Political thought in eighteenth-century Britain reflected the circumstances of a post-revolutionary society. In the first half of the century the need to legitimate the Revolution of 1688 and its twin products, the new regime and the new British state, shaped the structure of political argument. In the second half, the increasing friction within the empire and the renewal of a demand to increase the extent of religious toleration introduced new themes and new stresses. Together, the colonial rebellion and the French Revolution were to pose the most severe challenge to the usefulness of the conceptual language of 1688.

Because the distinction between the person of the sovereign and the power of sovereignty was still being delineated in early modern Europe, and because it was (and remains) easier to generate loyalty to a person than to an abstraction, an altered royal succession undermined the foundations of obedience. The flight of James II and his replacement by William and Mary meant that the re-establishment of secure loyalty, last faced in England after the execution of Charles I and the creation of the Commonwealth (1649), was the chief political priority. In the immediate aftermath of the Revolution, its defenders and opponents debated questions such as the legitimacy of resistance, the legalities of succession, the power of Parliament and the rights of kings.