Independent or deferential: the voters of the reign of Queen Anne have been subjected to statistical analysis and their honour has been vindicated. Recent studies of the behaviour of the early-eighteenth-century electorate have declared that these voters were independent. The mid-eighteenth-century electorate, in contrast, was deferential, and the difference between the two electorates has led to speculation about the relation of voter behaviour to social and political structure. Since the politics of Anne' reign was dominated by party, it has been suggested that the existence of party depended, in part, on the presence of an independant electorate. As the structure of mid-century politics can be described without reference to party, it has likewise been postulated that the disappearance of party is a symbol of oligarchic subversion of electoral independence. Yet it may be that the importance of party and other formal political structures as indices of change in the conduct and society of eighteenth-century Englishmen has been overestimated. If the early-eighteenth-century electorate was not as independent as recent interpretations suggest, there is no need to assume a subtle but radical alteration of social structure to explain an alteration in voter behaviour. Change in political structure may not be significantly related to the behaviour and society of England's voters.