Country Party (Britain)

Country Party was the name employed in the Kingdom of England (and later in Great Britain) by political movements which campaigned in opposition to the Court Party (that is, the Ministers of the Crown and those who supported them).

In the late 1600s, it was used to denote what would later become known as the Whig Party, characterised by its opposition to absolute monarchy; in the early to middle 1700s it was taken up by opponents of the Whig Walpole ministry, which they claimed was acting tyrannically and against the interest of the British nation and its people.