As the century wore on, the factions slowly began to adopt more coherent political tendencies as the interests of their power bases began to diverge. The Whig party's initial base of support from the great aristocratic families, widened to include the emerging industrial interests and wealthy merchants. As well as championing constitutional monarchy with strict limits on the monarch's power, the Whigs adamantly opposed a Catholic king as a threat to liberty, and believed in extending toleration to nonconformist Protestants, or dissenters. A major influence on the Whigs were the liberal political ideas of John Locke, and the concepts of universal rights employed by Locke and Algernon Sidney.
సార్వత్రిక హక్కుల భావనలు ఉన్న ఇద్దరు వ్యక్తుల పేర్లు విగ్స్ను ప్రభావితం చేశాయి.
Locke and Algernon Sidney