Pamphlet warfare and appeal to public opinion became necessary in the new political world of late Stuart England, but they remained radically dubious in the eyes of many, not least because of their origin in the anarchic days of the Civil War. The languages generated in this novel forum sought to define the sort of constitution which was being ‘restored’, and so rhetorical skirmishes tested the margins of orthodox utterance, with combatants attempting to appropriate authority for their own discourse and to stigmatise as potentially treasonous the language of their opponents. Steven Zwicker has characterised this culture as inhabited by various rhetorics of disguise, and there is much truth in this analysis, for truth, conviction, and motivation were generally covert elements of texts. In this nascent public sphere writers attempted to define and dominate the terms of the developing consensus on what constituted ideological validity. The process was often, almost typically, oppositional, as various ideologues sought to draw out the infidelity implicit in their opponents' principles, to expose the Commonwealthman behind the Whig and the Jacobite behind the Tory.