| Summary: | <p>This thesis is concerned primarily with the political organization of the Tory party within the counties of Lancashire and Cheshire between the death of Queen Anne in the summer of 1714 and the General Election of 1747. I was attracted to the subject in the first place "by the work done of late on the period 1688-1714; because the northwest was a traditional stronghold of Royalist and Tory sentiment; and because it was also an area with which I am personally acquainted* By demonstrating the reality of party differences at both the national and provincial levels for the years immediately prior to the Hanoverian Succession, Geoffrey Holmes, W«A« Speck and others had called into question the validity of Sir Lewis Namier f s model as a satisfactory explanation of the structure of politics during the early part of the eighteenth century* It seemed a worthwhile exercise, therefore, to seek to illuminate the political developments of the first half of that century by means of a detailed local study, clearly set against the background of national events ... [see pdf file for full abstract].</p>
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