Country Party (Britain)

Country Party (1726—1752)
LeaderHenry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke
Founded1726; 298 years ago (1726)
Dissolved1752; 272 years ago (1752)
Merger ofCommonwealth men
Patriot Whigs
Tories
Succeeded byPatriots
Radicals
Tories
Whigs
NewspaperThe Craftsman
IdeologyParliamentary opposition
Populism
Anti-corruption
Political positionSyncretic

Country Party was the name employed in the Kingdom of England (and later in Great Britain) by political movements which campaigned in opposition to the Court Party (that is, the Ministers of the Crown and those who supported them).

In the late 1600s, it was used to denote what would later become known as the Whig Party, characterised by its opposition to absolute monarchy; in the early to middle 1700s it was taken up by opponents of the Whig Walpole ministry, which they claimed was acting tyrannically and against the interest of the British nation and its people.