Prime Factors - Ranking UK Prime Ministers

5.1 - William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire

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5.1 - William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire

Episode Transcript

Parliament: Welcome to Prime Factors. This week, William Cavendish. Hip hip! Hurrah! Hip hip! Hurrah! Hip hip! Hurrah!

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 5, William Cavendish.

Joe: Just one episode this time, no part 1, no part 2. You know, the next couple of Prime Ministers will probably be just one episode each.

Abram: That's okay because we'll get to do more ratings and we'll do two parts for the Prime Ministers that need them only.

Joe: Yeah. Hey, we have new social media. Pictures and other things from this episode and future episodes are going to be appearing on our Facebook page. Just search for Prime Factors Podcast and on Bluesky as primefactorspod. I'm really, really bad at social media, but I'm trying. Hopefully you enjoy our pictures.

Abram: You can find our episodes at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and www.primefactorspodcast.com. If you enjoy listening, please like, subscribe, comment, and review. We like reviews.

Joe: We do like reviews. We don't get enough reviews.

Abram: Please, please, please review us.

Joe: This week we are in beautiful Cavendish, Vermont. It's early October, the leaves look amazing, and you know, I doubt there's too much of a better time to be in Vermont. Maybe a week or two later and it would be perfect. But this is great and I'm pretty happy. What do you think?

Abram: I think that it's nice, but I think we're both expecting to see slightly more colored leaves on the drive.

Joe: Slightly more. But there are definitely some colored leaves here.

Abram: Remember, October does not mean Halloween October. It means in between September and November, change in between the start of school here and Thanksgiving. It does not mean—

Joe: Oh, it's not just Halloween? Yes, I get it. So we are recording at The Pointe at Castle Hill. It's a resort hotel that kindly let us use one of their conference rooms. We had planned to record at the Cavendish Historical Society Museum, but they recently developed a wasp infestation and they suggested that we go elsewhere.

Abram: Good idea. I don't like wasps or bees or anything like that. I don't like those creatures. They're a bit creepy, especially when they can't stop bugging you while you're eating, like, apple-related things in the fall.

Joe: Yeah, that makes sense. One side note before we get started is that one of my sources is the biography of William Cavendish, written in 1764, a couple months before he died. This book has the earliest use of "Prime Minister" that I've seen so far, or at least "Prime Minister" as a positive title. Walpole had used it as a joke way back in 1741, I think, and there's a 1747 book of biographies that uses it for other people, earlier leading figures. But this is the first time that I have found in my research a book that is using it in the way that we understand it today, and I thought that was pretty neat.

Joe: Are you ready, Abram?

Abram: Yes.

Joe: Let's talk about William Cavendish.

Picture This

Joe: It's early December 1745. A biting wind whips through the streets of Derby, carrying with it a chill that was more than just the weather. The air is tense as what few townspeople remained moved quickly, their faces etched with anxiety, constantly on edge as if the Jacobite menace could arrive at any moment.

Joe: At the heart of the town is the market square. Here, our William Cavendish, the Marquess of Hartington, stands among a group of disheveled soldiers. Even at 25, his presence demands respect. But his men huffed and puffed across the square in their new blue uniforms. William had a matching one, though his denoted his rank of captain, a job paid for by his father, who was footing the bill for much of this militia. The Derbyshire Blues, they were called. William was proud of this, but they were not in fighting shape yet. All around him, military drills continued as the clatter of muskets and the stomping of boots mixed with the wheezing of exhausted men.

Joe: These were not seasoned soldiers, but farmers, blacksmiths, and shopkeepers, all of whom had traded their tools for weapons to protect their county and country at a moment's notice. Their movements are stiff and formations imperfect, but they were trying hard. William offered words of encouragement, adjusting a musket here or a stance there. But he too was an inexperienced soldier. He masked his unease with a look of confidence, but time and again he glanced over at the inn at the edge of the square where his father had made his headquarters.

Joe: The sound of rapid hoofbeats catches William's attention as he spies a messenger, his cloak billowing behind him, riding hard into the square. The man's face is flushed with exhaustion and urgency. Without dismounting, he shouts to William, "The Duke! I must see the Duke immediately!"

Joe: William nods and points towards the inn. Without even a thank you, the messenger spurs his horse and quickly disappears inside.

Abram: Also, that messenger should be a bit more polite. He should be, "Can I please see the Duke?" Not, "The Duke! The Duke!"

Joe: "I need to see the Duke!" He had a reason for being in a hurry. You should listen.

Abram: What is it?

Joe: It might have been five minutes or an hour later, but soon enough, his father emerged. The Duke of Devonshire, Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire. It was his responsibility to keep his county safe. His expression is grave and his eyes shadowed by worry. The men cease their drills and murmur to themselves as he strides towards a platform already erected at the edge of the square. A knot tightens in William's stomach.

Joe: "Men of Derbyshire!" his voice rings out, commanding yet tinged with a solemn edge. The cold air seems to amplify his words. "I bring urgent news. The Jacobite forces under Charles Stuart have advanced swiftly. They have taken Ashbourne. They are now only eighteen miles from our doorstep."

Joe: A ripple of shock courses through the ranks. William feels his heartbeat quicken. The Jacobites had moved faster than anyone had anticipated.

Joe: The Duke continues, "This is our home. It is where we have raised our family and our parents raised theirs. Our own ancestral home." The Duke gestures towards William. "It's only a stone's throw from this very town. We have trained hard, and I know that we are ready to defend our homes."

Joe: "And yet," he continued, "the Duke of Cumberland's army is still days away. Our town has few fortifications, save those barricades that we built only in the last several days. To stand and fight here would be brave, yes, but it would be a sacrifice in vain."

Joe: Silence blankets the square. What was the Duke saying? William searched the faces of his men, their eyes reflecting confusion and fear, maybe even defiance.

Joe: "We have no choice," the Duke began, "but to make a tactical withdrawal. We will fall back, fall back to Nottingham, where we can join with other loyal forces. We'll gather our strength and ready ourselves to push the Jacobites back and defend our land. But we'll do this another day."

Joe: A murmur spreads through the crowd, some voices of agreement, others of dissent. One man steps forward, his voice loud but trembling. "My lord, what of our homes? What of our families?"

Joe: The Duke meets his gaze steadily. "I do not make this decision lightly," he replies. "To fight here will bring destruction on Derby. We have no choice but to flee."

Joe: William steps through the crowd to take his place beside his father. "Prepare to move out," he commands firmly. "Gather all that you can. We leave at dusk."

Joe: As night descends, the militia swiftly packs their supplies. The remaining townsfolk watch from doorways and windows, their faces pale in the glow of lanterns and torches. Children cling to their mothers, eyes wide with fear. Some pack their own wagons or place what belongings they can on their backs.

Joe: William's heart aches at the sight. He was not looking forward to battle, but to abandon Derby like this? It didn't feel right. Mounting his horse, he took one last look at the town square as he led his men in a solemn procession into the countryside. Snow begins to fall, gentle flakes landing on cloaks and helmets, melting into cold droplets. The road ahead is dark, but there's no turning back. Behind them, Derby lies silent.

Abram: That's a good story.

Joe: You like it?

Abram: Dramatic.

Joe: Dramatic. Am I getting better at these stories?

Abram: Yes.

Joe: Okay, I'm trying.

Abram: Or it may just be that this one's really good.

Joe: Oh, okay, we'll go with that.

Ancestry

Joe: Okay, well, that was fun, I think. Before we get to William Cavendish, the Fourth Duke of Devonshire—

Abram: That was fun. They had to abandon their town. Okay.

Joe: It was fun to read. It was fun to write, actually. Before we can get to William Cavendish, the Fourth Duke of Devonshire, we're going to talk a little bit about how his family rose to prominence.

Joe: The Cavendish family starts way back in the mid-1300s with a guy named Sir John de Guernon. He was Chief Justice during Edward III's and the king after Edward III, which was Richard II. Richard II. Ding, ding, ding. He had a manor in a village called Cavendish in Suffolk, and over the following generations, his family name gradually changed from de Guernon to Cavendish.

Joe: Fast forward two hundred years when a descendant of his during King Henry VIII's reign named Sir William Cavendish was one of the royal commissioners during the dissolution of the monasteries. This is when Henry seized the Catholic lands and distributed the wealth to the nobles. Between that and his job as Treasurer of the Chamber, Sir William became very wealthy and catapulted his family into the aristocracy.

Joe: By the way, almost all of the Cavendishes we're going to talk about this episode— do you want to guess what their names are?

Abram: William.

Joe: William. In 1549, William bought land in Derbyshire in the East Midlands, and that's kind of like the north-central part. I don't know why they call it the Midlands. And began building a place called Chatsworth House. This manor would eventually become the family seat, and we're going to mention it a lot. Here is a picture.

Joe: So Abram hasn't seen this, but this is the house, if you need to imagine it, that was used as the stand-in for Pemberley House in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice movie. So I bet Shani knows which one I'm talking about.

Joe: I could make a whole episode about Sir William and his wife. Her name was Bess of Hardwick. But we're gonna have to keep skimming ahead or we'll never get to William Cavendish. So after Sir William's death, Chatsworth House was briefly taken over by the Earl of Shrewsbury when Bess remarried him. And guess who was a prisoner there?

Abram: What time period?

Joe: Queen Elizabeth I. I don't know, this was probably like the 1560s or so.

Abram: I don't know, it's probably obvious.

Joe: Not obvious, but I wasn't sure how much history you know. So Queen Elizabeth had a person that came to England looking for help and that she ended up throwing her in prison.

Abram: Why?

Joe: Because not only was she asking for help, she was also potentially a claimant to the throne.

Abram: Who?

Joe: Mary, Queen of Scots.

Abram: She's the queen of everyone named Scott?

Joe: She was not. She was the former Queen of Scotland. And then she got overthrown after her son was born, and the nobles put the baby as king and kicked her basically out of the country.

Abram: Why?

Joe: So that they could raise the baby as a Protestant, and Mary Queen of Scots was a Catholic, but she was also like a cousin of Queen Elizabeth. So if Queen Elizabeth would've died, Mary would've been next in line. And so when she came to England, there was a lot of risk that people would rally behind Mary, and if they killed Elizabeth, Mary would become queen, and therefore, I'm sure that Mary would forgive anyone that killed her rival, right?

Joe: So in any event, Mary, Queen of Scots, was actually imprisoned in this house during Elizabeth's reign, at least for a brief time. After some drama, Sir William's second son managed to secure some inheritance by going to war against Shrewsbury. But his elder brother was disinherited for being both bad with money and also because he kind of became friends with Mary, Queen of Scots. And that was considered a little bit not a good idea. So therefore, the second-born William ends up with Chatsworth and the family fortune.

Joe: So I have some dates for you. Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned in Chatsworth off and on from 1569 to 1584. And that William invested in the colonization of both Virginia and Bermuda. Cavendish Parish in Bermuda is named for him.

Joe: He also— Abram, you're going to be surprised about this, so ready— he bought an earldom. So James I said, if you give me ten thousand pounds, I need money, I'll make you an earl. And he said, here's ten thousand pounds, and then he became an earl. And so he is now the First Earl of Devonshire.

Joe: Let's fast forward. Second Earl, kind of boring. Third Earl, he was a royalist during the Civil War, and when Cromwell was in charge, he went into exile.

Joe: His son, the Fourth Earl, is probably the best-known William Cavendish other than the one that we're talking about. He was anti-Catholic, and he fought to keep James II off the throne. He was driven nearly to bankruptcy. He was imprisoned in his house which, okay, that's a pretty beautiful house to be imprisoned in. But he was one of the Immortal Seven. This is a group of nobles that sent a letter to William and Mary asking them if they would invade England.

Joe: So when they came to the throne, they were pretty happy with that William. And you know what they did?

Abram: What?

Joe: They promoted him. He is now the First Duke of Devonshire, and that's going to happen in 1694.

Joe: So we're getting very close to the life of our William Cavendish. The First Duke, he passed away in 1707. His son, the Second Duke, he's going to be our William's grandpa, and his son is going to be our William's father. They're all named William Cavendish, but we're just going to do our best to try to say grandpa or dad or whatever in order to try to keep them straight.

Joe: So at the start of our story, William's father, he still goes by the Marquess of Hartington. The way this family works is that the eldest male is the Duke of Devonshire and his son is the Marquess of Hartington. So just like the king is the king, but his son, or his eldest son, would be the Prince of Wales.

Abram: But wait, would all of his kids be princes?

Joe: Yes, so all of his kids would be princes or princesses, but only one of them, the eldest, would be the Prince of Wales. The point is that the eldest parent is going to be known as the Duke of Devonshire, and the eldest son is going to be the Marquess of Hartington.

Joe: So when William's father was just 20 years old, he fell in love and he married Catherine Hoskins, the daughter of a wealthy lawyer and politician. Love matches were very rare at this point, especially among the aristocracy. But it might not have been completely for love because one of my sources said that he owed her father a lot of money. I don't really know if I believe that. Together they're going to have a daughter named Caroline, but then their first son is born, our William Cavendish, the one that'll be Prime Minister.

Silver Spoons

Joe: William Cavendish, eventually the Fourth Duke and Prime Minister, was probably born in May 1720 in Devonshire House, in the Cavendish family London estates. Despite being the firstborn son, his date of birth was not recorded, but we know that he was baptized on June 1st, just a short walk away at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in Westminster.

Joe: We always start each Prime Minister with a measure of how many legs up they received, our Silver Spoons score. The details are on the website, probably, but don't take the numbers too seriously. We basically add up nepotism points.

Abram: Nepotism points. That's what we were originally going to call them until a last-minute change to Silver Spoons. Now we give them a lot of things that they can eat soup with.

Joe: Yes, I think nepotism points sounded too negative. Silver spoons, they're shiny.

Abram: Yes, and they can help you eat soup.

Joe: As we just discussed, the Cavendish family was rich and powerful, and they pulled many of the strings of British politics for generations. Multiple William Cavendishes had places named for them, and one put William and Mary on the throne, and they had a lot of legs up. So if we add that all up, we find that he gets a grand total of 36 silver spoons. That is our highest score.

Abram: What did Compton get?

Joe: Compton got 35. The reason that Cavendish didn't do even better than Compton is because, remember, his mother is not from the aristocracy, so we only were adding up points on his father's side. But even so, that is still a lot of points. So William Cavendish was born to a particularly powerful family with relationships with the monarchs that had gone for generations. And this is going to help a lot with his career.

Early Life

Joe: At the moment that William Cavendish was born, George I was on the throne. Robert Walpole was in the opposition. And the South Sea Crisis that was going to propel him to power was about to hit.

Abram: Also, was that Sunderland's time?

Joe: This is Sunderland and Stanhope. Yeah, you mean Stanhope. The nice thing is I don't need to remember how to say his name anymore because that was a long time ago.

Abram: You do in this episode.

Joe: Thank you, Abram, for reminding me.

Abram: So you just lied in these— Pinocchio, your nose should be getting bigger around now.

Joe: In these turbulent political times, William's grandfather had been but was no longer the Lord President of the Council, but he still served in the Privy Council. He was also the Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire, where Chatsworth House was located, or is located.

Abram: Blah, blah, blah house.

Joe: I think it's too nice of a house to make fun of. I mean, it's very pretty.

Abram: It's the color.

Joe: You just don't like a house that's that color. It's sort of yellowy orange.

Abram: I like it, but you just can't miss out on opportunities to make fun of funny names.

Joe: Okay, so at this point, William's dad was still very young. He's just 22, and he's only starting his political career. A few months after William was born, his grandpa used his connections to win William's dad a seat in the House of Commons at a place called Lostwithiel in Cornwall. Not anywhere near anywhere he lived, but hey, he got a seat.

Abram: In Cornwall, which is near Wales, I guess.

Joe: Yes. William's mother, Catherine Hoskins, well, she's really fun. Perhaps because she was a slightly lower but very wealthy class, she was seen as vulgar by some of her peers. She had a lower-class accent. She would even invite— now, Abram, you got to listen to this, be ready to gasp— she would invite the servants' fiddle players to come play in her fancy drawing rooms so that she could dance to the fiddle instead of the fancy chamber music.

Abram: Oh, I hope she doesn't get feelings about Rome burning.

Joe: Yeah, maybe worse. Abram, she enjoyed watching local sports.

Abram: Oh, like what sports?

Joe: You know, the biography didn't say. Now I'm going to imagine that she went to go watch people play cricket. But it was probably something boring like badminton or something.

Joe: We do need to be careful. Some of the stories might be from peers that would seek to, like, demonize her. But it is true that she was friendly with the lower classes and she definitely wasn't as highbrow as her husband. And William is actually going to follow his mother in this regard. He's going to be known for wearing very plain clothing and being approachable to commoners.

Joe: Over the next fourteen years, William's parents had five more children, bringing the total to seven. And one fun detail is that they gave each child a nickname. William's nickname was Guts.

Abram: That's weird.

Joe: No, that's not weird. Quite frankly, I think all of the family nicknames sound more like the names of cats than people. But let me tell you what they are. Well, their real names were Caroline, George, Elizabeth, Rachel, Frederick, and John, but that sounds pretty boring. So you know what they were called?

Abram: What?

Joe: Mrs. Hopeful, Mrs. Tittle, Grundy, Puss, Cat, and this one I have to admit wins— Toe.

Abram: You tow a car?

Joe: No, not toe as in tow a car. Toe as in the thing on your foot.

Joe: All of these come from the same biography that plays up Catherine's non-aristocratic features, and so maybe this was intended to be a way that she had the common touch. Maybe these types of nicknames are common. I have no idea.

Joe: Unlike many of the other Prime Ministers, William was tutored at home, whether it was by one tutor or many, I don't know. But the only named tutor that I can find is a guy called Reverend Arthur Smyth, and he's later going to become the Archbishop of Dublin. So I think William probably received a pretty good education.

Joe: William's grandfather died in 1729 when William was just nine. So all of the titles moved down one place. William's dad is now the Third Duke of Devonshire. And William is now the Marquess of Hartington. A nine-year-old marquess.

Abram: Yay! Isn't that a very, very, very, very, very rare title?

Joe: Yeah, it's not very common. This change was huge for William's dad. So he left the Commons because he was an MP. Now he's in the Lords. He picked up his father's role as Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire. I probably should be saying Lord Lieutenant, but I have trouble saying lieutenant because there's no F in that word. So what in British English, what we Americans call lieutenant, they call leftenant.

Abram: Why?

Joe: I don't know. They pronounce lots of things weird. Abram, which one should I use?

Abram: Lieutenant. Leftenant. Okay, I'm gonna try because this is British.

Joe: This is a British podcast. You're right. So two years later, his dad joined Robert Walpole's government as Lord Privy Seal. And then he became a Knight of the Garter.

Abram: Knight of undies!

Joe: So do you think William was proud of his dad?

Abram: No.

Joe: No? Well, I don't think anyone's knighting me anytime soon, so I hope he was proud.

Joe: His father continued to rise in the ranks. He became Lord Steward in 1733, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1737, and when his dad was in Ireland, the now 17-year-old William stayed in London and acted as a back channel of communication between his father and Walpole. He'd send regular updates to his dad about what was happening in the city, and he was going to receive messages from Robert Walpole to deliver to his dad.

Joe: At 19, William was just about an adult. He embarked on one final tour of Europe, a Grand Tour, and he invited Reverend Smyth on the tour with him. We've talked about these Grand Tours before. I don't know where he went.

Abram: He Europe, of course.

Joe: Yeah. So he probably went to France, Germany, or Italy or someplace like that.

Abram: Germany, Italy. The normal countries.

Joe: The normal countries. Sure. We don't know where he went, though. And when he returned a year later, it was time to start his political career.

Entering Parliament

Joe: On May 19th, 1741, William Cavendish was elected as an MP for Derbyshire, replacing his uncle, who was Lord Charles Cavendish, who was retiring from politics. So Lord Charles, he's going to spend the rest of his life as a scientist. He's going to be with the Royal Society. He's going to win the Copley Medal in 1757. I'm never going to mention him again. He doesn't factor into this story. But I just wanted you to know that not all of the Cavendishes were politicians. One of them and his son was a scientist.

Joe: So William entered Parliament in 1741. Do you remember what was going on?

Abram: No one liked Walpole.

Joe: Yeah, so William entered Parliament at a difficult time for Robert Walpole as he navigated his final political crisis. Thanks to his family connections, William remained close to Robert Walpole and passed messages back and forth from his dad. And shortly after Walpole resigned in February 1742, William wrote a letter to his father with a message from Robert Walpole. It said, quote, "I was with Robert Walpole this morning. He desired me to write of you, to beg of you not to determine yourself in any way until he had spoken with you. He seems to have borne this change of circumstance with great spirit."

Joe: So more than just delivering messages for his dad, William thrived in Parliament. In November 1742, he was selected to give the Address in Reply in the Commons. This is the official response to the King's Speech, the announcement of new priorities for the session, and it was a really great honor. Henry Pelham called him, quote, "our mainstay among the young ones."

Joe: One of the messages that William was entrusted with in 1744 was that George II was fearing a French invasion of Ireland during the War of Austrian Succession. So William had to deliver a message to his dad that the king wanted him to remain in Ireland for another year and to ready the defenses for war. His father did what he was told, and when he eventually did return from Ireland, he was made the Lord Steward to the king.

Joe: In Parliament, William Cavendish generally sided with Henry Pelham. In one disagreement between Pelham and Pitt, William Cavendish supported Pelham's desire to keep the navy smaller than what Pitt had wanted. But the time for debating the size of the navy was soon over. In August 1745, Bonnie Prince Charlie landed in Scotland to begin his insurrection against the English.

Derbyshire Blues

Joe: As we mentioned earlier, William's father was Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire, a role that had been handed down from father to son for generations of Cavendishes. It was mostly ceremonial, mostly honorary, but in times of war, the role required that the holder would raise a militia to defend the county. We saw this in the Thomas Pelham-Holles episode, and I think Henry Pelham was also a captain of one of those militias in an earlier rebellion.

Joe: On September 13th, 1745, the order came. All Lord Lieutenants in England and Wales were to begin mustering their militias to combat the ongoing Scottish insurrection. William's father wasted no time, arriving in Derby to raise a force there by September 28th. He did this in his own grand style. He threw a party for the aristocracy where they would agree to provide the required troops. And then he did another party two weeks later at an inn down the road.

Joe: During these events, the elder William brought his son along, now 25 years old. Devonshire, his dad, formed two companies of militias totaling 700 members. He appointed his son— that's our William Cavendish— as captain of one of the companies. Now, I'm not fluent on military matters, but one of the biographies implied that they were aiming for 1,200 troops, but they only managed to get 700, and that these were really thin companies.

Joe: The militia members, as few as they were, at least got very snazzy uniforms. The Third Duke bought them all blue uniforms to distinguish them from the Redcoats of the British regular army. Because of their unique uniform, this regiment has—

Abram: Redcoats?

Joe: The Redcoats. Put a pin in the Redcoats, though.

Abram: Yes, well, they'll come back.

Joe: Because of their unique uniforms, this regiment has become known to history as the Derbyshire Blues. By late November, the militia had assembled in Derby to train for the oncoming storm.

Joe: But on December 3rd, they received the news that they had been dreading. The Pretender's army had crossed into England and was heading south. They were only a few miles from Derby and closing fast. The reinforcements that were supposed to come from the south, the Duke of Cumberland's army, they were still at least forty miles away, and there was no way for them to arrive in time.

Joe: So this is when our Picture This takes place. Facing an experienced, well-organized Scottish army, the Duke realized quickly that his 700 partially trained soldiers, despite their snazzy uniforms, would be no match. Derby didn't even have a city wall. It was really undefendable. Devonshire was forced to make the hard choice. He chose to run away immediately.

Joe: I don't know whether this was the right choice or the wrong choice. I don't know whether to try to sing the Brave Sir Robin song from—

Abram: Just sing it.

Joe: When danger reared his ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled.

Joe: I don't know, but the point is they ran away, and in fact, they never saw any action during that war. William Cavendish, despite being a captain of his father's regiment, never saw any combat.

Joe: On December 4th, that is the next day after our story took place, Abram, the Jacobites seized Derby. There was no resistance. Now, we know from hindsight that the Scots were running out of supplies. They were not getting the help that they expected from the local English that they thought would join their cause, and they weren't in great shape to fight. And in fact, Derby is as far as they made it. A couple days after arriving there, they began to retreat back north.

Joe: So would 700 poorly trained men have made a difference? Well, probably not. So while our Picture This takes a little bit of liberties— I wrote his speech— the overall surrender of Derby was the same. And that is absolutely true. We don't have any real idea how William felt about this or even his dad. None of his biographies even speculate on it. In fact, most don't even mention this at all. But this couldn't have been anything less than horrifying for the Cavendish family.

A Confusing Marriage

Joe: So with his professional life sorted and his very brief military career over, William Cavendish was ready to settle down and get married. But the details are a little confusing.

Joe: This wedding that we're about to talk about is going to shatter his family. His mother refused to attend the ceremony. His parents' marriage would be damaged. His mother is going to live in a rectory, which is like a church, in Eyam for some amount of time. And his father is even gonna have to quit his job as Lord Steward to try to return home to—

Abram: So his dad's pretending to be a person in the House of Lords named Steward?

Joe: Well, his dad is the Lord Steward, so Steward is like one of the caretakers of the king's household.

Joe: The point is that this marriage is going to make William and his mother pretty much never talk again. Why? Well, that's the weird part. So I have two biographies, and they both tell this story exactly opposite.

Joe: The only thing that they both agree on is that William Cavendish married Charlotte Boyle, the heiress to the Third Earl of Burlington, on March 28th, 1748. She would eventually be the Baroness Clifford of Londesborough in her own right, something that we hadn't actually seen before.

Joe: So the first biography I have that talks about this wedding is the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. This article is from 2013, and in there we get the story that Devonshire, William's dad, had arranged for his son to be betrothed to Charlotte at a young age. Even though she was twelve years younger. So that means that his parents basically decided that they would get married and prearranged a wedding for them, even when the kids hadn't met yet.

Joe: In this story, Duke William was fixated on securing his family's financial future and didn't care at all about his son's happiness. In that version, William's mother, she wanted William to reject this. She wanted William to marry for love instead of money. And she became very upset, both that William's dad even suggested this, but also that her son agreed to it, and that this is what tore the family apart. She wanted him to marry for love, and his dad wanted him to marry for money, and he chose to go with his dad.

Joe: That's option one. Keep that in mind, there's going to be a quiz.

Abram: Hey, your nose is getting pretty long.

Joe: In the second book, Roy Hattersley, The Devonshires: A Story of a Family and a Nation, he gives a different story. He says that William's mother wanted an arranged marriage and that she had found William several suitable brides, but going against his wife's wishes, William's father said, no, William, you must marry for love. And that William found a woman that he loved, Charlotte, and that they got married even though his mother was very, very unhappy.

Abram: So either way, the mother was unhappy, the father was happy.

Joe: Correct. In both stories, the mother is so angry that she pretty much leaves the dad, at least as much as you could leave. I mean, she went to live in a church. She is so angry about it that she leaves the dad and never talks to her son again. In one story, it's because his dad arranged a marriage that she disagreed with, and the other, it's because he married for love and she disagreed with it. So there's no way to make them compatible.

Joe: We do know that Charlotte's family was an excellent match financially, and that by getting married to them, it was going to make William really, really rich. But what Hattersley argues in his thing is that yes, they would have been rich, but actually, even though she was wealthy, her family was very scandalous, and it would have been bad for William to marry into such a scandalous family. And according to Hattersley, her dad was actually gay and having a relationship with a famous artist at the time, and her mother just had a relationship with anyone that she wanted because it was a marriage of convenience, and that this was a big, big scandal.

Joe: But I don't know, I— it doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. I think it seems most likely that they married for money and that his mom, who married for love and who had all of these kind of peculiar habits around listening to fiddle music, probably wouldn't have agreed with an arranged marriage, especially an arranged marriage with a woman that was twelve years younger.

Abram: How old was the woman?

Joe: Sixteen? Yes. So at this point, they got married in 1748. And so that makes him 27. So I think she got married at 16.

Abram: That means the classic Disney princess age.

Joe: Yeah. A letter that William sent to his mother, it doesn't really shed much light on this. He said, quote, "I was aware that in the particular situation of my family, I was not merely to consider the dictates of my own passion, but I was to have a regard for what would be a benefit to my family. Had I thought only of myself, my inclinations may have led another way."

Abram: That does make sense though.

Joe: Yeah, so I think the first is right. I'm pretty sure that he got married for money instead of love, but in the end it does seem that they did fall in love.

Joe: Other than her arranged marriage, we actually don't know much about Charlotte. We know that she enjoyed playing a game called shuttlecock, which was an early form of badminton. But badminton?

Abram: Yep. What— how do you spell it?

Joe: B-A-D-M-I-N-T-O-N.

Abram: I think it's badminton.

Joe: Okay, well, I can't pronounce it. We're just going to keep going.

Abram: Since you called it wrong, your nose gets slightly longer, so I'm going to call you Pinocchio from now on.

Joe: Fine. On December 14th, 1748, their first son was born. What do you think they named their first son?

Abram: William.

Joe: William. This William's eventually going to become the Fifth Duke of Devonshire, and they'll have three more children. But unfortunately, Charlotte's going to die of smallpox in 1754. He will have a daughter named Dorothy Cavendish, and she's going to marry someone that you have heard of, William Cavendish-Bentinck. Good. And he's eventually going to become Prime Minister. I actually think he's related to them, and that's probably icky, but I'm going to look that up when I get to his episode.

Abram: Let's go back to politics.

Baron Cavendish

Joe: While raising his family, three sons and a daughter, William advanced in his political career. Given his and his father's faithful service to the Hanoverians and the Whigs, a more senior role in government seemed inevitable.

Joe: In March 1751, Frederick, the Prince of Wales, died, and a search was performed to find a governor for the future George III. William Cavendish was one of the nobles considered for this honor, but he declined. Instead, a person you might have heard of named James Waldegrave is going to get that job. And you might want to put a pin in him too, because we're discussing him next.

Abram: Rose pin.

Joe: Instead, William accepted a different role called Master of the Horse.

Abram: Speaking of that, there's a future Prime Minister that has stuff to do with a horse.

Joe: Really?

Abram: Yes. And I think his Picture This will probably involve him buying a horse.

Joe: Who is that?

Abram: That's— I've heard that Primrose— one of his goals in life was to win a race-winning horse.

Joe: Wow.

Abram: Or was to buy a race-winning horse. So we're probably gonna do a Picture This— since he's a pretty boring Prime Minister, we're probably gonna be— the Picture This will have him like buying a horse.

Joe: We'll see when we get there. This role was mostly ceremonial, but he would manage the stables and the royal carriages in George II's household. More importantly, probably, he would get to ride near the king on official processions and look very important.

Joe: Unfortunately, that role required that he be a lord, and he wasn't a lord yet. So the king did something called a writ of acceleration, and that allowed William to get a title immediately that he would have gotten after his dad died. And so he now became Baron Cavendish of Hardwick. William had to resign his seat in the House of Commons, and he took his place with his dad in the House of Lords, and he was even added to the Privy Council.

Joe: So he was well-liked. Horace Walpole— have we talked about Horace Walpole before?

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: Yeah. So Horace Walpole rarely says anything nice about anybody, but he called him, quote, "the fashionable model of goodness." When George II would go to Hanover, he appointed William to the Regency Council that would help decide on things while the king was away.

Joe: His wife Charlotte's father died in December 1753, and that left Cavendish and his wife a fortune: an art collection, two mansions in London, property enough to control two seats in the British Parliament, property that controlled a seat in the Irish Parliament, and, well, a lot more. Basically, William went from being rich to being very rich. And because he was an Irish landowner, perhaps he was shortly afterwards made the Lord High Treasurer of Ireland.

Joe: Meanwhile, we just reached the point in our story where Henry Pelham died. So who became Prime Minister?

Abram: Thomas Pelham-Holles.

Joe: Just like in his youth, William was asked to be a messenger for Pelham-Holles. He presented the official offer to Henry Fox to become Secretary of State and to lead the Commons, and Fox accepted that.

Abram: If you remember from last time, no one's going to want to be in the government now. There's a fox in the government.

Joe: There's lots of great foxes. I mean, the fox in Robin Hood, the fox in Zootopia, the fox in The Wild Robot. There's lots of good foxes.

Abram: But isn't one of the villains in Pinocchio like a fox? And remember, this episode has the Pinocchio joke, which means foxes are bad.

Joe: Sure. Okay, so Fox initially accepted the offer, but he withdrew the next day because he realized that Thomas Pelham-Holles wasn't going to let him run the war.

Joe: On December 8th, 1754, William's wife Charlotte died of smallpox. William was so devastated that he kept her silk bag, handkerchief, and a comb close to him for the rest of his life. It would be found after he died, still in his work desk.

Joe: So William has property in Ireland. He controls a seat in the Irish Parliament, and now he's the Lord High Treasurer. If you are detecting a lot of Irish connections, you are right, because that is where William is going next. In May 1755, William was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and this would be one of the biggest challenges of his political career so far.

Ireland

Joe: Since we haven't talked about Ireland before, I think we need to catch up on what's going on in Ireland at this time. Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, that's not like Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire, right? This role is sometimes called Governor General, sometimes called Viceroy. Essentially, he's the official representative of the king in Ireland.

Joe: And in some ways, he acts like a king. Just as the king gives a King's Speech to the British Parliament, a Lord Lieutenant of Ireland delivers the, quote, "Speech from the Throne" to the Irish Parliament that acts essentially as the words of the king. The Lord Lieutenant gets his own Privy Council, and he has a lot of the same powers of the monarch on the island.

Joe: Like the British monarch, he also often delegates that power to a local Lord Deputy or a Chief Secretary or someone else. But William, he's going to come to this role at a time when leaders are expected to take a more direct involvement, and that's going to mostly be rare. Most of his predecessors, most of his successors, they're going to be hands-off. But William, he's not going to be hands-off. He's going to actually try to do this job.

Joe: So you might notice that I mentioned a parliament, and Ireland was technically an independent kingdom at the time, and it had its own parliament just like Scotland did. Scotland had its own parliament?

Abram: Yes, Scotland had its own parliament until 1707. The Acts of Union strips Scotland of its parliament.

Joe: Dad, you're forgetting it's the 1750s.

Abram: Correct. Scotland at this time did not have its parliament, but it had like fifty years earlier. Ireland still had a parliament. Ireland's going to lose their parliament in 1801.

Joe: Okay, well, let's dig. In early history, Ireland had originally been a collection of Celtic tribes and small kingdoms. Rome was aware of Ireland, but they never attempted to conquer it. Instead, Ireland became a refuge for Celtic Britons that fled the Romans, and then later for the Romano-British that fled the Germanic tribes like the Angles and the Saxons.

Abram: And the Jutes.

Joe: The Jutes are the forgotten ones.

Abram: Yes.

Joe: That invaded Britain. Ireland after that is even going to become a haven for Scandinavian settlers and Vikings. Dublin— we've been to Dublin. Dublin's going to become the perfect port of call for anyone that wants a convenient spot from which to invade Britain. Do you remember the Viking Museum in Dublin, or were you too young?

Abram: I remember a museum, don't remember anything about it. I remember from Ireland the dino and the museum.

Joe: There was a dinosaur on the science museum, and we went to a Viking museum. It was very nice. We'll have to go back.

Joe: After the Norman Conquest of England, the Normans turned their sights to the west. Henry II invaded Ireland in 1171, and he established the Lordship of Ireland. English control of the island was limited to the east coast, especially around Dublin. That area became known as the Pale.

Joe: Now it's going to be pretty much disrespectful to summarize as much as I'm going to have to, but over the centuries, Irish lords would battle the English lords for control of the island. Sometimes English families that had lived in Ireland for generations would go native and start pushing back against the English. It was a complicated situation. It was a fluid situation, but it pretty much always centered on England wanting to control Ireland and Ireland wanting to be independent.

Joe: Sometimes the English passed laws to make the English people that lived in Ireland less Irish. There was something called the Statutes of Kilkenny in 1366 that said that English people living in Ireland would not be allowed to adopt Irish language, would not be allowed to dress like Irish people, and would not be allowed to embrace Irish culture.

Joe: Since this is a podcast about Prime Ministers, we should mention that the English regions of Ireland established a parliament in 1297 that was pretty much based off the English one. It would eventually have a separate House of Commons and a House of Lords, but it never really represented all of Ireland, just the English-controlled parts of Ireland. The native Irish that lived there had their own culture and their own way of organizing the territories.

Joe: The Irish Parliament was also pretty much controlled by England. In 1495, for example, they passed a law that said that all bills passed by the Irish Parliament had to be approved by the Privy Council of both Ireland and England. And that Ireland could only have laws the English approved. And that's not going to be rescinded until 1782.

Abram: In 1542, who was king? Thinking, thinking.

Joe: Was it Henry VIII? In 1542, Henry VIII declared himself the King of Ireland. Notice it's a separate crown, right? It's not King of England and Ireland. It's he's King of England and he's also King of Ireland.

Abram: He's Henry VIII and I.

Joe: Correct, but I don't think anyone ever said that.

Abram: From now on, he's known as Henry VIII and I.

Joe: Okay, actually, I bet you someone did call him that, but not in a common way.

Joe: So Henry VIII and I invaded Ireland to seize his lands. This began what was called the Tudor Conquest of Ireland, and that lasted until James I seized the last bits of the island in 1603. The process wasn't peaceful. It wasn't nice. And the native Irish, especially Catholics, were disenfranchised and discriminated against in their own country.

Joe: Even before England sought to colonize the Americas to replace the natives with English people, they did the same in Ireland using transplanted English communities called plantations. Now, you know how Rhode Island was officially called Rhode Island and Providence Plantation? Until when? They just renamed it a couple years ago. No one ever called it Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and they eventually just gave up on trying to have a very long name. But it did have the "and Providence Plantation" in the name, but it's actually the same thing.

Joe: So the plantations in Ireland, that name is the same as the plantation in Rhode Island. The largest was called the Plantation of Ulster, was founded in 1609, and that actually helped build a very significant Protestant population in the region.

Joe: It's dangerous for me to summarize, but the area that was the Plantation of Ulster ended up becoming so Protestant and British-centric that that still makes up most of what is Northern Ireland today, and which remained with Britain even after Ireland became independent.

Joe: Over the next 150 years, there was continued and constant strife as Irish people tried to have freedom in their own land, and England sought to control them and suppress the Irish culture. There were rebellions. A huge one started in 1641, and it might have killed 20% of the native Irish between battles and diseases.

Joe: By 1750, where we are in our story, Ireland was dominated by a Protestant and English-leaning ruling class, while the majority of the Irish Catholics were marginalized and discriminated against in their own country. In many cases, Catholics were not allowed to own land, they couldn't hold office, or even practice their religion in the open.

Joe: Britain would rule this Ireland from a place that would be called Dublin Castle, probably because it was a castle located in Dublin.

Joe: When William arrived, politics in Ireland had fractured between a faction led by a guy named Henry Boyle, who was the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, and George Stone, the Archbishop of Armagh.

Joe: Boyle was a pro-Irish politician that used his role in the House of Commons to ensure that Ireland had a voice in its own affairs. Boyle had previously been appointed several times as Lord Justice in Ireland by the various Lord Lieutenants that preceded William, so he was pretty well trusted, and in British politics, he was pretty much a Whig. George Stone was Protestant, and he was more aligned with British interests.

Joe: Everything came to a head over a tax bill in 1753. Britain wanted Ireland to pass a law that said that any leftover taxes that were collected by Ireland and not spent must be sent to Britain. And this was essentially catastrophic, right? If Britain controlled the laws, so they could just stop buying things in Ireland and all the extra money would go back to Britain, or maybe they could increase taxes and all the extra money would go back to Britain. Basically, it was a way for Britain to make sure that any money that they could get out of Ireland, they did.

Joe: Boyle fought against this, and he fought really hard, so hard that the previous Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Dorset, shut down Parliament and stripped Boyle of all of his titles.

Joe: So to calm this situation, Britain wanted to basically have people not be in an uproar, but also wanted to confirm that they were dominant. Britain was very concerned that there would be potentially a rebellious group, or maybe even a group that would side with France in the war that was coming.

Joe: So with the country in turmoil, George II dismissed Dorset and appointed William Cavendish to calm the situation. He was probably a good choice. He had property in Ireland, his wife's family had connections to Ireland, and his father had been Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

Joe: William decided first that he wasn't going to delegate— he was going to solve this himself. In a speech announcing his job, he said, quote, "My scheme is, if possible, to govern this country without a party, and make those that receive favors from the crown think themselves obliged to it, and not to their party here." He also called for both Protestants and Catholics to come together to support George II.

Joe: I don't know how effective these were, but after meeting with the parties and trying to find a path forward, William used the common strategy of the Whigs at the time: bribery.

Joe: So he offered Boyle, the former speaker, a title of Earl of Shannon, which would move him from the House of Commons of Ireland to the House of Lords. He'd also give him two thousand pounds a year if, you know, you just won't fight this so much. And maybe, you know, we're apologizing for what Dorset did.

Joe: But in any event, Boyle accepted the money, accepted the title, and he was pretty much called a traitor by a lot of Irish people. He took his seat in the Irish House of Lords and he worked to quiet the situation down.

Joe: Unfortunately, while he was in Ireland, the one person that might have been able to help William with this job died— his dad.

Abram: No.

Joe: So on December 5th, 1755, the Third Duke of Devonshire died, immediately transferring most of the family wealth and titles to his son William, who is now the Fourth Duke of Devonshire.

Joe: By that spring, William felt he accomplished all of his goals. He calmed the crisis on the tax bill. Britain had won, essentially. But Ireland's going to be a major problem for British Prime Ministers in the future, and one of them will also be Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. We'll get to him, and I look forward to talking about the story of Ireland in later episodes.

Joe: But by fall 1756, William left Ireland in a more stable place than he found it, but it was a difficult time. The Seven Years' War had kicked off, Thomas Pelham-Holles was suffering defeat after defeat, and William Pitt was pushing to take wider control of the military. And so we're finally up to the point of our podcast.

Prime Minister

Joe: In our previous episode, we told the story of Thomas Pelham-Holles, the Duke of Newcastle. But let's recap a couple of key points. He became Prime Minister after the death of his brother. But despite a hope that he could focus on fiscal policy, he got thrust into the Seven Years' War thanks to the actions of a young George Washington in the hills of Pennsylvania.

Abram: You mean George Washing Machine, as we called him in last episode.

Joe: The war started very badly, and Thomas had just lost Minorca in the Mediterranean. After two years on the job, Thomas Pelham-Holles was flailing. He couldn't keep control of the Commons thanks to picking a poor leader, and he insulted the two most powerful remaining men in the government, Henry Fox and William Pitt.

Abram: So the bad guy and the dominating guy.

Joe: Yeah. So with military losses piling up, Newcastle tried to deflect blame by accusing Admiral Byng of being responsible for the defeat at Minorca. But even that wasn't enough to save his government. Pitt was seen as a strong leader in both legislative and military matters, but he refused to join any government that Newcastle was in. And seeing no other choice, Thomas Pelham-Holles resigned.

Joe: At this point, you might have expected William Pitt or Henry Fox to become Prime Minister, but instead George II sought out a compromise candidate. William Cavendish had proved himself an effective diplomat in Ireland, and he was a well-liked politician. Remember that even Horace Walpole liked him, so he must have been pretty okay. And he was also very close to George II thanks to his role as Master of the Horse.

Abram: Is that implying that there's only one horse?

Joe: I think there's multiple horses.

Abram: Then why is it not Master of the Horses?

Joe: The same reason why in Britain they call it maths instead of math.

Abram: But what if you only do one problem?

Joe: This is a question that we need to pose to British schoolchildren.

Joe: So William was offered the job, but he accepted it only with reservations. He said that he would be a transition leader only. He would solve the current crisis and move on. He made George II promise that he'd be permitted to resign if he wanted to. But he did leave the door open to stay on if he enjoyed the job. This was not the culmination of William's ambition, just an important job that he was glad to do and then move on.

Joe: As part of this compromise, William Pitt would become the Southern Secretary, and he was going to be put in charge of both the House of Commons as well as the war.

Joe: William Cavendish became First Lord of the Treasury and therefore Prime Minister on November 17th, 1756. He was simultaneously inducted into the Order of the Garter.

Abram: The Order of the Undies—

Joe: Showing that George II either had a lot of faith in him or that he negotiated for that as part of accepting the job.

Joe: The Devonshire-Pitt government quickly established North America was going to be the strategic priority rather than Europe, and they would move to significantly strengthen the British Army in North America. But most of the activity in the Seven Years' War had stopped over the winter as both sides dug in and prepared for the fighting that would resume in the spring. Fighting was mostly limited to raids on the French coasts, but the raids were neither successful nor strategic.

Abram: Dad, can I have an opinion? I think what he's been doing is slightly positive compared to pretty negative. So I think he's handling it slightly better than Pelham-Holles.

Joe: You know who agreed with you?

Abram: Who?

Joe: Thomas Pelham-Holles. He wrote that Devonshire was, quote, "the great engine on whom the whole turns at present." In other words, Thomas seems to think that he's in charge and in control of the situation.

Abram: So yeah, he'll definitely get some points for that.

Joe: Maybe he'll actually get over 20. Maybe.

Joe: Unfortunately, before long, it was time for Admiral Byng to face court martial, and then he was going to be found guilty and then would be executed. Now, many people in government were unhappy that he was being executed just for doing a bad job. He lost Minorca, but it wasn't treason, just incompetence. The ministry split down the middle, with Newcastle pushing for him to be killed and William Pitt calling for mercy. But given that Pitt was in charge of the military, he might have feared that the troops would be concerned if they saw that a strong leader could be executed just for making mistakes. Could a regular soldier be killed just for losing a battle?

Abram: And if they think maybe, all the soldiers would quit.

Joe: Well, I think this is what Pitt was worried about. George II refused to grant mercy, and Byng was executed.

Joe: How come Cavendish didn't do anything? Well, William Cavendish never really expressed an opinion, or at least not in the sources that I read. He was trying, I think, to stay out of it, to be like in the middle, the compromise.

Joe: Now, the execution caused public outrage, and even the French philosopher Voltaire commented, quote, "In this country," England, "it is wise to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others." He was poking fun at the severity of the British military discipline.

Joe: So for going against his wishes, and because William Pitt seemed incapable of not upsetting George II every time, George II fired him. He dismissed Pitt as Southern Secretary in April 1757, as well as firing other people that Pitt had brought with him, including his brother-in-law Richard Grenville-Temple, who was in charge of the Navy.

Joe: This triggered yet another crisis. William Cavendish was unable to gain control of the Commons. He didn't have an effective military leader. He promoted a guy named Robert Darcy, the Earl of Holderness, to be in charge of the war, but, well, it was pretty clear the government wasn't going to last.

Joe: George II turned back to Thomas Pelham-Holles to ask him to assemble a new government, but Newcastle saw how important it would be to get William Pitt back on the team. And with Pitt having just been fired a couple days earlier, it wasn't a good time for them to assemble a government with him. It was going to take time, it was going to take patience, it was going to take negotiation.

Joe: And eventually, in a situation that I barely understand, but I hope to learn more about soon, George II lost patience with William. He also lost patience with Thomas Pelham-Holles, and on June 8th, 1757, he appointed James Waldegrave as the First Lord of the Treasury and asked him to form a government. Cavendish was out.

Joe: Waldegrave failed. He failed quickly. He lasted four days. Four days. And after four days, he resigned. William resumed being Prime Minister, and frankly, Waldegrave's time isn't even officially recognized. Like, he's not even on the official Prime Minister list, but we will talk about him next time.

Joe: But within two weeks of William returning to the office, Newcastle, Thomas Pelham-Holles, successfully organized a compromise. He was back, Pitt was back, and we now know that the Pitt-Newcastle ministry was going to be one of the great success stories. They were going to win the Seven Years' War pretty much and have a series of victories that was very, very good. And in fact, we gave Thomas Pelham-Holles a cone because of how well that second half of his term went.

Joe: So William Cavendish stopped being Prime Minister on June 29th, 1757, in time for Thomas Pelham-Holles's second term.

Joe: Summing up how William Cavendish did, James Waldegrave, the man who tried to replace him, mind you, said, quote, "Great things had never been expected of him as a minister." In other words, William Cavendish didn't do that well, but he wasn't expected to, so it was fine.

Abram: And this isn't a spoiler, but I'm not going to tell you, but I'm not going to give him very low in how much he accomplished. He did better than average in the war, but not by much. Everything else, I think he did very poorly.

Joe: And let's talk about it when we get to the rating. We're almost there.

Joe: In recognition for his efforts, George II offered William the role of Lord Chamberlain, making him responsible for the king's parties and diplomatic functions. As best as we can tell, he was very happy working for George II, although, as we'll see, he would be less happy to work for George III. It was during this period that William started to keep a diary that's been very important to historians, but I didn't use it in this episode because it all postdates his time as Prime Minister.

Abram: Also, Pinocchio, your nose is getting really long at this point.

Joe: One other thing that William Cavendish became known for is something called his "public days." On some irregular intervals, he would throw open the grounds of Chatsworth House to his neighbors, hosting a ball and something called a cold supper. I don't even know what that means, that even lower classes could attend. He threw one of these in 1757, right after no longer being Prime Minister.

Joe: On October 25th, 1760, something happened.

Abram: No king?

Joe: George II died and his grandson George III became king. We're going to talk about him in a minute, but before we do, let's look at something else happening about this time. In October 1761, Cavendish, Vermont was founded, and it was named for the former Prime Minister.

Abram: Yay! Let's talk about it.

Cavendish, Vermont

Joe: We are in beautiful Cavendish, Vermont.

Abram: Like we mentioned at the beginning of the episode.

Joe: Indeed. And probably the best time of year to come here. It's chilly, but not cold. The leaves are changing, and we have a Prime Minister to discuss. I do think we could have gotten here a week later and it would be slightly more colorful, but it's pretty cool.

Joe: The story of Vermont is— it's one that we haven't touched on in the podcast yet and one that many people might not know. So Vermont, just like Maine, was not one of the thirteen original colonies, and how it became a state went through a very different process.

Joe: In the kind of sloppy colonial times, the land that's Vermont today was claimed by Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York. So King George II fixed Massachusetts's northern border in 1741, but that left New Hampshire and New York still fighting over what was left.

Joe: According to New York, they controlled all the territory east of upstate New York all the way to the Connecticut River, which is the western border of what's New Hampshire today. That's how it was spelled out in their original charter given to the Duke of York, James II, and what they still saw as their border decades later.

Joe: New Hampshire claimed that their western border was tied to the Massachusetts western border, which in 1741 was defined as a line twenty miles east of the Hudson River. So if you can imagine the current Massachusetts western border and run that further north, that is what New Hampshire claimed was theirs. You'll notice that that strip of land exactly matches the modern state of Vermont.

Joe: We should, of course, say that this land was also inhabited and claimed by the Western Abenaki tribes. We discussed them in the Pelham, New Hampshire episode as well as others, but unfortunately their claims were not a major part of this discussion.

Joe: The whole point really was meaningless outside of a few scant frontiersmen and frontierswomen. There weren't many people living in the region at all. It was very much the frontier.

Joe: Beginning in 1749, New Hampshire, and specifically their governor, Benning Wentworth— we've talked about him how many times— decided that the way to resolve the dispute in New Hampshire's favor would simply be to establish a whole bunch of towns.

Abram: Who's that guy again?

Joe: Benning Wentworth was the governor of New Hampshire. He decided the best way to resolve the dispute in New Hampshire's favor would be to establish towns. So over a decade, Benning Wentworth took a map and he started drawing dots and squares representing the new towns that he was creating across what would become Vermont. Between 131 and 135 towns were chartered before 1761, but no one lived there. These were on paper, they were on the map, and it might have looked like New Hampshire was booming, but for the most part, most of these towns he was creating were just illusions.

Joe: But on October 12th, 1761, Cavendish, where we are now, was chartered as one of these 131 paper towns in honor of our subject, William Cavendish.

Joe: Now, New York, of course, didn't recognize New Hampshire charters, but New York did, for a reason that I'm not sure of, charter Cavendish as part of New York on June 16, 1762. This is directly from the town website and their history section. I haven't found anything else that confirmed this, but I trust that they wouldn't make that up. But it's the only case that I know of where New York agreed to one of the charters that was approved by New Hampshire. I can only assume it's probably because Cavendish was kind of important, and even they thought, hey, you know, we're not going to take it away from William Cavendish. Don't know.

Joe: Anyway, on July 26, 1764, the Board of Trade back in England ruled that the territory that we are in actually belonged to New York. This didn't stop the first settlers named John and Susanna Coffeen and their children from arriving in Cavendish as the town's first settlers in 1769.

Joe: Now, New York tried to assert control over the area. They proclaimed that all the grants issued by New Hampshire were invalid. That was in 1770. And sometimes they would give the same land to new settlers. Other times they would want the settlers to repurchase the land. Sometimes they gave it to different settlers. It was a mess, and it was all because New York and New Hampshire just couldn't agree. And it made the people that lived here upset.

Abram: By both New York and New Hampshire. The drawing towns, what happened to them? Are they actual towns now, or are they fake?

Joe: Well, nowadays there's lots of people here, and most of— I believe that most of the towns that were chartered by New Hampshire eventually got some people, and that those are the towns that are on the map today.

Abram: Is Cavendish the only one that, like, it's the same Cavendish that was on, like, the map instead of the town disappeared and then came back?

Joe: Well, Cavendish was special because New York also agreed that Cavendish existed.

Abram: Uh-huh. It's the only one that always really existed.

Joe: The only one that I know of. But honestly, these were people living in the woods by themselves. Oftentimes they didn't care if somebody thought they were in a town. They were just living in the woods, right? This was very, very empty at the time.

Joe: When the Revolution broke out, John Coffeen, that first settler, was appointed as the captain of the Cavendish militia with other families that had moved into the area since then. During the war, American troops were twice encamped on his land. They ate all of his food and stole a lot of his stuff. And in fact, Coffeen had to send his family away to another town in New Hampshire just so they didn't starve because the New England troops had eaten all of his food.

Abram: Why?

Joe: Well, this is one of the common things that happen in wars. Basically, at the time, the military could decide that they're borrowing your house and they're going to eat your food, and you should thank them for it because they're keeping you safe.

Joe: But by 1777, the people of Vermont were tired of being pawns. They were tired of being halfway between New York and New Hampshire. So they did something that another group had recently thought of. And they declared their independence. They initially called their territory New Connecticut, but they later changed it to the Republic of Vermont after the Green Mountains. See, Green Mountains. I think that's a Green Mountain over there.

Joe: A short time later, the Continental Congress, the group that was essentially running the war in the thirteen colonies, they did not recognize Vermont. They still consider Vermont part of New York. But there were Vermont people that were still part of the Revolutionary Army.

Joe: That said, a group from the Republic of Vermont traveled to Quebec while it was British to negotiate maybe Vermont remaining part of Britain instead of being forced to rejoin New York. They so much didn't want to be part of New York that they would rather be British.

Abram: Whoa.

Joe: Eventually, key leaders in Vermont, including that guy John Coffeen, they gathered to make a new constitution of this republic. They completed that constitution in 1777.

Joe: And after the Revolutionary War was over, in March 1791, the United States finally decided to officially recognize Vermont as being its own thing and not a part of New York. And they admitted the Republic of Vermont as our fourteenth state, the very first state to be added after the country was founded.

Joe: By 1785, there were just 35 families in Cavendish. But after the Revolutionary War, many Revolutionary War veterans used and settled on land out west. By the time Vermont became a state, the population was about 500. And by 1810, the population here had rose to about 1,300. But ever since then, Cavendish has remained a small town in the woods, a beautiful small town in the woods. And even now, the population today is about 1,400. And that's the story of Cavendish, Vermont.

Abram: Yay!

George III

Joe: We're almost to the end of our episode now, but we need to talk about George III. Unlike George II, George III came in with many new ideas and attitudes, and he was not well liked by the Whig leadership. The Whigs had been very popular with George II. But George III was— he had different ideas.

Joe: So Thomas Pelham-Holles was gonna struggle to work with him as Prime Minister, just like we discussed last episode. And George III is going to dismiss Pitt again. And it's gonna be tricky. Thomas Pelham-Holles is gonna be kept around for a while pretty much as a mascot. But he's not gonna have very much power as increasingly power gets given to John Stuart, the Earl of Bute.

Joe: Newcastle quit the government in May 1762, and John Stuart's going to be the one that's going to replace him, bringing in the very first Tory government and the very first Scottish government in our podcast series.

Abram: So I think he'll probably get points for that.

Joe: Yeah, we'll get there.

Joe: During this time, William Cavendish remained the Lord Steward for George III, but he seemed to hate his new boss. Horace Walpole said that he was, quote, "fluctuating between his golden key and disgust." The key is a symbol of his office and something that William must have previously carried with pride, but George III was not his friend.

Joe: Unfortunately, William became so fed up with George and his policies that he did what we would call today quiet quitting. Have you ever heard that expression, Abram?

Abram: No.

Joe: It's basically when you are supposed to be doing a job and you just stop and you don't tell anyone you've stopped. And indeed, that's what he did.

Joe: In the summer of 1762, William Cavendish wrote, quote, "Having declined to attend council meetings all summer, how long I shall be able to remain in office is uncertain."

Joe: He wasn't just waiting for George III to fire him. His health had become poor, and he planned to spend the fall of 1762 resting in Bath.

Joe: But that October, George III made it very clear that he expected William to attend an upcoming meeting. He said through another guy, Lord Egremont, "Notwithstanding that you have at late declined attending the cabinet, yet as the final decision of the peace is being taken at one that will soon meet, His Majesty has no doubt that you will give your personal attendance and your advice freely on so great a point."

Abram: How come he can't just quit?

Joe: I don't know. I think he's trying to be extra rude by not quitting and making George fire him.

Abram: Hmm.

Joe: William was all but commanded by the king to attend a Privy Council meeting, and yet he still refused to come. He claimed he didn't know enough to offer his advice, but he just didn't get along with the new king and wasn't afraid to show it.

Joe: On October 28th, while traveling in a coach to London with Thomas Pelham-Holles, the king spotted the two together and assumed that they were plotting against him, but instead what was happening was that William was traveling to court to resign. He arrived at the palace and George III refused to see him. In fact, they started talking to each other through a messenger boy.

Joe: George III sent a message through that page that he would only see William at a time of his own choosing and that he could come back when the king was ready to talk to him. And that he couldn't resign until the king told him he could resign. But William didn't care. He handed his staff and his key to Lord Egremont, who was there at the time, and basically said, here, give these to the king. I quit whether the king wants to talk to me or not.

Joe: The king was so angry he personally struck his name from the Privy Council list.

Joe: This caused a rift in the government. Nearly all of the Cavendish-aligned ministers quit at the same time. I remember from Thomas Pelham-Holles's episode that there was sort of a plot that Newcastle wanted, that if everyone had quit at the same time in protest over Cavendish leaving, that maybe they could get some power. But, you know, something like what Henry Pelham had tried, it didn't work, and not enough people resigned.

Joe: In 1764, William Cavendish traveled to Spa in Germany to try to improve his health, but he had a stroke there and he died. He is the only Prime Minister to die outside of Great Britain, and he died on October 2nd, 1764, at only 44 years old.

Joe: That's the end of William Cavendish, our fifth Prime Minister.

Joe: Right before we talk about his accomplishments, and we're going to give him up to 20 points each, I wanted to read two things.

Joe: First, his official government biography: quote, "William Cavendish, the Duke of Devonshire, was a compromise choice as the First Lord of the Treasury. His tenure coincided with a period of political infighting and external threat. Devonshire's status as a major landowner and his membership of a major political family allowed him to look after the affairs of state while the Duke of Newcastle and William Pitt the Elder resolved their differences."

Joe: And Horace Walpole said that he was, quote, "impatient to do everything, a fear to do anything, and he was always in a hurry to do nothing."

Rating

Joe: But that said, we can give him up to 20 points for accomplishments. I'm thinking we can rate him on how he did as Prime Minister, of course, but the only other accomplishments he has in his life are really that time in Ireland, right?

Abram: And in Ireland, he got it, but in Prime Ministers, I'm gonna do it out of about 12. I think he did good in the war but bad in everything else, so I'm gonna balance him out by giving him 6 for that. In Ireland, out of 8, he really didn't do that much, so I'm gonna— he wasn't bad, but I'm gonna give him 3, so 11.

Joe: You're giving him a total of 11 points?

Abram: Yeah, he didn't do much. I think he's slightly better than average, mostly due to his war efforts, which did help, and I think helped set the stage for the second term of Pelham-Holles.

Joe: That's a good way to put it.

Abram: I like that. So I think he's slightly above average, but not by a decent amount.

Joe: Yeah, I think 11 sounds perfectly reasonable with what you've said. I'm thinking that he solved the crisis in Ireland and he succeeded at being a transitionary Prime Minister to Thomas Pelham-Holles.

Abram: But like, if it wasn't for him saying that he was a transitionary one, I don't think he would have done that well.

Joe: I actually think I'm coming out the same place.

Abram: I'm going to give him 11 for accomplishment, which means he gets 22 out of 40, which I think is surprisingly high. Yeah, for a Prime Minister that did barely anything, he did accomplish a decent amount. He just couldn't stay in power to the point of government. I think if he wasn't in the middle of a big war, he could have lasted for a while longer.

Joe: But it was never his plan to last a while longer.

Abram: Yeah, if he wanted to, he definitely could last longer.

Joe: I think the reason I give him those points is because he came in saying, I'm going to hold the fort until other people get their act together.

Abram: And that's exactly what he did. He's like Polk, if you know what I mean.

Joe: Yeah, I think he set out to do the thing that he wanted. I'm okay giving him 11.

Joe: Disaccomplishments. We can each score him up to negative 10. He lost Derby, but that was more his dad than him. Like, he didn't have any control over that situation.

Abram: Yeah, I won't minus anything from him because of that. I think he could have done better in the war, but that isn't really a disaccomplishment.

Joe: It was also winter pretty much the entire time he was Prime Minister, and the war had pretty much stopped during the winter.

Abram: I think one of the reasons why he was a bit better than he could have been is because it was winter, and yet he was still able to attack a decent amount.

Joe: Well, they were raiding the French coast, so that is true. There were no major battles of the Seven Years' War during his term.

Abram: But I did give him a point or two because he was able to raid the French coast during winter, which I think must be hard, especially because the water may be like, maybe like a bit more frozen than normal.

Joe: I don't think I can give him any disaccomplishment points.

Abram: He didn't really do anything in Ireland. I think I'm going to have to give him negative 1 because he could have done something in the Ireland situation.

Joe: Oh, right. So he didn't solve the problem. He just bribed the guy to go away. Yeah. Yeah, that's a valid point. Maybe I'll give him negative 1 as well.

Abram: So that means he gets negative 2 for one of the negative scores and the second one.

Joe: Bad personality. He can get up to negative 10.

Abram: We didn't really see his personality that much.

Joe: He gave parties that people could join. That's good. He liked to dress plainly and was approachable to commoners. He loved his wife and didn't cheat on her, and even after she died, kept her stuff around for the rest of his life. There's no indication that he was corrupt. Honestly, I don't think he has a bad personality. I'm giving him a 0 here.

Abram: Me too. So he gets negative 2, which means his score right now is 20, which is still pretty high considering who he was.

Joe: How interesting his life is, 10 points each.

Abram: I don't think it's interesting, but I think you could make a movie and make a decent thing out of it. I think that it wouldn't be really good, but I'm going to give him a 4.

Joe: I agree. I was gonna give him a 3.

Abram: So that means he gets 7 for that one.

Joe: Now, how he looks. So I have here a picture of William Cavendish.

Abram: It looks like he's in a cave and he's blocking a candle. And what is that? Is that a torch?

Joe: A flaming knife? This picture is the picture that is— will be posted with the episode. It will also be up on our socials.

Abram: So I don't know what I feel like. But his face just seems like something could easily go wrong. It just seems weird. It looks like he's trying to do a selfie.

Joe: They didn't invent selfies yet.

Abram: I know. He wants to look older. This painting, I don't particularly like him in this painting, so I'm giving him a 4.

Joe: I think that that thing that you said is a flaming knife. I think it is a staff. Maybe it is the staff from when he was Lord Steward.

Abram: I don't really like this one. Specifically, I'll give him a 7.

Joe: What do I think? I don't know. I think he comes off as looking like a kid in that picture. And I think you're right, a kid that is trying to look older. So I will give him 5. Which means he gets 6? So that is 3.5 points in the end for Abram and 2.5 points in the end for me. And I wonder why it is that we give them 10, divide by 2 instead of 5 each.

Abram: Hey, that's fine. Next we have what? Lifespan. He lived to 44, which means he gets a 4.4.

Joe: All right, excellent. So now for his term, assuming that we don't count James Waldegrave, he was in office from the 16th of November, 1756 to June 29th, 1757, a total period of 226 days.

Abram: Which—

Joe: What percentage is it? Are we taking him as 226? Are we taking him as 222?

Abram: 222. And since it's less than a year, we're gonna do the thing where we do the decimal.

Joe: Yeah, that is the rule. If they serve less than a year, we give them pity points by letting them get decimals. In this case, he is 0.61. Which means 0.6 would do it.

Abram: Yep. 0.6.

Joe: And that's it.

Abram: That is it. Let me calculate.

Joe: It's 38.

Abram: It's 38. Now, what did Pelham-Holles get?

Joe: Pelham-Holles got worse.

Abram: How?

Joe: Because we gave him a lot of minus points for losing Minorca because he never got it back before the end of Prime Minister. So Thomas Pelham-Holles got fewer accomplishment points. We only gave him 12 total for accomplishments, and we just gave 22 to Cavendish for accomplishments. Does this feel right?

Abram: This doesn't feel right. How come we didn't give him that much?

Joe: Because you decided that we were giving all the credit to William Pitt.

Abram: I did. I thought we gave it half to him and half to Pitt.

Joe: Well, Thomas Pelham-Holles really was successful when he was paired with William Pitt and was very not successful when he wasn't. So that's why I think we tried to not give him that many points, because we thought that mostly it was about Pitt.

Abram: Yeah, well, he was doing a lot of stuff himself, and during the winter he was able to do a decent attack.

Joe: Little attack. Yeah. The point is William Cavendish has just got 38 points. Now we have the big question.

Abram: Cone, or ice cream cone? It's pretty obvious he's ice cream cone.

Joe: Yeah, I think it's pretty obvious he's ice cream cone.

Abram: Yes, he got a decent score, but it wasn't because he was good. It was because for a transitional Prime Minister, he did pretty well.

Joe: Yeah, I think he accomplished what he set out to do and no more.

Abram: He didn't do much otherwise, so that's why I think 38 is a right score for him.

Joe: Just to put that in perspective, that's higher than Pulteney and Compton, but lower than Walpole and Pelham.

Abram: And that seems about right. He did a lot better than expected.

Joe: He did do better than expected. I kind of ended up liking him, but maybe against my better judgment.

Abram: I think if he lived longer, I don't know if he would have ran again, but I think there was a decent chance that if he lived to another war period like the Revolution, he probably would have tried to get back in again if he was needed.

Joe: Yeah, I think you're right. I think he went where he was needed.

Abram: So with that, we are very sorry, William Cavendish, that you are an ice cream cone, but we're pretty impressed of your score, especially for a Prime Minister that barely lasted very long.

Abram: Yes, I think of all the Prime Ministers that lasted less than a year, I think he's probably gonna end up with the most points due to him doing what he set out for pretty well and sort of like set the stage for events to come. He wasn't a good Prime Minister, but it's only because he didn't serve long. And if he maybe was in a slightly like easier war, I think he would have done a lot better. I think it's mostly just the circumstances why he didn't do as well.

Joe: Okay, so do you agree? I think so. But with this, Abram, it's time to say goodbye to Cavendish. It's time to go get some dinner and go play some mini golf. How's that?

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: All right, with that, thank you for listening. Please don't forget to like and subscribe. Please follow us on our Facebook page, Prime Factors Podcast, and on Blue Sky, and we will look forward to seeing you all soon. Say goodbye, Abram.

Abram: Goodbye, Abram.

Bibliography

Joe: Let me begin first with an apology. We were recording this episode in a hotel in rural Vermont, and while that has many advantages, problematic issues with our audio equipment was not one of them. During the recording of this episode, we struggled with some microphone problems from Abram. As a result, some of his banter was not as usable as it should be. We kept in what we could, and we are looking at new microphones in the future. Our next episode will be recorded at home where we will have a little bit more flexibility in the event of a problem.

Joe: As for our sources, the first main source was The Devonshires: The Story of a Family and a Nation by Roy Hattersley, published in 1988. Hattersley is a politician and journalist rather than historian, but his work has a detailed bibliography and it seems well-researched. This is the book that had some of the more salacious claims and others that I omitted. And in general, I was very careful in terms of what I included from this book that was only in this book. But it's a fascinating story of the Devonshire family, and I'm positive that I was being overly conservative.

Joe: Another key resource was Lives of all the Earls and Dukes of Devonshire by Joseph Grove, written in 1764. This book was published only months before William Cavendish passed away, and I found the optimistic view the book had of his future career to be, well, sad. This book wore its biases on its sleeve. It was clearly angled towards making the Devonshire family look as great as possible, but it was great for verifying the details from the other sources, especially when it relates to William's father and grandfather's careers.

Joe: Less useful was The Devonshire Diary: William Cavendish, Fourth Duke of Devonshire, 1759 to 1762, edited by Peter D. Brown and Karl W. Schweizer, published in 1982. The diary itself was recorded after William's time as Prime Minister, so may prove more useful in future episodes. Brown and Schweizer included a great biography of William in their introduction, and I found that to be very helpful.

Joe: I also used my normal array of other sources, including William and his relatives' biographies in the semi-official The History of Parliament, as well as my collection of chapter-length biographies and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Joe: I am indebted to Margaret Caulfield, the director of the Cavendish Historical Society, for sharing details of the town. The remaining information was primarily sourced from the history section of the Cavendish, Vermont official town website. I also want to thank her for the gracious offer of recording at the museum, but regretfully, we were unable to do so due to an infestation of wasps.

Joe: You'll be able to find the full list of resources on our website as soon as I figure out how to do that.

Joe: I also want to thank Andy Smith of Castle Hill Resort and Spa in Cavendish, Vermont, for providing us a place to record.

Joe: Our editor is Samuel Cunningham, and you can find him on Fiverr.

Joe: Thank you for listening, and we'll see you soon for our next episode, a special on James Waldegrave.

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