Politics under the later Stuarts

"This is the first major study to look at party politics in England over the later Stuart period as a whole, from the inception of party conflict in the reign of Charles II to its climax in the great rage of party under Queen Anne. It deals not only with high politics and with the organisation of the new parties, but also with the ideological roots of party strife and their relation to the partisan divisions that were simultaneously emerging in English society." "The book traces the origins of party back to the failure of the Restoration settlement of 1660 to heal the wounds of a nation profoundly unsettled by the turmoil of civil war and republican experiment in government. There was disagreement over just how much power the monarchy should be permitted; and disagreement, too, over the nature of the desirable settlement in the Church. As a result, political conflict developed along two major axes: the constitutional axis, between those who championed strong monarchy and those who envisaged a stronger role for Parliament, and the religious axis, between the champions of High Anglican intolerance and those sympathetic to Dissent. Having charted these fault-lines in the political and