Notes and Queries, Vol. IV, Number 102, October 11, 1851: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.Various
History
Notes and Queries, Vol. IV, Number 102, October 11, 1851: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
In support of this assertion it may be as well to state that Tory or
Terry Island, on the coast of Donegal, is said to have taken its name
from the robbers by whom it was formerly infested. Dr. Johnson also
supports Burton's derivation of the word; he calls it a cant term, which
he supposed to be derived from an Irish word, signifying a savage. Mr.
G. O. Borrow (alias Lavengro), who has devoted much attention to the
Celtic dialect, in a paper which he contributed some years back to the
_Norfolk Chronicle_, suggested that the etymology of the word Tory might
be traced to the Irish adherents of Charles II. during the Cromwellian
era; the words _Tar-a-Ri_ (pronounced Tory, and meaning _Come, O King_),
having been so constantly in the mouths of the Royalists as to have
become a by-word to designate them. So much for the word _Tory_, which
from these premises is evidently of Irish origin. We now come to
consider the derivation of the term _Whig_, concerning which there is
not quite such a diversity of opinion. The first authority we will quote
shall be Burnet, who says:
"The south-west counties of Scotland have seldom corn enough to
serve them round the year; and the northern parts producing more
than they need, those in the west come in the summer to buy at
Leith the stores that came from the north; and from a word,
Whiggam, used in driving their horses, all that drove were called
Whiggamors, and shorter, the Whiggs. Now, in that year (_i.e._
1648), after the news came down of Duke Hamilton's defeat, the
ministers animated their people to rise and march to Edinburgh;
and they came up marching on the head of their parishes with an
unheard-of fury, praying and preaching all the way as they came.
The Marquis of Argyle and his party came and bearded them, they
being about 6000. This was called the Whiggamors' inroad, and ever
after that, all that opposed the court came in contempt to be
called Whiggs; and from Scotland the word was brought into
England, where it is now one of our unhappy terms of
disunion."--Burnet's _History of his own Times_, vol. i. p. 43.
Such is Burnet's account of the derivation of this word, in which he is
followed by Samuel Johnson, who has transcribed the above passage in his
_Dictionary_. Kirkton also, in his _History of the Church of Scotland_,
edited by C. K. Sharpe, Esq., in 1817, adheres to the same opinion:
under the year 1667, he says:
"The poor people, who in contempt were called Whiggs, became
name-fathers to all that owned one honest interest in Britain, who
were called Whiggs after them, even at the court of England."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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