Who were the Whigs?

Allison Adler Kroll University of Oxford

Geese on water with the Palladian Bridge in the background at Stowe — The Palladian Bridge at Stowe

The Whigs, along with the Tories, were one of two major political forces in Britain from the late seventeenth-century through to the nineteenth century. They found their origins in an association of aristocratic men who in the 1670s demanded the exclusion of Charles II’s Catholic brother, James, from inheriting the British throne. They and their descendants supported the Protestant Succession through the invasion of William III and the establishment of the Hanoverian dynasty from 1714. In the 1700 and 1800s they consistently supported moderate progress and reform, and in the later 1800s most Whigs joined the Liberal party and were instrumental in its formation.

The Whig ethos

Quintessentially a consortium of aristocratic factions based upon opposition to the excesses of both monarchical and parliamentary power, Whigs never committed themselves to an ideology. Rather, they stood for an ethos of service to the nation, religious toleration, and protection of the people from institutional oppression.

In contrast to the Tory party, whose members saw the Crown and Church as the guarantors of social and political order, Whigs believed that the nation was better served by polite commercialism and the preservation of civil liberties.

Often accused of inconsistency, they nonetheless achieved political supremacy between 1688 and 1760. After that, they fell into various factions and did not recover power until the 1800s.

Heroes and martyrs

Because they so frequently rallied around a cause, from Exclusion to the Glorious Revolution to the American and French Revolutions to Reform, the Whigs regularly exalted the key figures of these events to the status of heroes and martyrs.

The mythology surrounding such figures was strong, and shaped later Whig political behaviour.

Despite having a reputation for lack of principle, they were responsible for legislation to promote religious toleration throughout the 1700 and 1800s, and for formulating the 1832 Reform Bill.

The Whigs were ultimately incorporated into the Liberal party under William Gladstone in 1859.

The Whig view of the landscape

Although Whigs are often characterised as an urban party, the great Whig families were prominent landholders, committed to the notion that their lands were for both their own enrichment and in the service of progress and of the nation at large.

Whig gardens tended to express their owners’ political affiliations, with statuary of Whig heroes and landscapes cultivated to promote notions of freedom through open views and lack of formality.

Explore our places with Whig connections:

17 busts sit in a semi-circular monument to various british worthies. Further along the shell bridge provides a crossing over the lake which reflects both buildings.

Stowe

Stowe boasts a long history of Whig associations, and the movement’s ideologies of freedom and informality can still be experienced today in the landscape’s picture-perfect views, winding paths, lakeside walks, temples and statuary.

Knole

The Sackvilles at Knole were one of England’s chief Whig families, and the landscaped parkland surrounding their monumental house embodied their political beliefs with its grand, open vistas. Describing her childhood home centuries later, Vita Sackville-west wrote, ‘It has the tone of England; it melts into the green of the garden turf, into the tawnier green of the park beyond, into the blue of the pale English sky.’

The view of river meadows at Woolbeding parkland

Woolbeding Countryside

Prominent Whig politicians were entertained at Woolbeding by Lord Robert Spencer, son of the 3rd Duke of Marlborough, during his occupancy of the estate between 1791 and 1831. Lord Spencer was himself a Whig MP, and a member of the Whig subscription committee.

Collections items with Whig connections:

Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland of Foxley (1705-1774), William Hogarth

Painting of Henry Fox by William Hogarth

In early May 1761 the connoisseur and art historian Horace Walpole visited the studio of William Hogarth. ‘I went t’other morning to see a portrait he is painting of Mr Fox’, he wrote to George Montagu. ‘Hogarth told me he had promised, if Mr Fox would sit as he liked, to make as good a picture as Vandyke or Rubens could.’ The Mr Fox in question was Henry Fox, first Baron Holland of Foxley (1705–1774). A prominent Whig politician, in his early career Fox was a supporter of Sir Robert Walpole, Prime Minister from 1721 to 1742, and father of the connoisseur who visited Hogarth’s studio that day.

William Battine FRS (1765-1836), Thomas Phillips, RA

Painting of William Battine by Thomas Phillips RA

William Battine was a prosperous lawyer, occasional writer and leading local Whig politician. He was one of the four people (the others being Whigs and Whig hero, Charles James Fox, Francis, 5th Duke of Bedford and Napoleon) whom Sir Harry Fetherstonhaugh chose to commemorate with busts in the Dining Room at Uppark.