… of Shaftesbury's moral and political philosophy, but, against the background of the ideologically charged War of the Spanish Succession, also an important adjunct to his now much more pronounced political partisanship: a sociable, … part of an agenda meant to achieve lasting political stability in the aftermath of the Civil War. With the War of the Spanish Succession raging on the Continent, Shaftesbury saw Catholicism on the rise and therefore an urgent need to …