Prime Factors - Ranking UK Prime Ministers

8.2 - Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham (Part 2)

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8.2 - Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham (Part 2)

Episode Transcript

Abram: Welcome to Prime Factors. This week, Charles Watson-Wentworth, Part Two.

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 are reviewing all the British Prime Ministers from Robert Walpole to Keir Starmer, that you should get used to hearing that every time. You probably know that line by heart already. This is episode 8.2, Charles Watson-Wentworth, Part Two.

Joe: We, Abram, are in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, right near the border with Maine on that tiny little nub of New Hampshire that just sort of sticks out there into the—

Abram: Into the ocean?

Joe: But Abram, why are we in Portsmouth? Because it is the largest and the only city in Rockingham County, New Hampshire.

Abram: Yeah, on the car ride here, I accidentally spoke English to a new hamster. Since he's new, he didn't understand English yet. He had to re-say it in squeaks.

Joe: Yeah, well, that was nice of you. So the county seat here, of course, is Brentwood, but Brentwood is like a 2,000-person little town. But Portsmouth is the real heart of Rockingham County.

Abram: What about Exeter?

Joe: Okay, and Exeter. The important thing is that our party boy Rockingham managed to get a county named for him.

Abram: I'm honestly kind of surprised he isn't partying in this photo. There aren't any balloons.

Joe: I think when they sat down to take portraits in the 1700s, they had a certain style that they tried to adhere to.

Abram: I'm just surprised he didn't bring a balloon to the portrait day.

Joe: I'm not sure they invented balloons yet.

Abram: And yeah, it's a party hat. Is he the first Prime Minister with a county?

Joe: There was Bute County, North Carolina, but that had dissolved. And then there's also Chatham County in North Carolina.

Abram: I didn't get to pick the elder.

Joe: Oh, that's true. So no, the only earlier one is Bute.

Abram: Yeah, but there was Carteret.

Joe: That's true. So, Abram, we also had a really great message on BlueSky that I just wanted to read to you. It's from the Presidencies Podcast and it says, quote, "Your latest episode was greatly anticipated and appreciated in the Presidencies HQ. My better half is selective in his podcast listening, but he always enjoys Abram's commentary. He is hashtag Team Abram, and I know what it's like to be hashtag Team Joe. Cheers to the synergy that makes a great podcast."

Abram: Yay, Team Abram! He knows what it's like to be in Team Joe's shoes. I bet that he likes wearing big shoes that are slip-ons as well.

Joe: I don't like to tie shoes. I'm sorry. Besides, Abram, I think I'm secretly in #TeamAbram also.

Abram: Nope, you're captain of your own team. I won't let you in. For our listeners, tell us whether you're on Team Joe or Team Abram. Maybe leave us a comment or review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Facebook, and BlueSky. And like and subscribe as well. Oh, and we're at www.primefactorspodcast.com.

Joe: And since he was so kind, you can find the Presidencies Podcast on your local podcast app or at www.presidenciespodcast.com. They do longer format histories of US Presidents and US presidential history, and it's a pretty good listen. Are you ready, Abram, for our episode? If so, then—

Picture This

Joe: The roar of the crowd mixes with the sound of shouting vendors, galloping hooves, and distant minstrel music. We are once again at the horse races, a favorite pastime of nobles and commoners alike. But this time we're not in Egham with young John Stuart sitting on a muddy hill. No, today we're at the Ascot Racecourse in Windsor Forest, just west of London and only a few miles from Windsor Castle.

Joe: The year? 1765. In the future, these races are going to be known as the Royal Ascot. Part of the reason for that is sitting right over there on an elevated viewing platform at the middle of the course under the shade of broad trees. That is the Royal Stand, essentially an 18th-century luxury box, and inside it on this beautiful June day is none other than Prince William Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland and King George III's uncle. These are his races.

Abram: He doesn't own races.

Joe: He kind of does.

Abram: How can he own what people do?

Joe: Since retiring from military life, Abram, Cumberland has devoted himself to this event. He is the reason that Ascot is flourishing, transforming from a simple racecourse founded by Queen Anne into a courtly gathering of political and social power.

Abram: I wonder if a woodworker is hiding here.

Joe: And here, Abram, is the painting of the race by Thomas Sandby. This painting here was made between 1755 and 1765. It's an excellent painting and as close to being there as I think we can ever be. This is one of a series of paintings by Sandby commissioned for the Duke's special interests to document his life. The races were very important to His Royal Highness, and the fact that such an amazing painting of them is just underscoring that fact.

Joe: So let me walk you through this image, Abram. So this is the races as they existed for real in 1765. This image will be up on our BlueSky. And to be clear, this could be sometime between 1755 and 1765 because the painting was done during the latter portion of Cumberland's life. You can see the raceway there, right where the horses were racing and all the people are and all the people that are watching the race. But right here, in this little hut, that is the Royal Stand. That is where Cumberland and his guests will be sitting.

Joe: And Abram, over here behind the Royal Stand, you can just sort of see a collection of tents. That is where we are right now. These are the tents for the non-royal nobility, the upper-class lords that also love the races and wanted to go. And in one of these tents, white cloth blazoned with the coat of arms of the Marquess of Rockingham, was Charles Watson-Wentworth.

Joe: Unlike John Stuart, who sat soaked to the skin among commoners, Charles is attended by servants, lounges on fine chairs, sips wine, and exchanges bets with fellow Whigs and Yorkshire gentry. He is entirely in his element among horses, friends, influence, and money.

Abram: Wait, his horses are his friends? So he's basically partying with his horses all the time. So now he just has horses that he dances with.

Joe: From time to time, a messenger slips into the tent, bringing updates, perhaps about a stallion sired by one of Charles's champions or how a favored wager is faring. There's laughter, idle chatter and the soft clink of glasses.

Joe: Then another messenger arrives. All of Charles's men deferred to him immediately, giving him space in front of the table where Charles was sitting. He's dressed impeccably in a dark green uniform and tricorn hat emblazoned with a knot of brightly colored ribbons.

Joe: "My Lord Marquess, I bring a message from His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland. Your presence is requested at the Royal Stand."

Joe: Charles claps his hands and beams. "Oh, my good friend, His Royal Highness! I had so hoped we could speak today." Charles rose and followed the messenger out of the tent and into the throngs of spectators.

Joe: The pair quickly walked through the crowds and past a row of tents even closer to the prince's own. These were the dukes' tents. He wondered for a moment if Newcastle or Grafton were at the races today, but he hadn't seen them yet. "Who's Grafton?" "Augustus Fitzroy." "Wait, he's like 28." "They didn't have Nintendo back then. I'm pretty sure that even a 28-year-old went to the races." "He wasn't playing on his Switch, trying to play Mario Kart?" "No."

Abram: Oh.

Joe: At a small gate erected at the bottom of the Royal Stand, Charles is waved inside and up a flight of wooden stairs. Inside is a room that seemed more permanent than Charles's tent, but only barely. Wooden panels lined the wall, and a curtained archway in front led out to seats that could overlook the racetrack, while behind was a small but ornate room just large enough for a table and a buffet for refreshments. The several royal servants seemed to trip over each other to stay out of each other's way in the confined space.

Joe: But at the table sat the Duke of Cumberland. He smiled but did not—

Abram: Who's that again?

Joe: The Duke of Cumberland is George III's uncle. He is the guy that Charles Watson-Wentworth escaped to when he was 15 to try to join the military. Do you remember?

Abram: Oh yeah.

Joe: At the table sat the Duke of Cumberland. He smiled but he did not stand at Charles's approach. His nephew Prince Edward sat next to him.

Joe: "My lord, the Marquess of Rockingham," intoned the messenger. Charles bowed low and waited for the prince to speak.

Joe: "Charles, it's a delight to see you again, and I cannot help but notice that the stallions bred from your own Anacreon are doing very well today." Cumberland gestured to the seat beside him.

Joe: "It's thanks to you that they had such a fine place to race," Charles responded before sitting down with the prince. They were old friends, and with introductions completed and in private, they began to relax.

Joe: "And those bred from your wonderful Crab are also doing well."

Abram: Wait, his pet crab breeds with his pet horses, huh?

Joe: One of the traditions of horse racing is that they always name their horses really stupid things.

Abram: Like what?

Joe: Charles really did have a horse named Anacreon, which I assume is some hoity-toity Greek thing.

Abram: What?

Joe: But Cumberland named one of his champion racehorses Crab. I was reading about the races that they were in, and one of the other horses from the nobles that raced against them, the horse's name was Why Not.

Abram: So since his horses are his friends, I bet he has like 5 of them.

Joe: Abram, just one of his stables can have like 80 horses in it.

Abram: He has like 500 horses.

Joe: This is a man who has a lot of horses. Cumberland's Crab and Rockingham's Anacreon had raced against each other less than a decade ago at this point, and the memory was still very fresh. Both horses were now retired, and they were living their best horsey lives, siring a new generation.

Abram: And dancing with Charles.

Joe: Of racehorses.

Abram: Partying with him.

Joe: Oh, those horses were partying, that's for sure.

Abram: No wonder he had a birthday party so big. I bet half of the people who came were actually horses.

Joe: "Edward." He gestured to his nephew, munching on an apple. "May I speak with the Marquess alone?" Edward sighs.

Abram: "I'm only here for a cameo anyway."

Joe: Strange. Edward's voice sounds so high-pitched for somebody who's now in his late 20s.

Abram: He's had the same voice that he had since he was 12.

Joe: When he was 7.

Abram: He was only 7.

Joe: In Waldegrave's episode. Edward stood and made his way to the seats overlooking the track. "I'm afraid I did not call on you to discuss the races." Rockingham's smile faded as Cumberland tossed a letter at the table in front of him. "My nephew the King asks for help assembling a new government so we can finally be done with that idiot commoner Grenville."

Abram: He's an idiot.

Joe: "The letter arrived just last night." In the hours that followed, the Marquess and the Duke were joined by other prominent Whigs. Rather than return to London to discuss a government, they would do so right here at the Ascot Races.

Abram: Surrounded by all 500 horses.

Joe: As they worked through the day, Charles only got to glimpse snatches of races. One thing at least was certain: Cumberland remained impressed by the young man who had once raced across northern England to his cause.

Joe: The outcome of that day's discussions, Abram, would be a Pitt government, but Pitt didn't come, and he would reject the offer a few days later. And when Pitt refused, Cumberland instead turned to the other men that helped build that plan. And perhaps in part because he was attending the races that day, he selected Charles Watson-Wentworth.

Abram: And 500 of his horses.

Joe: Just about a month after the racetrack meeting, Rockingham became Prime Minister. Sort of. We'll cover that in a bit. And no one was more surprised than he was.

Life in Opposition

Joe: Abram, what do you remember about Charles Watson-Wentworth?

Abram: He has a bunch of horses. He did a meeting.

Joe: From just 10 seconds ago.

Abram: Oh, and he ran away.

Joe: We just recorded this episode 2 weeks ago. I'm so disappointed in you, Abram. Let me give you a key recap.

Abram: And the woodworkers. The woodworkers got more points than one killed a bunch of people.

Joe: Okay. Let me give you a couple key points. Charles Watson-Wentworth was the third son of a wealthy family, but his two older brothers died as children.

Abram: Most likely from woodwork, is—

Joe: No, most likely from his parents cutting open their veins and sticking in mercury every time one of them got the sniffles. He tried to run away to join the Duke of Cumberland in 1745, and he became a minor celebrity for his efforts, as well as developing a relationship with that duke that was going to carry forward until right now.

Joe: He partied across Europe with his horses, something like that. Charles was a surprisingly effective leader at local politics, and he took the role of Lord Lieutenant a lot more seriously than most people did. He had just resigned at the end of our last episode with Thomas Pelham-Holles at the very start of the Massacre of the Pelhamite Innocents.

Joe: So we're going to start this episode where we left off. That's 1763, and about 2 years before the Picture This. Rockingham just lost all of his government jobs. The Whigs are struggling to respond to this Bute government that seems to be just tearing down everything.

Joe: During these early discussions, there wasn't even a leader of the Whigs. Newcastle had pretty much lost his leadership role by botching that attempt to mass resign.

Abram: How come it failed?

Joe: Because not enough of Newcastle's followers all resigned at the same time. And also the king, instead of saying, oh no, I can't live without you, the king and John Stuart just said, well, that's a good idea.

Abram: They did it before I had to.

Joe: Correct. Consensus seems to be at this point that William Cavendish, that he should be like the leader of the Whigs.

Abram: But uh-oh, he dead.

Joe: He's pretty sick and he is about to, uh-oh, be dead. Yes. Charles Watson-Wentworth had a growing group of what was being called the Rockingham Whigs, but they weren't aligned with the Temple faction. Remember him? Those were originally the Cobham's Cubs. And so the Whigs were very much not united. William Pitt wasn't backing anybody right now. The Whigs were just in disarray.

Joe: But Charles was young. He was invested in politics, and people knew how seriously he did take his Lord Lieutenant jobs. He was mostly known, as you have already said, for partying and horse races.

Abram: And partying with horses and going to the races and having parties.

Joe: All of those things. But those that knew him knew that he took his work seriously. So he had charisma. He had talent. But you know what else he had?

Abram: Horses.

Joe: Horses. You know what else he had?

Abram: Woodworkers that haunted him.

Joe: Those too. But most importantly, money.

Abram: Oh.

Joe: And since the Newcastle faction of Whigs was prominently supported by Newcastle's money, this helped. When the Rockingham Whigs first went up against Bute for the Cider Tax, they had about 70 to 90 members that were following him.

Joe: But as Bute transitioned into Grenville, Rockingham remained just in the background. He led the Whigs against the Stamp Act. He was fighting against the general warrants. Remember, that was the John Wilkes stuff. And pretty much anything that Grenville wanted, he tried to stop.

Abram: I have a question. What happened to Lord Sandwich?

Joe: He's still around. He's going to show up again in a future episode, at least a little bit. But mostly his story, as far as the Prime Ministers, I think, is done.

Abram: Well, like, what was he in the 1750s?

Joe: He was either in Grenville's government or John Stuart's government. So sometimes Pitt joined with Rockingham, sometimes Pitt joined with the Temple faction. Pitt was still very much a loose cannon.

Abram: Uh-oh, I'm a cannon, I'm falling.

Joe: So one sign that Rockingham was winning over hearts and minds came in 1763 when he was appointed as a governor of Charterhouse, which was a prominent private school. Oftentimes that was a job given to the Prime Minister. But they made a very deliberate snub. They did not give it to Grenville. They gave it to Charles Watson-Wentworth.

Joe: People did not like Grenville. But there is somebody that really did like Charles Watson-Wentworth, and that was—

Abram: His horses.

Joe: And also Prince William Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland.

Abram: Oh, that guy.

Joe: On July 26th, 1763, Cumberland actually had a meeting with all of the Whig leaders, including William Cavendish, Charles Watson-Wentworth, a couple names that you might not know, like William Cavendish-Bentinck.

Abram: Oh, know him. Put a pin in him.

Joe: Augustus Fitzroy.

Abram: Put a pin in him.

Joe: And others. So this is basically the anti-Grenvilles that are aligned with Rockingham, not the anti-Grenvilles that are aligned with Richard Temple.

Abram: Hmm, he's probably still at Bath, I assume.

Joe: Possibly.

Abram: Because that's very spiritual and he would probably like that, given his name.

Joe: Cumberland is even going to spend the night after that meeting at the Wentworth Woodhouse.

Abram: Oh no, this can't be good.

Joe: These were very early discussions, but that took place only 3 months after Grenville had entered office, and Cumberland was already thinking about the future.

Joe: Jump ahead to May 1765. The king was fed up with George Grenville. He had been battling with the king over the Regency Bill. Remember that the king wanted to make his mother a regent if he ever got sick, but Parliament was fighting against it and Grenville was fighting against it because they saw it as a way for John Stuart to possibly come back to government. And so the king asked Cumberland to try to form a new government.

Joe: And what a coincidence that Cumberland had been having all of these meetings with all of these friends of Rockingham.

Abram: And the horses.

Joe: So that first attempt in May, it primarily revolved around William Pitt. Everyone really wanted Pitt to be the leader. I gotta tell you, I'm looking forward to Pitt's episode because I want to understand more about how all this happened. But Pitt kept not being satisfied with whatever they were offering him and he kept turning it down.

Joe: Charles Watson-Wentworth was considered to be maybe Viceroy of Ireland or maybe a Lord of the Admiralty or something. But those offers were not made officially and they weren't really imagining Charles as the First Lord of the Treasury, right?

Abram: I mean, he's the party guy.

Joe: He's a party guy who only parties with horses at that. So that initial discussion failed.

Joe: On June 11th, Cumberland received another letter from the king that said, form a government. He needs to form a government now. And of course he was a little busy 'cause he was at the races. Rather than return to London to try to solve this problem, he decided he was going to do it at the races and invited all the leading members of the Whigs that also happened to be at the races that week. 'Cause this was like a 4-day event. And so that's where our Picture This takes place, where Cumberland, having received this request, assembles all the finest horse-race-watching Whigs.

Abram: And all 500 of his horses to watch from the background.

Joe: Exactly. And they try to form a government. Again, he still wanted Pitt, but we know that Pitt's not going to accept the government.

Joe: We know that Cumberland did meet with Rockingham during the races. And we know that Rockingham sent a letter to Newcastle that said he would be, quote, very busy next week. He doesn't say why, but clearly he knew something was going on.

Joe: Also, Prince Edward might not really have been there. He was 26. He might have enjoyed the races, but I couldn't find any confirmation whether he was there or not. I just wanted to include Elliot in the episode.

Abram: Who's Elliot?

Joe: Exactly. This set of meetings cemented Rockingham as one of Cumberland's leading friends and followers. When he finally did assemble the group of people that would be in his government, Rockingham was gonna be there. Rockingham was gonna lead the Treasury. Newcastle would be like the senior leader from the office of Lord Privy Seal. Cumberland is gonna be de facto in charge, but he's a minister without a portfolio. He doesn't really have a job. He's just in charge.

Joe: On July 13th, 1765, it was made official. George Grenville kicked out. Cumberland and his new group was in. But now the question is, who was the Prime Minister?

Was Rockingham Really Prime Minister?

Joe: We know 100%, July 13th, 1765, Charles Watson-Wentworth was made the First Lord of the Treasury, and we almost always associate the First Lord of the Treasury with Prime Minister. Who's the exception to that rule? The big one.

Abram: Pitt.

Joe: Pitt. And we'll get to him next time.

Abram: And a few others. I think there's a few where they got like one of the two jobs or something.

Joe: Yeah. The point is, at this moment in history, the role of Prime Minister was not well defined.

Abram: It wasn't even a role.

Joe: Correct. So if you were to ask somebody when the ministries changed hands, who was the Prime Minister? I don't think very many people would have said, oh, it's Rockingham. I think they would have said Cumberland. So why Rockingham?

Abram: It'd probably be like, what's a Prime Minister, actually?

Joe: They do have that term already.

Abram: No one used it till like the 1790s or something.

Joe: No one used it officially. Even Robert Walpole had used the term Prime Minister, and there were other people called Prime Minister even before Walpole.

Abram: But no one used it officially till like 1800.

Joe: I think the first person to use it officially was William Pitt the Younger.

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: And then it'll gradually become more a real title all the way into the 1900s, right?

Abram: I think around World War I, they made it like a completely official thing.

Joe: And if you want to learn more about this, in 2 weeks, I should have a special episode posted for my Intelligence Speech Conference. One of the sections is talking about the development of the title of Prime Minister. So you should check that out.

Joe: Anyway, the point is Cumberland assembled the government. Rockingham was not the leader in any concrete way. He was just brought in to do a specific job, that is, be in the Treasury. Most of the people in this new government were relatively new, except for Newcastle. So he was going to maybe be the leader. Maybe he was going to be leading as Lord Privy Seal.

Abram: What's a privy and what's a seal?

Joe: Well, a privy means private.

Abram: So that means it is a private seal, which means he's a seal that doesn't like to talk to other seals.

Joe: Correct.

Abram: I'm kind of surprised he's out of the water.

Joe: In reality, Lord Privy Seal was responsible for the special stamp that would be used to sign the king's personal business.

Abram: He's not a seal that likes to keep to himself.

Joe: The bottom line here is it's really hard to argue that Charles Watson-Wentworth was Prime Minister at this point. But because later Prime Minister is going to be associated with First Lord of the Treasury, and because he's gonna become really Prime Minister in about 20 minutes, we now backdate the start of his prime ministership to the beginning, and we don't say that Cumberland was Prime Minister. However, Prime Time has done an episode on Cumberland if anyone wants to listen to it.

Abram: So if you wanna go now and are just like, hey, what about Prime Time? Please do that. Prime Time will be happy.

Joe: Yeah.

Abram: So if you wanna learn about him, just go to Prime Time. In 3, 2, 1.

Joe: We have covered all of the disputed Prime Ministers so far, but we are not covering Cumberland. We don't plan on covering him.

Abram: We do plan on covering this Beach guy in the '20s.

Joe: Oh God, we're gonna cover him?

Abram: Yeah, because he has one of the roles.

Joe: Oh boy. But if anyone were to add Cumberland to the list of disputed Prime Ministers on Wikipedia, and if it doesn't get reverted in 3 months, I promise, Abram, we'll go back and we'll do a disputed Prime Minister and we'll just put it in the order. I don't think we can change the order. If he was on the disputed list, I would have done it, but he isn't, so I didn't.

Joe: The point is that Cumberland chose his friend Charles as a man who had really fine racehorses but was also willing to do whatever was needed for the king, and he didn't choose him specifically to be his Prime Minister. In fact, Cumberland said, quote, "The Marquess of Rockingham, who from private reasons and inclinations prefers a private life, when he saw the shyness of our friends, he shook off his natural dislike and was ready to kiss the king's hand in whatever shape was most for the service in general."

Joe: In other words, this guy, he's a private guy. He doesn't really want a government job, but, you know, his horses convinced him and he realized if he doesn't, the woodworkers will get him. If the king wants him, he would do it.

Joe: Charles himself wrote, quote, "It must surprise you to hear that I am at the head of the Treasury, but indeed the necessity here made it necessary that something should be done, and therefore, howsoever unsuitable I might be for that office from my health and inexperience in this sort of business, yet I thought it incumbent on me to acquiesce in the attempting it rather than throw any fresh confusion on the negotiation, which had but too many difficulties without my adding to them by my refusal."

Joe: Yes, I know he speaks very fancy. "I am sure you will do me the justice to believe that I shall be very anxious in every circumstance to do my best for the public service. But how the success and event of our undertaking will turn out, it's difficult to guess."

Joe: So basically what he is saying there is, OMG, they made me Lord of the Treasury. I don't know what to do. This is a very big and scary job. I hope I don't screw it up.

Abram: Except he doesn't sound like that because he's too busy being fancy, which is kind of surprising.

Joe: I was translating it for your modern ears. Horace Walpole actually says it best.

Abram: Of course, Horace Walpole has something to say about everything.

Joe: So listen to this. Quote, "Having been only known by his passion for horse races, men could not be cured of their surprise at seeing him as first minister." It's like, what is this horsey guy doing thinking he's in charge of the government?

Abram: He is.

Prime Minister

Joe: Now that Charles Watson-Wentworth is Prime Minister, kind of, let's look at the government that, well, Cumberland built. First, Thomas Pelham-Holles, Newcastle, is in as the Lord Privy Seal. Usually not an important position in government. Technically, it's just the guy that holds the king's personal seal. This is one of the Great Offices of State, so, you know, it's an important job, but also he wasn't expected to do much except stand around and look important.

Joe: Newcastle wanted this because he thought he could just be the wise older guy, but almost immediately Rockingham and Cumberland are just going to be leaving him out of decisions, and he's going to just feel really annoyed the whole time. We mentioned that a little bit in his episode, but he is not very satisfied as it turns out as Lord Privy Seal.

Abram: I can't believe we talked about that like a year ago.

Joe: Oh my goodness. For the Secretary of State roles, we have Augustus Fitzroy, who's the Duke of Grafton, as Northern Secretary, and a guy named General Henry Seymour Conway as the Southern Secretary. We may have mentioned Conway before. He helped Cavendish when he was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, but he's a military guy that's going to be responsible for much of the colonial policy. And he's going to be one of the people that recommends repealing the Stamp Act.

Joe: There are other people in government that are important, but none of them I think right now we need to talk about, so we'll just keep going.

Joe: As you might imagine, for a new government, things were busy. They were so busy, in fact, that Charles Watson-Wentworth left London less than a month later to return to York so that he did not miss any horse races.

Abram: But that's where the woodworkers live. Does he even know he's being chased by these woodworkers?

Joe: I am fairly certain that nobody knows he's being chased by these woodworkers. The point is he's not even acting like he's in charge. A month after they form a government, he's like, have fun guys. I'm gonna go watch a horse race.

Abram: With my 500 horses.

Joe: Now that he was back in the king's good graces, Charles regained all those Lord Lieutenancies and all the offices that Bute and Grenville had taken from him. So he's back to being in charge of the West Riding of Yorkshire.

Joe: But on October 31st, 1765, only 3 months into the new government, Prince William Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland, died. Charles had successfully sidelined Newcastle over the previous 3 months, so that when Cumberland died, there was really only one person that could be said to be in charge, and that was Charles Watson-Wentworth.

Joe: Suddenly, with Parliament getting ready to return, all eyes turned to Charles to lead the government into success. But without the man that built that government, could Rockingham really hold it together?

Abram: Well, that's a story for another time.

Joe: Like right now.

A Rockingham Ministry

Joe: The answer turns out to be yes, but no. Within weeks after Cumberland's death, Augustus Fitzroy had second thoughts. This was Cumberland's government, and with him gone, the right thing for them to do was to form a new one. Rockingham wasn't Prime Minister as far as he was concerned. The real Prime Minister, he just died. Who did Augustus Fitzroy want to be Prime Minister? Do you have a guess?

Abram: Himself.

Joe: No. Pitt? Pitt. Remember, Augustus Fitzroy is going to be in Pitt's government.

Joe: Charles Watson-Wentworth, however, he had a plan. He managed to get Pitt's blessing for the continuation of the government, and he used a secret weapon. A horse. His wife.

Joe: We haven't talked about how politically astute Lady Mary was, but she's always been around in the background. She agreed to meet with William Pitt, who was currently at Bath, where both of them were staying because she was currently sick, and she built some bridges with him. And you might not be surprised to discover that those bridges involved horse racing. She bought two racehorses from Pitt in exchange for a concession that he would not undermine Rockingham's new administration.

Joe: Grafton, Augustus Fitzroy, was not fully satisfied about this, and he continued to want Pitt to join the government, but he was okay for the moment.

Joe: One of the ways in which history was changed by Cumberland's death was with the Stamp Act. Cumberland had actually wanted to retain the act, and he wanted to assert control over the colonies using the military. He was a military man. He saw problems through a military lens.

Joe: However, Charles was all about local politics. Yorkshire had been heavily impacted by the Stamp Act.

Abram: Wasn't the Stamp Act for the colonies?

Joe: Yes, but because the Stamp Act caused colonial trade to slow and stop, an estimated 3,000 workers in his own Yorkshire lost their jobs because the colonies were no longer buying stuff that was made in Yorkshire. Like, even then, economies were tied together.

Joe: There were also food shortages at the time. There were more food riots like we talked about in January, February 1766. Those were also caused by the Stamp Act because the Stamp Act caused prices even in Britain to go up. Charles was able to mitigate some of those damages by moving British grain from parts of the country that had a lot of it to parts that didn't. And he actually banned selling grain to Europe so that Britain had to use everything that it made. But it was another sign that the Stamp Act really had to go.

Joe: But not only would the Stamp Act go, he would also pass an Indemnity Act. So anyone who had violated the Stamp Act, either in Britain or in the colonies, they would be offered a full pardon.

Joe: But Charles did not get everything he wanted passed. He wanted to get a new currency for the colonies to help them with the lack of British money. Remember, that was a big problem. But Parliament rejected that. He wanted to allow the colonies to buy food directly from Spain and Portugal, but that didn't work either.

Joe: But Charles is known for a couple things in American history, not just the repeal of the Stamp Act, but rather a second act that turned out to also be not very good. And this is called the Declaratory Act. We need to discuss it because it's a big one.

Declaratory Act

Abram: Because it has Tory in the name, which means the Tories worked on it.

Joe: No.

Abram: Whenever Tories come to people's houses, they can declare a Tory and kick them out.

Joe: To declare a Tory. That's a good pun, actually.

Abram: The Declare-a-Tory Act.

Joe: As he was working to repeal the Stamp Act, Charles stated this, quote, "I think it also seems the general opinion that in the King and all the parliamentary proceedings, the intention of giving the colonies every possible relief in trade should go hand in hand with declarations of authority. Or censures of the riots and tumults."

Joe: In other words, what he's saying is, we're gonna let them go, but we need to declare our authority. And that's what the Declaratory Act is. He wanted the colonies to know very clearly that those Stamp Acts were repealed because they were bad laws, not because Parliament did not have the power to pass those laws. Parliament and the king were still the highest authority in the land, even in the colonies.

Abram: Mm.

Joe: Now, Charles was, you probably remember, an Irish peer. He had lots of land in Ireland. He could sit in the Irish House of Lords, but probably never did. One of his sisters even married a lowborn Irish person, and he helped to support them. He was invested in Ireland, and he knew how things worked there.

Joe: So it was natural for him to think that the colonial system should be the same or similar to the Irish one. In Ireland, they had had something called the Declaratory Act of 1719 passed under George I, but just prior to Walpole coming to power. That act clarified the role that the Irish Parliament had when making laws for Ireland.

Abram: Irish.

Joe: You probably remember from Cavendish's episode that Ireland was in a weird legal state. It theoretically was an independent country under the same crown, but in practice, laws had all but eliminated the power of the Irish Parliament. Irish Parliament could not pass a law that wasn't approved by the British Parliament or the British Privy Council. And Ireland was very much a colonial state where the English and Scottish Protestants had more rights and powers than the native-born Irish and especially the Irish Catholics.

Joe: So when he was looking at what to do with the colonies, he said, well, this is clearly working for Ireland. It is not for the Irish. Why don't we pass the same law for the colonies in the Americas and everywhere else?

Joe: Oh, the Irish hated this law. They called it the "Dependency of Ireland on Great Britain Act." And the colonies hated it when their turn came. They did not want to have the British tell them that their legislatures and their colonies were all subservient, that Parliament could review or cancel any law that they made, that any court case in the colonies could be reviewed by a court in England.

Joe: The American colonists hated this idea. It was one thing for the British to do that sort of law against the Irish. I mean, who the heck cares? But they were Englishmen. How dare the British Parliament try to deprive them of the rights of Englishmen?

Abram: Since we're not from the colonies, that means the law shouldn't apply.

Joe: In studying the American Revolution, this is often considered like strike two. This is the second push against the colonial rights that will eventually define the country. But for right now, at this exact moment, actually, most people really like Rockingham. Even though he passed this law, they were just happy that the Stamp Act was repealed.

Joe: This law is going to become a very big deal under the next couple Prime Ministers, but not under Mr. Party Guy. In terms of who to blame for this law, biographies that I read actually disagree. I think it's pretty clear that Charles Watson-Wentworth thought this up. He said as much, but a lot of his biographies are like, yeah, he was forced to do it. I'm not sure he was forced to do it. I think this was his idea and it just wasn't a good one.

Joe: We're gonna have to decide how much blame we give him when we rate him. But for now, at least, the American colonies are happy and we'll revisit how they feel about this law in our next couple of Prime Ministers.

Wobbly Government

Joe: Even though Rockingham's government was still standing, the king honestly didn't have any confidence in him. He was a horse guy.

Abram: He has 502 horses.

Joe: He was put there by the Duke of Cumberland, who was now dead. With even senior leaders in his administration like Grafton or Augustus Fitzroy wanting to step aside, it was very hard to imagine that Charles could keep this government going. He tried to bring in others to strengthen it. But that largely failed.

Joe: One of the people that he tried to bring into government, you might have heard of him, he is William Petty, the Earl of Shelburne.

Abram: Put a pin in him.

Joe: Shelburne and Rockingham actually agreed on almost anything. They just couldn't agree to come to government together.

Joe: The king even sent a message to Pitt in January 1766 to see if he would be willing. Please come and make a government. But Pitt said no. Or maybe King George actually decided against it. I'm not sure because I have two biographies and one says King George decided against it. One said Pitt said no. I don't know which is true. Maybe both. The point is that the Rockingham government is very weak. It wasn't a government that was intended to stand, and quite frankly, there isn't a lot of confidence in him.

Joe: That April, Augustus Fitzroy resigned.

Abram: How many months did he last?

Joe: I am not sure. Charles tried to replace him, but he couldn't find anyone to replace him. Nobody wanted to join his government. He even reached out to Lord North to see if he would replace him.

Abram: Lord North? He's like a 33-year-old.

Joe: He's going to be important later.

Abram: Let's put a pin— wait, no, I don't want to hurt him. Let's say we're going to mention him later.

Joe: Augustus Fitzroy resigning caused even more people to resign. The death blow to Rockingham's first term as Prime Minister didn't come from colonial issues, but rather internal politics.

Joe: It had been a couple of months now since Cumberland had died, and George III wanted Cumberland's inheritance to be distributed among several royal brothers. That required a bill in Parliament, but for some reason, Rockingham kept failing to schedule debate on the bill. Week after week, they came closer and closer to the end of the parliamentary session.

Joe: The king kept pressuring him to schedule the bill, but for whatever reason, Charles never did. I don't know whether he refused. I don't know whether he got pushback. I don't know why he ended up not doing what the king asked, but when the session ended and none of the princely brothers gained their uncle's wealth, George III had enough.

Joe: And even better, William Pitt had finally agreed— finally, finally agreed to lead a government. So on July 30th, 1766, Britain had Prime Minister William Pitt. But this isn't the end of Rockingham's story.

Joe: Of his time in power, Rockingham said, quote, "It is with no small satisfaction that I can look back upon the measures of the last session of Parliament, because I think that at no time the commercial interests of the country were more the object of government." He's proud of what he did. And I guess we'll decide in a bit whether we're proud of him too.

Out of Power

Joe: We're going to be spending a lot of time over the next couple of episodes covering 1766 to 1782, when Charles was out of office. We're going to have 3 Prime Ministers in that period: William Pitt, Augustus Fitzroy, and Frederick North, otherwise known as Chatham, Grafton, and North. And I hope that's not too much of a spoiler for everyone.

Joe: Rather than covering the next couple of years in detail, I'm just going to hit a couple of key points that pertain specifically to Charles. Back at home in Yorkshire, Charles resumed his more than usual level of influence that he had as the Lord Lieutenant. He was actually made the Lord Lieutenant of York and of the County of York and the Vice Admiral of Yorkshire and the High Steward of Hull.

Joe: One of the actions after leaving office was to solve a counterfeiting ring that had grown in Yorkshire. He called meetings, appointed justices of the peace, and protected informants, and that was all in 1767. He was like Detective Rockingham and he solved the case, so that's pretty cool. But I don't want to talk about it in detail, but it is a very cool episode in the latter half of his career.

Joe: In 1768, he decided to help a group of striking seamen at Hull. They wanted better wages, and he said, yes, I support you. I will help you get better wages. They all got one more shilling per day, or about—

Abram: That isn't a lot.

Joe: Well, it's about $4,000 a year compared to what did they used to get? I don't know. But the drums of war, Abram, were coming on both sides of the Atlantic. Let's take a quick detour to see how things are going.

Rockingham County, New Hampshire

Joe: We are in Rockingham County, New Hampshire today. So that gives me a chance to talk about a great but usually untold piece of American history. Since we're talking about American history from a British perspective, I think this all fits right in.

Joe: We're going to talk about John Wentworth, the final governor of the Province of New Hampshire. The guy who, as one of the first acts as governor, created this county.

Joe: Notice I said province, right? At this point, some of the colonies were called provinces, some were called colonies. There was a legal difference, but I don't really get it. I tried researching this and I think it would just end up boring everybody here. So the important point is that the governor of New Hampshire, which was a province, was appointed by Britain.

Joe: And from 1741 to 1766, that governor is a guy that we've talked about already. That was Benning Wentworth. He's the guy that chartered all of those towns in New Hampshire.

Abram: The guy who can't stop chartering the towns.

Joe: And eventually becoming Vermont.

Abram: Croissant.

Joe: And several of the Prime Minister towns that we've been to have been founded by Benning Wentworth, or at least chartered by Benning Wentworth. But by 1764, they had ruled against him. New York won those battles. But remember that the people of Vermont didn't want to be part of New York. And they ended up deciding that they were their own thing. They essentially rebelled against New York, said, we're the Republic of Vermont.

Abram: Who did they keep, New York or New Hampshire's?

Joe: And they pretty much kept New Hampshire's charters, not New York's.

Abram: Did they keep any New York's?

Joe: Not that I'm aware of, but there were some co-chartering. The point is that by 1764, Benning Wentworth had lost that battle and he was out of favor.

Abram: Was Bennington named after him?

Joe: Yes, Bennington, Vermont was named after him.

Abram: Like one of the few large things in Vermont.

Joe: Yes. Bennington, Vermont is named for Benning Wentworth. The point is that by 1764, the Lords of Trade had decidedly moved against him. They ruled for New York, but of course the Vermont people aren't going to care. And they said, Benning, resign. And he refused. He was suspended, but he still refused to resign.

Joe: What emerged was a compromise. Instead of just resigning, Benning Wentworth would leave but only if he was replaced by his nephew, John Wentworth. And this allowed the family to save face.

Joe: John had helped broker this deal. He had actually been in London since 1763, acting as an official agent of New Hampshire with the government in London. And while he was there, he probably even met Charles Watson-Wentworth, Rockingham. He probably even briefed him on the effects of the Stamp Act in the colonies. We know that representatives from New Hampshire were involved in those discussions, and that might have included John Wentworth.

Joe: So John was appointed governor in 1766. He didn't arrive till 1767, but for our story, his important act came in 1769 when he decided to reorganize New Hampshire into 5 counties following the model used in Massachusetts.

Joe: 3 of those counties he named after British politicians that he'd worked with when he was New Hampshire's agent. He named them Rockingham County, Grafton County, and Hillsborough County. So the first two you should recognize. The third was the Secretary of State for the Colonies. We're going to mention him under Grafton and North's episodes. He's going to be involved in those episodes.

Joe: And, you know, when you need people in London to do what you want, flattering them is probably a good idea. So naming these counties—

Abram: The other two.

Joe: I forget what the other two are, but they were named one for, I think, where he was born, and one was named after one of his old ancestors or something. But three of the five were named for people that he worked with.

Abram: So, like, can I write down the counties I know in New Hampshire?

Joe: Tell me which ones you have.

Abram: I have 9 of their 10.

Joe: Do you have Belknap?

Abram: Yep. It's Belknap.

Joe: Belknap. Sorry.

Abram: It was just a joke that I called it that, like, 3 years ago.

Joe: Do you have Carroll County?

Abram: Yes.

Joe: Do you have Cheshire County?

Abram: Yes.

Joe: You have Coös County?

Abram: Yes.

Joe: You have Grafton County?

Abram: Yes.

Joe: You have Hillsborough County?

Abram: Yes.

Joe: You have Merrimack County?

Abram: Yes.

Joe: Do you have Rockingham County?

Abram: Yep.

Joe: Do you have Strafford County?

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: Do you have Sullivan County?

Abram: Oh.

Joe: Congratulations, Abram. You have somehow successfully named 9 of the 10 counties of New Hampshire.

Abram: And shout out to anyone who's watching from New Hampshire.

Joe: Yes.

Abram: If you have a way to contact us, say which county you're from.

Joe: Great. So Abram, I will tell you this right now, that the other two— I just looked it up— that he named were Cheshire County, after a place in England that he was from. And the other county that he named was Strafford County, and it was named for William Wentworth, the 2nd Earl of Strafford, who apparently was one of his ancestors.

Joe: It does mean, however, that Rockingham County and those other two were named for the first time by someone who had met the person they were named for. Like, the people that named Walpole had never met Walpole. But here, John has just named counties for people that he knew. So that's kind of awesome.

Joe: What makes John Wentworth interesting, and perhaps why his story is not well known, is that he was a Loyalist. During William Pitt's time, Wentworth prevented New Hampshire from boycotting Britain during the Townshend Acts, and we'll talk about that soon. Wentworth regularly sent letters to Rockingham in England to let him know how things were going in the colonies.

Joe: When Boston had the Boston Tea Party, John Wentworth prevented Portsmouth, where we are right now, from dumping their own tea in the harbor, ensuring that it was packed away very safely in the local customs house and was unable to be seized in order to be dumped.

Joe: But these things made him unpopular with the people in New Hampshire. By 1773, he actually lost control of the New Hampshire militia. They just stopped listening to him, and they increasingly acted in opposition to the British authority.

Joe: The New Hampshire Assembly also gradually flipped towards rebellion, and Wentworth tried to stop them by simply refusing to allow the Parliament to meet. They pretty much went anyway.

Joe: In 1774, Wentworth sent lumber and carpenters down from New Hampshire to help build barracks for British soldiers that were trying to control Boston. And he was part of the people that built the barracks at Castle Island.

Abram: Mr. Evil.

Joe: Well, the wooden barracks are no longer there, but he was part of the people trying to help the British. So direct support of the British troops was the last straw for most people in New Hampshire who were increasingly favoring independence, and they decided that it was time for John to go.

Joe: In June 1775, a rebel mob surrounded the governor's mansion and forced him to flee to Fort William and Mary, which is just outside of Portsmouth, before he then managed to flee into British-controlled Boston.

Joe: But as Boston was at risk of being taken by the rebels, General Howe, who we'll talk about in an upcoming episode, probably, he led an evacuation of all the loyal people, the British Loyalists in Boston. He evacuated them to Halifax.

Abram: Yeah, that's in Canada.

Joe: Correct. Wentworth stayed the rest of the war in Halifax, basically watching the British gradually being pushed out of the American colonies. He was seen, however, as a hero to people in London. He was made a Baronet. He was given the Order of the Bath. But Americans don't talk about him. He is one of the best.

Abram: So is New Hampshire, like, the last colony to start going against the British?

Joe: No, I don't think so, because I think a lot of colonies had some stuff.

Abram: Massachusetts was by far the first.

Joe: Yep. The point is, John Wentworth is going to continue to be a politician. Eventually, he's going to be a Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, but we're not going to follow him anymore because we got to get back to Charles Watson-Wentworth.

Rockingham in the Revolution

Joe: So we're going to jump back a couple years in the Charles Watson-Wentworth story because this is the point where Lord North loses control and the Americas spiral into the Revolutionary War. Weirdly, both sides, the British side and the Americans, see Rockingham as an ally.

Joe: The Americans saw Pitt and Grafton and North's actions as being incendiary, like evil. But they just remembered how great Charles Watson-Wentworth was to eliminate the Stamp Act and to fight for them in Parliament. He, as far as the colonists were concerned, was the last good leader of Britain. He became something of a hero. That's why things are going to still be named after him even after the Revolutionary War.

Joe: And Rockingham, he loved it, right? He often spoke in the House of Lords about colonial rights. He continued to keep contacts in the colonies, including with Governor John Wentworth in New Hampshire, and they kept him informed of the changing situations.

Joe: The Massachusetts legislature even called Rockingham a, quote, "patron of the colonies and a friend of the Constitution and the rights of mankind." Even during the war, Virginia named a county after him.

Joe: But although he did speak in favor of the colonies, he was a British patriot. In Hull, in Yorkshire, Rockingham helped defend the city from American raiders. In 1779, he even bought cannons to be installed when the existing cannons in Hull were found to not be functional. It had just been so long since anyone had attacked England by sea that they didn't think they needed them.

Abram: When did they last have anyone attacking them there?

Joe: I don't know. That's a great question.

Abram: I'm guessing in like the 1100s when there were the Vikings.

Joe: Still, maybe so, but in 1779, he helped Hull defend the city from American privateers.

Joe: He also helped build a militia in Ireland to help to keep that country protected from the American and French and Spanish soldiers that might invade there. The militia even wanted to call themselves the Rockingham Militia, but he refused that honor.

Joe: He also fought to allow Irish Catholics to have their rights restored if they vowed to support the king. And this not only is one of a pattern of reconciliation with Catholics that he did, but also would have allowed more Irish Catholics to actually join the military in order to defend the land from American attacks.

Joe: We'll look at the revolution more in a couple episodes. I think that us Bostonian podcasters will have to find an excuse to talk about the Boston Tea Party or the Boston Massacre or the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

Abram: Or we'll just do an entire special episode on them.

Joe: We might, if you're okay with that.

Abram: I am.

Joe: Anyway, an awful lot of the American Revolution happened right by our house.

Abram: By our library or in the center, I think. There's like two signs that look like graves for some reason, right?

Joe: Yes.

Abram: That say, "Washington once stood here on his way to Boston and Cambridge." Yeah. You didn't say he stopped there or did anything. You only said he happened to walk by there. But still, it is very big of an honor.

Joe: We are surrounded by American Revolutionary War history, and I think it's going to be hard for me not to talk about it.

Joe: By 1779, Rockingham increasingly pushed for an honorable peace with America, and he pushed against North's government policies. By 1781, after the Battle of Yorktown— again, we're going to get there— he accepted and then advocated for American independence.

Joe: The British failure at Yorktown ultimately led to a lack of confidence in Lord North's government, and the Rockingham Whigs were still a leading opposition faction. Thanks to Charles's deep experience in government and the fact that he had been a Prime Minister before, King George sought him out to form a government that could guide Britain to the best possible peace with the United States.

Abram: Mm.

Joe: This time, Abram, Charles Watson-Wentworth was not chosen as a poor substitute for Cumberland, Prime Minister by accident. This time he was chosen as a leader in his own right. On March 27th, 1782, Charles Watson-Wentworth accepted the office of the Prime Minister for the second time. Would his second term, Abram, be longer and more successful than his first? We're gonna have to see.

Prime Minister Again

Joe: Forget it, I'm gonna be honest. Charles Watson-Wentworth's second term doesn't last long. He's gonna die of a flu epidemic less than 3 months after taking office. This is one of the reasons why I feel okay about jumping ahead and finishing his story. Instead of doing it after those other Prime Ministers, right?

Abram: We couldn't fit it.

Joe: I may make a different choice if we ever do other multi-term Prime Ministers. There's gonna be a lot of them, but I don't know what choice I'm gonna make then.

Abram: Like Cavendish-Bentinck, maybe.

Joe: Yep. The government that he built a second time was a mix of the Rockinghamite Whigs and other allies, and some of them are gonna be more familiar to us once we get through those episodes.

Joe: His relationship with Augustus Fitzroy had long since healed. And so he joined as Lord Privy Seal.

Abram: I guess Fitzroy joined again.

Joe: Yeah. So Fitzroy joined him on the second time through, and he took the same role that Newcastle had in his first government as kind of like the old statesman.

Joe: One major change that Rockingham brought in was that he reorganized the government in a way that we haven't seen before. You know, we've always had a Northern Secretary and a Southern Secretary way back since Walpole. Do you remember?

Abram: Mm-hmm.

Joe: And each of those Secretaries of State had a different remit, right? Different countries they would be responsible for. He changed it. He said, instead of a Northern Secretary and a Southern Secretary, we are going to have a Home Secretary and a Foreign Secretary, a person responsible for Britain and a person responsible for the rest of the world. And that is much more aligned with how most governments today work. And in fact, that is still how the British government works today.

Joe: William Petty, the Earl of Shelburne, had refused to work with Rockingham the first time around, but he's going to not refuse this time. He's going to join his government as the first Home Secretary.

Joe: The Foreign Secretary is going to be Charles James Fox, who is the son of Henry Fox.

Abram: I wonder, what does the Fox say?

Joe: And we're going to hear a lot more about him when we get to later episodes, especially William Pitt the Younger. Fox and Shelburne absolutely hated each other, so putting them as rival secretaries was actually a way to balance the forces in the new government. But it could also spiral out of control if they disagreed, or for example, if the Prime Minister were to die unexpectedly.

Abram: But that won't ever happen.

Joe: I could mention others. William Cavendish-Bentinck was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, for example, but I don't want to talk more about a cabinet that lasted only 3 months. We should keep going.

Joe: I will, however, be flamed if I don't mention Edmund Burke. Edmund Burke was a close friend of Charles. He was his personal secretary since 1765. He's Paymaster of the Forces. He is a bit like the British Alexander Hamilton. He's going to be around for a long time. Unlike Alexander Hamilton, he's going to be considered one of the fathers of British conservatism and a proponent of the parliamentary system. I'm sure we're gonna have time to talk about him later, but if you're a Burke fan, Burke is here. Burke!

Joe: One of Rockingham's first acts as Prime Minister was to acknowledge the United States as potentially a separate and independent country and start the process of peace talks. Benjamin Franklin, who was in France at this time, wrote him and agreed that these talks could begin.

Joe: But one issue, and we'll get to this in North's episode, was that Britain was actually at war now with 4 countries. The former colonies had enlisted the help of France, Spain, and the Netherlands. And all of those countries had joined the American Revolution with their own agendas.

Abram: The French were kind of helping out in Europe while the Dutch have sent resources and the Spanish kind of helped also in Europe. But less?

Joe: I'm not really sure. And we're going to talk about it a lot more when we get to Lord North's episode. Those countries had come together in order to weaken Britain, not necessarily to support the Americans. But now, if Rockingham was going to sign a peace treaty, it needed to be a peace treaty with all four. And that was going to be really tough.

Joe: And the war was still going. France just captured St. Kitts, Nevis, and Montserrat, like immediately after he became Prime Minister, they were still capturing things. They needed to get a peace treaty now because otherwise the British were just going to keep losing territory. I hope we don't have to do another card game like we did for John Stuart. That could be a bit of a pain.

Joe: Anyway, getting all the parties to the table was difficult and Britain—

Abram: Of course, you made a great pun, getting all the parties.

Joe: Yes. And Britain really wanted to keep them at different tables, right? He wanted every country to not know what the other country was offering and doing. Spain didn't want to end the war unless Britain agreed to give back Gibraltar, but the Netherlands wanted to end the war immediately so the United States could start repaying some of the loans.

Joe: There was a question as to whether Canada was gonna stay as part of Britain or whether it would be given to the Americans. There was a lot of things on the table that were being discussed right now. Those are going to be really important discussions, but guess what happened? Before the negotiations were completed, Charles Watson-Wentworth died.

Joe: We're going to have to wait a little while before we see whether this United States thing is going to become real, and we can talk about the specific treaty terms over a couple more Prime Ministers, because the treaty is not going to be signed for two more Prime Ministers after this.

Abram: One more, kind of.

Joe: One more where the treaty is negotiated, but the final signature will be in a second. Just to finish this up, Rockingham did have a couple other things that happened during his second term.

Joe: He passed something called Gilbert's Act, which was a bill for helping the poor, setting up shelters, helping the elderly. Britain was suffering a terrible, terrible economic crisis because of the Revolution, and unemployment and poverty had skyrocketed. So this was an important bill that helped all the people that were really struggling under the economic circumstances of the war.

Joe: He also kept a detailed log of everyone that asked him for a job or patronage, and because he died so quickly, that list actually has survived. 279 people asked him to support 408 different candidates for offices around Britain, and I don't know how many of those he actually did or how many he did before he died, but it's a reminder that even good government was still run on favors at the time.

Joe: In May, Charles's old health issues returned. He wrote, "I have for some weeks past undergone much pain and much inconvenience, though something very similar to my old complaint in my side and my stomach. The learned whom I have consulted do not allow that there's any reason to suspect that mischief is advancing, and so far their opinions seem to be well founded. I think on the whole, I am now much better than I've been."

Joe: Unfortunately, he wasn't much better. He died July 1st, 1782, of the flu. He was 52 years old.

Ranking

Joe: Oh, oh, right. We're going to talk about accomplishments first. And I just want to bring up a couple of things.

Joe: First, on a local level, he was very effective as the unofficial leader of Yorkshire. And over his long career, he stopped a counterfeiting ring. He negotiated a strike, quelled riots. He paid for cannons to defend Hull. There's a lot of local politics to like.

Joe: On a national level, Gilbert's Act was considered very good. He rolled back the Stamp Act. I don't think he was a very effective leader, but he did manage to accomplish a lot. And I think it is important to note he was a hero to both sides of the war somehow, and maybe because he didn't do that much, both the Americans and the British came out thinking that he was a great guy.

Joe: So what should we rate him for accomplishments?

Abram: I feel like he accomplished a lot, like, in terms of personality. So this is each out of 20. Yep. But he didn't really— like, you go first.

Joe: You know, I was thinking I got to give him some credit for the work that he did around Yorkshire, but I don't think that's the same as what he did as Prime Minister. I got to give him a little bit of credit for Gilbert's Act and for rolling back the Stamp Act. So I'm kind of thinking, is he less than half, like 9, or is he just over half, like 11?

Abram: I think if you average that out to 10, I think we should give him 12.

Joe: I said 9 and 11, and then you went with 12.

Abram: Because I was going to do 13. Oh, you were good. 9 and 11. That means you'll give him 10 and I'll give him 13.

Joe: Yeah, I kind of feel like that's a little high, but it's hard to say.

Abram: But he did have a good personality, but we don't really have an easy way to put that into our rating.

Joe: All right, disaccomplishments. I think he does need to lose some points for the Declaratory Act because that's pretty much all he undid. You know, his second term, he started the peace process with the US, but like he's not responsible for losing the war, so I don't really want to blame him.

Abram: I think I'm going to give him a 2 out of 10. Negative 2? Yeah. What about you?

Joe: Negative 2 seems about right for just that. I agree. I think the use of that act was by Pitt and others worse than the passing. So I may be being a little bit over nice, but I'm gonna give him minus 2.

Joe: So next we have bad personality, up to negative 10.

Abram: I don't think he gets anything.

Joe: Well, if you remember from last episode, he spent all that time partying around Europe. He may have had a secret adult journal and stuff. He really liked horse racing and gambling. So, I mean, I was thinking of giving him like negative 2.

Abram: Okay, I'll give him negative 1 and you'll give him negative 2. Doesn't lose that much.

Joe: So how interesting his life is out of 10? Let's recap. He was the third son. He had that amazing adventure where he ran away, tried to join the army. That's very cool. He ended up spending years traveling around Europe, including during a major war, having relationships with lots of people. He partnered with horses. He entered government. He fired woodworkers. He became Prime Minister by accident.

Abram: Then left and then did stuff, and then he came back, but this time on purpose, and then he died. That creates a good story, I think.

Joe: Honestly, for me, I think this idea of a rich party guy that rose above that and became a relatively effective politician who had that really interesting story at the beginning, I think I'm going 7.

Abram: I think I'm also going 7.

Joe: He has a pretty interesting story. And now we go by looks. Abram, this is up to 5. We judge 10 each, then divide by 2 for some reason.

Abram: Okay, so he looks kind of stiff like I mentioned. He looks like he has really long ears. Honestly don't like it that much. I'm giving it a 4.

Joe: 4 out of 10. Okay. I like him more than you. I think he looks interesting. I'm going to give him a 5, which means 4.5. So he gets a 2.5 from me and he gets a 2 from you.

Joe: Okay. Lifespan, he lived to 52, so he gets 5.2. And how long was his two terms? Let me add this up. The first term was 1 year, 4 months, more or less, 1 year, 3 months. The second term was 3 months only, so less than 2 years. So I think he just gets 1 point.

Joe: Oh, I forgot to mention that he has a card.

Abram: Which very few Prime Ministers have.

Joe: Yet Larry does. He has a Charles Watson-Wentworth card. He has the 4 of clubs. And you can read it.

Abram: "Rockingham's short terms as Prime Minister and his 16 years in opposition were dominated by the American issue. Upon taking office for the second time, he pushed acknowledged for the independence of the USA."

Joe: Very good. And should we add up all those scores?

Abram: Yes.

Joe: 40.7. That's low. Abram, he would be the second highest score.

Abram: Yeah, but how would he not even reach 50?

Joe: Oh no, he's the third highest score. So the highest score is Henry Pelham at 72.4. The second highest is Robert Walpole at 58.8. And the third highest is 40.7, Charles Watson-Wentworth, unless this math is wrong. Did you get the same number?

Abram: Yeah, I just expected him to be like in the 50s.

Joe: Why did he get so low? I mean, he did very well relative to our other Prime Ministers.

Abram: Yeah, but not out of 100. He's still a bad Prime Minister.

Joe: Well, it's really, really hard to get above 50 in our scheme because we give so many negative points.

Abram: Like, it's really out of like 70. It's pretty much as high as you can easily get.

Joe: Yeah. Charles Watson-Wentworth has a total of 40.7 points, but that is not the final question that we have to ask today.

Abram: Is he known or ice cream cone?

Joe: I think he is an extremely interesting guy that repealed the Stamp Act, but I don't think he did much.

Abram: I think I agree with you. Should we give him the Lord Bath Memorial Prize?

Joe: Sure, we can give him Prime Time's Lord Bath Memorial Prize. No worries. That is their prize for someone they really liked, but which they could not consider. I think that fits well.

Joe: Right on. Charles Watson-Wentworth, you are not known. You are indeed an ice cream cone, but you're an ice cream cone that we really like.

Abram: He's technically an ice cream cone. Wow, he's a Lord Bath Memorial Prize. Exactly. Which I would say is like kind of in the middle.

Joe: Sure. You did very well, far better than I expected you to do. We really loved researching you, but now, Abram, it is time for us to move on. Who are we talking about next?

Abram: William Pitt the Elder, Part 1.

Joe: I look forward to it.

Abram: Say goodbye, Abram.

Joe: Goodbye.

Bibliography

Joe: This week's episode was recorded in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in Portwalk Place, a coworking center with a really nice conference room. We don't get to visit New Hampshire quite enough on this little excursion of ours.

Joe: Our key resources this week are the same as the previous episode, more or less. "Rockingham and Yorkshire: The Political, Economic, and Social Role of Charles Watson-Wentworth, the Second Marquess of Rockingham," by Marjorie Bloy, written in 1986. That is her unpublished thesis again. "The Marquis: A Study of Lord Rockingham," by Ross J. Hoffman, published in 1973. And "The First Rockingham Administration" by Paul Langford, also published in 1973.

Joe: I am looking forward to researching William Pitt the Elder. It is very exciting. But in 2 weeks, we'll have a special one-off episode. It's going to be a lot of fun.

Abram: See you then. What's your favorite Beatles album so far that was completed?

Joe: I mean, Help! is the best one that I've enjoyed so far. Why? Because it sounds the most like the Beatles. And the least one is— the least good one is what?

Abram: Meet the Beatles. Why? Because it only had covers. Like, two-thirds of its songs were covers, right? Yeah, at least half of them were, and the other half simply weren't good. It only had like one hit, and at least the first album had two hits and had no songs that are really bad.

Joe: I'm just relieved to learn that the Beatles had songs that weren't hits that nobody remembers. And that, you know, when people look back at their history, then they're only thinking about the good ones and forgetting all the ones that were crap.

Abram: I've heard that starting with the next album, Revolver, they kind of went in a different direction. No, Rubber Soul is the next one, but still.

Joe: Yeah, well, I'm looking—

Abram: And they never really returned to their old style after this album.

Joe: I'm looking forward to learning more about the Beatles with you. Maybe you should start a podcast.

Abram: No.

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