The Third Whig

THE THIRD WHIG is the fifth chapter of my biography of Thomas Wharton, later 5th Baron, 1st Earl, and 1st Marquess of Wharton (and Tom Wharton, or Honest Tom to political England). The chapter picks up the story after Tom's marriage to a wealthy heiress and his election to Parliament as a Member from Wendover, and it endeavors to explain some of the political crises and grotesqueries that made Tom's subsequent political career and his famous political party possible. Since I am anxious to make Tom Wharton understandable to anyone who can read-not merely to experts on 17th-century politics-and since I am particularly concerned to explain him to his countrymen, who in general are at least as vague about their own history as Americans are about theirs, I have been obliged to rehearse some facts that will seem disgustingly familiar to some professionals and endlessly debatable to others. I am persuaded, however, that another tour through the events that helped produce the Whig party and the English Revolution is a wholesome and fascinating exercise-especially since the events look different from the vantage, or disadvantage, point of the 1990s, and since the cast of characters alone warrants the trip. I have included a table of abbreviations and a list of short titles to help readers who are so inclined to follow the end-notes. I hasten to add that these lists are designed for the whole book, not merely the chapter on the third Whig.