The three major biographies of Charles II which have been published in recent years have incorporated specialist research on the reign, yet none offers an analysis of the development of either the Court or ‘Tory’ parties in the House of Lords. All three historians present a traditional view of the Tory party: it emerged during the ‘Exclusion Crisis’ (1679-81) and bore little resemblance to previous court groups in parliament. Recently discovered division lists, reports of debates and letters provide a very different picture, at least for the House of Lords. From April 1675 an organised Court group appeared in the Lords which was later transformed into what most historians term the ‘Tory’ party. The origins, development and characteristics of this party together with an examination of the ‘Tory’ party in 1680 provide the main themes of this chapter.

The nickname ‘Tory’ (derived from Catholic Irish bandits) was only widely used by Whigs from 1681 to denote those peers and MPs who resisted their attempts to secure a Protestant succession or impose limitations on the powers of a popish monarch. It was also applied to those who adhered to the Church of England and opposed toleration for dissenting Protestants. Mark Knights has shown that other names, such as ‘Church Papists’, ‘Pensioners’, ‘God-damners’, ‘Yorkists’ and ‘Loyalists’ were also applied by contemporaries to these men. However, to avoid confusion we will use the better-known term ‘Tory’ to denote peers and bishops who favoured the hereditary succession, firmly supported the 1662 church settlement and regularly voted against the ‘Whigs’ in the Lords from November 1680.