Exclusion Crisis
The Whig faction was founded at the time of the Exclusion Crisis around 1680 in British politics, and its initial purpose was to resist the legitimate succession to the throne of James, Duke of York. "Whig resistance theory" had numerous strands, in particular when compared with the opposing legitimists (Jacobites) and the other major political faction, the Tories who advocated passive obedience as dissent, and as a definite limitation on resistance theories supported only passive resistance, indeed preferring nonresistance. John Locke's "Two Treatises of Government", written at the time of the Exclusion Crisis but published after the Glorious Revolution, went back to the Calvinist resistance theory as in George Buchanan. Algernon Sidney like Locke replied to the "Patriarcha" of Robert Filmer, and provided a thorough animadversion.