Indeed the line which separated them deviated very little from the line which separated the Whigs and the Tories.

In the House of Commons, which had been elected when the Whigs were triumphant, the Low Church party greatly preponderated.

In the Lords there was an almost exact equipoise; and very slight circumstances sufficed to turn the scale.
The head of the Low Church party was the King.

He had been bred a Presbyterian: he was, from rational conviction, a Latitudinarian; and personal ambition, as well as higher motives, prompted him to act as mediator among Protestant sects.

He was bent on effecting three great reforms in the laws touching ecclesiastical matters.