Western Civilization II / Unit 2 WC2 0121 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Classifying an English Faction: Puritan, High Church, Leveller, Whig, Tory
The idea
The exam names a faction and asks what it wanted, or describes a program and asks whose it was. This unit supplies five, and each is defined by one question. Puritans and the high church divide over worship: austerity or ritual. Levellers stand alone on the franchise: a democratic republic. Whigs and Tories divide over the succession: may parliament exclude an heir, or does birth decide.
In practice
Five cases. A member of the Church of England who wants Calvinist plainness and no bishops' pomp: worship, the Puritan. A bishop restoring altar rails and ceremony under Charles I: worship, high church. A soldier in the New Model Army demanding the vote for all free men and a republic: the franchise, the Leveller. A member of parliament in the sixteen seventies voting to bar James from the throne for his religion: succession, the Whig. His opponent, insisting that hereditary right is divine and cannot be touched: succession, the Tory.
Where people slip
The factions cross. Most Whigs were Anglicans and most Puritans were not Levellers; the Diggers went further than the Levellers, to common ownership. Classify by the question each answered, and remember that the Tories who beat the Whigs over exclusion still invited William when James produced a Catholic heir.
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