Prime Factors - Ranking UK Prime Ministers

4.2 - Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle (Part 2)

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4.2 - Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle (Part 2)

Episode Transcript

Abram: Welcome to Prime Factors. This week, Thomas Pelham-Holles, Part Two.

Parliament: Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray!

Abram: Hello and welcome back to Prime Factors. I'm Abram and I'm here with my dad. We are reviewing all the British Prime Ministers from Robert Walpole to Keir Starmer. This is episode 4.2, Thomas Pelham-Holles, Part Two. See, I can read it slower.

Joe: We're not in a hurry, Abram.

Abram: Yes, we are. I want to get to the rating. Don't forget that you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and at www.primefactorspodcast.com. If you enjoy listening, please like, subscribe, comment, and review. We want more people to listen because otherwise we'll spend our weekends at the park and Dad will want me to learn to ride a bike.

Joe: Biking is fun.

Abram: Podcasting is better and you fall down less.

Joe: That's true, I guess. And this time we're recording at home for the first time since Robert Walpole Part 1.

Abram: That's okay. We still have Cavendish, Vermont to look forward to.

Joe: Yeah, and a couple after that. But this is our anniversary episode. It's, it's number 10. Can you believe that?

Abram: And we're only on the fourth prime minister. So many left to go.

Joe: So many left to go. But this feels, this feels big. It's like, are you proud of making it to 10?

Abram: Yep.

Joe: Did you think we'd make it to 10?

Abram: I wanted to, but I wasn't sure if we would. What about you?

Joe: I don't know. I wasn't sure if maybe you'd get bored of learning about prime ministers. Abram, are you still having fun?

Abram: Yep.

Joe: Okay, but let's go and get to this episode.

Abram: Shout out to Prime Time for being the other Prime Minister podcast that's doing a lot more than ours. They're already on one of the future prime ministers we haven't covered yet, though they're very slow.

Joe: I don't think they're very slow. I think that they have a lot more events than we do.

Abram: They have three people, and surprisingly, our ratings have all been pretty similar, I think. So shout out to them.

Joe: Yeah, well, they're awesome. So why don't we talk about Thomas Pelham-Holles. Abram, you want to start by telling me what do you remember from last episode?

Recap

Abram: Oldest son managed to get both his father and uncle's fortune and became active in politics and in the House of Lords when he was just 21. We're finally moving the story of Britain past 1754.

Joe: See, I didn't actually write the recap because I was expecting you to tell me what you remember, but let me think.

Abram: What do I actually remember? He had a vast fortune even though he wasn't good at handling it, and he needed to— from his, like, brother had like one-tenth as much money as he was supposed to have. Supposed to, emphasized.

Joe: Yes.

Abram: Once Pelham died, he sort of stepped out of a lot of the meetings because I think he was sad, if I remember right.

Joe: Yep.

Abram: And I remember that he had that story about escaping on a rooftop.

Joe: Yep, that's true. That's very true.

Abram: And he was afraid of going on boats, which stopped him from doing a Europe tour, or world tour, as they for the most part probably thought back then.

Joe: That's all very true. So he got a lot of money. He got into politics. He fought with Walpole sometimes. Sometimes he liked Walpole. He basically slowly advanced up through the ranks. Before his brother became Prime Minister, he became Secretary of State, first with Townshend and then without Townshend. Then after his brother became Prime Minister, he was super important. But now his brother died and he is going to go and be Prime Minister now.

Abram: This reminds me of the sad feeling all kings and queens must feel when they come to the throne without conquering a country, that their father or mother once— sometimes just died, and they're so sad. Even though they should be happy they now can rule the country, they're so sad because they lost a relative.

Joe: Yeah, I bet that's probably really hard.

Picture This

Joe: Picture this: the year is 1756. The late afternoon sky over London is heavy with the promise of rain. A stately carriage bearing the Pelham-Holles family crest— a blue and white shield flanked by a horse and a bear, and I think there's a peacock there somewhere— trundles through the cobblestone streets.

Joe: Inside, Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle, sits rigidly, the usual comforts of the plush velvet seats offering little solace as his thoughts churn on recent events. Virginia, Nova Scotia, Minorca— nothing seems to be going right. But this was a social call to visit his dear departed brother's widow. Perhaps a quiet afternoon with tea would set things right.

Joe: The carriage moves steadily out of the heart of the city, the familiar sounds of London fading into the background. But as they turn onto a narrow, less-traveled lane, the atmosphere shifts. The street, flanked by tall, leaning buildings, seems to close in around them. Thomas glances out the window, sensing the tension in the air, when suddenly the carriage lurches to a halt.

Joe: "Why have we stopped?" he demands, his voice tight with concern.

Joe: Before the coachman can respond, the source of the disruption becomes all too clear. A crowd of rough-looking men surges forward from the shadows surrounding the carriage. Their faces are hard, their eyes wild with a mixture of desperation and anger. The air fills with the sound of jeers and thudding fists against wood. Stones fly through the air, striking the carriage with alarming force, cracking the windows and splintering the woodwork.

Joe: "Drive! Drive on, man!" Thomas commands, his voice cutting through the rising panic.

Joe: The coachman, trembling, cracks the reins, urges the horses forward. But the mob, emboldened by their numbers, presses in closer, blocking the path. The carriage rocks violently as men grab the wheels and doors, trying to force their way in. A stone shatters a window, and glass rains down inside, narrowly missing Thomas.

Joe: Realizing the dire situation, Thomas leans forward, his mind racing. He knows the area well and quickly assesses their best chance for escape. "To the observatory! Take us to Greenwich Observatory!" he orders, his voice firm despite the chaos outside.

Joe: The coachman, spurred by the Duke's command, yanks hard on the reins, steering the horses towards the incline that leads up to Greenwich Hill. The carriage lurches as it changes direction, the horses straining against the slope. The mob, momentarily thrown off balance, gives chase, their shouts growing more distant as the carriage gains speed.

Joe: Rain begins to fall, a cold, stinging drizzle that slicks the cobblestones and turns the path treacherous. The wheels skid, and for a heart-stopping moment, it seems like they might tip over. But the coachman, skilled and determined, manages to keep them upright, urging the horses on.

Joe: Through a misty haze of rain, the Greenwich Observatory comes into view, a solid, imposing structure perched on top of the hill, its lanterns glowing faintly against the darkening sky. The Duke's heart pounds in his chest, but he feels a glimmer of hope as they near the gates.

Joe: The mob, now far behind, continues to shout and hurl stones, but the carriage is out of their reach. With one final effort, the coachman drives the carriage through the open gates of the observatory, the iron bars clanging shut behind them, cutting off the noise of the pursuing crowd.

Joe: Inside the safety of the observatory grounds, the carriage comes to a shuddering stop. Thomas, his face pale but composed, steps out and surveys the damage. The Pelham-Holles crest remained on the door, though scratched and battered. How'd you like that?

Abram: Good.

Joe: Good?

Abram: I know. Part 13: Prime Minister.

Joe: What? We're starting at Part 13 already?

Abram: Of course. These are supposed to be one long episode that we just cut into two parts.

Joe: Okay, that makes sense. But can we at least get rid of the part numbers?

Abram: That's okay.

Prime Minister

Joe: So after the period of mourning for his brother ended, Thomas Pelham-Holles became First Lord of the Treasury and therefore Prime Minister. This happened on March 16th, 1754.

Joe: Now, I said last time that they originally offered the role to William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire, but that's not true exactly. So at this point, Prime Minister is not a well-defined role, and what historians have mostly done is to take how the role evolved over time and then apply it backwards, right, all the way to Robert Walpole. But at the time, the shift was more gradual, and Thomas certainly didn't know the rules that would be invented later.

Joe: So when William Cavendish was offered the role of First Lord of the Treasury after Henry Pelham died, the intention was that Thomas was going to remain as Secretary of State but be in charge, right? So he would still be, say, the first minister, but he wouldn't be the First Lord of the Treasury. This is also probably what Lord Carteret thought when he was Secretary of State under Spencer Compton, right? So he probably thought that he should be Prime Minister if he had known that there was going to be such a thing. Certainly he did more than Spencer Compton did, but he was never Prime Minister, so we didn't rate him.

Joe: And as we see in a little bit, William Pitt's also going to completely break the rules here and do his own thing.

Abram: Pitt's confusing. And from now on— well, yeah, this episode until we get to his episode, he's just going to be stealing other people's roles the whole time, which will cause him to probably get a lot more points than anyone else.

Joe: Well, yes, but we have a long time to go before we get to his episode. Like five or six prime ministers, right?

Abram: Yeah, it's a while.

Joe: Yeah, I don't even want to go through it now. So Thomas is in charge. He needs to build a cabinet, but since he's taking over for his brother, he mostly kept things the same. His friend Hardwicke, or Hardwick— I never know which— he remained as Lord Chancellor. Lord Carteret stayed as Lord President of the Council. Ever since that bit with William Pulteney, he's been kind of defanged. And so they just keep him around as decoration, I think.

Joe: So Thomas Pelham-Holles, of course, was Duke of Newcastle. So that meant that he served in the House of Lords. And something I don't know that we've ever explained before is that he could only serve in the House of Lords. He wasn't allowed in the Commons. He couldn't run for a seat even if he wanted to.

Abram: But it also meant the commoners, a.k.a. the farmers, can't hang out with the lords, a.k.a. like the dukes and stuff.

Joe: Yes, although I did learn that the Commons is not short for commoners, it's short for something else, maybe commune. I'm probably screwing this up, so I'm not going to say too much, but I think Commons doesn't mean what we think it means.

Joe: But in any event, he needed someone in the Commons to kind of be in charge there because he couldn't be. So remember, Robert Walpole, he was in the Commons. Henry Pelham, he was in the Commons. So he needed to put a commoner in charge of the Commons. His best choices were Henry Fox and William Pitt.

Abram: So one of them keeps making pit traps and one of them is a fox.

Joe: That makes sense. We haven't talked about Henry Fox much, but he was Secretary at War during the War of Austrian Succession. Henry Fox was one of Newcastle's most trusted deputies. You already know William Pitt, but remember that even though Pitt was pretty good, George II didn't like him. They had disagreements over Hanover and the policy towards Europe and other things. Plus, Pitt was suffering from gout at the time, which isn't good. He was actually resting in Bath, so he wasn't around to discuss any of this in person.

Abram: Was he taking a bath there?

Joe: Well, Bath has been around since Roman times. It's a city that has baths, literally, that they believe have medical or miraculous properties. And if you go rest in Bath, then you will—

Abram: Even if you're not in a bath, then you might be healed, right?

Joe: So lots of people went to Bath when they weren't feeling good. In fact, we talked last time, Thomas Pelham-Holles's wife, the Duchess of Newcastle, she's going to spend, or she has been spending, a lot of time in Bath because she suffers from many illnesses. And that's a place that you go when you suffer from illnesses.

Joe: Anyway, Thomas first offered the role of leader of the House of Commons to Henry Fox. Fox accepted, but he didn't realize that Thomas actually was stripping the role of all of its authority. And basically he just would have been Thomas's puppet in the House of Commons. So two days later, when he realized, he said, no, I am not going to just be your puppet, and he resigned.

Joe: So as a compromise, Thomas picked a guy named Sir Thomas Robinson to be in charge of the House of Commons. He was an ambassador. He helped with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.

Abram: I'm guessing he's a robin.

Joe: He might be a robin if we have this animal theme today. The point is that Sir Thomas Robinson wasn't a good, strong candidate. He wasn't popular, and he upset lots of people, including Fox and Pitt, because it showed that Newcastle really just wanted men that he could control and not men that would do a good job.

Joe: And that actually might have been the point, right? We mentioned last time Thomas Pelham-Holles believed that the real power should have been in the House of Lords, not the House of Commons. So by appointing a less good person in the House of Commons, he might have thought that he could reduce the role there.

Joe: But as a compromise, Newcastle gave Pitt the role of Paymaster of the Forces so he could have some role in government, a little bit of control over the military. And he gave some of Pitt's friends jobs. This guy— have we mentioned him before? George Grenville, maybe. So we put a pin in him. Pin. And he's going to be Treasurer of the Navy. And don't worry, he'll be back later.

Abram: Yeah. Wait, is his job to find treasure maps and then find the treasure chests and put the treasure chests on the Navy boats?

Joe: You know, in a very weird way, almost, because of course they were trying to capture French boats and the French boats might have treasure on them. Probably not as much as in the 1500s Spanish boats, but you get the idea.

Joe: So anyway, Newcastle had to do all of this quickly because the May 1754 election was coming. Henry Pelham had planned most of it, but Newcastle did it well, and he secured a strong Whig majority, and everything was looking up. He's going to be a very successful prime minister.

Meanwhile, in North America

Joe: Meanwhile, in North America, Newcastle didn't know this, but something else was happening in May 1754 that was going to have a larger impact on his time as Prime Minister, and it involved a little-known American military leader that's not going to be at all important on our podcast going forward. His name is George Washington.

Abram: Okay, his name is George Washing Machine.

Joe: Okay. Yeah, I know, I've never heard of him either. He's not important to the British story at all, so don't worry.

Abram: Yeah, George Washing Machine, get out of the story.

Joe: So we live in Boston, or outside of Boston, but I grew up outside of Pittsburgh, and that's where the French and Indian War was local history. So just like Abram and I go to the sites of the Revolutionary War battles— we've been to Lexington and Concord and some other places. We've been to where the Tea Party was and all this stuff.

Abram: I went to a museum about it in third grade.

Joe: Yes. So the story of Pittsburgh, as its name might suggest, is steeped in the history of what we're about to talk about. So that's a lot just for me to say that this is kind of an important story to me.

Joe: So Abram, let me give you a map. By the 1740s, right, Britain had colonies up and down the East Coast, obviously from Nova Scotia down to Georgia, right? So most of those colonies had charters that had a bit of an ambiguous western border. So the British were basically pushing west, although there were some Appalachian Mountains in the way.

Joe: And some of the colonies, like Virginia for example, had extremely expansive charters that basically said they controlled everything. If I remember right, the Virginia charter, if taken literally, would mean that Virginia controlled everything northwest of it, including all of western Canada and Alaska. So if you can imagine what that alternate history would look like.

Joe: The French at this point had just lost Nova Scotia in 1713, but they still had all their Acadian territories along the St. Lawrence River in Canada, including where Montreal is. But essentially all of the Great Lakes region and beyond. From their base of operations in New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi River, they controlled up through the central part of the country, just west of all those British colonies.

Joe: So most of that wasn't heavily settled, but there are some places you might know that have already been founded by the French. Biloxi, Mississippi, 1699. Mobile, Alabama, 1702. New Orleans, 1718. And Baton Rouge, 1720. You haven't been to any of those places.

Abram: Ha ha.

Joe: Your parents have, but not you. But the tensions were not just between the British and the French, right? The colonies themselves had conflicting claims. So western Pennsylvania, where Pittsburgh is, was claimed by both Virginia and Pennsylvania. So this meant that even though the French had claims just to the west, each colony also wanted to settle the new land first, right? So if Virginia settled western Pennsylvania, then maybe they would get that land instead of Pennsylvania.

Joe: And of course, we cannot forget about the Native Americans. The Six Nations of the Iroquois were rapidly becoming a dominant power in the Great Lakes region, and they generally favored the British, while the Shawnee and Algonquin-speaking tribes, plus the Cherokee, generally favored the French and wanted to keep the British out. So we have French and British and colonial ideas. It's a terrible soup, Abram.

Abram: I don't like soup, so all soups are like that.

Joe: That's true. You don't like soup. So in 1749, the British Crown granted land in what would become western Pennsylvania to the Ohio Company of Virginia. The deal was they needed to scout it out, build a fort, and they had to settle 100 families in order to lock in this claim and make the deal official.

Joe: So in 1753, the governor of Virginia sent an unimportant person named Major George Washington—

Abram: You mean George Washing Machine—

Joe: —to the site to scout it out. He found a great spot for a city or maybe a fort where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers meet to form the Ohio River, where the Ohio would eventually flow into the Mississippi. I get goosebumps just thinking about it. He sent word back to Virginia and started letting any French people that he found in the area know that this was now Virginian/British territory and they needed to leave.

Joe: As part of the deal, the Virginia militia started to build a fort at the site where the rivers met. This fort was initially called Trent's Fort after the fur trader and militia captain William Trent, but it was officially to be called Fort Prince George after the future George III.

Joe: Now, unfortunately, the French discovered the fort before it was completed. Messages were quickly sent through the forest warning of an impending attack. The troops at the fort, they tried to build as fast as they could, but Captain Trent was away to get supplies, and Lieutenant Colonel Washington— he got a promotion— hadn't arrived yet. So the leader of the fort at the time was a guy named Edward Ward, and he was kind of like a low-ranking person in the militia.

Joe: The French arrived on April 18th, 1754, and they gave the British one hour to pack up and go. Ward asked the French to wait until his boss Trent returned, but they said no. He asked, "Will you just give us till tomorrow?" And the French said, "Yes," or "Oui," or something.

Joe: The commander invited Ward to dinner. They had a nice dinner. The commander admired their carpentry tools. By all accounts, they had a good conversation that didn't involve politics. And the following morning, they didn't really have a battle so much as the French just sort of claimed the place and the British left.

Abram: That's the most peaceful way to conquer a fort.

Joe: It is very peaceful. They had dinner. If only the rest of the war—

Abram: It's more like, "Can I have that now?" instead of conquering it.

Joe: If only the rest of the war would go so well. The French are going to call this fort Fort Duquesne.

Joe: But remember that Washington was already on his way. He stumbled onto a French encampment, May 28th, 1754. That's about a month later. He attacked. He defeated the French force and killed their commander, a guy by the name of Joseph Coulon de Jumonville, at what we now call the Battle of Jumonville Glen.

Joe: But historians aren't really certain what happened here. Some say that Washington surprised the French while they were sleeping, or that they attacked while they were reading a message that he had sent. It's very unclear. And also, Britain and France aren't really at war yet. The French didn't fire a single shot when they just took over the fort.

Abram: They more just said, "Can we have that now? Let's have a nice dinner and then you just leave, okay?" Yep.

Joe: So Washington might have just started a war. But don't worry, it gets worse. The site of this battle, by the way, Abram—

Abram: I don't like this Washing Machine guy. He doesn't seem that good.

Joe: No. He wasn't that good, actually. He's a great example of a military leader that learned a lot before he was old.

Abram: But I hope he'll never achieve any great things. Yeah, probably not. Definitely not.

Joe: So the site of this battle is now a popular summer camp, and I stayed there when I was your age for a week.

Abram: Yay. Yay. It was nice.

Joe: Yay.

Abram: I stayed in a battlefield.

Joe: Well, I stayed at the camp called Jumonville.

Abram: If you had Scooby-Doo with you, I'm guessing there would have been ghosts.

Joe: Probably. So having poked that French bear, Washington fled and built Fort Necessity, where he would attempt to defend from a French counterattack. Unfortunately, Jumonville's brother was the leader of the troops at Fort Duquesne, and he was a little mad.

Joe: So on July 3rd, the French forces attacked Washington and defeated him easily. Washington was forced to sign a surrender document in which he admitted that he assassinated Jumonville and essentially massacred the troops there. And as far as these things go back then, this was a war crime. Whether he had intended to or not, George Washington just lit the match that would become the Seven Years' War.

Preparing for War

Joe: In July 1754, news of Washington's battle reached London, including the admission that he massacred a French force in the woods of Pennsylvania. The same message, of course, was on its way to Paris. Have you ever heard the term casus belli, Abram?

Abram: No.

Joe: No. So that means a reason for war. And now the French had a pretty big one.

Joe: So Newcastle said, quote, "All North America will be lost if these practices are tolerated. And no war could be worse for this country than suffering such insults as these."

Joe: But Thomas Pelham-Holles knew that war with France would be devastating for Britain. So the trick was, could they have a war between Britain and France that was only in the colonies? How could they keep this little war local?

Abram: Little?

Joe: Well, Abram, last episode we started using tokens. Do you remember? Little board game pieces we printed out. Dory's mom did an amazing job, and we used them to keep track of all those shifting alliances of Britain versus the world.

Abram: We decided to bring them back because of how good they were last time, and we even added a lot of new ones.

Joe: Yeah, so let's set these up now, why don't we? Let me run through the list for you. Okay, so right now France and Spain are enemies.

Abram: France, enemy. What about Spain?

Joe: Next. Portugal and Netherlands are allies.

Abram: Allies.

Joe: Okay. Austria and Sardinia are neutral. The Seven Years' War is going to be much bigger than the War of Austrian Succession, so we need more tokens. So Hanover— it was an ally before, but we didn't create a token last time. So now you have a Hanover.

Abram: Okay, where does it go?

Joe: Allies. And Hanover is a crown, I believe, actually a Hanoverian crown. Then three more: Russia, Prussia, and Saxony. They are all neutral. And actually Bavaria too.

Abram: Okay, where did Austria go? They're neutral.

Joe: Austria is neutral. So now we have some Native American groups. So Iroquois, they're in the Great Lakes region. They're now friends. The Iroquois actually are interesting. They were originally just in New York, but they are using British influence to spread out. They're actually conquering a lot of Native American territories west of where the Europeans are settling. So they're kind of a rising power in the region.

Joe: The Wabanaki in the northeast are enemies. These were the groups that kept destroying Newcastle, Maine. Remember we talked about that last?

Abram: Yeah, I know there are three towns and like Jack Pudding, remember?

Joe: So the Shawnee are in southern Ohio, Indiana, and Tennessee. They're aligned with the French and they're also fighting the Iroquois, so we are going to call them enemies.

Abram: And if we're doing the Iroquois, they'd be at war, correct?

Joe: And the Cherokee are northern Georgia and South Carolina. They're going to be neutral for now. But you might actually be surprised to see the Cherokee here because the last time you and I saw Cherokee stuff was in Oklahoma. But the Cherokee's homeland was not Oklahoma. They got pushed there later.

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: All right, were there any that I missed? Bengal.

Abram: Ah, yes, they're enemies. They are allied with the French.

Joe: Okay, and just for the record, what these are— the new ones— we have the Brandenburg Gate for Prussia. We have that big famous church whose name I can't remember that's in Moscow for Russia. We have a pretzel for Bavaria. Sorry to any Bavarians that might be offended by that. We have the correctly looked up Native American symbols for each of the tribes, although I can't really explain them very well, so you're just gonna have to trust me. And that's it.

Joe: So Thomas Pelham-Holles, he really wanted an administration where he could act like Walpole. He wanted lower interest rates. He wanted to reduce the size of the government. He had an idea that he would combat smuggling to increase revenue. Yay. And Walpole believed that prosperity came through peace. So the last thing that Newcastle needed was for a colonial officer in Virginia to start a war.

Abram: Is that Washing Machine?

Joe: Yes. Now, Newcastle wanted the war to stay local, so he felt it would be best if Britain didn't send troops directly, but would have the colonies do the fighting. So there was an attempt at this with the Albany Congress in July, but the colonies are not inclined to either unite or to go up against the French military on their own, something that they're obviously going to be much better at in maybe a decade or two.

Joe: Thomas said, quote, "Though we may have ten times the number of people in our colonies, they don't seem to be able to defend themselves even with the assistance of our money."

Joe: So Newcastle asked for the Duke of Cumberland— that's Prince George Augustus, King George II's son— to join the cabinet meetings to help decide what to do. He was an instrumental leader both in the War of Austrian Succession, and he was the one that beat back the Jacobite army when Bonnie Prince Charlie had marched south. So he was universally loved as a military leader, and he would basically fill a hole in Thomas Pelham-Holles's cabinet in military matters.

Joe: Under his direction, Britain was going to send troops under somebody named General Edward Braddock to North America. He'd pick up forces already stationed in Nova Scotia and bring about 1,500 trained men to fight the French.

Joe: But Newcastle, Thomas Pelham-Holles, was nervous about this. He didn't want to spend that much money. He wrote, quote, "We must do it as cheaply and inoffensively as we can."

Joe: In the end, Henry Fox—

Abram: Remember him, the fox?

Joe: The fox went behind Newcastle's back, got the deal approved by King George, and even put an article in the London Gazette announcing the plan so that Thomas Pelham-Holles would not have any way to undo it. Honestly, he's not showing himself to be a very good leader that somebody like Henry Fox could go around his back like that.

Abram: Yeah, I think Henry Fox is currently the main antagonist.

Joe: Maybe so, but the thing is that not only British people can read newspapers, the French people can read newspapers too. And now they knew that Britain was sending reinforcements to the New World.

Joe: And I think you might be right about the enemy thing, at least a little bit. So Henry Fox was Paymaster of the Forces at the time, which meant that he probably was getting paid the more troops they sent to the Americas. So maybe he did have an ulterior motive.

Joe: Anyway, Thomas Pelham-Holles saw this hope of peace and lower taxes was just slipping away. He tried to negotiate a peace treaty with France, but they didn't want to listen. They had just won a battle. England had committed an atrocity from their standpoint, and quite frankly, they just weren't interested in peace. So by November 1754, it seemed that war was inevitable. Newcastle had just hoped that he could keep it contained to the colonies.

Jewish Naturalization Act

Joe: So we're going to spend almost the entire rest of this episode talking about war, but let's take a break from it for just a moment to talk about something else that Newcastle was dealing with around this time: the status of Jews in England.

Joe: Henry Pelham had passed the Jewish Naturalization Act of 1753 when he was Prime Minister, basically giving wealthy and influential Jews in Britain a chance to become a citizen, a British subject.

Joe: He didn't do this completely out of the goodness of his heart because one of his close friends, Sampson Gideon, was a banker and very wealthy Jewish man living in London who had initially become friends with Robert Walpole, then became friends with Henry Pelham. And honestly, we could do a whole episode on him because he's really interesting. But let's just say he gave the government a lot of money. He pretty much funded the response to the Jacobite uprising of 1745. And he might have been one of the founders of the London Stock Exchange.

Joe: Pelham's law was tailor-made to allow Jewish leaders like Gideon to become British subjects because they were helping the Whigs, and therefore that's good.

Joe: But unfortunately, Pelham underestimated the anti-Semitism in Britain at the time. And while the upper classes were happy to hobnob with well-to-do Jewish people, the average British person was unhappy about this change. They were barely okay with non-Anglican Protestants. They certainly still hated Catholics. So supporting Jewish people at the time was unfortunately— well, it was a lot to ask of the average person.

Joe: And, you know, as we talked about last time too, Thomas Pelham-Holles was himself a religious person, and he personally funded missionary activities to bring Anglicanism to people in far-off corners of the world. So we don't know his views exactly, but he might have been less tolerant of other religions than his brother.

Joe: Whatever the reason is, Thomas Pelham-Holles removed that law as one of his first acts, December 20th, 1754. It had only been the law of the land for 18 months, and not that many Jewish people actually benefited from it. Again, it never really would have helped most Jews because most people weren't rich bankers. But it certainly was a step forward in terms of having freedom in Britain.

Abram: Yeah, and just so you know, there has been a Jewish prime minister in the 1800s. We'll get to him in a while. I'm not going to mention his name because then we'll have to put a pin in him, and I don't want to put pins that far ahead because it could be very dangerous if we missed.

Joe: That's true. So after this law was repealed, Jews are not going to get full freedom and citizenship in Britain for about another hundred years. So 1858, although there will be rich Jews that of course get it first. And I think starting in like the 1840s, you know, if you were wealthy enough like Sampson Gideon was, you know, you could get special treatment. Gideon's even gonna—

Abram: So the Jews that got citizenship just got uncitizened?

Joe: You know, I'm not sure. I tried looking that up, but I think they stayed citizens if they got it during those 18 months. But I really—

Abram: So like Gideon would— it would affect Gideon, but that would be about it.

Joe: Yeah, but also Gideon was a little bit of an exception. Like, so he was staunchly Jewish and his family were really Jewish, but they were all baptized also. So they were either Jewish pretending to be Christian, or maybe they were a mixed faith family after that. It's really unclear. But his kids are going to be officially Anglican, and they're going to be able to get power and titles and stuff down the line that he couldn't get.

Joe: So it's also possible, maybe even probable, that some Jewish people in England were simply saying they weren't Jewish in order to be more part of society. Not a good thing, but it's how it worked.

Joe: So anyway, a little bit later, Gideon's going to ask Newcastle for a peerage, like an earldom or a barony, but he's going to be turned down because he refuses to convert. So good for him. And exactly how that even would have worked is unclear, because I don't think you can be a baron of England without being a subject of the English king.

Joe: Anyway, there's a small part of me that wishes that I had the time to write a "Great Jews of English History" podcast. And if I did this, he would be one of the people I covered. But why don't we get back to our main story? Because war is coming.

Abram: Uh-huh.

War in North America

Joe: January 1755, Major General Edward Braddock was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in the Americas. He arrived in Virginia with two regiments of soldiers. In total, including the troops that he just brought plus the militia members, there were 13,000 fighting men in North America. Of course, they were spread from Nova Scotia to Georgia, so there weren't that many in any one place, but they were building troops.

Joe: But at the same time, France was also reinforcing all of their forts. So if you take a look at that map that I gave you, you can see that France has a ton of forts all the way up and down the Mississippi River that they are starting to protect more.

Joe: By May, Braddock has made his attack plan. He was assembling in some place called Fort Cumberland— probably named after Cumberland— now part of Maryland. Actually, the Cumberland Gap might be where that is. I'll have to check. And he's going to advance on Fort Duquesne to take back what was originally Fort Prince George. But, you know, everything's slower and more difficult than he'd like. The colonials, they're not integrating well with his troops, and even getting supplies into the interior was hard.

Joe: While this is happening, Britain also wanted France to not send any more troops to the New World. So they assigned a guy, Admiral Edward Boscawen. He was ordered to sail to the New World and prevent any French troops from landing. On June 17th, he spotted some French ships that were transporting troops off the coast of Newfoundland, and even though there wasn't officially a war, he attacked.

Joe: As Hardwicke would say later when news reached London, quote, "It was both too little and too much." Because Boscawen, he defeated the French ships, he captured two warships, but the majority of the French troops were able to escape and were able to land their boats and basically fortify their troops in North America.

Joe: This is also the second time where the British have attacked a force in North America without a war being declared. And while it was a victory, it was kind of a tiny one. And now the French really know that the British are serious.

Joe: There was a feeling of unease in London. Quote, "The nation is sinking by degrees, and there was a general indisposition proceeding from the weakness and worthlessness of the minister." In other words, war is coming and Newcastle is both too weak to stop it and too weak to fight it well.

Joe: So can we put France officially in the "at war" column, please?

Abram: Okay, what else?

Joe: France. At this point, Thomas Pelham-Holles knew that he needed help. He tried getting William Pitt to join his government, but William Pitt refused. He basically said that he was only joining the government if he was given real power, and Newcastle consistently wouldn't give Pitt the power that he wanted.

Joe: So they continue. July 9th, 1755, Braddock had made it ten miles from Fort Duquesne before he was ambushed by a joint force of French and Native American troops. This is called the Battle of Monongahela, and it's a terrible defeat. 1,000 British soldiers were killed or wounded. Braddock himself was wounded but died a few days later while the army was retreating, and they eventually got back to Philadelphia.

Joe: Can you please put the Wabanaki and the Shawnee into the "at war" column?

Abram: Okay, where are they?

Joe: Okay, thanks to Braddock's defeat, the western border between the British and the French areas are now completely open, and the French over the next couple months are just going to be taking potshots, freely raiding into British territory. There's nobody that can stop them, right? The British are really losing this war, and there's a real risk that the French armies can just march east and start attacking the heartland of the British colonies.

Joe: They were scared, to say the least, and, well, sometimes scared people do bad things. In August, the Newcastle government started what they called the Great Expulsion in their Canadian territories.

Joe: So remember that they had taken over French Acadia, part of it, in 1713, and all those people that were living there were now British subjects, but most of them were still French and Catholic, and Newcastle wanted to make sure that they didn't revolt against him and basically take over Nova Scotia out from under him.

Joe: So the British basically expelled all the French Catholics from Nova Scotia. Anyone that might have had French sympathies, a lot of them had to flee into the woods or to other American colonies or other French-held areas. It's really just— maybe it's a good idea, but the idea of just kicking out an entire people from where they live, I mean, it's terrible.

Joe: Now, you've heard of some of these people because some Acadians that made it all the way to New Orleans took on a slightly different name. Do you know what it is?

Abram: No.

Joe: The Cajuns.

Abram: Never heard of them.

Joe: What? You've never heard of, like, Cajun food?

Abram: No.

Joe: Wow. I'm such a bad parent. Anyway, none of this is taught in American schools much, but I'm told that this is, like, huge in Canadian schools. It's called Le Grand Dérangement in French. This is a big deal.

Joe: But anyway, the war continues in North America. In September, the French attempt to invade eastern New York, but they're stopped by the British at Lake George, which is just north of Albany. The British attempt to seize Fort Niagara, which I assume is near the falls and near modern Buffalo, but they're pushed back.

Joe: Thomas Pelham-Holles knew that he still needed help. He still tried to get William Pitt in, but Pitt kept saying no. He said, quote, he "knew the Duke of Newcastle was a great liar." Instead, Newcastle had to go back to and partner up again with Henry Fox.

Abram: That fox, he can't be trusted.

Joe: And Henry Fox is going to be now in charge of the Commons because otherwise Newcastle can't get any of his bills passed. So what had started as a skirmish in Pennsylvania was now having fighting throughout the northeast, but it was still going to get worse.

War Comes to Europe

Joe: So while all of this was happening in North America, Newcastle was planning what would happen if France decided that this wasn't just gonna be a North American problem, and he wasn't the only one concerned, actually.

Joe: So spring 1755, George II traveled to Hanover himself to oversee preparation of the territorial defense for a French invasion. He puts Cumberland in charge of the Regency Council, which now includes Thomas Pelham-Holles, Fox, and others. So Austria actually offered to protect Hanover if Britain would station more troops in the Netherlands. But Britain refused.

Joe: So Newcastle spent months trying to tie up new alliances and agreements. With Russia, he made a deal that Russia would station troops on the border with Prussia. If Prussia attacked Britain or Hanover, then Russia would enter the war. So we'll put Russia in the "allies" column.

Abram: Okay.

Joe: Now Saxony and Bavaria both refused to agree to a new treaty with Britain, but Newcastle was able to get a deal with Hesse-Kassel. So I think Saxony and Bavaria will stay in neutral, and I don't think we printed a Hesse-Kassel, did we? Why? Because I think it wasn't on the list that I gave your mother, and we already have too many of these. But that's where the Hessian troops come from that are going to be very famous in the American Revolutionary War.

Abram: Once we get to the American Revolution, we'll definitely have one of them.

Joe: So thanks in part to that Russian treaty, Prussia is going to sign an agreement to be neutral in the case of a war with France. So this actually really upsets Russia because all Russia wanted was a war with Prussia. So move Russia back to neutral. But Prussia is now friends.

Abram: So Prussia is now friends.

Joe: So May 18th, 1756, France and Britain declare war on each other. To explain what happens next, I got to tell you about someplace else that you might not have heard about— Minorca.

Joe: So Minorca, it's a Balearic island off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean. It is spelled M-E-N-O-R-C-A in Spanish, as best I can tell, and M-I-N-O-R-C-A in English. There's another island literally the next one over called Mallorca, M-A-L-L-O-R-C-A, but that's a different island. And if you spend an hour researching that island, it will be wrong, so don't do that. Not that I— yes, I did.

Abram: I'm sorry you did that.

Joe: Yes, I did. So the island has a history of being captured and recaptured over hundreds of years. It's been controlled by the Byzantines, the Caliphate of Cordoba, Kingdom of Aragon, and eventually part of Spain. Aragon was a kingdom in Spain.

Joe: We talked about the history of Jews earlier, and actually this island is famous for being a haven for Jews and then for expelling all the Jews and then being a haven for Jews. It was tough to be a Jewish person back then.

Joe: So Minorca was captured by the British in the War of Spanish Succession in 1708, and it was made officially a British possession at the end of that war in the Treaty of Utrecht. Like Gibraltar, it's a way for Britain to extend their influence far into the Mediterranean despite Britain being a North Atlantic power. Britain established a new capital and a naval base at a place called Port Mahon on the island's east coast.

Joe: Newcastle and the British government knew that Minorca was going to be a weak point because it's just so close to Spain and so close to France. So in March 1756, Newcastle, Thomas Pelham-Holles, sent ten ships under a guy by the name of Admiral John Byng, and he had special orders. If he found the French to be sending ships to the New World from there, he was going to try to stop them. If not, he would sail to Minorca, make sure it was okay, before patrolling the French coast around Toulon, France, which is I think near Marseille.

Joe: But Henry Fox argued this isn't enough ships. But as usual, Thomas Pelham-Holles was concerned about money and he only approved ten.

Joe: So Byng was supposed to stop at Gibraltar to pick up more troops on the way, but for whatever reason he went straight to Minorca. He did manage to pick up a couple more ships along the way, but he discovered the worst actually— that when he arrived, the island had been nearly conquered. The French controlled all of it, with only a small British garrison holding out at a place called St. Philip's Castle in Port Mahon.

Joe: As soon as London realized this, Newcastle agreed to send more ships, but at that point it's far, far too late.

Joe: So on May 20th, 1756, Admiral Byng attacked Port Mahon to try to relieve the British troops there. He had at this point 14 ships of the line, which are long sailing ships that were used to fire in a line, and 7 frigates, while the French had a similar but slightly smaller fleet.

Joe: For whatever reason, Byng attacked, but he was very cautious. Like, he did not do this battle very well. Zero French ships were sunk, and his ships took heavy damage. 48 British sailors were killed, 162 wounded, and then he ran away. He sailed back to Gibraltar without anyone to help them. That small British garrison that were holding out in that castle got defeated, and France completely took over the island.

Joe: This was a national embarrassment. Byng was accused of being a bad leader. He was accused of being a coward. George II said, quote, "This man will not fight." Byng was relieved of command, but worse, he was arrested. He didn't just do a bad job, in their opinion, he did a treasonously bad job.

Joe: And Thomas Pelham-Holles made it worse. He actually prevented information that could be used to justify Byng's not fighting hard enough from getting out. There was a rumor that disease had weakened Byng's crew, and so he didn't have as many sailors as he should have had. Thomas Pelham-Holles kept that information from getting out. There was a rumor that the ships were in disrepair. Thomas Pelham-Holles prevented that from getting out. Anything that would give Byng a reason not to have won that battle was censored by the Newcastle government.

Joe: And why did he do that? Well, Thomas needed a scapegoat. At this point, everything was going badly in his life, right? France was winning the war in North America. The French and Native troops were raiding the colonies. They could easily invade the East Coast within days or weeks or months.

Joe: The only naval battle that they had won in Nova Scotia was barely a win. They captured two ships, and all the rest of them managed to get away, including all their troops. And now Minorca, one of their most important outposts in the Mediterranean, had fallen because of Fox.

Abram: That fox really should have been the one to have gotten arrested.

Joe: Fox said you should send more ships.

Abram: So it's Newcastle.

Joe: It unfortunately is Newcastle trying to win the war on the cheap. And not setting up—

Abram: So Fox is the good guy there?

Joe: Yes, as it turns out. Well, whether he's a good guy or a bad guy, he was more right. We'll just leave it at that.

Joe: Newcastle promised that Byng would, quote, "be hanged" for not doing enough to prevent the French from taking the island. I almost wonder if he was worried that if Byng didn't get hanged for this, that maybe he would.

Abram: But if Byng doesn't get hanged, he won't. So why are you hanging Byng?

Joe: Well, Thomas Pelham-Holles is worried that his terrible judgment over the beginning of this war is going to cost him. And he said, quote, "My Lord, pity me, alone as I am in this distress," right? He is super scared right now, and everyone's mad at him.

Joe: In September 1756, while traveling by carriage to visit Lady Katherine Pelham— that's Henry Pelham's wife— or his widow, his carriage was attacked by a mob that threw dirt and rocks. That's our Picture This at the beginning.

Joe: Those people that attacked his carriage were so angry that he was failing the country that they actually demanded his carriage driver take him to the Tower of London instead of where he was going, and that's why he fled to the Greenwich Observatory. Because literally there are people in the streets that are attacking him because he's doing such a bad job as Prime Minister.

Joe: Henry Fox said, I quit, I'm not going to be involved in this disaster.

Joe: So Thomas Pelham-Holles tried one more time to bring Pitt back in the government, and Pitt agreed to come, but only on one condition: Newcastle had to quit.

Joe: So Thomas, he tried some other things. He tried to convince Lord Carteret to become Prime Minister instead. He said no. So November 11th, 1756, Thomas Pelham-Holles resigned as First Lord of the Treasury. There was no choice. William Pitt was coming in, he was going out.

Joe: On the way out, George II granted him a second dukedom, kind of like a going away present. So previously he was the Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. And now he's also Duke of Newcastle-under-Lyne.

Abram: That's weird.

Joe: Yeah, so he's always going to be called Newcastle. He always was called Newcastle, but now he's Newcastle twice. But Newcastle wasn't ready to retire. He refused his pension. And so he didn't accept the second— he took the title, and actually the title was made specially so that if Newcastle were to die, the second Newcastle title would go to his nephew that he liked. I think his name was Henry Clinton, the Earl of Lincoln. I don't have that in my notes, so if I misremembered, then I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure that's who it was.

Out of Office

Abram: But he's out of power, out of office.

Joe: We're going to look at William Cavendish's ministry in our next episode, but just be aware that William Pitt's going to be pulling the strings. He was the one that made the arrangement that Cavendish, the Duke of Devonshire, would be the First Lord of the Treasury, while William Pitt's gonna be Secretary of State for the Southern Department. Pitt's gonna focus on the war effort while Cavendish runs the rest of the government.

Joe: We'll discuss this again later, but as I said, William Pitt breaks the rules of prime ministers. He's never going to be First Lord of the Treasury, but he's still gonna be more or less in charge multiple times, including with Cavendish and Pelham-Holles, and potentially others.

Joe: So Thomas, he spent his first time out of government for four decades relaxing as best he could. It was still war, he couldn't relax too much, but he also kept a network of informers in the government so that he would know what was going on.

Joe: It wasn't actually long before George II and the Duke of Cumberland became unhappy with Pitt, right? So Pitt has this thing where he keeps making George II unhappy. So George II basically tries to bring Newcastle back, and he could come back with Pitt, or he can come back with Fox, but they can never come to terms. Eventually, George II gives up, tries to make this guy named Lord Waldegrave Prime Minister for a couple days. He fails. Cavendish comes back. He only is back for like a week, and then finally they come to an agreement, and we'll get into all these details probably in our next two episodes, but they come to an agreement and Newcastle, Thomas Pelham-Holles, returns to office.

Joe: You should know that a couple things happened during that brief period, just to cover it. In March 1757, Admiral Byng was killed, and Newcastle was one of the ones that argued that he should be killed for losing Minorca.

Abram: How is Minorca that important though? I mean, it's like losing Gibraltar, right? It's like in the middle of the Mediterranean.

Joe: Yeah, no, Gibraltar is not in the middle of the Mediterranean. How many times do I have to show you that map?

Abram: All right, but Gibraltar— you can't get out very easily without passing it.

Joe: So more importantly, during this brief period, alliances exploded across Europe.

Abram: That means whenever you're an alliance, now there's an explosion?

Joe: Yes, pretty much. So Prussia surprisingly joins the war on the British side. So move Prussia to ally.

Abram: It's already an ally.

Joe: Great. And Austria and Russia both go to war against Prussia, so move them to "at war."

Abram: Okay.

Joe: In this second term, which is going to start June 1757, Newcastle is back and Pitt is going to be Secretary of State. It's going to be just kind of like with William Cavendish, except that Newcastle's in charge. And hopefully, at least as much as George II hopes, that he's going to be able to help Pitt succeed while avoiding Pitt really annoying the Hanoverians.

Abram: And so we'll see how that goes.

Second Newcastle Administration

Joe: So as we begin his second term, it's important to note he doesn't wield as much power as he did last time. So Pitt's going to control the war effort, and that'll pretty much be everything everyone's worried about. George Grenville is going to be brought in to lead the House of Commons, and basically Newcastle is going to manage the money and manage the relationship with George II.

Abram: Why does he get the managing the money? That's the worst job for Newcastle to have.

Joe: Yeah, well, that's the job he has. Even George II is going to call Newcastle, quote, "Pitt's footman," which is a fancy word for servant. He's essentially admitting that most of the decisions are Pitt's, but Newcastle is there too.

Joe: Throughout this time, William Pitt is going to refuse to allow Newcastle to give out military roles. So Newcastle, like Walpole, like everyone at this point, was used to selling military positions to the highest bidder or to friends, getting patronage. William Pitt puts a stop to that. He only wants qualified men— and they're all men, unfortunately— all men in leadership roles in the military. And this is going to be one of the ways that Pitt is keeping control of the military from Thomas Pelham-Holles. Even George II is going to start just sitting on requests and not doing things that Newcastle wants him to do.

Joe: I think the important thing to say is that this is going to be a really exciting time. Britain under the combined rule of Newcastle, Thomas Pelham-Holles, and William Pitt is going to quickly become stronger than it's ever been.

Joe: Under Pitt's genius military command, Britain is going to have something called its Annus Mirabilis, Miracle Year of 1759, where they have so many victories that the people of London get tired of them ringing the celebration bells all the time. That's probably an exaggeration, but Pitt-Newcastle is going to be tremendously successful.

Joe: But we also have to be careful, and we'll discuss this when we get to the rating, how much credit we should be giving Newcastle for this versus Pitt.

Abram: I think we should give Pitt, like, say they're ten— ten out of ten, and Newcastle five.

Joe: Yeah, let's figure this out when we get to the rating. So we'll be able to cover this more in Pitt's episode, but the good news is we'll have plenty of stuff to score for Pitt when the time comes.

Joe: The beginning of the second term was actually still started out with failures, right? They couldn't turn it around immediately. Fort McHenry in New York was captured by the French. The Native Americans that were with the French, although I'm not sure which group, actually massacred all the British troops after they surrendered. That was a terrible atrocity, was very bad.

Joe: At the Battle of Hastenbeck in Europe— actually I need you to— oh, you are sitting. That's good. The French have just captured Hanover.

Abram: Oh, that isn't good. That isn't good. Imagine how King George would feel.

Joe: Correct. And in fact, Britain signs a treaty called the Convention of Klosterzeven, which agrees to give Hanover to France. Would you please put Hanover in— not really the "at war" column, but maybe you put it in the dead column.

Abram: Wait, which means— does that mean George is now only in England?

Joe: Yep. He's still king of, or elector, or whatever he was, of Hanover, but Hanover is currently not under control. The Duke of Cumberland, having suffered this loss, right, he lost to the French, he lost his homeland essentially. He resigns. He just quits. He can't deal.

Joe: Then the Russians defeat the Prussians at the Battle of Groß-Jägersdorf.

Joe: But this is when things start to turn around for the British, and Pitt embarks on a strategy of global war. He essentially has Britain attack all French things everywhere.

Joe: So in September, I need you to put Bengal into the "at war" column. But in September, the British East India Company attack the French possessions in India, basically defeating the French-backed government in the Bengal region. And over the next two years, Britain is going to pretty much completely kick France out of India, taking over much of what will become British India.

Joe: In Africa, Britain is going to capture a small country that you've never heard of called Senegal.

Abram: I've heard of that.

Joe: From the French. In fact, they're going to be starting to fight for other French possessions.

Abram: Is that how Britain claims the river and France claims everything else?

Joe: There's going to be a couple of battles and they're going to have different things claimed. I think that you're right that there is a distinction there between Senegal and The Gambia.

Abram: The Gambia refers to the country, not the river, but it very well could just refer to the river because that's basically the country.

Joe: But in any event, this is where Britain manages to capture Senegal. So in North America, things start to go better too. After June 8th, Britain successfully puts Louisbourg under siege. That's in the St. Lawrence River, prevents the French from sending more troops to North American territories. The British managed to capture Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario and Fort Duquesne, and they renamed Fort Duquesne something else called Fort Pitt.

Joe: You might notice they didn't name it Fort Newcastle.

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: That isn't to say that everything was a victory. Britain tried an amphibious invasion of France from the north.

Abram: So they tried to bring some frogs into France and have them lick people?

Joe: Poisonous frogs? Something very like that.

Abram: And it didn't work. Well, what is it actually that—

Joe: No, an amphibious attack means that it's troops that are coming off of boats to directly attack on land.

Abram: It's not frogs coming off of boats that are poisonous to lick people.

Joe: Correct. The French forces defeated the British at a place called Fort Ticonderoga, but the tide had shifted.

Joe: And even though the tide had shifted, Newcastle is constantly complaining that the war is too expensive, and he's pushing for a peace treaty with France, while Pitt just wants to keep fighting and keep winning. Pitt hears that Newcastle might be secretly negotiating a peace treaty with France behind his back. He threatens to kill him. He says, quote, "I believe it, for if you did negotiate a peace treaty with France, you would not be able to walk the streets at night without a guard." Whoa.

Joe: So over the following months, Pitt keeps winning. He captures Guadeloupe in the Caribbean. He captures Quebec City. They march on Montreal.

Joe: In November 1759, the British discovered an invasion fleet off the coast of Brittany. And they destroy it, preventing France from invading Britain.

Joe: I should mention that Prussia's defeated or nearly defeated through all this, but they somehow managed to keep coming back, and that allows Austria and Russia to kind of be stuck dealing with Prussia and not dealing with Britain, which is good for them because they can focus on France.

Joe: The French at this point convinced the Cherokee to attack on their side, and they begin to raid the southern colonies. So we put the Cherokee in the "at war" column.

Abram: Okay.

Joe: Good news. On July 31st, 1760, British and Prussian forces together managed to retake Hanover, expelling the French. Bye-bye, French! So Hanover can return to be an ally.

Abram: It's no longer in the dead area with Savoy.

Joe: So the war, terribly expensive, but it is going very well. But now that his homeland is finally secure, George II passes away. And on October 25th, 1760— guess who the new king is?

Abram: Guess what his name is? It's George. Of course it's George. They can't think of any other names. Well, they tried to, but Frederick died.

Joe: Yeah, it is George, his 22-year-old grandson, now called George III.

Abram: You might know him from American history, known as a very bad king, though I don't think he actually was that. In Horrible Histories, which George is the third? The crazy one. Why do they call him the crazy one? You can't just use ten years of his life and make it all they ever talk about.

Joe: That's true. He was only crazy at the end, right?

Abram: Yeah. Why do they— I feel like they should have associated him with the American Revolution more than him being crazy. Well, it's not my choice. Horrible Histories, if you're watching, please hear our complaint.

King George III

Joe: King George III wasn't like King George II. He was born in Britain, he was raised as British, he didn't speak German as his first language, and he mostly didn't care about Hanover. He also didn't care for the Whig government, and he already had a favorite supporter and ally, Lord Bute, the Groom of the Stool. Originally, it was somebody that would watch Henry VIII in the bathroom, but at this point, I think the position has gotten a little bit more refined. A lot of these roles no longer exactly match what they're called.

Joe: So just like George I immediately kicked out the Tories when he came to power, George III really wants to bring in leaders that are more aligned with his point of view. But unlike his great-grandfather, he's in the middle of a war, so doing that now would be bad.

Joe: Newcastle considered resigning, but he was convinced to stay on. There was a new election that had to happen when there was a new king, and he needed to use his Whig patronage magic to ensure that the House of Commons kept a Whig majority.

Joe: But at this point, George III, unlike George II, was ready to start seeking peace. The war was costing 20 million pounds a year, about 7 billion dollars a year today, and they had captured more than enough territory, he thought, that they could get a good peace deal. George III was also much more focused on North America than Europe. So he didn't really care about the Prussian, Russian, Austrian stuff. He just wanted to make sure that the colonies were secure.

Abram: He's famous for going against that later on.

Joe: Well, irony of ironies, the fact that he thought the colonies were most important doesn't mean that he didn't still lose them.

Abram: Don't spoil it.

Joe: Sorry, spoilers.

Joe: So on March 25th, 1761, George III decided that this miraculous pairing of Newcastle and Pitt had to come to an end. He put Lord Bute in charge of the war effort. He made him Secretary of State for the Northern Department, and Pitt very soon afterwards resigns.

Joe: Newcastle also considers resigning, but he decides against it. And Lord Bute doesn't force him out. He says, quote, he will "let the old man have a year or two more of his political life." In other words, he's keeping Newcastle around not because Newcastle is strong, but because he wants to.

Joe: Britain was still winning things, of course. They just captured Montreal. They just captured Dominica. The Cherokee were just defeated. So you can put them back in neutral if you like.

Abram: Cherokee are defeated, dead, or no? No, they're still around.

Joe: They're just now not at war, so you can put them in neutral.

Abram: Okay.

Joe: But France was getting desperate. So who that Britain is usually at war with is not currently in this war?

Abram: Spain.

Joe: Spain. France and Spain sign a pact called the Pacte de Famille because the two leaders are now cousins, Charles III of Spain and Louis XV of France. They sign this family treaty. Spain declares war on Britain. Please move Spain to the "at war" column.

Abram: Wait, is everyone here still at war? Yeah, they're all still at war. Well, Britain versus everyone truly now. Britain versus everyone.

Joe: And what does Spain do as soon as they declare war? They invade Portugal. I think Portugal is already considered an ally.

Abram: Yep.

Joe: But now Britain is having to divert troops in order to protect Portugal.

Joe: It's not too long before Newcastle and Bute have a disagreement. They can't get by. Bute was asking for one million pounds to continue the war effort. Newcastle thought it would take two million. They have an argument. They go to George III.

Abram: Can't they just have the middle, right in between them?

Joe: You would think, but they don't. They have an argument. George III says, "Oh, I like my Lord Bute," he wins. Newcastle is so angry that he resigns. And in fact, it turns out that Bute was right. It only cost— whatever he was doing cost one million pounds. So he was right, and Newcastle wasn't.

Abram: He will get points for that, I think. Probably. But just saying, that's about the only thing he'll get points for.

Joe: He's considered a very bad prime minister. We'll find out. But we're going to cover the rest of the war in his episode, I think.

Abram: His part two maybe could start with when George III comes in because it would make, I think, more sense.

Joe: Well, I don't know if he's going to get a part two.

Abram: We'll see. So he probably won't. So he won't. But we'll see.

The End of Thomas Pelham-Holles

Joe: So don't worry, Abram, we're getting to the rating soon. But there is a little bit more that happened with—

Abram: Is it about Watson-Wentworth? By any chance? It is. Sorry, I— we did talk about it a few days ago.

Joe: So when Thomas Pelham-Holles is ejected from the government again, he initially thinks it's just a short setback, just like the last one. He's going to refuse to take a pension, and he's going to pretty much go into opposition against Bute's Tory-led government.

Joe: But when George III then subsequently fires the Duke of Devonshire, Newcastle tries to pull the Henry Pelham trick. Do you remember the Henry Pelham trick?

Abram: No, what was that?

Joe: That was Henry Pelham basically convinced everyone in the cabinet to resign at once and force the king to have his way. Do you remember?

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: And that's where Pulteney came in for two days or three days and then left. Thomas Pelham-Holles tried to do the same trick. He convinced as many people as he could to resign in support of the Duke of Devonshire. And only a couple did.

Abram: Ah.

Joe: Wasn't enough. And really, all he did was show that he's not in charge anymore. He doesn't have any power.

Joe: They're gonna successfully end the Seven Years' War in 1763. Britain is gonna get a whole bunch of territories out of it. We'll talk about it when we get there. And then Stuart leaves.

Abram: Yep. John Stuart, Lord Bute, is going to resign as First Lord of the Treasury. George Grenville comes in. He's eventually gonna resign.

Joe: Passes. Resigns.

Abram: Also, Stuart also did some taxes on the colonies.

Joe: Yeah, well, we'll get there. So June 30th, 1765, George III comes back and asks Newcastle for help. He says, will you help me form a government again? Okay, how old is Newcastle in 1765?

Abram: Oh, 72.

Joe: Yeah, so he's too old now. He doesn't want the treasury job, he just wants to be the elder statesman. So he takes an ally of his, Charles Watson-Wentworth, the Marquess of Rockingham, and he's made Prime Minister. Newcastle is going to get a job in the government called Lord Privy Seal. He doesn't have much to do. Watson-Wentworth is not going to support him as much as he expects, and he's not going to have as much control as he thought. But we'll get to that when we get to Rockingham's episode.

Joe: So in one of his final acts, he spoke in Parliament on March 18th, 1766, to support the Declaratory Acts. And he insisted that Parliament had the full right to regulate the colonies, including taxes. Obviously, that's going to become a bit of a problem.

Joe: And on November 17th, 1768, Thomas Pelham-Holles, the Duke of Newcastle, died. And now it's time to rate him.

Joe: Rating. Okay, so our first category is accomplishments.

Abram: So I think in his first term, nothing.

Joe: Yeah, first term, nothing. I guess I can't think of anything either.

Abram: Second term, they did do a lot of Pitt, but that was only for most of his term, and we'll give Pitt most of the credit here. So I'll give him 4. Doesn't really accomplish that much.

Joe: So even though it's like the Miracle Year and it's the Pitt-Newcastle ministry, yeah, you only want to go 4?

Abram: Yeah, do you know what I mean?

Joe: I do know what you mean. I am going to give him more, though. I'm going to give him— well, because this is out of 20 each, so I'm going to give him 8.

Abram: Okay.

Joe: So 4 points for Abram, 8 points for me. Now, the next is disaccomplishments. We can each give him up to minus 10.

Abram: Okay. For what he disaccomplished, mostly just— he lost a lot of territory his first term. The Jewish thing. Also, but there wasn't really that much bad with the second term. So I'm going to divide it into first and second. The first term, minus 5. Second term, minus 0. So minus 5 out of minus 10.

Joe: So Abram gives him a minus 5. I am going to give him, let's see, minus 3 for the Jewish Naturalization Act and minus 4 for losing Minorca because he didn't get that back before even the end of his second term. So I'm gonna go minus 7.

Abram: Uh-huh.

Joe: Bad personality.

Abram: He didn't really have that much. We knew more about it, but it wasn't really bad. He had the taxes thing at the end, but that one was just the natural British view at the time, and we can't let us being Americans get in the way of it. So I'm— he did lose the thing about the Jews. There are a few other things, so I'm gonna give him minus 2.

Joe: Minus 2. Now, so when I look at his bad personality, he didn't cheat on his wife, he wasn't corrupt, he was a little bit intolerant, but we've covered that, I think, in disaccomplishments a little bit. I don't know, I'm not sure I should give him any points in bad personality, so I'll give him 0.

Joe: Now we can rate him on how interesting his story is. This is like the silver screen, out of 10 each. Remember, he was young, his uncle dies, he got a lot of money, his dad dies, he got more money, he may have been in a mob scene that he told people about much later in his life, he rose up through the ranks, he became the Secretary of State. He became the Secretary of State that was in charge, and he didn't go on a tour.

Abram: He didn't go on a tour.

Joe: And then his brother was in charge. He's— honestly, I don't think he has a very compelling life story.

Abram: I could see sort of a revival, but I'm going to give him 4.

Joe: I mean, if we were to make a movie out of the war, it would be William Pitt's war, not his, I think.

Abram: Since he's part of it and he's like a secondary character, we can give him a little bit due to it being a movie. So 4 points for each of us.

Joe: Now looks, 10 points each divided by 2.

Abram: Okay, this one I really like. It looks like they start— they're slowly turning out the lights. And like this one, you could really tell, like sort of like it's— I don't really know, it's just very cool to look at. I'm going to give him 7.

Joe: Yeah, this is a very dramatic painting. Him in like a very black space. It's just his head. It happens to be the image we use on the podcast episode, by the way. So you can go look at it. I think it's definitely dramatic. You went 7. I'm going to go 7 as well. So 3.5 for each of us.

Joe: Lifespan. How long did he live, Abram?

Abram: 75.

Joe: So he gets 7.5. And how long was his terms? First term went from March 16th, 1754 to November 11th, 1756. Two years, 241 days. His second term was June 29th, 1757 to May 26th, 1762. A term of 4 years and 332 days, which means he got 7 years. So therefore, yes, he will get 7 years and therefore 7 points.

Joe: Which means he got 27.5.

Abram: Only 27? 27.5. I'm surprised he got that low.

Joe: And Pulteney got very little ahead. Oh my goodness, Pulteney got 27.51.

Abram: Thomas Pelham-Holles, I think that's— I think that's too low. I think he deserves slightly more. I think we've judged him too harshly because on accomplishments, he didn't really accomplish that much. I just feel like somehow we judged him too hard.

Joe: Is there a score you want to change though? Because I don't think— I feel like I've scored him pretty fairly.

Abram: On interesting, let me think. On interesting, I'm actually going to give him 2 more points.

Joe: 2 more points on interesting. So you're going to go with 6?

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: Are you going to change on interesting?

Abram: I'm not changing anything. I feel pretty good about my score.

Joe: I can sort of give him half a point for the looks thing, but not really. So I think we can make an exception because he is already at a 0.5. So we increased his total by, I think, 2.5.

Abram: Okay.

Joe: So what are you adding a half a point to?

Abram: The looks.

Joe: Okay, so Abram is now scoring him 4 points on appearance, right?

Abram: Yep.

Joe: So that brings his revised total to 30, which is just above William Pulteney's 27.51.

Joe: Now for the question known as ice cream cone. So first off, we have a deck of cards that have all the prime ministers in them, but they seem to have forgotten Pelham-Holles. But they don't have Thomas Pelham-Holles.

Abram: That's so funny. So we're gonna have to go with Larry again.

Joe: Well, we've already read Larry once, so I think we have an important question here, because on one hand, he was Prime Minister during one of the most successful wartime years, but he was also in one of the least successful ones.

Abram: But he was also in one of the least successful where Britain just lost everything.

Joe: And of the two, they just—

Abram: Sort of feels like I want to give him "known" stuff.

Joe: No!

Abram: Oh, ice cream cone. Oh no, what can we do?

Joe: So what happens when we don't agree?

Abram: We don't agree.

Joe: What should we give him? So does he get like half known, or do we have to flip a coin, or does he—

Abram: I don't have a coin. I just don't know what to do. Like, we never thought this out. I'm giving him "known" just because, like, I think he's a pretty important prime minister in British history, and I just feel like with a term that long, you can't give him ice cream cone.

Joe: But let's ask it this way: if we were to have, like, an award round where he has to go against Robert Walpole and Henry Pelham, do you think he's on that level?

Abram: I don't think he's quite there, but I think his second term— remember, second term's more than double the length.

Joe: That's true, and it was a successful second term. He just didn't do that much himself. So I am not changing it.

Abram: I'm still giving him "known."

Joe: All right, well, I've decided that since this is a podcast that I do with my son, if we disagree, we go with what he said.

Joe: Hello, Joe from the future here. Off mic, Abram and I have continued to discuss the "known" or "ice cream cone" for Thomas Pelham-Holles. And I've completely come around to Abram's point of view. Newcastle wasn't a great leader on his own, but neither was William Pitt. In fact, William Pitt had tremendous difficulty ever successfully working with George II on his own. It was only the combination of Newcastle acting as a mediator and arbiter for William Pitt where the two of them found the most success and ultimately were able to have some of the greatest victories in the Seven Years' War. So, given that, perhaps we haven't been giving Thomas Pelham-Holles enough credit, and I now embrace it. He should be "known." Back to the show.

Joe: So, congratulations, Thomas Pelham-Holles. You are officially "known."

Joe: With that, we've finished our episode. Abram, did you have a good time?

Abram: Yep.

Joe: I had a good time too. And next time we're going to be in Cavendish, Vermont.

Abram: Yep. It'll probably come out in about two weeks or three weeks from now. It'll be about Cavendish. It'll probably only be one part.

Joe: And I look forward to researching him. So thank you all for joining us tonight. Don't forget to like and subscribe. That's it.

Joe: Good night, Abram.

Abram: Good night.

Bibliography

Joe: My primary source material this week is again "The Duke of Newcastle" by Reed Browning, copyright 1975. This has been supplemented a bit by "Newcastle: A Duke without Money" by Ray Kelch, 1974, although that book was more about the history of his bank accounts than his politics or personal life.

Joe: In addition, we have our usual collection of chapter-length biographies by Dick Leonard and Robert J. Parker.

Joe: I'm also indebted to all of my American history teachers from grades 4 through 12 for imparting on me a love of the French and Indian War. I was raised just outside of Pittsburgh, and that history was my history. I used several online sources to supplement and reinforce my recollections of those early events, as well as later actions in the Seven Years' War.

Joe: And finally, our editor is Samuel Cunningham. You can find him at SamC_Productions on Fiverr.

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