Today the terms are used as the respective nicknames for the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party in the UK.
The terms, Tory and Whig, are best understood not as 'parties,' but as two different sides with different political leanings. They have their origin in the tumultous times of the 17th Cent Restoration, when one side, the Tories, felt that a stronger monarchy, aligned with a stronger Church, was to way forward, while the Whigs preferred a limited monarchy and a stronger parliament. The Tories—the name is derived from the Irish word, tóraigh, for an Irish Catholic guerrilla—found most of their leaders and support from the squires and the Anglican Church, while the Whigs—from the Scottish word, whiggamore, for a Presbyterian rebel—found their support from the large landowners and the moneyed commercial classes.
The emergence of these two political streams produced something unique in European politics:
To the Whigs we owe the principle—Magna Carta restated in modern form—that rulers must obey the law and that legitimate authority requires the consent of the people. From the Tories came the principle—fundamental to any political order—that people have no right to rebel against a government because they disagree with it. Combining these seemingly conflicting principles produced characteristics of English political culture; suspicion of Utopias and zealots; trust in common sense and experience; respect for tradition; preference for gradual change; and the view that 'compromise' is victory, not betrayal. These things stem from the failure both of royal absolutism and of godly republicanism: costly failures, and fruitful ones. (Robert Tombs).
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