conspired to destroy the political power of the Tories as a party.

For nearly 50 years thereafter, rule was by aristocratic groups and connections, regarding themselves as Whigs by sentiment and tradition. The die-hard Tories were discredited as Jacobites, seeking the restoration of the Stuart heirs to the throne, though about 100 country gentlemen, regarding themselves as Tories, remained members of the House of Commons throughout the years of the Whig hegemony. As individuals and at the level of local politics, administration, and influence, such “Tories” remained of considerable importance.

The reign of George III (1760–1820) brought a shift of meanings to the two words. No Whig Party as such existed at the time, only a series of aristocratic groups and family connections operating in Parliament through patronage and influence. Nor was there a Tory Party, only Tory sentiment, tradition, and temperament surviving among certain families and social groups. The so-called King’s Friends, from whom George III preferred to draw his ministers (especially under Lord North [afterward 2nd earl of Guilford], 1770–82), came from both traditions and from neither. Real party alignments began to take shape only after 1784, when profound political issues that deeply stirred public opinion were arising, such as the controversy over the American Revolution.

Concluding here, we can see the major effect of both the parties over the entire age. And another thing we can notice is that all the events which is taking place in society is not solely taking place but all events are inter connected with each other. 


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