The Politics of ‘Persecution’: Scots Episcopalian Toleration and the Harley Ministry, 1710–12

Abstract

Religion was the ideological motor of politics in the first age of party. Though the distinction between the Whig and Tory positions on religious issues was often small compared to their internal divisions on other matters, religion was felt to be the only real justification for both parties. The Whigs stood for a cosmopolitan Erastianism embracing protestant dissent, the Tories for a stronger, national Church for which religious uniformity was still a worthwhile goal. The Church was inextricably caught up in these national political divisions, and its own internecine warfare between high and low church mirrored them exactly. It naturally followed from this that religious issues were the most passionately upheld by the Whigs and the Tories, and were those which had most impact on national politics. Hence the Tories put themselves out of office in 1704–5 by the zeal with which they tried to push the Occasional Conformity Bill through, even though it was certain to create a constitutional crisis which would paralyse the British war-effort against France. And the Whigs seized the opportunity to ‘roast a parson’ afforded by Henry Sacheverell’s high church ranting on the theme of ‘the Church in Danger’ by trying to impeach him. Their partial success only served to validate and refresh the ‘Church in Danger’ preaching they had hoped to silence, and they were crushed by an avalanche of outraged Toryism in the 1710 election. Since religious issues were the most keenly felt and constituted the central dynamic of the party battle, the translation of religious conflict from the nation at large to Westminster gives us a glimpse of the real strength of religion’s hold on the concept of party, and hence its influence in contemporary politics.