Of the Tory leaders, Harley, (Earl of Oxford,) St. John, (Lord Bolingbroke,) the Duke of Buckingham, and the Duke of Ormond, the Earl of Rochester, and Lord Dartmouth, were the most prominent, but this Tory party was itself divided, in consequence of jealousies between the chiefs, the intrigues of Harley, and the measureless ambition of Bolingbroke. Under the ascendency of the Tories the treaty of Utrecht was made, now generally condemned by historians of both Whig and Tory politics. It was disproportioned to the success of the war, although it secured the ends of the grand alliance.
One of the causes which led to the overthrow of the Whigs was the impeachment and trial of Dr. Henry Sacheverell, an event which excited intense interest at the time, and, though insignificant in itself, touched some vital principles of the constitution.
This divine was a man of mean capacity, and of little reputation for learning or virtue. He had been, during the reign of William, an outrageous Whig; but, finding his services disregarded, he became a violent Tory. By a sort of plausible effrontery and scurrilous rhetoric, he obtained the applause of the people, and the valuable living of St. Saviour, Southwark. The audacity of his railings against the late king and the revolution at last attracted the notice of government; and for two sermons which he printed, and in which he inculcated, without measure, the doctrine of passive obedience, consigned Dissenters to eternal damnation, and abused the great principle of religious toleration, he was formally impeached. All England was excited by the trial. The queen herself privately attended, to encourage a man who was persecuted for his loyalty, and persecuted for defending his church. The finest orators and lawyers of the day put forth all their energies. Bishop Atterbury wrote for Sacheverell his defence, which was endorsed by a conclave of High Church divines. The result of the trial was the condemnation of the doctor, and with it the fall of his adversaries. He was suspended for three years, but his defeat was a triumph. He was received, in college halls and private mansions, with the pomp of a sovereign and the reverence of a saint. His sentence made his enemies unpopular. The great body of the English nation, wedded to High Church principles, took sides in his favor. But the arguments of his accusers developed some great principles--led to the assertion of the doctrines of toleration; for, if passive obedience to the rulers of the state and church were obligatory, then all Dissenters might be curbed and suppressed. The Whig managers of the trial, by opposing the bigoted Churchmen, aided the cause of dissent, justified the revolution, and upheld the conquest by William III. And their speeches are upon record, that they asserted the great principles of civil and religious liberty, in the face of all the authority, dignity, and wisdom of the realm. It is true they lost as a party, on account of the bigotry of the times; but they furnished another pillar to uphold the constitution, and adduced new and powerful arguments in support of constitutional liberty. The country gained, if they, as a party, lost; and though Sacheverell was lauded by his church, his conviction was a triumph to the friends of freedom. Good resulted in many other ways. Political leaders learned moral wisdom; they saw the folly of persecuting men for libels, when such men had the sympathy of the people; that such persecutions were undignified, and that, while they gained their end, they lost more by victory than by defeat. The trial of Sacheverell, while it brought to view more clearly some great constitutional truths, also more effectually advanced the liberty of the press; for, surely, restriction on the press is a worse evil, than the violence and vituperation of occasional libels.