Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke
Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke was an English politician, government official and political philosopher. He was a leader of the Tories, and supported the Church of England politically despite his antireligious views and opposition to theology. He supported the Jacobite rebellion of 1715 which sought to overthrow the new king George I. Escaping to France he became foreign minister for James Francis Edward Stuart. He was attainted for treason, but reversed course and was allowed to return to England in 1723. According to Ruth Mack, "Bolingbroke is best known for his party politics, including the ideological history he disseminated in The Craftsman (1726–1735) by adopting the formerly Whig theory of the Ancient Constitution and giving it new life as an anti-Walpole Tory principle."
Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke. Attributed to Alexis Simon Belle, c. 1712 (NPG 593 at the National Portrait Gallery, London).
Bolingbroke pictured alongside the earl of Oxford, together with a portrait of Francis Atterbury. Engraving after a painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller.
Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke
Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke. Attributed to Charles Jervas.
Tories (British political party)
The Tories were a loosely organised political faction and later a political party, in the Parliaments of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. They first emerged during the 1679 Exclusion Crisis, when they opposed Whig efforts to exclude James, Duke of York from the succession on the grounds of his Catholicism. Despite their fervent opposition to state-sponsored Catholicism, Tories opposed his exclusion because of their belief that inheritance based on birth was the foundation of a stable society.
James, Duke of York painted in a Romanesque costume
James Stuart, the Pretender during the Jacobite rising of 1715, by gaining some Tory support it was thus used to discredit them by the Whigs
William Pitt the Younger