The Whigs and the Tories represent in the main not only two political doctrines, but two different feelings in the human mind. The natural tendency of some men is to regard political liberty as of more importance than political authority, and of other men to think that the maintenance of authority is the first object to be secured, and that only so much of individual liberty is to be conceded as will not interfere with authority's strictest exercise. Roughly speaking, therefore, the Tories were for authority, and the Whigs for liberty. The Tories naturally held to the principle of the monarchy and of the State church; the Whigs {18} were inclined for the supremacy of Parliament, and for something like an approach to religious equality. [Sidenote: 1714--Political change] Up to this time at least the Tory party still accepted the theory of the Divine origin of the king's supremacy. The Whigs were even then the advocates of a constitutional system, and held that the people at large were the source of monarchical power. To the one set of men the sovereign was a divinely appointed ruler; to the other he was the hereditary chief of the realm, having the source of his authority in popular election. The Tories, as the Church party, disliked the Dissenters even more than they disliked the Roman Catholics. The Whigs were then even inclined to regard the Church as a branch of the Civil Service--to adopt a much more modern phrase--and they were in favor of extending freedom of worship to Dissenters, and in a certain sense to Roman Catholics. According to Bishop Burnet, it was in the reign of Queen Anne that the distinction between High-Church and Low-Church first marked itself out, and we find almost as a natural necessity that the High-Churchmen were Tories, and the Low-Churchmen were Whigs. Then as now the chief strength of the Tories was found in the country, and not in the large towns. So far as town populations were concerned, the Tories were proportionately strongest where the borough was smallest. The great bulk of the agricultural population, so far as it had definite political feelings, was distinctly Tory. The strength of the Whigs lay in the manufacturing towns and the great ports. London was at that time much stronger in its Liberal political sentiments than it has been more recently. The moneyed interest, the bankers, the merchants, were attached to the Whig party. Many peers and bishops were Whigs, but they were chiefly the peers and bishops who owed their appointments to William the Third. The French envoy, D'Iberville, at this time describes the Whigs as having at their command the best purses, the best swords, the ablest heads, and the handsomest women. The Tory party was strong at the University of Oxford; the Whig party was {19} in greater force at Cambridge. Both Whigs and Tories, however, were in a somewhat subdued condition of mind about the time that Anne's reign was closing.