| Groups of the Day |
| - SOCIAL CLASSES - - Royalty - Nobility/ Aristocracy/ Peerage - Country Gentry - Merchants - Artisans - Proffesionals (doctors, lawyers, ministers, etc.) - Laborers (urban, agricultural) - RELIGIOUS GROUPS - - Roman Catholics - Anglicans/ Episcopalians - Puritans (England)/ Presbyterians - Covenanters (Scotland)/ Presbyterians - Puritans (England/ New England)/ Congregationalists - Baptists (against infant baptism) - Quakers - POLITICAL GROUPS - - Petitioners = Whigs - Abhorrers = Tories Political parties started to form at the time of Charles II's rule when rumors spread of the Catholic's planning to replace Chalres II with his brother James II. The parliament was alarmed and shut off all Roman-Catholics from all public office positions. Those opposing the parliament were called Abhorrers, and those who were for the Parliament were called the Petitioners. Soon the Petitioners were called Whigs and the Abhorrers became known as the Tories. "Whig" was the old word for Scottish Presbyterians who opposed the government; "Tory" was the name given to the Irish Roman-Catholics who had their farms taken away from them when the Puritans under Oliver Cromwell ruled England and Ireland. Tories wanted rule by a strong king; the Whigs wanted ordinary people to own more rights and gain more control of the government. |