The Whigs were a political faction and then a political party in the parliaments of England, Scotland, Great Britain, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Between the 1680s and 1850s, the Whigs contested power with their rivals, the Tories. The Whigs merged into the new Liberal Party in the 1850s, though some Whig aristocrats left the Liberal Party in 1885 to form the Liberal Unionist Party, which merged into the Liberals' rival, the modern day Conservative Party, in 1912.
George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax,, was an English statesman, writer, and politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1660, and in the House of Lords after he was raised to the peerage in 1668.
Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds,, was a prominent English politician. Under King Charles II, he was the leading figure in the government for around five years in the mid 1670s. He fell out of favour due to corruption and other scandals, and was impeached and eventually imprisoned in the Tower of London for five years until the accession of James II of England in 1685. In 1688 he was one of the Immortal Seven group that invited William III, Prince of Orange to depose James II as monarch during the Glorious Revolution. He was again the leading figure in government, known at the time as the Marquess of Carmarthen, for a few years in the early 1690s.
Carmarthen is the county town of Carmarthenshire and a community in Wales, lying on the River Towy. 8 miles (13 km) north of its estuary in Carmarthen Bay. The population was 14,185 in 2011, down from 15,854 in 2001, but gauged at 16,285 in 2019. It has a claim to be the oldest town in Wales – Old Carmarthen and New Carmarthen became one borough in 1546. It was the most populous borough in Wales in the 16th–18th centuries, described by William Camden as "chief citie of the country". Growth stagnated by the mid-19th century as new settlements developed in the South Wales Coalfield.
The Tories were a political faction in the parliaments of England, Scotland, Great Britain, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Between the 1670s and 1830s, the Tories contested power with their rivals, the Whigs.
William Talbot, 1st Earl Talbot, PC, known as the Lord Talbot from 1737 to 1761, was a British politician. Talbot was a notable figure among opposition Whig politicians during the reign of King George II before later coming to Court during the reign of his grandson, taking the office of Lord Steward of the Household.
William Brabazon Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby , PC (Ire) was a leading Irish Whig politician, being a member of the Irish House of Commons, and, after 1800, of the United Kingdom parliament. Ponsonby was the son of the Hon. John Ponsonby, the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons and Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of the 3rd Duke of Devonshire. He was invested as a Privy Counsellor of Ireland in 1784. He served as Joint Postmaster-General of Ireland (1784–1789).
Sir Robert Peel's first government succeeded the caretaker ministry of the Duke of Wellington. Peel was also Chancellor of the Exchequer while the Duke of Wellington served as Foreign Secretary. A young William Ewart Gladstone held office as a Junior Lord of the Treasury, his first governmental post in a ministerial career that would span for the next sixty years.
The Whig Junto is the name given to a group of leading Whigs who were seen to direct the management of the Whig Party and often the government, during the reigns of William III and Anne. The Whig Junto proper consisted of John Somers, later Baron Somers; Charles Montagu, later Earl of Halifax; Thomas Wharton, later Marquess of Wharton, and Edward Russell, later Earl of Orford. They came to prominence due to the favour of Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland and during the reign of Queen Anne, Sunderland's son, the 3rd Earl succeeded his father. Opponents gave them the nickname "the five tyrannising lords". Other figures prominent around the edges of the Junto include Sir John Trenchard and Thomas Tollemache.
The Patriot Whigs, later the Patriot Party, were a group within the Whig Party in Great Britain from 1725 to 1803. The group was formed in opposition to the ministry of Robert Walpole in the House of Commons in 1725, when William Pulteney and seventeen other Whigs joined with the Tory Party in attacks against the ministry. By the mid-1730s, there were over one hundred opposition Whigs in the Commons, many of whom embraced the Patriot label. For many years, they provided a more effective opposition to the Walpole administration than the Tories were.
The Harleyministry was the British government that existed between 1710 and 1714 in the reign of Queen Anne. It was headed by Robert Harley and composed largely of Tories. Harley was a former Whig who had changed sides, bringing down the seemingly powerful Whig Junto and their moderate Tory ally Lord Godolphin. It came during the Rage of Party when divisions between the two factions were at their height, and a "paper war" broke out between their supporters. Amongst those writers supportive of Harley's government were Jonathon Swift, Daniel Defoe, Delarivier Manley, John Arbuthnot and Alexander Pope who clashed with members of the rival Kit-Kat Club.
The Chatham ministry was a British government led by William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham that ruled between 1766 and 1768. Because of Pitt's former prominence before his title, it is sometimes referred to as the Pitt ministry. Unusually for a politician considered to be Prime Minister, Pitt was not First Lord of the Treasury during the administration, but instead held the post of Lord Privy Seal.
The English Convention (1689) was an assembly of the Parliament of England which met between 22 January and 12 February 1689 and transferred the crowns of England and Ireland from James II to William III and Mary II.
John Grubham Howe (1657–1722), commonly known as Jack Howe, was an English politician. Elected on numerous occasions as Member of Parliament, he made the transition from the Whig to the Tory faction.
William Harris, of Hayne, Devon, was an English landowner and politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons between 1690 and 1709.
George Rice was a Welsh politician and courtier.
Robert Monckton was an English landowner and Whig politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons between 1695 and 1713. He took an active part supporting William of Orange in the Glorious Revolution, and was notable for his involvement in a number of exceptionally bitter and prolonged electoral disputes.
The 2nd Parliament of King William III and Queen Mary II was summoned by William III of England and Mary II of England on 6 February 1690 and assembled on 20 March 1690.
The 4th Parliament of William III was summoned by William III of England on 13 July 1698 and assembled on 24 August 1698. The party political constitution of the new House of Commons was 246 Whigs, 208 Tories and 59 others. Sir Thomas Littleton, the Whig member for Woodstock, was elected Speaker of the House. The house was divided between the pro-government faction led by the Whig Junto and a Country Whig-Tory alliance, the New Country party, led by Robert Harley.
