1695 English General Election

[HillGoose]

I'd vote for the Whig party because those big powdered wigs were real fashionable back then I hear

[brucejoel99]

Whig

[Wikipedia delenda est]

Domestically, the Whigs were better due to their support of greater religious tolerance. I'd vote Tory because of foreign policy though, due to my support of peace with France and my Jacobite sympathies.

[Peanut]

Whig Party.

[Lechasseur]

Probably Whig

[PSOL]

The Whigs

[Big Abraham]

Domestically, the Whigs were better due to their support of greater religious tolerance.

Huh? Wasn't it the Test Acts that were enacted and supported by Whigs?

[Wikipedia delenda est]

Domestically, the Whigs were better due to their support of greater religious tolerance.

Huh? Wasn't it the Test Acts that were enacted and supported by Whigs?

No. The Test Acts were passed by the Cavalier Parliament, called such because it was mostly composed of former supporters of the royalist side during the Civil Wars. At that point, neither the Whig nor Tory parties yet existed, only coming into being during the Exclusion Crisis.

By 1695, while the Whigs continued to support discrimination against Catholics, they had become the party of dissenting Protestants and thus supported greater tolerance for nonconformists. Other than their support for Jacobitism, the Tories were ambivalent at best on Catholicism and much worse toward dissenters, constantly trying to pass discriminatory laws against them.

With that said, as outlined in my initial post, I still would've supported the Tories due to my own Jacobite sympathies and support for peace with France.

[Big Abraham]

Domestically, the Whigs were better due to their support of greater religious tolerance.

Huh? Wasn't it the Test Acts that were enacted and supported by Whigs?

No. The Test Acts were passed by the Cavalier Parliament, called such because it was mostly composed of former supporters of the royalist side during the Civil Wars. At that point, neither the Whig nor Tory parties yet existed, only coming into being during the Exclusion Crisis.

By 1695, while the Whigs continued to support discrimination against Catholics, they had become the party of dissenting Protestants and thus supported greater tolerance for nonconformists. Other than their support for Jacobitism, the Tories were ambivalent at best on Catholicism and much worse toward dissenters, constantly trying to pass discriminatory laws against them.

With that said, as outlined in my initial post, I still would've supported the Tories due to my own Jacobite sympathies and support for peace with France.

Eh, that's debatable. "Whig" and "Tory" as labels date back to the English Civil War, and at any rate the Cavalier Parliament was split into two factions, the "Country party" (who became the Whigs) and the "Court party" (i.e. the Tories), with the former responsible for the Test Acts. This is why the founders of the Whig party, including the Earl of Shaftesbury and the Duke of Monmouth, supported the Test Acts due to their hatred of the Catholicism of the Tories. The Tories over time became a high church Anglican party and the Whigs more inclined to dissenters, but the Whigs supported the Protestants only (hence their support for Presbyterians and the Covenanters) and the Tories, at least initially, open or concealed Catholicism (hence their opposition to the Hanoverian succession and their support for the exiled House of Stuart).

[darklordoftech]

What were the issues at the time?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This is... anachronistic in the extreme. Neither the Whigs nor the Tories were really parties in a sense that we would understand now, and the concept of a 'General Election' in 1695 is silly: there was no nationwide campaign, rather a series of local contests held over an extended period of time, and the conclusion of which a new Parliament met. In any case you almost certainly would not have been able to vote.

[HillGoose]

This is... anachronistic in the extreme. Neither the Whigs nor the Tories were really parties in a sense that we would understand now, and the concept of a 'General Election' in 1695 is silly: there was no nationwide campaign, rather a series of local contests held over an extended period of time, and the conclusion of which a new Parliament met. In any case you almost certainly would not have been able to vote.

Lmao brah this thread isn't even serious. Vote for the Whigs because of their big ass wigs 1695!

[Middle-aged Europe]

Whigs

[Wikipedia delenda est]

Domestically, the Whigs were better due to their support of greater religious tolerance.

Huh? Wasn't it the Test Acts that were enacted and supported by Whigs?

No. The Test Acts were passed by the Cavalier Parliament, called such because it was mostly composed of former supporters of the royalist side during the Civil Wars. At that point, neither the Whig nor Tory parties yet existed, only coming into being during the Exclusion Crisis.

By 1695, while the Whigs continued to support discrimination against Catholics, they had become the party of dissenting Protestants and thus supported greater tolerance for nonconformists. Other than their support for Jacobitism, the Tories were ambivalent at best on Catholicism and much worse toward dissenters, constantly trying to pass discriminatory laws against them.

With that said, as outlined in my initial post, I still would've supported the Tories due to my own Jacobite sympathies and support for peace with France.

Eh, that's debatable. "Whig" and "Tory" as labels date back to the English Civil War, and at any rate the Cavalier Parliament was split into two factions, the "Country party" (who became the Whigs) and the "Court party" (i.e. the Tories), with the former responsible for the Test Acts. This is why the founders of the Whig party, including the Earl of Shaftesbury and the Duke of Monmouth, supported the Test Acts due to their hatred of the Catholicism of the Tories. The Tories over time became a high church Anglican party and the Whigs more inclined to dissenters, but the Whigs supported the Protestants only (hence their support for Presbyterians and the Covenanters) and the Tories, at least initially, open or concealed Catholicism (hence their opposition to the Hanoverian succession and their support for the exiled House of Stuart).

I disagree with looking at the Tories as being in league with Catholicism. They supported Jacobitism not because they were secret Catholics, as Whig propaganda would have you believe, but rather because they believed in the divine right theory. And divine right theory was not inherently Catholic, as it had been used in the past by figures as Protestant as Queen Elizabeth and more notably by King James. Furthermore, it should be noted that not all Tories were Jacobites. Many were aghast at James II's alliance with the Dissenters against High Anglicanism, and thus supported his overthrow. Jonathan Swift is a notable example of this sort of Tory.