Prime Factors - Ranking UK Prime Ministers

11.1 - Frederick North, Lord North (Part 1)

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11.1 - Frederick North, Lord North (Part 1)

Episode Transcript

Joe: This episode is dedicated to my mother and Abram's grandmother, who passed away in February. She once told me that while she didn't understand our podcast at all, she did enjoy hearing us talk. We'll miss her.

Abram: Welcome to Prime Factors. This week, Frederick North, Part One. Hello and welcome back to Prime Factors. I'm Abram. I'm here with my dad. We're reviewing all the British Prime Ministers from Robert Walpole to Keir Starmer. This is episode 11.1, Frederick North, Part One.

Joe: We have made it to Lord North. Part of me thought that we'd be here a long time ago, while another thought, well, we'd never get here.

Abram: But we did.

Joe: We did. And this will kick off, I hope, a series of specials on the American Revolution. We don't want to spend forever here because we are a British Prime Minister podcast, but as Bostonians and New Englanders, it is too important for us not to tell our local history.

Joe: I also recently recorded a short story for the Grand Dukes of the West podcast. You can find my reading of "A Good Dog," a short story from the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, written in or prior to the 15th century. Josh has a fantastic podcast, and I intended to tell people about it sooner, but life got in the way. I'll include a trailer at the end of this episode.

Abram: Dad?

Joe: Yes?

Abram: Manatee wants to say something.

Joe: Okay. Hi, Manatee.

Abram (as Manatee): Thank you for donating to the Save the Manatee Club.

Joe: Yes, yes. We donated our ticket sales from Intelligent Speech, and then I rounded up a bit, and we made a $50 donation to the Save the Manatee Club. We appreciate everyone that signed up for Intelligent Speech using our promo code.

Abram: How many were there?

Joe: Not a lot, but more than none, which is good.

Abram: Yeah. Don't forget that you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and at primefactorspodcast.com. We're also on Facebook and BlueSky. If you enjoy listening, please like, subscribe, comment, and review.

Joe: And Abram, I signed up for Instagram.

Abram: We know someone who's famous on Instagram. This is the perfect time to give them a shout out.

Joe: Oh, that's true. Abram's uncle and infrequent contributor to our podcast is Instagram famous. Look him up, Dave Zachan. He has very rude pottery.

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: Anyway, Lord North is a man that is most defined by his relationships: to his father, to his stepbrother Dartmouth, and to George III. We've seen some larger-than-life characters on this podcast, but for my money, Frederick North is perhaps the most human. And even as the situation spirals out of his control, Abram, I'm looking forward to what you think. But before we get there—

Picture This

Joe: Our scene opens in January 1749. Or rather, our scene opens on a scene opening. The magnificent drawing room of Leicester House, the home of the Prince of Wales, has been rearranged. An elevated stage now stands near one end of the long hall, flanked on either side by Roman-style columns which bear all the hallmarks of being quickly made from wood. A matte painting depicting the Roman Senate stands just behind the stage.

Joe: In front of the stage, sitting on a mismatched collection of chairs taken from around the palace, are some of the leading men and women of the Patriot Whigs. Over to one side has been assembled a private box of a sort with the grandest of seats for Frederick, the Prince of Wales, and his family. Francis North, our North's father, sits with the Prince, as does someone else we know well: John Stuart, the Earl of Bute.

Abram: The Earl of Bute!

Joe: The murmur of the crowd subsides as a young boy of ten walks onto the stage wearing a toga. This is Prince George, the future King George III. He pauses at a spot marked in paint on the stage floor and looks out at his father and the assembled guests. He clears his throat to speak.

Abram: It's the first great lesson I was taught. It may with truth be said, a boy in England born, is England bred, where freedom best becomes the earliest state. For there, the love of liberty is innate.

Joe: Basically, Abram, what he's saying is that people born in England, like, have a natural love of freedom that doesn't happen everywhere else in the world.

Joe: The crowd murmurs approval at the boy's patriotic monologue, extolling the innate virtues of one born in England, and understood without being explicit that this was a criticism of the German-born King George II. The Prince of Wales had long made his home open to the loyal opposition.

Joe: Prince George steps off the stage and the production begins in earnest. This is family theater, although one of the most wealthy and powerful families in the country, and not the polished productions of Drury Lane. The cast consists of many of the Prince's children, as well as some of the Leicester House ministers' children. These are the gaggle of boys and girls that surround the young royal family. The youngest on stage was hardly eight, and some of the children fumble their lines or are helped by an offstage whisper. One of the children freezes and has to be helped offstage by a grinning Prince George. The audience loves it.

Joe: For all the levity of children in togas, the play they put on under those beeswax candles is a serious one. Cato by Joseph Addison, one of the most popular plays of the day. It depicts the final days of the Roman Republic as Cato the Younger struggles to hold on to his Roman and Republican virtues while Caesar threatens to sweep those ideals aside in favor of dictatorship.

Joe: Two roles in particular make up the stirring heart of the production: the noble and freedom-loving Portius and his opposite, the cynical General Syphax. For the former, Prince George was the natural protagonist, but they needed an older boy who could be trusted with the difficult Syphax. Standing up on the stage next to his prince, also wearing a toga, was none other than a sixteen-year-old Frederick North. Both boys are trained speakers and drive the themes of the play home.

Abram: His sufferings shine and spread a glory round him. Greatly unfortunate, he fights the cause of honour, virtue, liberty, and Rome. Gods, I could tear my hair to hear you talk!

Joe: Honour is a fine imaginary notion that draws in raw and inexperienced men to real mischiefs, while they hunt a shadow. As these two young men strut up and down the stage in their Roman garb, it would have been hard not to notice how— alike they seemed. The older North was a foot taller, his wig frosted by white powder, but he and the prince shared the same facial structure, the same nose, and even the same slightly bulging eyes.

Abram: Is that a coincidence or is it not? Hmm.

Joe: Prince Frederick leaned over to whisper in Francis North's ear. "Your son has such a regal bearing. Your son has done you proud, and if they were not six years apart, you could almost think them twins." Francis managed a smile. That's all he could do.

Joe: Cato's ideals are ultimately doomed. Rome fell into despotism. But Prince George gets the final line.

Abram: There fled the greatest soul that ever warmed a Roman breast. From hence let fierce contending nations know what dire effects from civil discord flow. 'Tis this that shakes our country with alarms and gives up Rome a prey to Roman arms, produces fraud and cruelty and strife, and robs the guilty world of Cato's life.

Joe: Just so you know, Abram, this is after Cato died, and basically the Roman Empire is triumphing over the Roman Republic, right?

Abram: So is that basically a civil war?

Joe: In a way. Liberty is dying, and now we're going to have the Augusti. But this is still—

Abram: Which becomes the emperors, correct? And if you want to learn more about the emperors, you should listen to Totalus Rankium, the world's greatest podcast. I don't often listen to their emperor stuff. But I know it's good. It's Totalus Rankium, after all. So I recommend you listen to them. Do you agree?

Joe: I agree. Less than thirty years later, those two smiling boys championing English liberty will be burned in effigy. They will be the Caesars to America's Cato. They take a bow.

Silver Spoons

Joe: So looking back on Frederick North's history, one fact that stands out: his family, they often backed the wrong horse and then somehow survived. And usually just by making themselves very useful to whoever was in charge.

Joe: Well, what do I mean? Let's start with the very first Baron North back in the 1500s. He was a merchant's son who became one of London's top lawyers during the reign of Henry VIII. But when Edward VI died, he sided with Lady Jane Grey. And somehow, not only did Mary not kill him, she also made him a baron and added him to the Privy Council. And that is the beginning of North's slow rise in British politics.

Joe: We're going to skip over the North royalists during the English Civil War and jump to more recent news. By this point, the family had split into an elder Baron North branch and a younger Baron Guilford—Guilford?

Abram: Guilford?

Joe: Why can't I say Guilford?

Abram: Guilford. Let me coach. Repeat after me. Gil.

Joe: Gil.

Abram: Ferd.

Joe: Ferd.

Abram: Say it all together.

Joe: Guilford.

Abram: Guilford.

Joe: All right.

Abram: Okay.

Joe: By this point, the family had split into an elder Baron North branch and a younger Baron Guilford branch, descended from a younger son. When Frederick's grandfather was one of the few lords that voted against the Act of Settlement that brought in the Hanoverians, that older branch had become thoroughly Jacobite, and some of them at this point in our story remain in exile.

Abram: Jacobite. Does that mean they're Tor-tory, Tor-tory, Tor-tory, Tor-oo?

Joe: Well, we're getting way ahead of ourselves, but the Jacobites were those old Tories. So yes, they were probably Tories. You are right.

Abram: One thing I just noticed is that Tor-tory is in 3/4 time. Did you notice that? Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

Joe: Things you learn in music class. All right, we're going to hold that thought because Frederick North's father, Francis North, is born in 1704. Francis seemed headed for the usual career of a well-born eldest son. He entered Parliament when he was 23. He married into the wealthy Montagu family the following year, and he took as his wife Lady Lucy Montagu, daughter of the Earl of Halifax.

Abram: How is Montagu spelled?

Joe: M-O-N-T-A-G-U.

Abram: Huh. I think they're forgetting the last letter.

Joe: Yeah, well, it should be U-E, right?

Abram: I think they're forgetting something.

Joe: Spelling was not standardized at the time. I don't know.

Abram: Okay, continue.

Joe: When Grandpa died, Francis became the Baron Guilford. Now, being a young baron opened up doors for Dad, the most important of which was to Leicester House. He was made a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Frederick, the Prince of Wales.

Abram: What's Leicester House again?

Joe: Leicester House is the home of Frederick, the Prince of Wales. That is essentially where he made his headquarters when Frederick was going against his father, George II. And then after Frederick died, Leicester House became sort of the John Stuart, Earl of Bute power base that eventually pushed and got George III in— well, obviously George III was going to be king, but they were the political faction that backed George III.

Joe: So remember, at this point Frederick hated his dad George II, and he had established something like an opposition court based out of his home at Leicester House. Getting this job was a life changer for the young Francis North. While in practice there were other servants to help the prince actually dress in the morning, this role was still an intimate one. It gave him access. Francis, and his wife, would also need to attend social events with the prince. And this is where the scandalous things might have happened.

Abram: Dun dun dun!

Joe: We discussed this in my Intelligent Speech presentation.

Abram: Which was, despite not being able to hear the Intelligent Speech for a long time from now, just so you know, it was made in February.

Joe: Yeah. So Abram has already heard this because he did a great job with me at Intelligent Speech.

Abram: And Manatee.

Joe: And Manatee.

Abram: Manatee was listening the whole time, even when you weren't.

Joe: Yeah, well, in any event, Abram did a great job and we covered some of this already. And that Intelligent Speech presentation will be posted to our feed if you weren't able to catch it live. In, I think, six months we're allowed to post it.

Joe: But the important point is that there is a persistent rumor that Prince Frederick had an affair with Lady Guilford and that her first son was actually the prince's. Now, the evidence for this is thin, and we'll discuss more later, but Prince Frederick was known to have multiple mistresses. It wouldn't have been out of character for him to have another dalliance or two. And this is before he was even married. So who would have raised an eyebrow?

Joe: And for our story, it matters less whether there really was an affair, but that contemporaries couldn't be sure either way. That was kind of the key. And as we've already talked, they do look a lot alike.

Abram: Yeah, they look so similar.

Joe: Now, speaking of which, Frederick North, he was born on April 13th, 1732, at the North family home in Piccadilly. The child was named Frederick, after the Prince of Wales, who also agreed to be his godfather.

Joe: And for those of you looking for signs of that scandal, both of those things could have been suspicious, but it would also not have been out of place to name a kid after a royal, especially someone that everyone thought was going to be King Frederick. And while a prince becoming a godparent to a baron's son wasn't that common, it wasn't unheard of. It certainly had happened.

Joe: At any rate, those rumors, they're not actually even going to start for many years, and it's only going to be after Prince George is born that their likenesses are marked as suspicious. Prince Frederick remained close to the boy and his family in ways that could later look unusually familiar, especially, for example, that performance that we just talked about a minute ago.

Joe: So as we go, pay close attention to the way both Francis North and the royal family behaved towards young Frederick, and, well, you see if you think something funny is going on.

Joe: As you know, we always have Silver Spoons to roughly measure how many legs up our subjects had when they were born. Frederick North scored 27 points. That's about the same as Lord Bute and a little bit more than Henry Pelham. That puts him in a prominent family, but far from either the upper or lower tiers on our list.

Abram: Who's the highest and who's the lowest?

Joe: The highest was—

Abram: Fitzroy.

Joe: Augustus Fitzroy. He had like 83 or something.

Abram: What's the lowest?

Joe: Our lowest Silver Spoon score is James Waldegrave. He scored only 4 points, in large part because his family was sort of disinherited Catholics. The point is that Frederick North's close connections to the royal family are going to pay dividends beyond what his Silver Spoon score would indicate. And young Frederick's gonna have a challenging childhood, so he's gonna need all the help that he can get.

A Baron's Son

Joe: Frederick's life, well, it was shaped by two big deaths that happened when he was young. So first, well, his mom died. Lady Guilford, she passed away when Frederick was only two, leaving him to be raised only by his father and presumably a lot of servants.

Joe: The second death was perhaps a little bit of a happier occasion. Do you remember those Jacobite cousins that I told you about?

Abram: No.

Joe: Well, the last of them died in exile in Spain, I believe. And that meant that the title of Baron North has now landed with Frederick's father. So Frederick's dad is now called Lord North. Now, he was already a baron. He was Baron Guilford. But the North title is considered older, and therefore he is now no longer Guilford. He is now North. But for simplicity's sake, I'll just try to call him Dad.

Joe: When Frederick was four, Dad remarried a widow named Elizabeth Kaye. Oh yeah, we know some Kayes.

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: Joining her and her new family was her five-year-old son from her first marriage. His name is William Legge.

Abram: Look, I have two legs. I'm William Legge.

Joe: So Frederick and William, they might have bonded over their shared trauma with a parent dying, but they became friends and they're going to be friends for a long time. William, the kid, the stepbrother. So Frederick has a stepbrother, William Legge.

Joe: So I'm going to stop calling him William Legge now. Later on, he's going to be called the Earl of Dartmouth. So I'm just going to start calling him Dartmouth so we don't have to say Legge every time. Because every time I say William Legge, I'll start laughing.

Joe: So at ten, Frederick was sent off to Eton, just like his dad was. But William was sent off to Westminster School. They're both equally prestigious, but they're not going to spend all their time together.

Abram: Legge?

Joe: Yes, William Legge Dartmouth.

Abram: What's his name?

Joe: Dartmouth.

Abram: I know. What's his name? Like peerage name?

Joe: William Legge. So we've now discovered why they invented peerage names in England, because somebody probably just had a really stupid name and they said, no, call me Dartmouth from now on.

Abram: All right.

Joe: Reports of how Frederick did at Eton vary tremendously depending on the biography, ranging from he was, quote, "not only so good a scholar, but he has good taste and good judgement," to him being also, quote, "a blundering blockhead."

Abram: Blockhead?

Joe: We know that Frederick particularly enjoyed the classics. He wrote several Latin poems that were published in the school anthology. I haven't managed to track them down, so I'm not going to read them.

Joe: At sixteen, Frederick left Eton and he returned to live with his family. For several months, he was once again part of the Leicester House crowd, and it was during this break that Frederick joined Prince George and the other royal children for that performance of Cato that we discussed.

Joe: This may also have been one of the first times that Frederick and Prince George were together in a semi-public forum. And while it was entirely my invention that Prince Frederick would have commented on their similar appearance, that would definitely have been an occasion where that similarity was especially obvious.

Joe: The other elements of that story are presented as accurately as I could make them. The royal children really did perform Cato. Frederick and Prince George, they played the parts that I said that they played. Those lines were really from the play. I can't tell you whether this was the tenth time that Frederick had been with the prince or maybe the hundredth. I can only say that by now he was clearly no stranger to the Leicester House world.

Joe: Frederick's father was officially made a Governor to Prince George a little bit later, and that implies a tight bond and a tremendous amount of trust with Prince Frederick's family.

Joe: And Abram, I just want you to know that I love this. Sometimes it's frustrating doing these biographies because we cover the same time periods over and over again.

Abram: And the same three songs over and over again.

Joe: Yeah, but each time from a different perspective. Same songs, different perspective. I had no idea that when we were doing Waldegrave and Bute, that we'd be back here in Prince George's household doing their theatrics. But I am thrilled that we did because it adds a lot of texture, right? I mean, I like it.

Abram: Oh, yeah.

Joe: So the next stage in Frederick's life was to attend Oxford, where his stepbrother Dartmouth had already been studying for a year. He graduated in 1750. But this is where the story takes a strange turn. Immediately after graduating, Frederick's father stops paying him the £300 per year stipend that he had been providing his son. Frederick was unambiguously an adult now, but this must have hit Frederick like a financial brick.

Joe: Anyone looking for evidence that Frederick wasn't really his father's son might look here, but the evidence again is mixed. From what I've read of their letters, and I've read a lot of their letters, they're a cordial and loving family. Frederick isn't acting like he was disowned or cut out. The historical consensus seems to be that Francis, his dad, was just super careful with money, kind of like a Scrooge.

Abram: He has money.

Joe: So that's not to say that his father has enough money.

Abram: He's willing to name someone Legge. Do you regret introducing William Legge?

Joe: He's an important character. I can't not mention him. He's going to be super important in this episode.

Abram: Did you think I would do this?

Joe: And the next episode. I just thought it was a funny joke a little, and you clearly find it a funny joke a lot.

Joe: So all this is not to say that his father never gave him money. Later in his life, he's reported to have to beg his father for help. So he must have gotten some money sometimes. But by this point, it's no longer an assumed stipend. It was also traditional for a young gentleman to go on a Grand Tour after graduation.

Abram: Grand Tour?

Joe: To learn all of those necessary soft skills for a life in politics on the continent. But with no money from his father, how could Frederick ever afford a Grand Tour? Fortunately, he had a ride.

Abram: William Legge?

Joe: Yes.

No Scrubs

Joe: Although Frederick had no allowance, the same could not be said of his stepbrother. William had been supported through his grandfather, but that same grandfather died in December 1750, making William officially now and finally the Earl of Dartmouth. Suddenly, because Dartmouth was an Earl, there was plenty of money to go around.

Joe: And a better biography of Dartmouth might question how a newly minted nineteen-year-old Earl could immediately leave the country for several years. But that's what he did. The important thing for our story is that he took his stepbrother Frederick with him.

Joe: So, Abram, have you ever heard the song "No Scrubs"? Yeah, it's a '90s song from TLC.

Abram: Yeah, I've heard it.

Joe: Okay, so the context of that song is a man trying to attract women, but he doesn't have any money. He's just, quote, "hanging out the passenger side of his best friend's ride." And that was Frederick. He was indeed traveling in the passenger side of his best friend's ride all the way through Europe. Except in this case, his friend was wealthy enough that he had a driver, and they're both in the passenger side.

Joe: And to be clear, there's no stories I could find of the boys getting into trouble with women or anyone else. They had a tutor with them. They traveled Europe.

Abram: They had a tutor like Henry VIII.

Joe: Now, the other kind of tutor. They spent considerable time in Germany where they met the future Queen Charlotte, still a very young child, well before there was any thought of her marrying George III. They spent time in Hanover. Both boys made friends with Newcastle, Thomas Pelham-Holles.

Abram: Thomas Pelham-Holles.

Joe: Who was there with George II, but none of the biographies I have say that they met with the King, just with Newcastle.

Joe: Supposedly North spent time learning both German and Italian, but later sources state that he only fluently spoke French, so maybe it didn't stick. In one of his letters home, North writes about how unhappy he is, having already graduated college, and is forced to study Italian grammar. I find it funny.

Joe: He said, quote, "O, my Lord, how dull a business it is to a young man who has been seven years at a public school and almost three years at universities to be obliged to thumb over again the right parts of speech."

Joe: Now while they were in Europe, two major things happened. First, Prince Frederick died.

Abram: No!

Joe: Yep, so that makes the young Prince George into the new heir. This will lead to infighting, you might remember, as George II tried to take control of his grandchild's upbringing. That brought in John Stuart and Princess Augusta to keep the Leicester House faction independent.

Joe: And second, Frederick's dad was given a promotion in 1752. Despite his close relationship with the prince, King George II elevated him to being an Earl, the 1st Earl Guilford. And as we've discussed before, this means that his next lower title is given to his son as a courtesy. And from this moment pretty much to the end of his life, or just before, Frederick North is now called Lord North.

Abram: Yes.

Joe: Just to be clear, he is called Lord North because he is honorarily the Baron North, not because his last name was North.

Abram: So what's his name based on then? Is he Earl of North?

Joe: So his dad was the Baron North, who is now the Earl of Guilford. So, the second title, the lower title, gets handed to his son. And so, Frederick North is now the honorary Baron North. It's confusing, but that is how it works. If you don't like it, blame the British.

Joe: So, reading through his letters, I get the impression that North is very insecure at this time. He's traveling through Europe on his stepbrother's dime. His father's not paying him an allowance. He has to make his own way in the world, but he hasn't worked out how to do it yet.

Joe: This quote that I've read in one of his letters stands out to me. He is writing about his dad's new earldom, and he says, quote, "You have too good an opinion of me when you imagine me capable of adding a lustre to the dignity that you have acquired. I am so far from thinking myself capable of adding anything to it that I have the greatest apprehension lest I should tarnish and diminish that which it has already."

Joe: He doesn't even think himself worthy to be an Earl's son. It's kind of heartbreaking.

Abram: No. Does you know who think that they're—

Joe: Well, his stepbrother is an Earl. He's not an Earl's son. He is a full Earl. How? His grandfather was the previous Earl and his grandfather died.

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: After nearly four years in Europe, this might be the longest Grand Tour that we've seen. He studied with a tutor in France, Germany, Italy, and elsewhere. Frederick North finally returned home to his adult life around April 1754.

Entering Public Life

Joe: The timing for North and Dartmouth's return to London was probably not coincidental. April 1754 was a general election, the first under Prime Minister Newcastle. North arrived home just in time to stand in the election for his family's seat of Banbury, although the results of that election were never in doubt. Abram, how many voters do you think there were in Banbury?

Abram: Um, six.

Joe: Eighteen.

Abram: Wait, does that mean it's also how many got to Newton-Bimbury and sent a shipment there early?

Joe: It is a rotten borough, if that's what you're getting at.

Abram: Mm-hmm.

Joe: Banbury had just eighteen voters, the majority of whom were under the direct or indirect employment of North's dad. This was, as you say, a pocket borough, or a rotten borough, and being handed a seat in Parliament was a birthday present rather than an act of democracy. Because happy birthday, Frederick North, you are now 22.

Joe: Of course, his stepbrother Dartmouth didn't need an election. He was eligible to serve in the Lords immediately after returning to the country. To celebrate their return and their new parliamentary jobs, a party was thrown for the pair at the end of April.

Abram: I bet most people were cheering, "William Legge! William Legge!" I'm enjoying this episode.

Joe: I know you're enjoying driving me up a wall.

Abram: All right.

Joe: Guests were impressed by how worldly the two men had become, and especially North's fluency in French. Nobody mentioned his Italian for some reason.

Abram: Why?

Joe: I don't think he was very good at it. We even get a report that North was a fantastic dancer. It's difficult to imagine North dancing, but he's still young and vigorous, and this is a far cry from the sleepy Prime Minister he's going to be depicted as later.

Joe: The coming-out party, much like most of the pair's Grand Tour, was really Dartmouth's party and paid for by Dartmouth's grandmother. Frederick is once again a hanger-on in his stepbrother's shadow, but at least he had fun dancing.

Abram: Mm-hmm. This was mainly William Legge's though.

Joe: Regardless of who funded the party or why, the young nobles could begin to take their place in the world. But the first thing that North needed was some financial footing.

Abram: So he asked William Legge?

Joe: No, they wouldn't have allowed that because what he needed was a wife.

Abram: Oh.

Joe: And I found very little information about his courtship with a woman named Anne Speke.

Abram: Huh? That's almost as funny.

Joe: But he married her two years later.

Abram: Speke.

Joe: It might be Speke or Speck.

Abram: And Speke.

Joe: But no matter what we do, it's going to make Abram laugh. So it's fine.

Abram: Mwahaha.

Joe: This is important. Anne was only the daughter of an MP, but she was the presumptive heir of the Pynsent estate, which could someday make the family very, very rich. And eagle-eared listeners will know where this story is going because we've talked about the Pynsent fortune before. But for the rest of you, I'll leave you on the edge of your seat.

Abram: Okay, I'm a "rest of you," so— okay, what is it?

Joe: I'm not telling you. I'm telling you later in this episode. You have to wait. That's what—

Abram: Maybe there are woodworkers there who are actually evil.

Joe: Oh God, that's a returning joke from what, Rockingham?

Abram: The White House.

Joe: Yes. The union was at least partially political, but from all accounts it was a happy one. There were no rumors of infidelity, and they were going to have several children very soon.

Abram: Of course, the woodworkers were taking a break.

Joe: Oh God.

Abram: This is an amazing episode.

Joe: In Parliament, North grew his reputation as a listener and not a speaker. A skill that—

Abram: That's very interesting considering his wife's name.

Joe: That's true, isn't it? He bided his time learning parliamentary procedure and building relationships with the leaders of the day, but especially with the Prime Minister, the Duke of Newcastle.

Joe: North's first notable speech in Parliament came in December 1757. It was a reply to the King's Speech. Great honour, not very contentious. Contemporary accounts stated that he was a fantastic speaker and he had written a great speech, but as usual for this era, we don't have direct quotes. But North was becoming more and more visible in government. He was impressing the right people.

Joe: One of those impressed people was William Pitt.

Abram: *gasp*

Joe: Now Pitt was Southern Secretary at the time under Newcastle and was handling the Seven Years' War. And Pitt had an eye for talent, and he sounded North out for a role that would have taken him overseas. But North turned it down. We don't know why. We don't even know what the role was. Might have been an ambassadorship, might have been something in Ireland, but it would have required North to travel and North wanted to stay in London.

Abram: Of course. I bet that the woodworkers were planning this the whole time so they could target him.

Joe: Do you even remember which episode your woodworker joke was from?

Abram: From the Woodhouse episode?

Joe: Yeah, but which episode?

Abram: Rockingham or something.

Joe: I don't remember now.

Abram: The woodworkers. Yes, let's continue.

Joe: One of the reasons for Lord North staying in London might have been financial. He had received some money from the marriage, but he's not living the life of a landed aristocrat. His father's support was limited. Parliament didn't pay a salary. We know from letters over the next decade that he could not even afford to staff his household to the level expected of someone in his position. I found one letter where he complained that he could not even afford to hire a cook.

Abram: Huh? He has to cook his own stuff?

Joe: Apparently. By the 1770s, he's going to be in tremendous debt. And so that makes it seem odd that he would turn down any job, but he simply might not have had the money to travel. Or maybe he just wanted to stay in London and wait for a better offer. And that better offer, or rather two of them, came a year later.

Abram: With?

Joe: This was the height of the Seven Years' War. The Militia Act asked all nobles to do their part in building and funding the county militias across England, right? Have a defence against France in case they invaded.

Abram: Okay, so what's he doing?

Joe: So North was made a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Somerset Militia. But he's not going to last in the militia that long. I mean, can you even imagine North on a horse drilling men? But he did. For three years, he was a proud defender of his homeland. He was only 27, so he was still young, but for three years.

Abram: Three years.

Joe: And then second, North got the job that would help define his career.

Abram: Prime Minister?

Joe: A little early.

Abram: Woodworker?

Joe: Junior Lord of the Treasury under Newcastle. And this one at least came with a paycheck. North gained a reputation for diligence and intelligence. He was good with money. He did all the unexciting and methodical work that needed to be done in order to manage a treasury. And he became the kind of guy the government wanted in their corner.

Joe: But George II's death in 1760 changed everything. The popular and successful Newcastle-Pitt coalition was quickly toppled in favour of men more aligned with the new king's agenda.

Abram: Like John Stuart?

Joe: Like John Stuart.

Abram: He was the gardener guy.

Joe: The gardener guy?

Abram: Yeah, like—

Joe: Oh yeah, he was. He was a botanist.

Abram: What? He gardened?

Joe: Yeah. And for Frederick North, the boy who had played the General to the Prince's Portius, the game was about to become very, very real.

Politics is not a Popularity Contest

Joe: George III was going to be a very different king than his grandfather. He almost immediately worked to wind down the Seven Years' War, preferring peace to debts being incurred. He brought in his own men from Leicester House, most notably Lord Bute, as you said.

Abram: Lord Butt.

Joe: And he believed even more than his father in the authority of the crown.

Abram: Crown.

Joe: It is ironic, perhaps, that a king who came in ending one war would play a large role in starting the next one. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Abram: Wait, there's a war coming up? Is that why they stopped naming New England towns? Wonder.

Joe: Yes.

Abram: You're not supposed to spoil it.

Joe: Sorry, Dad. We replayed the next several years in our podcast before, so I'm going to focus on Lord North and the way his political philosophy was increasingly coming into focus. For more information on Bute and the rest, well, we have some fantastic episodes for you.

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: We'll start with Lord Bute. Initially brought in as Northern Secretary, George III quickly made him Prime Minister, and in doing so, he asserted more control over the premiership than either of his predecessors had managed. Lord North had also been affiliated with Leicester House and was almost certainly familiar with Bute. And there's a good chance that Bute produced the Cato play that we talked about at the beginning.

Abram: Cato!

Joe: When you look at lists of Prime Ministers today, you see that both Bute and North are labelled as Tories.

Abram: Tor-tory, Tor-tory, Tor-tor-tory. Continue.

Joe: So this isn't actually correct. It's a back-formation of the New Tory Party that's going to be coming into being a decade or two later. But this label does accurately show that Bute and North were alike in their attitudes towards royal authority, their stern approaches to Parliament, and their desire to flush out the vestiges of Walpole-style Whig corruption.

Abram: A spoonful of corruption helps the government go round, government go round, government go round.

Joe: For all that North and Prince George espoused as children the rights of all Englishmen, as adults, they both tended towards control rather than liberty.

Joe: The clearest way that this shared view of government manifested was with the Cider Tax. Bute saw it as essential to paying down the national debt, while others like William Pitt felt that it infringed on the fundamental liberties of Englishmen. North voted in favour of this tax, a decision that's gonna have a big impact later.

Joe: The Cider Tax helped to take down Bute's government, leading to George Grenville's time on the stage. When Grenville fought against John Wilkes in the Commons— do you remember Wilkes now?

Abram: It's not the fox.

Joe: No, Wilkes was the guy with the newspaper that made fun of them and got arrested for it.

Abram: Oh, that's sad.

Joe: So when Grenville fought against John Wilkes in the Commons, North was a key ally. North took a leading role in the Commons against Wilkes, including putting forward the measure that helped to lead to his expulsion from Parliament.

Joe: And when Grenville later passed the hated Stamp Act, North was once again an ally. He voted for the bill and would subsequently vote against repealing it despite the boycotts and protests that erupted in the colonies.

Abram: This won't be good for the colonies to have a Tory in charge.

Joe: No taxation without representation, remember?

Abram: No representation without taxation?

Joe: So if you're detecting a pattern, as North gained influence in the Commons, he was developing a style that he would hold through his time as Prime Minister. And there are two different quotes from North taken together I think explain his philosophy.

Joe: First, he wrote, quote, "I have done what I ought and what every reasonable and honest man will approve. I feel myself entirely free to choose the path that my conscience and opinion dictates."

Joe: But even as he suggests that reasonable and honest men would agree with him, he also admits that his positions aren't popular, saying, quote, "I am not an ambitious man. Men may be popular without being ambitious, but there is rarely an ambitious man who does not try to be popular."

Joe: Taken together, we find a North that increasingly has a moral and political compass, and a desire to follow that compass even when it makes him unpopular. Far from the insecure man of a few years prior, North was establishing himself as a man of order, conviction, and increasingly firm opinions. He'll still have his insecurities, as we'll see in a minute, but this is North growing into his role.

Joe: When Grenville resigned and Rockingham took his place, North saw a government that no longer felt as he did on critical issues. Rather than go back and quietly be the numbers man in the Treasury—

Abram: The number man—

Joe: Lord North did something that might have seemed unthinkable only a few years before. He resigned and he joined the opposition.

Abram: Dun dun dun!

Joe: Lord North was out of government.

The Adult in the Room

Joe: The elephant in the room.

Abram: So the reason why he's an elephant is because he's the odd one out for actually resigning when no one else resigns.

Joe: But the elephant in the room means something different.

Abram: Yes, it means the odd one out.

Joe: But he's not the odd one out. He is the adult in the room. He is the one person in the government that actually knows what's going on.

Abram: Which makes him odd. The adult in the room — that makes him the elephant in the room. There.

Joe: The Rockingham Ministry— listen to that episode if you've forgotten— was unstable from the beginning.

Abram: There are woodworkers crawling around everywhere trying to defeat Rockingham's every action.

Joe: I hope that that was from the Rockingham episode. I don't even remember which episode had that running gag. But Rockingham was selected to be Prime Minister in part because of his relationship to the Duke of Cumberland. And when the Duke died, his government struggled to remain alive.

Abram: Government all died?

Joe: Well, not right away, but you know, they really wanted Pitt to be in charge. So one person that actually stood behind Rockingham was North's stepbrother Dartmouth.

Abram: What's his name?

Joe: William Legge.

Abram: William Legge!

Joe: Rockingham had appointed him as the President of the Board of Trade, a very fancy way to say one of the leaders around colonial strategy. And that was actually Dartmouth's first government job.

Joe: Rockingham tried to stabilize his government by convincing North to return. North was competent, a good speaker, understood the business of the Commons, he knew his way around finances, and he might have been a safe port in the storm. But even with North's stepbrother in the ministry, he still refused.

Joe: Ironically, although North was desired in government, he was unpopular with the public. In 1765, this had a really devastating effect on his finances. So do you remember? I told you to sit on the edge of your seat, that North's wife was the distant heir to Sir William Pynsent's estate. And this is when he finally passes away.

Abram: The woodworkers got him.

Joe: But North's unpopular policies had convinced Pynsent to seek out a new heir, one that agreed more with his politics and not North's. And so, on his death, his estate went to the common man's hero, William Pitt.

Abram: No.

Joe: So do you remember William Pitt got that surprise inheritance late in his career because somebody just liked him a lot?

Abram: No.

Joe: Well, you should go back and listen to our episode.

Abram: I don't listen to your episodes.

Joe: Okay, well, the point is that in Pitt's episode, he was given a surprise inheritance, and this is it. So North sued him.

Abram: Who sued him? So is his name now S-U-I-T-E-N? Okay, continue.

Joe: North and Pitt entered into a lengthy legal dispute. So essentially, North tried to invalidate the will and claim the estate, and that battle is going to go on for years, and ultimately it's going to be resolved in Pitt's favour.

Joe: But here is the amazing part. Well, despite being legal enemies, like they were in court against each other, they were friends. Maybe not in court. Maybe they had lawyers in court or solicitors or whatever the heck they have in Britain. Both North and Pitt were adult enough to know each other's talents.

Joe: When Rockingham's government fell and was replaced by Pitt's, the Great Commoner sought out the most qualified men for his administration, and North was one of those men. And so Pitt offered him the role of joint Paymaster of the Forces.

Abram: Next chapter heading: As Paymaster of the Forces.

Joe: You keep adding chapter headings. We don't need one here.

Abram: Yes, we do.

Joe: Even that selection of a job showed how much faith Pitt was putting in North. Paymaster was one of the most easily corrupted jobs. There was ample opportunity to sneak a little bit more off the top. And Pitt even had that job once and wanted to make sure that it was run honourably. North might have been unpopular, but he was an honest man and excellent with finances. So it was a perfect fit. And North was quickly added to the Privy Council as well.

Joe: Now, of course, not all of Pitt's selections were perfect. Pitt found himself in conflict with his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Charles Townshend, over colonial taxation. Townshend wanted to tax more in a more direct way. Pitt didn't want it. Pitt tried to fire Townshend, replace him with North, but North refused and the firing didn't happen.

Joe: And that was unresolved when Pitt's great illness struck that robbed him of his brain and sent him home to recuperate. So who was next after Pitt?

Abram: Fitzroy.

Joe: Augustus Fitzroy.

Abram: And William Legge.

Joe: Well, no, William Legge's not in government.

Abram: Oh, I thought he was.

Joe: After Rockingham's term ended, Legge got fired by Pitt.

Abram: That's a ten-point deduction off of his points.

Joe: In the power vacuum that followed, Townshend passed his famous Acts which dealt a tremendous blow to the colonies. New duties were imposed, stricter enforcement mechanisms, New York's legislature was stripped of authority, and when rowdy colonists rioted when John Hancock's ship was seized, Britain sent soldiers to occupy Boston.

Joe: It was also around this time that the public rumours around North's parentage took hold. As cabinet members saw George III and North together on a regular basis, the resemblance was uncanny. Townshend was one of the first to remark on their similarity in writing, calling North a "changeling," a swapped baby. As North grew in prominence, these comparisons only increased. For some, they helped to make sense of how an unpopular man could continuously rise in government.

Joe: Now, Townshend died later, not too long from then, and North reluctantly did take on the role of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Sources disagree a bit, but one biography says that North turned down the role first because he wanted to take care of his father, who was in ill health. And then his father basically slapped him upside the head and told him to take the job. I don't know if that's true.

Joe: And the real reason for turning it down might have been that North was having another crisis of confidence. He wrote, "I'm afraid it will soon be found how unequal my abilities are to the task, but if His Majesty and his ministers have an insufficient Chancellor of the Exchequer, they may thank themselves for it." In other words, if I'm not good, it's only because you put me in that job.

Joe: As Pitt's illness grew longer, the Duke of Grafton stepped up. Kinda. Grafton, as you remember, was a playboy and more interested in his mistress than governing. Oh yeah, and he was our first Prime Minister to score negative points.

Abram: Uh-huh, they scored negatives.

Joe: North continued along as best he could as Grafton's government faltered without a true leader. When Henry Seymour Conway resigned as Leader of the House of Commons, there were very few that could step up, and with reluctance, North took on that role as well.

Joe: Pitt eventually recovered enough that he could return to the House of Lords, where he vigorously protested against the administration that he had once led. Grafton's fall didn't take long after that.

Joe: And so we finally arrive in 1770. Grafton's resignation meant that no one was in charge of the government. North absolutely did not want to be Prime Minister. But there were very few people that George III could even offer the job to.

Abram: Fox?

Joe: Maybe Fox, but George III hated Fox.

Abram: Really?

Joe: Oh, yes. It's going to be a huge deal in a couple of years just how much George III hates Fox.

Joe: Now, North, through sheer force of competence, had gradually picked up most of the key roles of government. He was already Leader of the House of Commons. George III writes, quote, "After seeing you last night, we press upon you in the strongest manner to accept the office of First Lord of the Treasury. My mind is more and more strengthened with the rightness of the measure. You must easily see that if you do not accept, I have no other peer at present in my service I could consent to place in the Duke of Grafton's employment. Whatever you think, do not take a decision unless it is one of instantly accepting without further conversation with me."

Joe: Under that kind of pressure from the king, North had no choice but to accept.

Joe: North was not like his predecessors. He was not a ladies' man or a bastion of hope to the common man. He had not been offered a job because of his love of horse racing or betrayed his brother to get it. North was just a competent man in increasingly dysfunctional times.

Joe: And we'll see how that plays out for the remainder, but one problem more than any other is going to dominate North's term. And in March 1770, that problem came to life in the form of a group of Redcoats firing on a rowdy mob in the streets of Boston.

Abram: We know that city.

Joe: Two boys who had play-acted the defence of liberty together would go down in history for their response to this crisis. And it was not the defence of liberty.

Joe: Next time, we'll have a special on the Boston Massacre, which some historians have called the first shot of the American Revolution.

Joe: Abram, did you enjoy today's episode?

Abram: I loved my own jokes, and I really liked it. Did you enjoy my contributions for the episode, or do you think I was wasting time? Answer truthfully.

Joe: I enjoy your contributions to the episode.

Abram: Really? We'll see how that stays true throughout our podcast.

Joe: Abram, we have one more order of business before we close out tonight, and we're gonna listen to a trailer from the Grand Dukes of the West podcast. You ready?

Abram: Oh yeah.

[TRAILER: Grand Dukes of the West]

Josh: Hello, welcome, and bonjour. My name is Josh Zucker, and I want to take you on a journey through some of the most exciting events of the late Middle Ages. Valois-Burgundy was one of the medieval world's greatest polities, and its legacy can still be felt today. Its dukes inherited, conquered, and politicked their way into forging a state between the German Empire and the Kingdom of France that rivaled them both. From the Hundred Years' War to Hanseatic merchants, from urban workers to Joan of Arc, and from gallant knights to gunpowder weapons, the Grand Dukes of the West had a part to play in almost all of Western Europe's biggest developments in the 14th and 15th centuries. If you want to learn more about the glamorous rise and dramatic fall of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy, please join me for Grand Dukes of the West: A History of Valois-Burgundy.

Abram: What do you think?

Joe: Sounds like a great podcast. I've listened to some episodes. I really like what Josh is doing, and I hope you do too.

Abram: I think that's a wonderful trailer that interests me.

Joe: So with that from us, we'll see you next time. Say goodnight, Abram.

Abram: Guten Tag.

Bibliography

Joe: I hope you enjoyed our episode, or our first episode, on Lord North. Abram told me afterwards he had a lot of fun, even if I can't understand precisely why William Legge is as funny as he seems to find it.

Joe: Please check out the Grand Dukes of the West podcast if you haven't had a chance. They do some good stuff, and I recently recorded a nice short story for them, which I enjoyed a lot. It was a break from the usual podcast fare.

Joe: Our sources this week are "Lord North: The Prime Minister Who Lost America" by Peter Whiteley, written in 1996, and "Lord North" by Reginald Lewis, published in 1913. I also have a nice copy here of "North by North," which is written by the 11th Lord North, but I don't think I ended up using anything from it. Certainly, it was a bit biased.

Joe: And that's it for this week. Abram and I now need to record a very special episode, and if all goes well, you'll find out just how special it is in a couple of weeks. Our editor is Palle Bo. You can find him at radioguru.co.uk. He does an amazing job, and if you're listening to this, I guarantee you he's done an amazing job.

Joe: With that, I hope to be back in your ears in a couple of weeks as we continue the revolutionary saga. See you next time.

Abram: And on a one, a two, a one, two, three, four— William Legge is my name. William Legge, that is my game. William Legge, that is my name. William Legge, that is my game. People ask me why I'm called Legge as my last name. Well, my parents may be to blame. William Legge, that's my game, and that's my name. William Legge, that's my game. William Legge, that's my game. It was a complete song. It featured two forms of a chorus, a bridge, and it featured a percussion solo. That's a complete song. Can it be included at the end of the episode?

Joe: I hand over the ratings to our editor.

Abram: Please, Palle.

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