classes, and the powerful "monied interest" that had no intention of giving

up commerce and investment for a life of rural ease as convention had

demanded.
The tensions naturally found political expression. The Tories were the
party of the landed interest, constantly criticizing the Whigs for the war
and their pandering to the whims of financiers, foreigners, and Dissenters.
The Tory cry of "the church in danger" was particularly effective in
mobilizing support: it rang from the lips of the rioters who in 1710
demonstrated their approval of Dr. Henry Sacheverell's vitriolic attacks on
the Glorious Revolution by destroying Dissenters' chapels. The slogan
seemed to find support too among the electorate, for the Tories generally
succeeded at the polls whenever they invoked the dangers to the Church of
England or the issue of foreign policy, just as the Whigs profited from their
trump card, "the Protestant succession in danger." In 1710 the Tories
captured power and offered a coherent vision of a paternalistic society and
government which would retreat from deficit finance, foreign entanglements,
and protection of dissident Protestants. Unfortunately their leadership
did not match their platform: Harley and St. John (or the Earl of
Oxford and Viscount Bolingbroke as they became) were personal rivals.
And the Hanoverian succession issue loomed ominously: this was a
problem for the Earl of Oxford, who had alienated Hanover by making a
peace in 1713 which left Britain's allies in the lurch; and it exposed the
variety of Tory attitudes to the succession - some Tories dreamt of a Stuart
restoration, and a few, to whom Bolingbroke gave leadership, toyed with
Jacobitism, the cause of James II and, after James's death in 1701, of his
son, the so-called James III, the Pretender to the British throne. In the last
months of Queen Anne, the Tory ministry was falling apart.
The Hanoverians, 1715-1745
God "has now saved us by a train of wonders," rejoiced the Whig bishop
Gilbert Burnet on the accession of George I. "We were, God knows, upon
the point of at least confusions, if not of utter ruin, and are now delivered
and rendered as safe as any human constitution can be."15 George himselffiftyfour years old, unable to speak English, honest but dull, preoccupied
with the affairs of Hanover and of his dreary entourage - was hardly a
wonder. The new king had made it plain that he had little time for Tories: a
Whiggish ministry was formed under Earl Stanhope; Bolingbroke fled to
the Pretender in France; and in the summer of 1715 the Highlands of
Scotland rebelled in expectation of the Pretender and of a reciprocal
English Jacobite rebellion. The Pretender arrived late, and the English