Tory Party

A British political party. The predecessor of the Conservative Party. Around 1680, people who opposed the movement to remove James II, the king's younger brother, from the line of succession were called "Tories" (singular: Tory), which means Irish outlaws. They took a position of non-resistance to the king and protection of royal power, but after the accession of James II, a Catholic, to the throne, he tried to destroy the state church, so they cooperated with the Whigs, who advocated limiting royal power, and carried out the Glorious Revolution. The Tories, based on local landowners, opposed the Whigs' preferential treatment of merchants and toleration of non-conformists. After 1714, they split into supporters of the foreign Hanoverian dynasty and the Jacobites who opposed it, and weakened, but regained their power after George III ascended to the throne (1760). Especially from the 1780s onwards, the Tories made new advances as the ruling party of the Pitt (Junior) government, and during the French Revolution, they solidified their character as a conservative party that protected "the Church of England and the King" from the dangers of revolution and reform. They almost monopolized power for half a century after that, but in the 1820s, conflict came to the surface between the liberals within the party, including Canning, and the conservatives, and in 1830, they lost power to the Whigs, who advocated reform of the electoral law. It was from this time that the Tories began to be called the Conservative Party, but the name "Tory" was also used.

[Yasushi Aoki]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

イギリスの政党。保守党の前身。1680年ごろ、王弟ジェームズ（後のジェームズ2世）を王位継承者から除こうとする動きに反対した人々が、アイルランドの無法者を意味する「トーリー」Tories（単数形ではTory）の名でよばれたことに由来。国王への無抵抗、王権擁護の立場をとったが、カトリック教徒のジェームズ2世が即位後、国教制を破壊しようとしたため、王権の制限を主張するホイッグ党と協力、名誉革命を行った。地方の地主層を基盤とするトーリー党は、ホイッグ党による商人優遇策や非国教徒への寛容政策に反対した。1714年以降、外来のハノーバー王朝支持派と、それに反対するジャコバイト派に分裂し弱体化したが、ジョージ3世即位（1760）ののちは勢力を回復。とくに1780年代以降ピット（小）政権の与党として新たな発展を遂げ、フランス革命期には革命、改革の危険から「国教会と国王」を守る保守政党という性格を固めた。以後半世紀にわたり政権をほぼ独占したが、1820年代にはカニングなど党内自由主義派と保守派の対立が表面化し、30年には選挙法改正を主張するホイッグ党に政権を奪われた。このころからトーリー党は保守党とよばれ始めるが、「トーリー」の名も用いられている。

［青木　康］

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