TORIES, a political faction in Britain, opposed to the Whigs.
The name of Tories was given to a sort of banditti in Ireland, and was thence transferred to the adherents of Charles I. by his enemies, under the pretence that he favoured the rebels in Ireland. His partisans, to be even with the republicans, gave them the name of Whigs, from a word which signifies whip, in derision of their poor fare. The Tories, or cavaliers, as they were also called, had then principally in view the political interests of the king, the crown, and the church of England; and the round-heads, or Whigs, proposed chiefly the maintaining of the rights and interests of the people, and of Protestantism. This is the most popular account; and yet it is certain the names Whig and