ABSTRACT
One of the most pervasive platitudes of eighteenth-century consti-tutional theory was that governments ought to be patriotic in character; that administrations should be broadly based seeking to embrace the widest possible ränge of political support; and that loyalty to the Crown and to the establishment in Church and State should be an assumed pre-requisite for office. Governments were supposed to be coalitions of men of good will, motivated by a desire to serve the State rather than the agents of faction or party. 1
