We all remember the old nursery song, which, however simple, is very significant, and affords us an excellent illustration of their unfortunate condition, and the places of their usual retreat.
"I'll tell you a story about Johnny Magrory, Who went to the wood and shot a tory; I'll tell you another about his brother.
Who went to the wood and shot another." From this it is evident that the tories of the time of Cromwell and Charles the Second were but the lineal descendants of the thievish wood kernes mentioned by Spenser, or at least the inheritors of their habits.

Defoe attributes the establishment of the word in England to the infamous Titus Oates.
"There was a meeting," says he "(at which I was present), in the city, upon the occasion of the discovery of some attempt to stifle the evidence of the witnesses (about the Popish plot), and tampering with Bedlow and Stephen Dugdale.

Among the discourse Mr.Bedlow said 'he had letters from Ireland; that there were some tories to be brought over hither, who were privately to murder Dr.Oates and the said Bedlow.' The doctor, whose zeal was very hot, could never hear any man after this talk against the plot, or against the witnesses, but he thought he was one of the tories, and called almost every man who opposed him in his discourse a tory--till at last the word became popular.

Hume's account of it is not very much different from this.
"The court party," says he, "reproached their antagonists with their affinity to the fanatical conventiclers of Scotland, who were known by the name of Whigs.* The country party found a resemblance between the courtiers and the Popish banditti in Ireland, on whom the appellation of tory was affixed.

And after this manner these foolish terms of reproach came into public and general use." * The word _whig_ is taken from the fact, that in Scotland it was applied to milk that had become sour; and to this day milk that has lost its sweetness is termed by the Scotch, and their descendants in the north of Ireland, whigged milk.
It is evident, from Irish history, that the original tories, politically speaking, belonged to no party whatever.