The era of Whiggism's intellectual ascendency in the early nineteenth century might be said to span the years 1802–24, from the first Edinburgh Review to Don Juan. In the early 1820s, liberalism seemed to appear internationally all at once, cutting across national boundaries and party benches as British foreign policy acknowledged the right of self-government to the fledgling South American republics. Whiggism, by contrast, was seen to be a collection of great families in search of government office. The image of Whiggism that had dominated the media since 1802 was more coherent in retrospect than any group of parliamentarians who called themselves Whigs during that time.

By 1823, the Whigs as a political party were more adrift than ever: some had crossed the floor to Liverpool's and Canning's liberal Tories, while the ‘popular’ Whigs lost whatever cachet their various episodes of condescension had gained them with the radical media since the 1790s. The Liberal foundered, Bryon went off to Greece, and Whiggish adventures in the underworld of European liberty ceased.