Editing Lilliput and Blefuscu (section)

===Satirical interpretations===
Lilliput and Blefuscu were intended as, and understood to be, satirical portraits of the [[Kingdom of Great Britain]] and the [[Kingdom of France]], respectively, as they were in the early 18th century.<ref name=Greenberg1970/>{{rp|30}} Only the internal politics of Lilliput are described in detail; these are parodies of British politics, in which the great central issues of the day are belittled and reduced to unimportance.<ref name=Greenberg1970/>{{rp|30}}<ref name="HOLY">{{cite IETF
|title = On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace
|ien = 137
|last = Cohen |first = Danny
|author-link = Danny Cohen (computer scientist)
|date = 1980-04-01
|url = http://www.ietf.org/rfc/ien/ien137.txt
|quote = ...which bit should travel first, the bit from the little end of the word, or the bit from the big end of the word? The followers of the former approach are called the Little-Endians, and the followers of the latter are called the Big-Endians.
|publisher = [[Internet Engineering Task Force|IETF]]
}} Also published as: {{cite journal |last1=Cohen |first1=D. |title=On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace |journal=Computer |date=October 1981 |volume=14 |issue=10 |pages=48–54 |doi=10.1109/C-M.1981.220208 |s2cid=7111686 }}</ref>

For instance, the two major political parties of the day were the [[Whigs (British political party)|Whigs]] and the [[Tories (British political party)|Tories]]. The Tories are parodied as the ''Tramecksan'' or "High-Heels" (due to their adhesion to the [[high church]] party of the [[Church of England]], and their exalted views of royal supremacy), while the Whigs are represented as the ''Slamecksan'' or "Low-Heels" (the Whigs inclined toward [[low church]] views, and believed in [[parliamentary supremacy]]). These issues, generally considered to be of fundamental importance to the [[constitution of the United Kingdom|constitution of Great Britain]], are reduced by Swift to a difference in fashions.<ref name=Greenberg1970/>{{rp|31}}

The Emperor of Lilliput is described as a partisan of the Low-Heels, just as [[George I of Great Britain|King George I]] employed only Whigs in his administration; the Emperor's heir is described as having "one of his heels higher than the other", which describes the encouragement by the Prince of Wales (the future [[George II of Great Britain|George II]]) of the political opposition during his father's life.<ref name=Greenberg1970/>{{rp|31}}

[[File:Gulliver's_Travel.jpg|thumb|left|Gulliver inspecting the army of Lilliput]]The novel further describes an intra-Lilliputian quarrel over the practice of breaking eggs. Traditionally, Lilliputians broke boiled eggs on the larger end; a few generations ago, an Emperor of Lilliput, the Present Emperor's great-grandfather, had decreed that all eggs be broken on the smaller end after his son cut himself breaking the egg on the larger end. The differences between Big-Endians (those who broke their eggs at the larger end) and Little-Endians had given rise to "six rebellions&nbsp;... wherein one Emperor lost his life, and another his crown". The Lilliputian religion says an egg should be broken on the convenient end, which is now interpreted by the Lilliputians as the smaller end. The Big-Endians gained favour in Blefuscu.

[[File:Willmann, Colin, & Outhwaite, Gulliver and the Emperor of Lilliput, cph.3b18907.jpg|thumb|left|Gulliver and the Emperor of Lilliput, from a French edition of ''Gulliver's Travels'' (1850s)]]
The Big-Endian/Little-Endian controversy reflects, in a much simplified form, British quarrels over religion. Less than 200 years previously, England had been a [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] (Big-Endian) country; but a series of reforms beginning in the 1530s under King [[Henry VIII]] (reigned 1509–1547), [[Edward VI]] (1547–1553), and Queen [[Elizabeth I]] (1558–1603) had converted most of the country to [[Protestantism]] (Little-Endianism), in the episcopalian form of the [[Church of England]]. At the same time, revolution and reform in Scotland (1560) had also converted that country to [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterian]] Protestantism, which led to fresh difficulties when England and Scotland were united under one ruler, [[James VI and I|James I]] (1603–1625).<ref name=Greenberg1970/>{{rp|31}}

Religiously inspired revolts and rebellions followed, in which, indeed, one king, [[Charles I of England|Charles I]] (1625–49) lost his life, and his grandson [[James II of England|James II]] lost his crown and fled to France (1685–1688). Some of these conflicts were between Protestants and Catholics; others were between different branches of Protestantism. Swift does not clearly distinguish between these different kinds of religious strife.

Swift has his Lilliputian informant blame the "civil commotions" on the propaganda of the Emperor of Blefuscu, i.e. the King of France; this primarily reflects the encouragement given by King [[Louis XIV]] of France to James II in pursuit of his policies to advance the toleration of Catholicism in Great Britain. He adds that "when (the commotions) were quelled, the (Big-Endian) exiles always fled for refuge to that empire" (Blefuscu/France). This partially reflects the exile of [[Charles II of England|King Charles II]] on the Continent (in France, Germany, the [[Spanish Netherlands]], and the [[Dutch Republic]]) from 1651 to 1660, but more particularly the exile of the Catholic King James II from 1688 to 1701. James II was dead by the time Swift wrote ''Gulliver's Travels'', but his heir [[James Francis Edward Stuart]], also Catholic, maintained his pretensions to the British throne from a court in France (primarily at [[Saint-Germain-en-Laye]]) until 1717, and both Jameses were regarded as a serious threat to the stability of the British monarchy until the end of the reign of George II. The court of the Pretender attracted those [[Jacobitism|Jacobites]], and their Tory sympathizers, whose political activity precluded them staying safely in Great Britain; notable among them was Swift's friend, the Anglican Bishop of Rochester [[Francis Atterbury]], who was exiled to France in 1722.

Swift's Lilliputian claims that the machinations of "Big-Endian exiles" at the court of the Emperor of Blefuscu have brought about a continuous war between Lilliput and Blefuscu for "six and thirty moons" (Lilliputians calculate time in "moons", not years; their time-scale, while not one-twelfth the size of normal humans, appears to be somewhat faster, since the emperor was stated to be "past his prime" before he was thirty.) This is an allusion to the wars fought under [[William III of England|King William III]] and [[Anne, Queen of Great Britain|Queen Anne]] against France under Louis XIV, the [[War of the Grand Alliance]] (1689–97) and the [[War of the Spanish Succession]] (1701–1713).<ref name=Greenberg1970/>{{rp|30}} In both cases, the claims of the exiled House of Stuart were marginal to other causes of war, but were an important propaganda point in Great Britain itself, as both James II and James Francis Edward were accused of allying with foreigners to force Catholicism on the British people.

In the novel, Gulliver washes up on the shore of Lilliput and is captured by the inhabitants while asleep. He offers his services to the Emperor of Lilliput in his war against Blefuscu, and succeeds in capturing the (one-twelfth sized) Blefuscudian fleet. Despite a triumphant welcome, he soon finds himself at odds with the Emperor of Lilliput, as he declines to conquer the rest of Blefuscu for him and to force the Blefuscudians to adopt Little-Endianism.

Gulliver's position reflects the decision of the Tory government to withdraw from the War of the Spanish Succession. Britain's allies considered the important objects of the war to have been met, and that the Whigs' larger claims were excessive. The withdrawal was seen by the Whigs as a betrayal of British interests. Swift (a Tory) is here engaged in an apology.

Gulliver is, after further adventures, condemned as a traitor by the Council of Lilliput, and condemned to be blinded; he escapes his punishment by fleeing to Blefuscu. This condemnation parallels that issued to the chief ministers of the Tory government that had made peace with France, [[Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer]], who was impeached and imprisoned in the [[Tower of London]] from 1715 to 1717; and [[Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke]], who, after his political fall, received vague threats of capital punishment and fled to France in 1715, where he remained until 1723.