The Whigs were one of the two great English political parties in the 150 years after 1700, far more often in office than their arch-rivals the Tories. Yet the Whigs were much more than simply a group of politicians. An exclusive set, composed of the greatest and wealthiest families, the Whig world was a self-contained and small one, impervious to outside criticism. With members such as Charles James Fox, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and Lord Byron, its gambling, loose-living, drinking and wit were notorious. The Whig World is a portrait, of which politics forms only a small part, of an extraordinary group of men and women whose power, taste and intellect dominated the centre of what had become the greatest power in the world. Cosmopolitan, urban, sophisticated, sceptical and promiscuous, the Whigs numbered far more brilliant conversationalists and controversialists amongst their number than the Bloomsbury Group.