William III. began with a mixed ministry of Whigs and Tories, which
included men like Danby and Godolphin, who had served under James II. But
the fierce wrangling that went on over the war then being waged on the
Continent was decidedly inconvenient, and by 1696 the Whigs had succeeded
in driving all the Tories--who were against the war--out of office. Then
for the first time a united ministry was in power, and from a Cabinet of
men with common political opinions the next step was to secure that the
Cabinet should represent the party with a majority in the House of Commons.
Our present system of Cabinet rule, dependent on the will of the majority
of the Commons, is found in full operation by the middle of the eighteenth
century. The fact that William III., George I., and George II. were all
foreigners necessitated the King's ministers using considerable powers. But
George III. was English, and effected a revival in the personal power of
the King by his determination that the choice of ministers should rest with
the Crown, and not with the House of Commons. He succeeded in breaking up
the long Whig ascendancy, and so accustomed became the people to the King
making and unmaking ministries, that on George IV.'s accession in 1820 it
was fully expected the new King would turn out the Tories and put in Whigs.
William IV. in 1835 did what no sovereign has done since--dissolved
Parliament against the wish of the government.

From 1696 to 1701 the Whigs were in office. Then on the death of William
and the accession of Anne, Tory ministers were included in the government,
and for seven years the Cabinet was composite again. But Marlborough and
Godolphin found that if they were to remain in power it must be by the
support of the Whigs, who had made the support of the war against France a
party question; and from 1708 to 1710 the ministry was definitely Whig. By
1710 the war had ceased to be popular, and the general election of that
year sent back a strong Tory majority to the House of Commons, with the
result that the Tory leaders, Harley (Earl of Oxford) and Henry St. John
(Bolingbroke) took office. The Tories fell on the death of Anne, because
their plot to place James (generally called the Chevalier or the old
Pretender), the Queen's half-brother, on the throne was defeated by the
readiness of the Whig Dukes of Somerset and Argyll to proclaim George,
Elector of Hanover, King of England. By the Act of Settlement, 1701,
Parliament