;^S6 History of the English Landed Interest. 



■whicli should have been amicably distributed between them 

 according to the altering exigences of the times. 



It is not, however, to be supposed that the records of un- 

 published Parliamentary debates will as yet furnish us with 

 information on this subject. The House of Commons was in 

 that intermediate stage, when, just having freed itself from 

 Court influences, it was struggling as far as possible to keep 

 independent of popular control. No outside circle of non- 

 voters, like that about the earlier gatherings of the "Witena- 

 gemot, sought by noisy approval or dissent to guide its course 

 of action. Grarbled versions of its debates alone penetrated the 

 people's ears, and members were seldom called to account on 

 the few occasions when it was necessary for them to meet 

 their constituents. For many years, therefore, the controversy 

 between trader and squire was not heard within the precincts 

 of "Westminster, but was confined to ominous growls which 

 broke out in various congested centres of the counties. 



The origin of the Radical Party is wrapped in obscurity. 

 In the contests between the Roj'alists and the Parliamentarians 

 of the seventeenth century we find an acute phase of that in- 

 evitable collision which occurs from time to time in every com- 

 munity between the authority of government and the freedom 

 of the individual. The principles of popular rights swayed the 

 Roundhead, those of personal power the Royalist ; and the 

 same sentiments afterwards drove the Whig into one camj), 

 and the Tory into the other. Then ensued a very curious 

 period in the history of political strife. The Tory still clung 

 to his predilections in favour of divine right, the "Whig to those 

 in favour of popular right ; but there was a king who trusted 

 for the safety of his crown to the popular party, and a 

 Government which maintained its existence and power by 

 opposing the worshippers of established authority. The "Whigs 

 in order to keep out the Stuarts upheld the prerogative of the 

 Crown, and the Tories, in order to promote the cause of an 

 exiled king, posed as popular champions. 



Before even the close of the second George's reign, a section 

 of the Whigs, animated by hatred for their leader W'^alpole, 

 had made overtures for political union with the Tories. At 



