Welcome to Prime Factors where we review each UK Prime Minister from Robert Walpole to Keir Starmer. We discuss their biography, highs and lows, and then rate them on a scale designed by a 10-year old before awarding the ultimate prize: Are they ”Known” or an ”Ice Cream Cone”?
6.2 - John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (Part 2)
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6.2 - John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (Part 2)
Episode Transcript
Abram: Welcome to Prime Factors. This week, John Stuart, Part 2.
Parliament: 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're reviewing all the British prime ministers from Robert Walpole to Keir Starmer. This is episode 6.2, John Stuart, Part 2.
Joe: We are recording today from an undisclosed location, but I will disclose that it's beautiful. There are trees. Hopefully you don't hear too many birds. Well, there are some places that we could have gone for John Stuart. They will range from "no longer there" to "ridiculously expensive." So we're traveling, we're just not traveling there.
Joe: That said, we're still going to have two separate town sections in this episode because I like town sections, and there's a lot of really fun history around the places that are named for Mr. John Stuart.
Abram: But Canada next time, right? Pinky swear.
Joe: Yeah, so we're gonna do George Grenville in Grenville, Quebec, barring anything crazy. If we do two episodes, it'll be the second one because that was founded late in his life. He actually might have been dead when it was founded. But if we do two, it'll be the second.
Abram: That's fine. Don't forget that you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and at www.primefactorspodcast.com. Also on Facebook and BlueSky. If you enjoy listening, please like, subscribe, comment, and review.
Joe: You might also remember that we had played five rounds of Marquesses and Viscounts, our trivia challenge from our friends at Prime Time Podcast. You know, Abram complained last time that the questions were too easy. So John and Rob from Prime Time Podcast have sent us some more difficult questions. Abram, are you going to be ready for those questions?
Abram: I will.
Joe: All right. That's good. It's time to start our episode, though, with something a little bit more fictional than usual. I'm going to play John Stuart. Abram is going to play Charles Jenkinson, the father of a future prime minister. Do you know which one?
Abram: Robert Jenkinson.
Joe: Very good.
Abram: Prime minister from—I'm going to admit it—from 1812 to 1827. So he's not going to be for like a while. If you're one of our listeners from the future, we probably have already done that episode though. So I don't recommend you skipping episodes to check it out.
Joe: Yeah, all right, Abram, that's good. All right, are you ready? Let's go.
Picture This
Joe: Our scene opens at Bute House in London in John Stuart's personal study. The room is in disarray with large maps pinned to walls with table knives, stacks of papers on every surface, and tiny Union Jack flags stuck in a massive globe on the desk. The smell of ink and candle wax hangs in the air.
Joe: Blast it! I cannot make this song work no matter how hard I try. I've got an entire verse about Trinidad and the Carolinas, but what in heaven's name rhymes with Chandernagore?
Abram: It's Chandernagore.
Joe: But what in heaven's name rhymes with Chandernagore? He balls up the paper and tosses it into an overflowing wastebasket in the corner. Charles Jenkinson, an under-secretary of state and a personal friend, enters the room carrying a silver tray with even more papers.
Abram: Is something the problem, my lord? I couldn't help but overhear you struggling to announce Chandernagore. Even I can barely pronounce it. Is there any way that I may assist you?
Joe: Assist? Ha! The trouble is beyond us, Jenkinson. William Pitt, that upstart, waged war so successfully that we've ended up with more territories than I can handle. And I need to present them in a song. Does anybody even know where Pondicherry is? And is Tobago even real? I can't find it on my map of India anywhere. Jenkinson leans over the messy desk and gently dislodges a knife pinning a sheet of parchment.
Abram: Indeed, my lord. Tobago is in the Caribbean, right here beyond the Lesser Antilles.
Joe: Jenkinson points out a tiny island on the map. You are right. I don't know how I missed that one. He sighs in exasperation. The truth is that I need to explain our mighty empire to King George, and I was trying to compose a song, but it's really much harder than it looks.
Abram: A song, sir? You cannot be serious.
Joe: Yes, a song. Like, a long time ago, about two episodes, James Waldegrave tutored our dear King George III using poorly written parodies of Mary Poppins songs. And honestly, ever since then, His Majesty's expected the same from me. Listen. England and Scotland and Wales and Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, Sark, Alderney, add that to Belle Isle, the French aren't even smiling at our conquering feat.
Abram: Um, uh, er, stirring stanza, my lord, though "Alderney" and "feat" aren't precisely in rhyme.
Joe: Don't you think I know that? Virginia, Georgia, the Carolinas follow, Maryland shining so bright, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut's charm, New York and New Jersey delight.
Abram: That is better, sir. "Goree Island / don't look into that story island." I think you have a problem. This may not be one of your more notable talents, my lord.
Joe: Yes, well, some conquests simply refuse to fit into neat rhymes. It's maddening! Bute groans and throws down his quill. He collapses into his chair and runs his fingers through his hair, leaving it askew. What to do? What to do?
Joe: Suddenly, inspiration strikes. I've got it! There's only one solution: reduce our holdings. If the empire is smaller, the verses become more manageable. We'll simply cede half our conquests, perhaps more, to France or Spain, and voilà, fewer lines to rhyme.
Abram: But my lord, that would be quite the diplomatic about-face. Our men fought to secure these territories. Are you certain?
Joe: A snug rhyme is worth more than a half-dozen far-flung colonies, as far as I'm concerned. If the king wants Chandernagore in the empire, he can supply his own rhyme. We'll just tell people that it'll be easier to keep the peace if France and Spain are not embarrassed to lose so many places.
Abram: But sir, you cannot be serious. There is trade and strategy to consider. The future of our empire!
Joe: Yes, yes, strategic nonsense. Look here, I'll keep Jamaica. It rhymes nicely with "make ya," and give away Martinique, and we'll cut out Chandernagore altogether. No one will notice a bit of territory here or there. It'll make for a less cluttered map and a much tidier tune. And if King George thinks that he can come up with a good rhyme for Chandernagore, well, he can keep it.
Abram: I shall see to the necessary correspondence, my lord. Though the foreign office may have questions.
Joe: Let them question me all they like! I shall have my song and the king shall be delighted. Lights fade out as Bute hums cheerfully to himself—tor-tori, tor-tori, tor-tor-toru—while leafing through a rhyming dictionary and crossing off territory after territory on the sprawling map. Okay, was that fun?
Abram: Yeah.
Recap
Joe: All right, Abram, what do you remember about John Stuart so far? And I'm taking away the notes, so you have to remember.
Abram: He was born in Scotland. He had some people that he liked to stay with that had weird names because they were named after islands in some ways.
Joe: Argyll and Islay, his uncles?
Abram: Yeah.
Joe: So John Stuart, you got it, Scotland, minor Scottish noble. He enjoyed botany. He liked the theater. He had a small career in politics, first as a Scottish Representative Peer supporting his more powerful uncles, as you mentioned, the Duke of Argyll and the Earl of Islay.
Joe: And one day, John was enjoying a pleasant afternoon at the racetrack. Okay, it was raining, so maybe not pleasant. And he was interrupted by Prince Frederick, asked to join a card game, became Prince Frederick's best friend, became Princess Augusta's best friend after Prince Frederick died, and from there launched into a career in politics thanks to his very close relationship to the future George III. He became his Groom of the Stole, his chief advisor, and he basically navigated royal family and British politics during the early phase of the Seven Years' War.
Joe: Now, Prince George had promised that he and Bute, that is John Stuart, would do great things together as soon as he became king, and that day came on October 25th, 1760. The Seven Years' War is raging, Thomas Pelham-Holles, the Duke of Newcastle, is prime minister, for the second time. William Pitt is the Southern Secretary managing the war effort, and that's where we're going to pick up this time.
Long Live King George III… and his Scottish Friend
Joe: We ended last time just as King George III was racing home after learning about the death of his grandfather, and we said that he immediately wrote to John Stuart, the Earl of Bute. Just so you know, multiple versions of this story exist. Prime Time told a slightly different one where Bute was in the carriage with him. I don't know which one is true, but the point is the same, that John Stuart was one of the first people that knew that his friend Prince George was now King George III.
Joe: Now, the strange thing was, although he was kind of made an immediate part of the government, he wasn't made Prime Minister immediately. The first thing they did is they set up a meeting with Thomas Pelham-Holles, the Duke of Newcastle, and he met him at a place called Carlton House, which was Princess Augusta's residence. And in fact, John Stuart got to do the formal introduction. It's like, "May I please present Thomas Pelham-Holles, the Duke of Newcastle, to King George III?" I don't know how they would have done it.
Abram: I just realized Thomas Pelham-Holles would love Swiss cheese.
Joe: Because it has holes? Yep. Anyway, I do think it's interesting that he had this meeting at his mother's house. So maybe the three of them, Princess Augusta and King George III and John Stuart, were all chatting, like, "How am I going to be king?" or whatever, but they had that meeting.
Joe: So either way, King George III is said to have told Thomas Pelham-Holles, quote, "My Lord Bute is your good friend. He will tell you my thoughts."
Joe: So the king met with the Privy Council next, where he had to outline his immediate priorities, and at least part of this speech was actually written by John Stuart, including a demand for a, quote, "honorable and lasting peace." We'll talk about that in a sec, but Bute was very quickly after added to the Privy Council, and he was made the Keeper of the Privy Purse. The king also—
Abram: People in the Privy Council have a purse?
Joe: Yeah, I guess they have a budget. I didn't check, but presumably they have a budget, and he is now managing their budget.
Abram: I'm just imagining in the middle of a Privy Council table, there's just a purse like the kind a woman's wearing, and they're like, "In order to do this we must grab these," I don't know, like the keys.
Joe: Get the keys out of the purse. So in any event, the king also insisted that all of his future meetings with his ministers had to include John Stuart in them. So even though John Stuart was not Prime Minister with a capital P, he was pretty much the prime minister with a lowercase p.
Abram: In fact, John Stuart didn't die until over halfway into George III's reign.
Joe: We're going to get to that later tonight. In his first speech to Parliament, which may also have been written in part by John Stuart, George III was the first monarch to refer to himself as a Briton rather than an Englishman. This is part of a number of early concessions to Scotland that King George III made, including removing the requirement that Scottish Anglicans had to pray for the health of the hated Duke of Cumberland.
Joe: Do you remember when they had that whole Jacobite Revolt? Yeah. And the person that put down the Jacobite Revolt was the Duke of Cumberland, who was King George II's second son, I think. In any event, because he put down that revolt a little bit harshly, the people in Scotland called him "the Butcher." But ever since then, there was a law, if you can believe this, that people had to pray for the health of the royal family, including the Duke of Cumberland. And the Scottish people did not like praying for the health of the Butcher.
Abram: Not like the village butcher. No, the—because that would be weird.
Joe: So it might seem good today that he was acknowledging his Scottish people as part of his realm. But remember that at this point, England still hated Scotland despite the Act of Union. And the two countries weren't very united. So there were a lot of people very angry.
Abram: It wasn't the United Kingdom, really. It was more of the two kingdoms that were forced to be united even though they hated each other. Each other's kingdom.
Joe: Yeah, more or less. George III also bestowed some extra gifts on his friend, including keeping him as the Groom of the Stole for the king now instead of the prince. He made him the Ranger for Richmond Forest in southwest London, and otherwise, you know, did the things that a king can do when his best friend could use a little help.
Joe: But at this point, John Stuart wasn't poor anymore. This is about when his father-in-law died. Remember I told you last time that his wife, Lady Mary, was from a wealthy family? But her brother was expected to inherit, but he was disowned by the family. One story says he even converted to Islam, and so she got the family fortune instead. And depending on the source, this is somewhere between £500,000 and £1.3 million, which is about $175 to $450 million. Now, Abram, you've asked that I also give it in current pounds. That is £115 to £300 million.
Abram: Current pounds because we want to help our English friends.
Joe: Yeah, it was a lot of money. George III also granted Lady Mary a special peerage. She was going to become Baroness Mount Stuart. Now, this is going to seem strange because she doesn't need to be a baroness. She is already a countess. But it was set up so that her and Bute's children would have a British peerage so that they wouldn't have to be Scottish Representative Peers. So even though they would be earls of Scotland, they'd still be barons of Great Britain. The bottom line is that it was set up such that his kids would have a peerage in a British—
Abram: Is it one of those things where they only had like 16 Scottish ones, but then they had like 100-something English ones?
Joe: Yes, exactly, exactly right.
Abram: So they wanted to make it so they would have better odds.
Joe: Yeah, so it was set up such that his children would have a British peerage, not just a Scottish one. And therefore be able to sit.
Abram: So they have both?
Joe: They'll have both, but because they have a British one, they'll be able to sit in the House of Lords without having to have that special Scottish Representative Peer election. Although weirdly, and I don't know why, John Stuart doesn't get this. His wife gets it, and with a special rule that their kids will get it. But for whatever reason, John Stuart either didn't want or wasn't offered to become a baron in Britain.
Joe: So before we talk about what John Stuart is going to do, I think we need to talk about some of the reforms that he was trying to do. But before we do reforms, we need to do our first round of Marquesses and Viscounts.
Marquesses and Viscounts - Round Six
Joe: What is the female version of marquess in British peerages? Is it A, Marchioness, B, Marquis, or C, Marquessa?
Abram: I'm guessing...
Joe: A? If you picked A, Marchioness, that is correct! Anne Boleyn is so far the only woman to have been made a Marchioness in her own right in British peerages, though plenty of ladies have held the rank by other means, such as marriage.
Joe: If you picked B, Marquis, that is incorrect. Although this is an alternative for the male Marquess used on the continent, and also in some ancient Scottish cases.
Joe: If you picked C, Marquessa, that is incorrect. Although Contessa is a continental equivalent to Countess. Congratulations, you got the first question right.
Government Reform
Joe: As a Tory-aligned Scottish noble perpetually on the outside of the British system, reforming how government worked was one of Lord Bute, John Stuart's, top priorities. Both before he became Prime Minister officially, and after. And in the interest of time, I'm going to talk about this now, or at least I'm going to start. But this was happening all through his time in power. We've seen over and over again in our podcast that the British system of this time was corrupt in staggering ways, right?
Abram: Because, well, a spoonful of corruption helps the government go around.
Joe: Very good remembering. So Walpole had come to power by flexing control of the Commons. But then he aligned the government with his supporters. You know, he built up patronage networks that lasted through multiple additional prime ministers. You know, he wasn't the first to do it, but he really turned corruption into an art form.
Joe: So both Henry Pelham and his brother continued in this mold. We briefly saw a reform-minded prime minister in the form of William Pulteney, but he lasted for like two days. He lasted for two days. And, you know, Cavendish and Waldegrave might have been, but neither one of them had power very long. So by 1761—
Abram: What about Compton? Was he also corruption?
Joe: Compton was just boring.
Abram: He didn't do much.
Joe: He didn't do much. What did he do?
Abram: Died.
Joe: Anything else? If I'm not mistaken, he was sick for six months and then died. Yeah. He didn't do much. Remember, I really think that he wasn't really the prime minister at the time, that Lord Carteret was actually the secret prime minister, but unfortunately the current parliamentary official list of prime ministers says Spencer Compton.
Abram: It does include Spencer Compton.
Joe: And look, as a podcaster, starting our second prime minister with someone as boring as him probably turned off some viewers. Oh well.
Joe: Anyway, from our perspective, it's a miracle that the country worked as well as it did. Whigs controlled almost all the offices after 40 years. The Tories were just seen as Jacobites.
Abram: Because as in John Stuart's words, we're not just Jacobites and Catholics, you see.
Joe: That is true. See, I should do more things in song because clearly people remember when I do them in song.
Abram: Too bad John Stuart can't write any more songs. I think he only was able to come up with one song, the Tory song.
Joe: That's true. So starting immediately, John Stuart worked to reopen the government for Scottish and Tory politicians. In the parliamentary election of 1761, the first under King George III, John Stuart and the king barred Whig leaders like Newcastle, Thomas Pelham-Holles, from using government money to back Whig candidates. So if you can imagine, like, if a Democratic or Republican president today could use the financial power of the U.S. government to elect a leader of the same party. There's rules. We don't let them do that.
Abram: So it's like, "I have so much money, I like this guy, here's so much money everyone, vote for him because I gave you money to." Wait, I don't want to. Money takes away from person who doesn't want to. Oh fine, I'll do it. Gives money back. Is it stuff like that?
Joe: Something like that. Although that said, I think the current US government is trending towards really rich people having large amounts of power. So maybe it's really old people, old people and rich people, old rich people.
Joe: All right, in any event, so John Stuart, he decided to re-enter Parliament. He won a seat again as a Scottish Representative Peer, and then he resumed serving in the House of Lords. But it wasn't just this election. John Stuart looked for ways to open up jobs for many non-Whig factions. In his mind, he was probably thinking that he was restoring fairness, but we could also be saying that he was bringing in his people. He allowed more Scottish and Tories to enter government.
Abram: Yeah, but isn't that good? We already discussed that it's not good to only have like 16 Scottish people to like 100-something English people. And the Tories have not gotten anything since like, was it like Queen Anne?
Joe: Yeah, I think Queen Anne, because King George I immediately kicked out the Tories.
Abram: It is like 1762, I'm guessing. 1761, I'll say. So it's been almost 50 years, like 47, 48 years since the Tories actually had an advantage. So it's been a long time.
Joe: So depending on who you ask, he was either restoring fairness or he was putting in his own people.
Abram: I'm going on to the restoring fairness side. Yeah. What about you?
Joe: I think we could consider it both ways, and I think it was probably a little of both.
Joe: So one famous example of a Scottish leader that he brought back into power was a guy named Colonel David Graham. This is a guy that probably even fought against the Hanoverians in 1745, but thanks to the influence of John Stuart, he was made the personal ambassador to the king, and he traveled to the courts of Europe to find the king a princess to marry. He was the one that arranged George's marriage to Princess Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and they wed in September 1761.
Joe: John Stuart also tried to reform the cabinet. The current system had each minister responsible for their own part, and they didn't really share, they didn't collaborate. But Bute and George III demanded that ministers share information equally with each other. He aimed for a, quote, "discussion among peers with equal access to information." And with the king as a final arbiter, and with the king having the true power. He didn't want ministers to take credit or blame for any individual success or failure.
Joe: Now, this all sounds good in theory, but honestly, he didn't have the political acumen, he didn't have the relationships to pull this off. And if anything, it made it even easier for the ministers to backstab each other because they now had more information sharing.
Joe: So we'll follow up on this a bit more once John Stuart is Prime Minister, but just be thinking that while everything's going on, he is systematically changing the British government and making many enemies of all the people that used to benefit from the system that he is now trying—
Abram: The corrupt system that Walpole liked. Correct. Considering he is kind of reforming the system in a way that makes it bring in some Scottish people, which already would also be making it more fair, I wouldn't say it's very bad that he's making everyone more angry.
Joe: Yeah, well, but he is putting the dominance of the Whigs at risk.
Abram: Yeah, which is good. You shouldn't have the same political party for 50 years.
Joe: That's true.
Abram: Even though he's making a lot of enemies, we can say for us it was for a good cause, you can say.
Joe: I want to be a little careful putting good or bad here, but it is 100% true that he saw the 47 years of Whig dominance and he said, I need to break this up.
Abram: So we'll probably actually give him plus—I'll give him plus points for that at least.
Northern Secretary
Joe: On March 25th, 1761, King George III made Lord Bute into the Secretary of State for the Northern Department, kicking out a guy that we never talked about called Lord Holderness. But John Stuart felt bad enough about it that he wrote the man an apology letter. This placed Bute and William Pitt as the two Secretaries of State with Thomas Pelham-Holles still as the Prime Minister.
Joe: George III did this because he wanted to counterpoint William Pitt. William Pitt is very much pro-war. "I keep winning, why do you keep trying to stop me?" George III put John Stuart in place as sort of to counterbalance William Pitt's "I want more war."
Joe: In a letter, John Stuart outlined his philosophy. He said, "I sigh for peace, but will not sue for it, not out of price or from motives of self-preservation, though both might without honor be urged, but from a thorough conviction that begging it from France is not the way to procure it." In other words, he wants to achieve peace while Britain still has the upper hand and not wait for the war to inevitably turn. Like, he doesn't want to ask for peace if France was starting to win. He wants to ask for peace while Britain is completely defeating everybody.
Joe: So just a reminder where we are right now. In North America, Britain had conquered Quebec, including both Montreal and Quebec City. The French had until recently controlled the eastern tip of Nova Scotia, but Britain captured that as well. Most of the French troops in the Ohio Valley and down the Mississippi have been routed, and while the British didn't control it completely, the French were losing control of the Louisiana wilderness. Only the Gulf Coast remained a position of strength for the French in North America. They still had New Orleans.
Joe: In India, both France and the UK had trading post cities around the subcontinent. Britain had taken the Bengal region of northeastern India from French control and at this point was laying siege to Pondicherry, which was in the south near Sri Lanka. In the Caribbean, Britain had captured Guadeloupe and was preparing for an all-out assault across all the French-controlled islands.
Joe: In the Mediterranean, the French still had firm control of Menorca. I'm skipping the war in Eastern Europe because this is complicated enough already, but Prussia and some German states were fighting Austria, Russia, Sweden, and other German states, so we'll just focus on Britain and France for now.
Joe: With one wanting war and the other peace, it's impossible to see how John Stuart and William Pitt could have seen eye to eye. Pitt had discovered that Bute was negotiating peace terms in secret. But he was also just undercutting his strategy, and by late 1761, it seemed likely that Spain was gonna enter the war on the side of the French.
Joe: So remember that the Bourbon family controlled both France and Spain, and that they had signed a pact that said that they would support family. So Pitt wanted to launch a surprise attack on Spain, basically saying, "They're gonna attack us eventually, why wait? Let's attack them now." And John Stuart said, "No, no, no, we're trying to have peace here. We're not going to attack Spain if they're not attacking us."
Joe: By the way, William Pitt, absolutely right. Spain declared war three months later, and they missed the opportunity to give a surprise attack against Spain.
Abram: And would that have defeated Spain?
Joe: Might have defeated Spain.
Abram: Where are they doing the surprise attack from? Everywhere.
Joe: Okay, so Spain had three more months to prepare, essentially, because John Stuart said, "They're not going to attack." He was wrong.
Abram: "They are going to attack," says Pitt. "They aren't going to attack," says John Stuart.
Joe: So to describe how unpopular this made John Stuart, I'm going to tell you a story. November 9th was Lord Mayor's Day in London, and the king was to lead a procession around the city, ending at the Guildhall. John Stuart rode in a fancy carriage, but it was attacked and nearly wrecked along the procession route. William Pitt instead rode in a rundown carriage, underscoring his position on the outside of government. He was adored by throngs of fans. John Stuart was so scared of what had happened that after the procession, he rode home in someone else's carriage so as not to be spotted by a mob.
Joe: Over the coming months, the war continued. Eventually, William Pitt got tired of being second fiddle to John Stuart, especially over not attacking Spain, so he quit. And now it's just John Stuart having complete control and the ability to at least attempt to make peace.
Joe: We discussed this in Thomas Pelham-Holles's episode, but Spain invaded Portugal a few months later. Then in the east, Russia and Sweden decided that they had enough and they left, so essentially leaving Prussia and some German states to fight it out.
Joe: But with Spain in the war, Britain immediately begins attacking the Spanish colonial possessions all around the world. Because even without William Pitt in charge, the British Navy was still pretty strong.
Joe: So John Stuart, he wanted peace, but all he had managed so far was to make the war even bigger and more expensive. In George III and John Stuart's minds, something had to be done. In 1761 alone, the war had cost Britain more than £20 million, or $3.8 billion in modern money. So the country was winning, but it could barely afford to keep fighting. And so it was against this backdrop that George III gave John Stuart even more authority to end the conflict. He appointed him Prime Minister on May 26th, 1762.
Marquesses and Viscounts - Round Seven
Joe: How many stripes of ermine are there on the parliamentary or coronation robes of a viscount? A, 1. B, 2.5. Or C, 3.5?
Abram: 3.5.
Joe: Oh, see, this one's hard. I don't think you know anything about coronation robes.
Abram: I'm going to guess 3.5.
Joe: If you picked A, 1, that is incorrect. In fact, probably doubly incorrect. Because nobody has only one stripe. Barons start with 2, and then they go up in half steps to dukes with 4 after that.
Joe: If you picked B, 2.5, correct! On parliamentary robes, these are solid white stripes with a band of gold on top. And on coronation robes, these are stripes of tails, each of which looked like a row of black dots.
Joe: If you picked C, 3.5, that's incorrect. Because this is how many a marquess has. All right, very good, Abram.
Abram: So you got it correct if it was marquesses, but—
Joe: You got one right. But since I don't think you've ever heard of a parliamentary or coronation robe before, I think it was a pretty good guess.
Abram: It was closer than the other one.
Prime Minister
Joe: On May 26th, 1762, John Stuart was made Prime Minister. But I think, Abram, we need to stress that this is not how it's supposed to go, right? Since Walpole, the person that was Prime Minister was supposed to be someone that could control Parliament, right, either from the House of Commons or the House of Lords. But John Stuart, he's just the friend of a king. He has almost no support in Parliament. He's not even the same party as everyone else.
Joe: Now, this is before the modern system was put in place when the head of the party is the Prime Minister. But still, every example that we have up to this point, the Prime Minister is a Whig and they're controlling the Whig Party either from the Commons or from the Lords.
Abram: So that—there's actually a case of something like this relatively recently in the early '60s of another Prime Minister where, like, I'm pretty sure how it happened was like, where it was like Elizabeth II, like, in the '60s, really liked this guy even though he wasn't like big in like Parliament and just appointed, and she just chose to appoint him as new prime minister even though he didn't have like the lead or something. I've heard about that.
Joe: We'll look that up when we get there. Now, the only possible counterexample to what I just said was Waldegrave, but how long did he last? Four days. Four days.
Joe: So as prime minister, John Stuart set out with only two goals: end the war, reduce corruption. He later wrote, quote, "When the Duke of Newcastle went out, I found myself under the necessity of accepting my present situation. I did it with the utmost reluctance, and nothing but the king's safety and independence could have made me acquiesce in a way of life so opposite to every feeling. Nor did I kiss hands till I had received the solemn promise to go out once peace had been obtained."
Joe: In other words, John Stuart liked to be the power behind the throne, the king's advisor, and despite promising the king in the past that he would be his Prime Minister, once he actually became Prime Minister, he kind of realized he didn't want it.
Joe: His first task was to assemble a cabinet, but while you would expect him to sort of build up seats with Scottish and Tories, he actually kept the Whig government the same. So much so that a historian I was reading, Andrew Thompson, who writes on the UK government website, he still refers to his government as a Whig one. Despite John Stuart himself being a Tory, the Whigs still had control of both Houses of Parliament, and he had little choice but to make the best of what he had.
Joe: So just for our part, let's say he's going to make George Grenville into the Northern Secretary. He keeps Lord Carteret as Lord President of the Council. He keeps Henry Fox as Paymaster of the Forces, and William Cavendish was also sticking around as Lord Chamberlain. Now, he did upset George Grenville a bit because he wanted Fox in as leader of the Commons instead of Grenville, but he gave him a Secretary of State role, so he got an even more important job.
Joe: In honor of this promotion, George III also gave John Stuart—what did he give him? The Order of the Garter.
Abram: Yay, he's a knight of undies!
Joe: Now you might remember last episode he was made the Order of the Thistle, which was the knight of the prickly flower.
Abram: Okay, so what I imagine is like a classic knight, and that—but they have undies over their armor. So last time they just had a bunch of prickly stuff on them.
Joe: Yeah, so he did have to resign from the Order of the Thistle in order to take the Order of the Garter. I don't know why, but the British knighthood was apparently better.
Joe: So as Prime Minister, John Stuart had even more power to remove the people that he viewed as corrupt from government. He launched what would later be called, quote, the "Massacre of the Pelhamite Innocents," removing people loyal to and usually put in by the Whig faction as part of their patronage. The purge was wide-ranging, not only hitting government ministers but all the way down to tax and post office officials, royal auditors, and more. So if you got your office because of a favor to or from Walpole or Pelham or Newcastle or any one of their disciples, your job could be on the chopping block.
Joe: Again, was this because he was trying to remove corruption, or because he was trying to put his own people in, or because the Scottish and the Tories were underrepresented? I don't know. But I can tell you that John Stuart keeps becoming more and more unpopular. So who is this Scottish guy who had no rights in the halls of power except he happens to be friends with the king and may have done scandalous things with the king's mother? He's just upsetting everybody.
Abram: But there is one person—he's achieving his goal somewhat. He is. He did achieve one of his goals already. So he's upsetting people, but on his own agenda, he's pretty happy about it, I assume.
Joe: I guess we're going to talk about that in accomplishments. But there was one person that still loved him very much. Do you know who that was?
Abram: The king.
Joe: The king. In fact, the king said, quote, "Though I confess it is troublesome to one who is out of order to be constantly attacked by inquiries after him, yet I cannot help but desire to know how my dearest friend finds himself this morning." In other words, "I know people are asking you questions all the time and it must get annoying, but how are you, my dear friend?"
Abram: That's basically what he said.
Joe: It is. He says it more fancy, like Walpole, like all of them at the time.
Joe: So they wrote plays and pamphlets about Bute. They were distributed around the country. There was a fake letter published supposedly from Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender, congratulating John Stuart on his success in taking over the British government.
Joe: At around this time, another person named John Wilkes—maybe Wilkes—I think John Wilkes, he was a Member of Parliament. He began anonymously publishing an anti-Bute newspaper called the North Briton, so named because John Stuart was a "North Briton," i.e., a Scottish person. The paper was against the peace treaty, and its mission was to, quote, "save England from the certain ruin of success."
Joe: This paper is eventually going to become more and more aggressive in its criticism of John Stuart and the king, and eventually Wilkes will be arrested for libel and flee to France. But that's going to happen in Grenville's episode. Just be aware that he is so unpopular, people are starting newspapers just to attack him.
Joe: John Stuart was not just disliked in England. Frederick the Great famously claimed that John Stuart was trying to destroy the Prussian monarchy.
Abram: What?
Joe: He's even unpopular in Prussia? Prussia was supposed to get a £670,000 subsidy every year from Britain, just money to help them keep fighting the war. That's about $212 million. And John Stuart said, "We're only going to give you the money that we promised if you agree that you're going to try to aim for peace." Keep in mind that Prussia was fighting on Britain's side and he's taking away their money, so that was pretty scandalous.
Joe: Even while John Stuart wanted peace, we should say that the British Navy was cutting through the Spanish possessions like a hot knife through butter. In short order, they had captured key Spanish cities around the world, including both Havana and Manila. Do you know where those are?
Abram: Is one in Cuba and one in the Philippines?
Joe: Correct. So can you imagine the power of the British Navy that within a matter of days they can capture two Spanish cities on opposite sides of the globe.
Abram: Whoa.
Joe: While still fighting France.
Abram: What?
Joe: I mean, you have to say, it's no wonder that many people in Britain were excited about the war and they didn't want it to end. They didn't want a peace treaty because Britain was kicking everyone's butts.
Joe: So by the end of 1762, however, victory and peace seemed inevitable. France gave up fighting Prussia. They could have had a treaty then, but Spain was not yet willing to give up territory so soon after entering the war. Even so, George III had his first son born in August 1762. Do you know who he is?
Abram: George IV.
Joe: George IV, or will be George IV. He's now Prince George, the new Prince George. And so the king was pretty insistent that he wanted George, George, George stuff.
Abram: Why does everyone have to be named George?
Joe: George, George. George. Well, we'll get George, George, George, George, Ed, Victoria soon. It's Will, Victoria. Will. Ah, my goodness, my son is so much better at this than me. George, George, George, George, Will, Victoria. Even so, with the birth of Prince George, the king was insistent that the war had to be brought to a close very soon.
Marquesses and Viscounts - Round Eight
Joe: What leaves appear on the coronets of earls, marquesses, and dukes? Is it A, oak leaves, B, fleur-de-lis, or C, strawberry leaves?
Joe: Okay, so I think this is another toughie for you, 'cause I'm not even sure that I know what a coronet is. But what types of leaves do you think appear on the coronets of earls, marquesses, and dukes?
Abram: I'm guessing C.
Joe: If you picked A, oak leaves, that is incorrect. Oak leaves are used in heraldry, especially on the 29th of May, Royal Oak Day, commemorating the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. However, they do not appear on crowns.
Joe: If you picked B, fleur-de-lis, that is incorrect. Fleur-de-lis are stylised lily flowers, and they're far too nice, used for royals, not peers. Possibly to press the historical claim to the French throne.
Joe: If you picked C, strawberry leaves, that is correct. Marquesses and earls both have alternating strawberry leaves and pearls, although the earl's strawberry leaves and pearls are smaller and more numerous. Dukes only have strawberry leaves.
Abram: I got it by a random guess.
Joe: You got it, good!
The Treaty of Paris
Joe: In December 1762, negotiators from both sides had largely agreed on a treaty and worked to get it passed through their respective governments. To understand this treaty and why John Stuart might have been disliked because of it, although honestly he was disliked anyway, Abram and I are going to play a little game.
Abram: Game!
Joe: So we're going to think about the territories that are about to be swapped around as trading cards. And given the ease in which they were won, lost, and traded, I mean, that seems like a reasonable metaphor. I have created 23 such cards, which you'll be able to see many of on our BlueSky, one for each territory exchanged in the treaty. I did skip a few places. I missed a few places. But you get the broad idea.
Abram: Like what?
Joe: Britain had captured one of the Channel Islands. I forgot to make a card for that. There are two trading posts in India that I did not include, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. There's a couple small ones that I missed.
Abram: Let's just put it that way. Small wars are big.
Joe: We are going to start by handing out the cards to our three players, except that there's only two of us because Abram's mother stepped away. So that's okay. So I am going to play both France and Spain, and Abram is going to be Britain.
Abram: Britain.
Joe: So for simplicity, I'm going to ignore Eastern Europe. That's actually going to be finalized in something called the Treaty of Hubertusburg, and Britain doesn't gain or lose anything, so who cares?
Joe: Remember that Lord Bute, John Stuart's main objective, was that he wanted a peace treaty that would last. So if Britain took too much then France and Spain would just start fighting a war again in a couple years. If they took too little, British blood would be spilled for no reason. Like, whole bunches of people died to win these places.
Abram: That seems logical.
Joe: No one would like it. So he needed to find a balance. Who's he? He is John Stuart.
Abram: Okay, I like John Stuart. Okay. I think I'm gonna give him a high rating.
Joe: Well, we'll get there when we get there. So he has to find the right balance. Now you are gonna play as John Stuart. And we're going to see whether you find the same balance that he wanted.
Joe: He also wanted ease of control, right? So he thought it would be better if land bordered each other rather than having lots of small islands, and that way he could move troops around and such easier, whereas France typically wanted islands that would have individual plantations for rum or sugar or whatever that they could use to make money. In fact, France at this time basically saw Canada as being very cold and worthless. We'll just leave it at that.
Joe: So I'm going to distribute the cards. So, Abram, if you want to read these or look at these, whatever. So for Britain, played by Abram, we have Goree Island, we have Senegal, we have Martinique, Guadeloupe, Pondicherry, Chandernagore, Manila, St. Lucia, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Tobago, Havana, Quebec, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Cape Breton—
Abram: Cape Breton? You mean Britain.
Joe: And Acadia. So if you're keeping track, Britain has 17 cards.
Joe: Now for France, as played by me, we have Menorca, which is the only place that they captured, and I'm also going to give them cards for their possessions in the New World. And they divided these in different ways at different times, but I'm going to call them Illinois Country, Ohio Country, and West Louisiana. In France, these are usually lumped together as New France or Louisiana, but they did have some divisions, so this is fine for now.
Joe: And for Spain, also played by me, we're going to have East Florida and West Florida.
Abram: Can I see the Florida cards?
Joe: So Spain only gets two cards. But remember that Spain actually has large amounts of territories in Central and South America that they did not trade as part of this war, and I didn't make cards for all the territories that weren't traded for the same reason that Britain doesn't have a Jersey or Guernsey card, or indeed a Massachusetts card. So what can you say is obvious? Who has the advantage in this game?
Abram: Me!
Joe: So you control nearly all of the cards. Now, the one thing that you want the most is this one right here, Menorca. So what are you willing to trade me in order to get Menorca?
Abram: How many cards can I choose to trade?
Joe: As many or as few as you want, because remember, this is you imagining what your Treaty of Paris would look like.
Abram: I think I would give them Guadeloupe and Martinique.
Joe: Well, I don't know that France is going to accept trading their important strategic home island.
Abram: Fine, I'll give them one more. I'll also give them St. Lucia.
Joe: St. Lucia. Now you've captured stuff from Spain too. Are you going to give any of those back?
Abram: To Spain? Which ones did I capture from Spain?
Joe: So all of these cards have a little circle on the lower left that says where they captured it from.
Abram: So I'll give Havana and Cuba back to Spain.
Joe: The F's are from France. The S's are from Spain. I worked really hard on these cards.
Abram: Are they nice cards? Yep, they are. Okay.
Joe: So you've decided to only give one card to Spain.
Abram: Okay. So basically you want to give one card to Spain just so they stop fighting.
Joe: Is that the idea?
Abram: Yeah. I want to give stuff to Spain so they stop fighting, but I want the people to look like it's a victory by keeping some of the stuff we gained from Spain. But since we only have two, I could only give the more valuable one in my eyes to Spain.
Joe: Okay, that sounds great.
Abram: So it looks like I did better than I did there.
Joe: All right, so after all of these negotiations, Abram's John Stuart, Abram's Britain—how many cards do you still control?
Abram: 13.
Joe: Spain now has 3, and France now has 7. That's great. Do you want to hear how it actually went?
Abram: Sure. So do you think this treaty would have actually worked?
Joe: I think this is a good treaty, and you'll notice you tried to be conservative in what things that you traded away, right? You didn't want to give away too much.
Abram: I just wanted to see how, like, I made sure—I think it was big that I made sure that Spain got some of their land back, but not all of it, so it could look like I got some stuff from Spain too.
Joe: Okay, so here is how the real John Stuart played this game. Are you ready? So in North America, the real John Stuart kept Quebec and Acadia and Cape Breton. By the way, Acadia and Cape Breton are eventually going to become New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, but they are willing to trade Saint-Pierre and Miquelon for them. So they will give France Saint-Pierre and Miquelon if they don't want those back.
Joe: Did you know that Saint-Pierre and Miquelon is still part of France today?
Abram: Yep.
Joe: Do you know where it is?
Abram: On Saint-Pierre and Miquelon.
Joe: Saint-Pierre and Miquelon are little islands off the southern coast of Newfoundland. This card, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, is bigger than it sounds because this also gives France rights to fish off of the southern coast of Newfoundland. So France is going to maintain these two barely towns as fishing villages so that they can continue to fish.
Abram: They have like 5,000 people, maybe.
Joe: Well, at the time, probably 25 people, I'm assuming.
Abram: But like nowadays they have like 5,000 people.
Joe: Correct. Right. So the idea is that Britain gives up Saint-Pierre, gives France the ability to fish and have fishing villages off of the coast of Newfoundland so that they're not as upset that they lose all those fishing rights. Because at this point, France cares more about the fishing rights. They also negotiated that any French people that live in these spots, Acadia, etc., are going to be allowed to continue practicing Catholicism.
Joe: Now, elsewhere in North America, it becomes more complicated. France does not want Britain to get everything, so it makes a trade on its own. It trades West Louisiana, which is everything west of the Mississippi, including the city of New Orleans. It gives this to Spain, and this way France doesn't have to control it, but they managed to keep Britain from controlling it. So they're going to give West Louisiana to Spain.
Joe: But Britain does manage to get all the French territory east of the Mississippi. So France gives them Ohio Country and Illinois Country, and these are going to be set up by the British. Now eventually they're going to be setting them up as something called the Indian Reserve, at least in part, and they're going to try to keep the American colonists from actually settling in these lands, but that's going to be deeply unpopular and going to cause some problems, which we'll talk about in upcoming episodes.
Abram: Are those the settler issue things?
Joe: Yeah, so essentially Britain is going to decide that all of the colonies, all the 13 colonies of North America, that their western borders are the Appalachian Mountains.
Abram: That makes them pretty small.
Joe: Well, it does, and just for our international listeners, right, that's like halfway across Pennsylvania. So a lot of the current states would not be as wide.
Abram: So is it like the distance between like southern England to northern England?
Joe: I really don't know. Okay. So you'll notice that the colonies don't actually have any say in any of this, and they're not going to be happy about it. You might want to put a pin in that.
Abram: Yep.
Joe: So remember, Spain lost Havana and Manila, but they're going to get those back. So how are they going to get those back? Well, Spain is going to give these two cards, West Florida and East Florida, give them to Britain, and they're going to trade those cards for Havana and Manila back. So this means that Britain now has control of the entire East Coast of the future United States, and West Florida is essentially the Panhandle and a little bit of the Gulf States, whereas East Florida is most of Florida, most of the current Florida. The capital of West Florida was Pensacola.
Abram: The capital of East Florida was St. Augustine.
Joe: St. Augustine isn't really a major city anymore.
Abram: That is correct. Pensacola is more major than St. Augustine, I'd say, but not by much.
Joe: St. Augustine is effectively a suburb of Jacksonville these days. They probably wouldn't want me to say that, but Jacksonville being the largest city in northeastern Florida. Yeah.
Joe: So in Africa, Britain gave France back Goree Island, but they retained all the rest of Senegal. Now, Goree Island was a slave trading center, so this allows for France to continue trading slaves off the coast of Africa, which is not good. But Britain doesn't want anything to do with that, so they give France back their slave trading center while keeping the rest of Senegal.
Joe: Joe from the future here. This was unfortunately only half true. While Britain did give Goree Island back to the French so they could keep up their slave trading, Britain absolutely did not do it because they were disinterested in the slave trade themselves. Britain at this time maintained forts up and down the west coast of Africa that were used for trading slaves, including Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, Fort James in the Gambia, as well as other forts in Benin and elsewhere. British slave trading had officially begun as early as 1660 when Charles II founded the Royal African Company, and as recently for our podcast 1750, Henry Pelham founded the African Company of Merchants. This is an area where my sources are not engaging in, and I will endeavor to be more careful in the future.
Joe: In the Caribbean, Britain is going to return Guadeloupe, Martinique, and St. Lucia to France, which is exactly what you did, and they're going to keep Tobago, Dominica, and Grenada as part of the exchange.
Joe: In India, Britain is going to retain the Bengal region, but it's going to return Pondicherry, Chandernagore—because George III never found a rhyme for it—and two places that we didn't talk about, Mahé and Karikal. And he's going to give them all to France, but with some rules. France is allowed to use them as trading centers. They're not allowed to fortify them into military centers.
Joe: And finally, in the Mediterranean, in exchange for all of that, at long last, Menorca is handed back to Britain.
Joe: At the conclusion of our game, Britain now has 13 cards.
Abram: I surprisingly predicted it pretty well.
Joe: France has 7 and Spain has 3. So you ended up with the same number of cards, but not everything that you predicted would actually happen. Obviously you could not have predicted all the many, many swaps that happened around in order to make this work.
Joe: So the question is, would this be enough to satisfy the British people that Britain had won enough while not taking so much that a war was inevitable? What do you think the British people thought about your great compromise?
Abram: They didn't like it. They thought we should have taken all, like, 17.
Joe: Exactly, they hated it. They thought you should take all of it, right?
Abram: There's no way. Yeah, but that's kind of unrealistic because then they're just gonna have another war.
Joe: So I'm still on John Stuart's side with that. There's no way that Britain could have fought and died for those territories and then they just give them up.
Abram: They got most of them. They literally got, like, two-thirds of them. Maybe they could have gotten like maybe one or two more cards. But no, it's worth it.
Joe: So on December 9th, 1762, Parliament met to discuss the treaty. John Stuart made a speech to the House of Lords, and I really wanted to quote it, but I couldn't find it online anywhere. But on the way to Parliament, his carriage was attacked and the windows were broken. So people were really unhappy. Despite that unrest, it passed the House of Lords without a division. So that means enough of the Lords supported it that they didn't even need to vote. They could see that they had a majority.
Joe: In the House of Commons, a very ill William Pitt gave a speech against this treaty for three hours and 40 minutes. He begged the MPs to not pass this treaty.
Abram: But they did?
Joe: And even with Pitt speaking against it, it passed 319 to 65 votes.
Abram: Okay, so—
Joe: The people are just being unreasonable. The Treaty of Paris was signed on February 10th, 1763. The war was over and Britain could have peace for a while. Some people liked it. Lord Carteret called it the best treaty that Britain had ever signed. And John Stuart had accomplished what he set out to do. He achieved peace. He only served a couple months longer as Prime Minister, so we can talk a little bit about how he spent the rest of his time.
Final Months as Prime Minister
Joe: So with the peace treaty successfully signed, John Stuart no longer needed the support of Parliament. He didn't care. And so this allowed him to redouble his efforts to remove the Whigs from government, targeting this time leaders rather than just low-level ministers.
Joe: John Stuart fired leaders like Thomas Pelham-Holles, George Grenville, Charles Watson-Wentworth, and Augustus Fitzroy from some of their minor offices, like their lord lieutenancies. William Cavendish was so upset he resigned as Lord Chamberlain in disgust. And then he was fired from the Privy Council.
Joe: So all those names I just mentioned—I mean, no, I mean, they're still around, but all of those names now have lost some titles. They're all going to be kind of upset about John Stuart. And you'll notice, what do all of them have in common? What? George Grenville, Charles Watson-Wentworth, and Augustus Fitzroy.
Abram: Prime ministers.
Joe: Yeah, those are the next three prime ministers. He's just—well, three of the next four. He's already annoyed Pitt. The point is, the upcoming prime ministers are really not going to like him.
Joe: So we actually have a message that he sent to Lord Rockingham, Charles Watson-Wentworth, that shows both how many offices he was firing them from and also how kind of pretend polite he was. So allow me to read this to you. It says, quote, "The king has commanded me to acquaint your lordship that His Majesty has no further occasion for your service as Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of the County of York. Of the City of York, of the County of the same City, as Custos Rotulorum for the North and West Ridings of the County of York, for the City of York, and for the County and Ainsty of York, and as Vice-Admiral of the County of York, the City of York, and the County of the same City. I am sorry that it falls to my share to write to your Lordship on such an occasion, being with great truth and respect your Lordship's most humble and obedient servant."
Abram: I still think John Stuart, he's just, the people are just being biased to him, I feel like.
Joe: Well, maybe. So remember though that the war was very, very, very expensive and Britain was left in massive debt. It was hoped that the new colonies would eventually pay for themselves through trade and manufacturing, but that was going to take time, and in the interim they had to find a way to pay off the massive debt. They couldn't even afford the interest payments. So what do you do when you need money and you're a government?
Abram: Tax?
Joe: Taxes. The colonies. The first of these taxes was on cider, and both John Stuart and George Grenville argued for it. William Pitt argued against it. But I'm not going to talk about these taxes right now because he only did one. George Grenville is going to be super famous for the taxes that he did on the colonies, and we'll leave that for his episode.
Joe: John Stuart remained really unpopular. He now started traveling only with a bodyguard or in unmarked carriages to reduce the risk that he would be caught and accidentally, say, killed by a mob.
Joe: Now, one thing he did do is he set up a new plan for North America. Now, George Grenville will be the one to finish this, and so I won't talk about it a lot, but just so you know, he's going to station 10,000 troops across North America, both on the island and the mainland colonies. He's going to organize these new territories into new colonies. Quebec, West Florida, East Florida, and Cape Breton, in addition to what he already had in Canada, which is Nova Scotia, Newfoundland.
Abram: I have a question. Does he also—is Grenville—he's famous for taxing the American colonies, so did he also tax the Canadian colonies?
Joe: Well, at this point, they were all American colonies. So I think this is kind of a great point, because at this moment, Britain has 21 colonies in North America.
Abram: Aren't there only supposed to be 13?
Joe: That tried to revolt. So there's the 13 colonies that revolted, plus Quebec, West Florida, East Florida, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, St. John's Island, and Rupert's Land.
Abram: What's Rupert's Land?
Joe: So Rupert's Land is all of the territory around the Hudson Bay, so northern Quebec, northern Ontario, going into some of what is now Nunavut, and I think even Northwest Territories, but also further out. It was a relatively large and unpopulated area. The broad point is that the British colonies in North America are not just the 13 that we talk about, but they have a lot of other territory as well.
Joe: And in fact, John Stuart is going to arrange to send surveyors there to map and understand the new territories, to gather documents from the stuff that they took over from France. But again, we'll talk about this in Grenville's episode. This is mostly going to be finished by him.
Joe: But by April, John Stuart had had enough. He had accomplished his goal of making a peace treaty, but the constant anger directed towards him was taking its toll. His health began to worsen due to stress. He also claimed that his unpopularity was making the king less popular, so that the loyal thing as the king's friend would be to resign. And he did so on April 8th, 1763, suggesting that George Grenville take over as prime minister. George III accepted his resignation and agreed to elevate Grenville.
Joe: He wrote, quote, "Far be it from me to think I am in any shape necessary to the King's government, or that my place cannot be better supplied by any other arrangement. But I do not stop here. I am firmly of the opinion that my retirement will remove the only unpopular part of government. I fondly hope, therefore, I shall in my retirement do my royal master much more service than I could have performed by remaining in office."
Marquesses and Viscounts - Round Nine
Joe: Question 4. You are the eldest son and heir of Alexander Thinn, the Marquess of Bath, who is also the Viscount Weymouth. While your father is alive, how may you style yourself? A, Viscount Weymouth. B, Lord Bath. Or C, Earl of Bath?
Abram: I'm guessing C.
Joe: If you picked A, Viscount Weymouth, you are correct. Viscount Weymouth is one of the subsidiary and different titles. The use of it is allowed to you by courtesy.
Joe: If you picked B, Lord Bath, you are incorrect. This is another way of referring to the Marquess of Bath. You could actually style yourself as Lord Thinn, but why would you want that when there's a Viscountcy available?
Joe: If you picked C, Earl of Bath, you are incorrect. Even though Earl is one step down from Marquess, this isn't an option, and that's not how it works. Your father doesn't have the Earldom of Bath. And even if he did, you couldn't use the title because it's too similar to the Marquess of Bath.
Joe: So close. You got two of four. Now, they did say these were harder, but we still have the bonus question.
The Scottish Boogeyman
Joe: Once out of office, it's not really clear what role John Stuart expected to retain. He was still the king's friend, but was he gonna stay an advisor? We don't really know. And honestly, the sources kind of conflict.
Joe: At this point, John Stuart's not financially dependent on the king anymore, thanks to the death of his in-laws and the patronage network that he inherited from his dead Uncle Argyll. His other uncle Islay is now the new Uncle Argyll. So when did that happen? Just a couple years before this. But the point is, he's now pretty rich and he is very far from that guy who had to borrow a ride to come to the horse races all that time ago.
Joe: So in fact, one of the first things he does after he's out of office is he buys a grand estate at a place called Luton Hoo, around 30 miles northwest of London. So imagine this is like a rural, very fancy mansion with plenty of area for him to go and collect flowers and look at insects and all the botany and science and stuff that he likes.
Joe: But even though he's out of office, he's still on everyone's mind. Any decision that the king makes that people don't like is blamed on him. Is he secretly whispering in the king's ear, trying to make George Grenville look bad or trying to set policy? No one really seems to know.
Joe: So the North Briton newspaper that we already talked about continued to publish scathing editorials about him, even though he was out of office. We're gonna talk about it more in Grenville's episode maybe, but the April 1763 edition is gonna end up getting the author, John Wilkes, in a lot of trouble. He's gonna have to flee to France. We'll probably talk about that a little bit more next time.
Joe: And speaking of George Grenville, he doesn't end up having the best relationship with George III, and he's gonna blame John Stuart for poisoning their relationship. So in early 1764, George Grenville is gonna have enough. He's gonna say, "George III, Your Majesty, I will only stay on as Prime Minister on one condition, and that is that John Stuart has to be out of your life."
Joe: And he actually set some demands. That John Stuart would have to be 30 miles outside of London, which is the distance to Luton Hoo. So that might not be a coincidence. That key people that John Stuart put into the government, like his brother James Stuart-Mackenzie, would have to be kicked out. And basically anybody that might be in the king's household that is spying for John Stuart would be fired.
Joe: Now, I don't know which of these demands were actually kept and what he did, but the idea is that even though John Stuart's not in office anymore, everyone is really just still afraid of him and afraid that he is poisoning the king.
Joe: Now, what is the famous thing about George III?
Abram: American stuff.
Joe: What else is famous about George III?
Abram: Went mad.
Joe: Correct. And in March 1765, King George III had the first of those occasions where he started to have a mental health issue.
Abram: Yeah, it was more frequent towards the end of his reign, though.
Joe: Correct. So details are pretty scarce, but it scared Parliament enough, whatever had happened, that Parliament started trying to figure out who would be running the government if the king wasn't able to. At this point, the future King George IV, Prince George, was still like two.
Abram: Towards the end of his reign, that was generally George IV's job.
Joe: Correct. So when John Stuart became aware of the king's illness, he asked to be allowed to visit. And this was after Grenville had said, you can't even talk to the king anymore. You have to stay 30 miles away. But because of the health issues, Grenville did relent and allow him to visit his friend.
Abram: So was it only because the king was sick?
Joe: Pretty much.
Abram: And the king would probably order that he came anyways. And the king at this point—I think he has slightly more power than the Prime Minister, I assume.
Joe: That's true. But if the king is having a mental health crisis, maybe they wouldn't have listened to him.
Joe: So that Regency Council that I talked about that Parliament was setting up, they were so afraid that John Stuart would end up on it that they actually didn't even want to put Princess Augusta there. Because during all this time, John Stuart is still remaining friends with Princess Augusta, even though he's not allowed to see King George anymore. And they were afraid that if Princess Augusta was added to the Regency Council, then really it was a backdoor way for John Stuart to take power again. In the end, they let her on it and it didn't end up mattering, but that was a concern at the time.
Joe: I think the biggest thing—I called this section the Scottish Boogeyman because everybody was afraid of him. Everybody was worried that he was secretly controlling the king.
Joe: And I don't know if you've ever heard of this city, but Bostone?
Abram: Yeah.
Joe: Wherever that is. Boston? I'm being silly. But the colonists hated John Stuart. They blamed him for what was going on in government, even though he wasn't in government anymore. And they either burned or hung him in effigy at least twice. I found one in August 1765 and one in December 1765. What did they do? Well, you know how for Guy Fawkes Bonfire Night, you know how somebody makes like an effigy, a scarecrow of Guy Fawkes, and then they burn it? Well, they were making those of John Stuart in Boston.
Abram: But why did they not like John Stuart?
Joe: Why is everyone scared of him? They're all just afraid that he's whispering into the king's ear. Now, he can't even be near the king. The second time in December, they actually burned both him and George Grenville.
Abram: So clearly the colonists—the colonists, I think, like George Grenville even less than John Stuart.
Joe: I'm pretty sure George Grenville is going to be doing a lot of colonial taxes.
Abram: I think at this time they hate John Stuart more, but I think eventually they're gonna miss John Stuart a little bit because it's gonna be George Grenville in charge.
Joe: Maybe so. But you know those crazy Bostonians, they're always wanting to revolt.
Abram: They're just so revolting.
Joe: What are you doing?
Abram: Insulting us? Yes. Yes.
Joe: We are Bostonians after all.
Abram: That is true.
Joe: Anyway, bottom line is that as time went by, different sources disagree as to what was happening between John Stuart and King George. Were they still friends? Was he advising the king? In 1766, George Grenville seemed to think that he was still chatting with the king because he asked John Stuart to intervene in a problem that he was having with the king. And John Stuart said, "But I don't even talk to him. You sent me away."
Joe: And in fact, even when other prime ministers came in, the rule with all of the subsequent prime ministers was, whatever you do, don't let John Stuart near the king. That said, he was still regularly visiting Princess Augusta, and one of my biographies tells a story about John Stuart visiting her. One time when he was visiting her, King George III happened to be stopping by, and he's like, "Oh no, I have to leave." And so he quickly snuck out the back door while King George came by to visit his mother.
Abram: Uh-huh.
Joe: I don't know if I believe that. Another story says that John Stuart was constantly trying to find ways to sneakily get back in with the king. So was he trying to avoid the king? Was he trying to sneak back in with the king? I think it's really up to whichever source you believe.
Joe: But whatever the truth, by 1770, he was fed up with politics. And he decided to make a very long overdue tour of the continent. But before we get to that, we have the matter of a Bute place name to discuss.
Bute County, North Carolina
Joe: It's become our habit, Abram, to visit the towns named for the prime ministers whenever we can. We visited Walpole, two Pelhams, Bath, Newcastle. We're going to visit Grenville, probably. But this is the first time we're talking about a place we didn't visit, both because it's kind of a good story and also because traveling to North Carolina during the holidays was a bit more than I could manage.
Joe: So on June 10th, 1764, Bute County, North Carolina was founded. It was split off of Granville County, which was named for Lord Carteret. And this is actually after he was prime minister, at a time when he was already hated by everyone in government. And I have no idea why the legislature of North Carolina decided to name a place after someone that everyone hated, but they did.
Abram: Maybe because everyone hated that area.
Joe: Well, Bute County was on the northern border of the colony, roughly northeast of modern Raleigh, although that city isn't going to be founded for another two decades after this.
Joe: By 1768, there was unrest in the colonies, right, as the early pre-march to revolution happens. And in North Carolina, this manifested as a very strong pro-British faction in the statehouse and independence-minded Regulators that lived in the countryside. They were against all the taxes that were set up for the Seven Years' War.
Joe: In 1768, the Bute County militia was called up to defend the government and enforce the laws against these Regulators. But the Bute County militia refused, saying, quote, "There are no Tories in Bute," which of course, since John Stuart was a Tory, I think that's ironic, don't you?
Abram: Yeah.
Joe: The Regulator Movement is going to be defeated in battle in 1771. We might talk about some of this in some of the other episodes, but honestly, this is not an American history podcast.
Joe: During the American Revolution, the people of Bute County, they largely supported the Patriots, but there were no Revolutionary War battles fought there, even though Bute militia members probably were in the war.
Joe: That said, on January 20th, 1779, the breakaway government of North Carolina voted to destroy Bute County. Essentially eliminating a symbol of British control, right? He was a hated guy. He was a British prime minister, and they decided to replace it with two new counties. Warren County got the northern half, named for General Joseph Warren, who died in the Battle of Bunker Hill. That's in Boston, you know that. And Franklin County, named for Benjamin Franklin.
Joe: So there isn't a Bute County anymore. There's no Bute town. There's no remaining record of him in North Carolina.
Abram: What year did they destroy it?
Joe: 1779. But it's still, I think, a fun story.
Later Life
Joe: In October 1770, John Stuart left England to tour Europe. He traveled under an alias sometimes, but it's a really dumb alias. He called himself Sir John Stuart, which is actually his name, so it's not really an alias. Don't ask me. But despite trying to travel incognito, he was recognized in many of the countries that he visited and was even treated as something of a hero in France.
Joe: This trip seems to have been masking or treating something that we would now call depression. We know that he was self-medicating with a physic for his distemper, which I couldn't find out what it was. It might have been alcohol, it might have been a drug. I don't really know, but it must have helped him feel better.
Joe: After his grand tour, he returned home to Luton Hoo. He grew its library to something like 30,000 books on science and math. He gathered up some of the best mechanical and scientific instruments of the day. He basically became a scientist. I think it's pretty awesome.
Joe: He retired from politics officially in 1780 when he ceased being a Scottish Representative Peer, but while he had sat in the House of Lords, at least in theory, for the last 15 or so years, I can't find a single record of anything that he did there or even whether he showed up.
Abram: So was he really only into politics like a year after he left?
Joe: Yeah, he didn't stay in politics very long, but he officially, officially retired from politics in 1780.
Joe: As a scientist and a supporter of science, there's a lot that we can say about him. He was elected the president of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1780. As I said before, he was a bit of a scientist himself. A genus of Asian flowers are called Stewartia in his honor. They were named in 1753 while he was still poor and young, and a second genus of flowers, also in Asia, are called Butea, and they're going to be named after his death.
Joe: He published his own book on botany in 1785 called, quote, *Botanical Tables Containing the Families of British Plants*. It sounds boring but amazing. And we like boring books here, right?
Joe: But he also is honored for some negative stuff. The word "jackboot" is coined in 1786 to mean, quote, "a symbol of military oppression, authoritarian rule, or more generally, bullying tactics or intimidation." Of course, the word is coming from a type of military boot. But it's also a pun on his name, "Jack Bute." Jack being apparently a shortened form of John.
Abram: I never understood that one.
Joe: Yeah, it is. In November 1790, John Stuart fell off a cliff in Hampshire while collecting plants.
Abram: What?
Joe: That's dramatic. Yeah. It just seemed like he sprained his ankle at first, but he never recovered and his health gradually declined. More than a year later, he died March 10th, 1792. That's almost the end of our story. We're almost ready to rate him.
Abram: We just have two quick things to deal with.
Marquesses and Viscounts - Bonus Question
Joe: Which one of the 10 titles of peerage is inherited from the Saxons? Do you know which—when they say the 10 titles of peerage, what do they mean?
Abram: Do you mean like barons and stuff? Yep. Are they barons, viscounts, marquesses, dukes?
Joe: Earls.
Abram: Grand Dukes. Are those—no, Grand Dukes I think are in Europe somewhere. They're in like the Balkans, I think.
Joe: Right, but you got the list, right? So there's Barons, Earls, Dukes, Viscounts, and then the female equivalents of them.
Abram: What about like Marquis and Marquesses?
Joe: And Marquesses, yep, don't forget them. That's the whole point of this, that we're not supposed to forget them. So those are the five, and then there's the female versions, like the Marchioness and the Viscountess. So which one of those 10 is not inherited from the French but actually came from the Saxons?
Abram: I'm guessing like a—like Dukes or something.
Joe: You think Dukes? Okay.
Abram: Or Earls.
Joe: Earls? I think is what I'm going with.
Abram: Earls, that's your final answer?
Joe: Yeah.
Abram: The answer is Earl, from the Saxon ealdorman, who were the senior Saxon nobles, as opposed to the Thegns, who were more junior. It is speculated that the Normans chose to retain the Germanic "Earl" as opposed to the continental "Count" because of the latter's proximity to profanity. However, the term "Count" does survive in other titles such as Countess, Viscountess, and Viscount.
Joe: Hey, you won! You got that one.
Abram: I did.
Epilogue
Joe: In 1791, two ships set sail from England on a voyage of discovery: the HMS Discovery and the HMS Chatham, the latter named in honor of William Pitt the Elder. The mission was to travel to what we now call the Pacific Northwest to explore the area and map and report back. The mission's captain was George Vancouver, the namesake for the city that will one day bear his name.
Joe: On board these ships were two young men, each only 16 years old. They were notable because not only of their young age—they were among the youngest on the voyage—but because of who they were: the Honorable Thomas Pitt, the grandson of William Pitt, and the Honorable Charles Stuart, the grandson of John Stuart.
Joe: The ship left port when John Stuart was still alive, sailing east around Africa, Australia, and Hawaii before arriving at the West Coast of North America. For two years, they mapped the coast. Along the way, they named everything they saw, every island, every inlet, every mountain, every cloud—okay, probably not the clouds.
Joe: Many of them were named after prominent men back home. Some of them were named after members of the crew. Point Roberts was named after Captain Henry Roberts.
Abram: Point Grey—is that that part in the US that shouldn't be in the US because it's near Canada?
Joe: This is mostly all in the actual Vancouver Sound area, so this is like closer to Vancouver. Anyway, Burrard Inlet after Captain Harry Burrard Neale. I could go on, but the point is they named everything, and they didn't ask the natives what they called it. They just named it after someone they knew.
Joe: Eventually, it seems that Charles Stuart was given a turn in naming things, and he was given the honor of naming several of the features: an inlet and an island in that inlet, and a mountain visible from that inlet. And you might be not surprised to learn that he named them after his grandfather: Bute Inlet, Stuart Island, and Mount Bute. The island and the inlet are in the strait that separates Vancouver Island from the mainland, while Mount Bute is on the coastal mountain range right next to Mount Grenville.
Joe: Mount Grenville is taller.
Abram: Uh-huh.
Joe: I don't know what they were trying to say, but they made Mount Grenville the tall one.
Joe: At least some of the story that I just told you is probably a lie. The Honorable Charles Stuart, who was a grandson of Lord Bute, would have been only 12 at the time. So either he lied about his age to get on the voyage, or it was a different Charles Stuart. I even went to the muster rolls, right, the list of people on the ships, and I completely confirmed that there was a Charles Stuart there, but maybe he was only 12. I'm not really sure. Maybe he's a completely different Charles Stuart and someone just thought it was a fun story.
Joe: But at the end of the day, I think it was him because otherwise—
Abram: He probably named it after himself then.
Joe: Well, he may have been a Stuart, but he was not Bute. So he at least named the inlet after his grandfather. No matter how you slice it, something is a little off with this story, but I think it's just so fun I wanted to tell you anyway.
Joe: Now today Stuart Island is filled with private hunting and fishing lodges for the wealthy. There is only one lodge there that is open to the public. It is called Nanook Lodge. The rooms are $1,000 a night or more. You have to get there by seaplane. Or sea taxi. And the sea taxi leaves from Campbell, British Columbia, which is a four-hour drive and a ferry from Vancouver. So while I love Abram very much, there's not a chance in the world we can afford to travel there to record an episode.
Rating
Joe: Ready? Abram, our first category is accomplishments. I want to say, before we get into accomplishments, I have a couple quotes that I wanted to read you about how other people thought he did.
Joe: A guy by the name of Lord Chatsworth said, quote, "He interfered in everything, disposed of everything, and undertook everything much too soon for his inexperience in business and for at best his systematic notions of it, which are seldom or never reducible to practice." His head was full of big ideas, but he didn't know how to do it.
Joe: Another one: "In the circle of his family and intimate friends, away from the great world in which he made so poor a figure, he was greatly esteemed." "His abilities were inconsiderable, his character weak, and he was qualified neither for the ordinary administration of public business nor for the higher sphere of statesmanship."
Abram: They think he's in a movie for one of the lines there.
Joe: Oh my God. Anyway, the point is he wasn't well liked and people did not value his accomplishments.
Abram: But I think that does not mean that we have to rate him that way. Okay, so for accomplishments, I think that he did a pretty good job. Like, I think he was over-disliked. I don't get why people didn't like him that much. He made clear that people from Scotland could be prime ministers because he's from Scotland. He was a prime minister. I don't have a whole lot to say here. And he also made it more fair. And I think he was against corruption, right? He was hated, but that isn't subtracting too many points.
Abram: I'll give him 11 out of 20.
Joe: Yeah. The way that I'm looking at this, he set out to do a couple of things. He set out to negotiate the Treaty of Paris in a fair way. He did that. A lot of people didn't like it. He set out to reduce corruption. He tried that, and honestly, it didn't stick, right? Because the next several prime ministers are all gonna be Whigs. When Lord North comes around as the next Tory, he's gonna stick around for a while, but obviously he didn't do a great job. I think he set out for what he intended to do. I would give him an 8. 9.
Abram: So disaccomplishments.
Joe: What did he unaccomplish?
Abram: What did he unaccomplish?
Joe: He didn't undo that much. I would say that he had less territory at the end of his prime ministership than he had at the beginning because—
Abram: Oh, not by a whole lot, I don't think.
Joe: No, but he did give away some in the Treaty of Paris.
Abram: But keep in mind, that was in order to stop another war from happening, which means lives would be lost and he would be even more hated. The people don't understand that he was doing that to make them less happy then, but probably more happy in the long run. I don't think he dis-accomplished much. I'm going to give him out of minus 10, minus 2.
Joe: I am actually going to give him minus 4 because I'm not sure that he gave away too much, but I want to acknowledge the fact that he did give away some territory.
Abram: I'll change mine to minus 3 then.
Joe: Okay. I want to acknowledge the fact that he did give away at least some, maybe even a lot of territory. So bad personality, we can go up to minus 10.
Abram: He—everyone hated him. So this one's pretty big.
Abram: I have to give him a minus 8.
Joe: So here's the thing, I'm not giving him any bad personality. I don't think other people hating him was a problem, not a problem for him.
Abram: Yeah, but we have to acknowledge it somehow, so maybe minus 2 then.
Joe: Okay, I mean, you can give him whatever score you want.
Abram: I'm just saying—I'll give him minus 3 then, and you'll give him—
Joe: I am just saying that I don't think he had any scandals. I don't think he was a bad person. He aimed to reduce corruption, even if he did it dumb. So I'm still giving him a 0.
Joe: How interesting was his life?
Abram: A score of up to 10. I think this one would be a great tragedy. I can imagine like a Shakespeare-style play coming out of this. I think if we turned it into that, like, I think this one could be pretty interesting because like he did everything he could. So like I would say 7, but only if we put it into like play format.
Joe: I mean, think about it. He was a poor but rich noble of Scotland. He met the prince at a racetrack. He became the king's best friend. He tried to control the government, even though he had no official role in the government. Yeah, I think it's interesting. I'm giving him a 6.
Joe: Now, looks.
Abram: That is his picture. He looks like he thinks he's a king.
Joe: I think he looks like George Washington.
Abram: Yep. Which means he looks pretty good, I'd say.
Joe: Do you think so?
Abram: Yeah, I think he looks pretty good. I don't really like it that much. I usually don't like when they go all fancy, but I think for him it kind of fits considering it's like the king's best friend.
Joe: So I'll give it a 6.
Abram: And I am gonna go—
Joe: Why'd you give me a 3? Because it's—you divide by 2. 10 each, then you divide by 2. So, uh, 5.
Abram: 2.5. Okay, lifespan.
Joe: He lived to 78, right? He did, so he gets 7.8. And how long was he prime minister for? Let me check. 317 days, from May 26th, 1762 to April 8th, 1763. That gives him 0.9 points.
Joe: All right, let's total this all up. And he comes up with... 37.2 points. That places him just below Cavendish, it looks like.
Abram: Yep, just below William Cavendish, which makes sense.
Joe: Yeah, I think he was a little bit overhated. I liked him. He was a smart science-y guy that went a little bit over his head.
Joe: But there is still one important question that you have to ask. Known or ice cream cone? Now I gotta tell you, I was considering "known" for this because obviously they burned him in effigy in colonies thousands of miles away. But then I'm thinking that he wasn't really that successful, and I don't really want to give "known" to people just because they were unsuccessful.
Abram: So he also got a really similar score to Cavendish because of the totals, and we—and Cavendish, we gave—we didn't give him "known" because we thought that he was a short-lived prime minister that did what he accomplished like John Stuart. But a penalty for that, since he was so short-lived, would be not to give him "known." So I think we have to do the same thing for John Stuart.
Joe: I don't know that we have to, but I think it's the right decision. So we gave him an ice cream cone. We're sorry, John Stuart, you're awesome, but you are an ice cream cone.
Joe: With that, we are going to end our episode for this week, and hopefully we will be back before too long with George Grenville, possibly freezing our butts off in Quebec. All right, until then, say goodbye, Abram.
Abram: Goodbye.
Bibliography
Joe: This week's sources are primarily the same as the previous episode, excepting the Leicester House source that was primarily focused on Bute's time prior to becoming Prime Minister. So just a reminder, those sources are *John Stuart, the Earl of Bute* by J. A. Lovat-Fraser, published in 1912, and *A Prime Minister and His Son* edited by Mrs. E. Stuart Wortley, published in 1925.
Joe: For the locations related to the Earl of Bute, I primarily used the Bute County entry in the NCpedia, an online wiki provided by the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, primarily written by Michael Hill in 2008, and *Vancouver's Discovery of Puget Sound* by Edmund Stephen Meany, published in 1907.
Joe: And finally, our editor is Samuel Cunningham. You can find him at samc_productions on Fiverr.
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