Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book covers the Restoration, Court-Country tensions during the 1660s and 1670s, the Exclusion Crisis, the Glorious Revolution, and the reigns of William and Anne. From the late 1660s contemporaries began to talk of the existence of rival Court and Country groupings in Parliament, whilst as early as February 1673 the MP, Sir Thomas Meres, could make a distinction between this side of the house, and that side. The terms 'Whig' and 'Tory' were first employed as party labels during the Exclusion Crisis of 1679-81, becoming common usage from 1681. This crisis had arisen following the revelations made in the late summer and autumn of 1678 of a Popish Plot to kill the King, Charles II, which brought heightened anxieties about the security of the Protestant religion at a time when the heir to the throne.