Prime Factors - Ranking UK Prime Ministers

9.2 - William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham (Part 2)

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9.2 - William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham (Part 2)

Episode Transcript

Abram: Welcome to Prime Factors. This week, William Pitt the Elder, Part Two.

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

Abram: Hello and welcome back to Prime Factors. I'm Abram and I'm here with my dad. We are reviewing all the British Prime Ministers from Robert Walpole to Keir Starmer. This is episode 9.2, William Pitt the Elder, Part Two.

Joe: After two Italian episodes in a row, I for one am glad to be getting back to some Prime Ministers.

Abram: We went from Nice to Venice.

Joe: Yeah, we did. But maybe next time, Abram, we're going to go to Pittsfield, Massachusetts. I mean, that's almost as good as the French Riviera, right?

Abram: If you consider apple orchards to be nearly as interesting as sunrise walking through Nice to Venice.

Joe: I don't think there's any apple orchards this time of year.

Abram: But it's fall. There has to be.

Joe: It's like November.

Abram: That's fall. It's turkey month.

Joe: That's true.

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

Joe: We are also pleased to announce that I will be presenting at Intelligent Speech 2026 this coming February. This is an online conference where many of your favorite history podcasters get together in an awesome all-day event. The topic this year will be "Companions and Rivals," and we will have a great Prime Minister-based episode for you.

Abram: If you are interested in attending, you can use our coupon code FACTOR, F-A-C-T-O-R, to get you a discount. As this podcast is nonprofit, I have decided that any money we get from ticket sales will be donated to the Save the Manatee Club, a charity devoted to saving and restoring manatee habitats in Florida. As unfortunately, they get— manatees kind of get hit by boats a bit too much, so they're trying to restore their habitat, which is a good thing. Manatees are really cute and kind of ugly at the same time, but still, they are really cute.

Joe: Abram, that's a great choice of charity. Are you ready for our episode?

Abram: I think so.

Joe: All right.

Picture This

Joe: In our skit today, Abram will be playing Thomas Pelham-Holles, the Duke of Newcastle, while Abram's friend Adam will be playing the part of William Pitt.

Joe: It's November 1759, and London is cold and miserable under an icy downpour. The wind seems to send the rain sideways down the cobblestone streets and alleys. A soaked carriage bearing the livery of the Duke of Newcastle pulls up outside No. 10, St. James's Square, a brown-brick townhouse that would be a brisk walk from Parliament on a nicer day.

Abram: So wait, is the 10 not 10 Downing Street?

Joe: No, he is at this point the Southern Secretary, so he is living at a different house.

Abram: That also is 10.

Joe: That also happens to be 10. Oh.

Joe: Today, no one is venturing outside that doesn't need to. The house doesn't have a name, but someday it'll be called the Chatham House in honor of its most famous resident, William Pitt the Elder. But this is well before the Great Commoner is made the Earl of Chatham.

Joe: A footman riding on the back of the carriage leaps off and races to Mr. Pitt's door. Prime Minister Newcastle, Thomas Pelham-Holles, sits shivering in the back. His heavy coat does little against the chill and the wet that seeps through the walls of the carriage.

Joe: A momentary exchange is made between the footman and Mr. Pitt's porter before the footman returns to the carriage, holding a newfangled umbrella over Newcastle's head. The footman leads his soaked duke up the walk and into Pitt's foyer. The squall made the whole scene comical, and both arrived drenched to the bone.

Joe: Once inside, a butler relieves the duke of his wet coat and leads him to an ornate parlour on the ground floor to await Mr. Pitt. It was a beautiful room with a warm fire. Newcastle paused for a moment to admire the portrait of Thomas Pitt, merchant-adventurer and former Governor of Madras, which hung above the fireplace.

Joe: The butler returned immediately. "Mr. Pitt sends his apologies, sir. He is too unwell to greet you formally, but bids you come to his chamber for a conference."

Joe: Newcastle agrees and is led up two flights of stairs and out of the public area of Pitt's stately home. The sparse formality downstairs gave way to a busier, more lived-in space with older carpets, comfortable chairs, and piles of correspondence still unread on a side table.

Joe: Entering a richly decorated bedchamber, Newcastle greeted his colleague. William Pitt's valet opened the thick curtains on his lavish four-post bed, quickly removing a tray that contained what was left of his breakfast. Pitt remained covered by blankets except for his bandaged and swollen leg. Newcastle could just barely detect a sharp vinegar scent from behind a screen in the far corner of the room.

Joe: Even with a bright fire, the drafty room was chilly. Newcastle rubbed his hands to keep warm and silently cursed the porter who took his coat. The valet completed the unnecessarily formal introductions and Newcastle began to speak.

Abram (as Newcastle): "I read your letter and came at once. You cannot seriously be considering sending Admiral Hawke out in this weather. It's suicide."

Joe: Pitt groaned as he propped himself up on his pillows. Newcastle winced at seeing his colleague in pain.

Adam (as Pitt): "You are a fool then, my Lord Duke. Brave English blood flows through the veins of our captains, while our foes cower and pray for shelter. A storm is to our advantage!"

Joe: Newcastle shivered with his hands in front of the fire.

Abram (as Newcastle): "Advantage, Mr. Pitt? Advantage? Do you not know history? Did you not read your Polybius? Fighting in this weather is madness! The Spanish learned that lesson the hard way. So did the French. Do you want to add the British to that list?"

Adam (as Pitt): "Our men can weather a little squall."

Abram (as Newcastle): "We must learn from their mistakes instead of making our own."

Joe: Newcastle began to pace.

Abram (as Newcastle): "It's so blasted cold in here."

Joe: At once Newcastle spied a small bed against the far wall. Not a fancy four-post bed, but a cot where Mr. Pitt's valet could sleep during his master's illness. Without stopping for thought or permission, the duke climbed into the small bed and covered himself with blankets.

Joe: A duke in the servant's bed, a commoner in a rich one. If either of them noticed the irony, they didn't mention it. Pitt smirked. "Are you comfortable?"

Abram (as Newcastle): "Yes, thank you, but you are still mad to risk our navy in a storm like this!"

Joe: Pitt's voice, though speaking from bed and weakened by illness, began to take on some of those same rich tones that held the Commons spellbound.

Adam (as Pitt): "The French are afraid. Their Brest fleet searches for safe harbor from the storm. Providence itself has delivered them into our hands, Your Grace, as plainly as if He dashed their ships against the rocks Himself."

Joe: Newcastle's voice was stern. It was not his first time against Pitt's eloquence.

Abram (as Newcastle): "It was Providence that our sailors found safe harbor while theirs still search."

Adam (as Pitt): "What better time could there be to strike! They are running scared, and you would have us cower in port?"

Abram (as Newcastle): "Only, Mr. Pitt, if we don't perish in the attempt! Look outside! God sends storms like these to wash away the wicked and the foolish. You would send our best sailors to a watery grave!"

Joe: Pitt fired back.

Adam (as Pitt): "You doubt our sailors!"

Joe: Pitt raised his arms and gestured in anger, but grunted as pain shot up his leg. After a moment to find his voice, he continued, but softer.

Adam (as Pitt): "I will never doubt the resolve of our navy."

Abram (as Newcastle): "I have confidence in our navy to take on the French, rain or shine, but it is still better to fight in the calm than the storm."

Joe: Newcastle shivered for a moment, bringing the covers further up, nearly to his chin. Pitt stayed silent.

Abram (as Newcastle): "You risk everything, Mr. Pitt. If our forces are victorious, they will sing our praises. But if they are not, we risk the gallows! Don't forget where Admiral Byng's lack of judgement led him. Do you want a court-martial for the entire Admiralty, with our names on the warrant?"

Joe: At Byng's name, Pitt's face reddened. He had been pushed out of government once for defending him, a recent reminder that the British Navy was not always victorious.

Adam (as Pitt): "Byng lacked the courage of his convictions. He needed to have faith."

Abram (as Newcastle): "This is not faith, Mr. Pitt, it is gambling! You are gambling with thousands of lives and with the only force that could defend our shores. And all that, on a turn of the wind?"

Adam (as Pitt): "I would rather gamble on a sailor's courage than a duke's fear!"

Joe: Newcastle sprang up, tossing his blankets to the floor. His face was red.

Abram (as Newcastle): "So be it, Mr. Pitt. God help us."

Joe: He stormed out of the room, nearly crashing into the valet just outside the door. Pitt stared at the empty bed. He had won the argument. Now all that remained was for Admiral Hawke to prove that his faith was well-placed.

Abram: Pitt's gonna get me sick. Ah, better spend the next few days in bed.

Joe: Okay, that can stay.

Abram: What's so funny?

Joe: That's fine.

Abram: It can't get me sick.

The Pitt and the Pelham-dulum

Joe: Do you know the book The Pit and the Pendulum?

Abram: No.

Joe: Okay, well, it's an Edgar Allan Poe. It's very famous and very good for spooky season.

Abram: But we're past October, Dad. It isn't spooky season.

Joe: Yeah, I was writing this at Halloween. Sorry.

Abram: Were you intending to like record this during Halloween?

Joe: No, but I was writing it on Halloween.

Abram: Uh-huh.

Joe: All right. It's been a while since our last episode, so let's just remind you where we've been. In February 1746, Henry Pelham had just pulled off his greatest trick by resigning and forcing the king to accept his terms. He had pushed out Lord Carteret and Lord Bath, and he was able to build his Broad Bottomed Ministry. We talked about this in some detail in the Henry Pelham episodes.

Joe: Pelham had a dream that only the most qualified people should be in office, not the most well-connected or the ones with the most money, and that's one of the reasons why we rated him very highly.

Joe: Now, Pelham wanted William Pitt in government, but Pitt had spent years and years and years really upsetting King George and saying, you know, that Hanover isn't a great place and it's an anchor on the English, so King George made it a bit difficult. It was all Pelham could do to get him first a little job as Vice Treasurer of Ireland before a death opened up Paymaster of the Forces.

Joe: We left off last time with Pitt accepting that office and being in government for the first time, no longer the opposition. He's even in the Privy Council. He's now 37 years old.

Joe: So relationships mean a lot, and it's important to underscore just how much William Pitt was giving up in order to take this role. First and foremost, he disappointed his mentor. Do you remember who his mentor is?

Abram: Um, no.

Joe: Lord Cobham.

Abram: The Cobham people!

Joe: Yes, Pitt had been one of Cobham's Cubs, and while he was able to get several of them into Pelham's government, Pitt was taking a much more visible and usually corrupt role. Lord Cobham expected Pitt to use his leverage to help him regain that regiment that he previously had, but Pitt didn't do that.

Joe: Compounding this was Prince Frederick being angry. Pitt had been a supporter of the prince. More than that, he was a Groom of the Bedchamber, a personal advisor and perhaps friend to the future king.

Abram: To which king?

Joe: Well, King Frederick.

Abram: What about King Frederick's kids?

Joe: Well, King Frederick's kids will be— well, one of them will be king.

Abram: Which one?

Joe: George.

Abram: Where does Edward come in compared to that?

Joe: Prince Frederick had a couple of kids. George was the oldest son, and then there was Edward and some others. I don't—

Abram: I feel bad for Edward not being king.

Joe: The point is that with Pitt joining the government, Prince Frederick was now mad at him. And that's because the Hanoverians never got along with their kids. And so Pitt was even removed from his post as Groom of the Bedchamber.

Abram: Aww.

Joe: Pitt also shattered his relationship with his family. His elder brother Thomas actually was invited to Prince Frederick's house, and he was going to become a close advisor to the prince.

Joe: What happened with Pitt's sister Anne is less clear. She had been living with William until around when he took the Paymaster role, but suddenly they didn't like each other anymore. Anne had been William's closest confidante in his youth. She was the one that he wrote letters to when he fell in love. She never married. She was a fiercely independent, amazing woman, and I wish we knew more about her.

Joe: At this point, she just ended up moving to France, apparently hanging out in the household of the Viscount Bolingbroke. You remember him? He was one of the Craftsman guys that was a Tory that was a real pain for Henry Pelham.

Abram: Oh, what was his first name again?

Joe: Bolingbroke was, I think his real name was Henry St. John.

Abram: I remember Bolingbroke.

Joe: So the web of family and political connections, it's difficult to follow, but William Pitt seems to have become very close to Henry Pelham during this period. They had a lot in common.

Joe: Remember that I said that Paymaster is usually one of the most corrupt in government? They're responsible for paying the soldiers and the mercenaries. This also put Pitt in charge of veterans' benefits and pensions and even the treasurer of the Royal Hospital at Chelsea, for some reason.

Abram: There's a Royal Hospital?

Joe: Well, there was.

Abram: I bet that it didn't have the most advanced treatments and was just, "Ah, there goes the blood."

Joe: I think that all of the hospitals at the time would have been a little bit antiquated to our minds.

Joe: Yes, it was common for the Treasury to give more money than was needed, and the Paymaster role usually had a lot of ways to skim a little bit off the top, if you know what I mean. Make himself rich. It's a very corrupt world.

Joe: Henry Pelham had previously held that role and did so without being corrupt. And so William Pitt followed that new Prime Minister's example, except when Pelham wanted to be not corrupt privately, Pitt wanted everyone to know just how good he was. He even turned down a bribe from the King of Sardinia.

Abram: Italy reference! So wait, will Sardinia later become Italy?

Joe: Yes, that's the whole point of our last two episodes.

Abram: He refused a bribe to make Italy exist!

Joe: We're a hundred years before any of that stuff happened.

Abram: Aww.

Joe: So I have a great quote from Lord Rosebery about this. Quote, "His virtues were his credentials, and it was necessary that they should be conspicuous." Conspicuous means obvious. Like, he wanted everyone to know that he was so good he practically wore a halo around London.

Joe: George II even tried to humiliate Pitt by forcing him to give a large pension to his brother, the Duke of Cumberland, but Pitt hated Cumberland, so he didn't want to do it. Fortunately, the hatred went both ways because Cumberland refused to be given the award by Pitt, and so Pelham had to give it instead.

Joe: So William Pitt was Paymaster as the War of Jenkins' Ear— do you remember the War of Jenkins' Ear?

Abram: Yep.

Joe: Yes. And then the War of Jenkins' Ear became the War of Austrian Succession, and that meant that instead of just fighting the Spanish, they were also fighting the French and others. And that was a whole deal to see who would become the next Holy Roman Emperor.

Joe: Pitt had no military role in that, but he could still speak on military matters. He was paying the military, but he wasn't a leader. And he championed what he called a "blue water" strategy, putting British hopes on a strong navy instead of a strong army.

Joe: And that was a good strategy. The British Navy managed to injure France in the Atlantic, but the Spanish Navy was also famously good and they mostly fought to a stalemate in the Caribbean.

Joe: The French managed to capture Madras in India in something called the First Carnatic War. But while that place had been nominally home, at least for William's grandfather, Governor Pitt, and his father, William had no connection to India that I found, and no historians really claim that that was something that William would have cared about. But gosh darn it, I care.

Abram: Why?

Joe: Because we talked about Madras in the beginning of part one.

Abram: Is it the Pitt Diamond?

Joe: Yes, that is where Thomas Pitt was when they were doing the Pitt Diamond thing.

Abram: Thomas Pitt's crazy.

Joe: Yes, that I agree with.

Joe: Because Pitt moved further and further away from his family, William was no longer guaranteed his seat at Old Sarum.

Abram: Didn't we go to Old Sarum?

Joe: We did go to Old Sarum.

Abram: And I found a rock that I liked.

Joe: Yeah, you did.

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: Pitt grew closer to Newcastle instead, writing, quote, "Some circumstances of my brother's transactions at Old Sarum render me uneasy at depending for my seat in the next Parliament in that place. So I take the liberty to recur once more for your Grace's protection and friendship to provide for my election elsewhere."

Joe: In other words, my brother's not giving me his corrupt seat. Hey, Newcastle, can you give me one of yours? So Newcastle did. He gave Pitt a seat at Seaford.

Joe: And remember, at this point, Henry Pelham is Prime Minister, but Thomas Pelham-Holles, his brother Newcastle, was managing all the elections and had all the money. So he's really managing all of those corrupt seats while his brother is in Parliament basically trying to be as not corrupt as possible.

Joe: The closer Pitt became to the Pelhams, the more he found himself publicly siding with views that he had been against only a few years before. He backed the idea of paying for Hanoverian troops, something which upset his supporters. He previously had said that Europe was a Hanover problem, not an English one, but Pitt was now seen supporting George's little electorate. That was not so good.

Joe: When the War of Austrian Succession ended with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, Pitt actually defended the treaty even as his former supporters thought Britain was giving up too much. And still Pitt stayed allied with Henry Pelham. Even two deaths didn't shake it.

Joe: Lord Cobham died in 1749.

Abram: No!

Joe: And Richard Temple-Grenville became the new head of Cobham's Cubs.

Abram: Did he like going to temples?

Joe: No, I think he just had that as his title. So Pitt was no longer able to rely on that connection for support.

Joe: With Prince Frederick's death in 1751, the whole Leicester House faction was thrown into disarray. We had Princess Augusta now being in charge of the young Prince George, and eventually Lord Bute's going to come in there.

Joe: But at this point, Henry Pelham, he was unstoppable. Almost every obstacle for him controlling the Whigs was gone. We get some stories at that time when Henry Pelham and Thomas Pelham-Holles would bicker over strategy, and William Pitt would be an intermediary, keeping the family together. Sometimes he'd side with Henry, sometimes with Thomas, but Pitt was close with both.

Joe: Pitt was also very often ill during this period. He actually didn't attend Parliament very much for three years, and he spent so much time at Bath that he bought a house there.

Abram: He's taking a bath, taking a bath, taking a bath to feel better. He's taking a bath because he's sick. He bought a house near a bath so he could take a bath because he's really sick.

Joe: Before we wrap up this period of William Pitt's life, there is one important issue that we should discuss and one way in which his listening to the people was absolutely not the right choice.

Joe: In 1753, there was a bill that we talked about that would give increased rights to Jewish people.

Abram: Oh.

Joe: You remember this way back in Pelham's episode?

Abram: Very clear.

Joe: So it even allowed Jews to become citizens.

Abram: Oh.

Joe: So Pelham had been for this, but many others, possibly including Newcastle, had not. Pitt supported the bill, but as public sentiment turned against it, Pitt reluctantly started turning against it as well.

Joe: His quote is an excellent one on how he tried to balance the situation, even if we aren't going to agree with the results. He said, quote, "We think they"—the people against Jewish toleration—"had been misled and that the spirit they are presently possessed with is not a true Christian spirit. I shall now agree to the repeal of it merely out of compliance to the enthusiastic spirit that has taken hold of the people."

Joe: He allowed the mob to dictate policy, and I think we need to dock him some points for that when the time comes.

Abram: I'll sail a boat into him to get it docked him. All right.

Joe: Henry Pelham and William Pitt were alike in many ways. They both hated corruption. They believed that the best people should be given the most important jobs, and in Pitt's case, he always believed that he was the best people.

Joe: They were both admired by the common man, and they were both common themselves. They didn't have titles. They were almost a perfect match, and William Pitt must have felt right at home in the Broad Bottomed Ministry.

Joe: Do you know what happened next, Abram? What year did Henry Pelham die?

Abram: 1754.

Joe: Yes, Henry Pelham died unexpectedly in 1754. His brother, Thomas Pelham-Holles, the Duke of Newcastle, did not share all of Henry's virtues, and William Pitt would find working under him a lot more difficult.

Falling Out With Newcastle

Joe: Pitt had less in common with Thomas Pelham-Holles than he did with his brother. Newcastle was a wealthy duke and a man who managed patronage and sometimes corruption to get his way. He didn't have his brother's charm. The one thing he did have in common is they were both sick all the time. But other than that, they were very much not alike.

Joe: As Thomas Pelham-Holles started his new administration, Pitt remained his Paymaster of the Forces. But unlike his brother's Broad Bottomed approach, Newcastle returned, well, at least in part, to the model that Robert Walpole had followed. You put in people that you trust and control, and you avoid ambitious people that could challenge you later.

Abram: I have a question. What style did Compton do?

Joe: Compton did, let's let Carteret decide, I think.

Abram: What did Carteret do?

Joe: He stayed in Germany hanging out with George II.

Abram: Did Compton actually do anything?

Joe: Well, the Wilmington government was very short-lived, and Spencer Compton was sick for much of it, so he did not do much. And at that point, the real power in that government was Lord Carteret.

Abram: But did Compton actually do anything?

Joe: I cannot recall a single thing we said he did. I bet he did something. I mean, there's a podcast episode we could listen to to remember, but I don't remember what he did.

Abram: I think we spent too long on Italy, and now we barely can remember Prime Ministers. All we can remember is Italy, Italy, Italy, Italy.

Joe: Yes.

Joe: So in the opening days of the Newcastle ministry, Pitt was recovering from another bout of gout at Bath, and he wrote to Newcastle asking for jobs for himself and for the Cobham Cubs and for his old friend George Lyttelton. Pitt really wanted to be Secretary at War. He wanted a promotion, but Newcastle didn't give him that.

Joe: The most important role was vacated by Henry Pelham himself, which was Leader of the House of Commons. Newcastle, of course, was a duke, so he would lead from the Lords, and they needed to find an amazing speaker to drive the government business through the Commons. Pitt was the obvious choice, as was his rival and schoolmate— you might remember him— Henry Fox.

Abram: Wait, why is he competing with a fox?

Joe: Well, the Pitts and the Foxes are going to go for a long time. So yeah, if we made them into animals, it'd be pretty obvious which one—

Abram: You know, so is Pitt a pit bull and Henry Fox is a fox?

Joe: Yeah, if they were animals.

Abram: Well, whatever they were—

Joe: They were both excellent speakers and loyal Whigs. Newcastle, maybe because he didn't want to take sides in this big Pitt-Fox rivalry or because he wanted someone less ambitious, picked Sir Thomas Robinson.

Abram: Oh.

Joe: Both Pitt and Fox were livid. Like, they both wanted the job. They certainly didn't want the other to get the job, but the fact that neither of them got it just upset them both.

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: So Pitt consoled himself with the thought that he might have been passed over because of his illness, but surely Newcastle could have given him a different job, right? He wrote, quote, "I know my health at best is too precarious, but as to the other great office, many circumstances of it render an uninterrupted health not so absolutely necessary for the discharge of it."

Joe: In other words, you know, I'm probably not healthy enough to come to the House of Commons every day and be in charge. So it's okay, but surely you could give me a different job.

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: Horace Walpole wrote at the time that, quote, "Pitt has no health and no party." And so he needed a party.

Abram: Party time!

Joe: With his relationship with Newcastle faltering, William Pitt turned back to his old friends, the Cobham Cubs, now led by Lord Temple.

Joe: You've heard about marriage alliances before.

Abram: Marriage.

Joe: And we usually mean marriages between royal houses, but that is kind of like what happened here. William Pitt arranged to marry Hester Grenville, the sister to Richard Grenville-Temple and George Grenville.

Joe: They weren't strangers. Pitt had met Hester when she was just 14 and he was 26.

Abram: Oh.

Joe: They met when she was 14. This is almost 20 years later. So there's no indication that they had any interest in each other when she was 14.

Abram: Yeah. If they did, that would have been really bad.

Joe: Not a single one of the biographies that I'm working from mention a romantic thing between them. They shared some letters—

Abram: Letters?

Joe: They wrote letters. Yes. Love letters.

Abram: Ugh.

Joe: When she was 14 and he was 26? No, right as they were about to get married. So, like, he knew her since she was 14 and was like, I'm not interested in her. But suddenly, because they needed to cement this relationship between—

Abram: They started to like each other, we hope.

Joe: Yeah, we hope. So they needed to cement this relationship between the Pitts and the Grenvilles, and this is how they did it.

Joe: One biography that I found said that while courtship letters were found in Hester's papers, they were so terrible that the historian wouldn't even quote them, only stating that they were beneath the talents of one of the greatest orators in English history.

Joe: I have composed what I think they might have sounded like. Are you ready, Abram?

Abram: Okay.

Joe: "Can I compare thee to an autumn day? You're around 70 degrees Fahrenheit and I need a jacket when the clouds are out, but otherwise, you're nice enough."

Abram: I don't understand.

Joe: It's a very, very bad courtship poem.

Joe: Anyway, that might not be fair on Pitt, but their relationship may have lacked a certain spark. They got married when he was 46 and she was 34. They began having children immediately, so clearly she was more than just a nurse. One of the rumors, or one of the ideas at the time was that Pitt was so sick so much of the time that he would marry just to get a full-time nurse. But clearly they had some other things to do as well.

Abram: Why is Pitt so sick?

Joe: Pitt has been sick since he was a kid.

Abram: Does he ever stop being in Bath?

Joe: He doesn't always stay in Bath. Sometimes he stays at his house in London.

Abram: But when does he stop being so sick that he barely does anything?

Joe: When he's dead.

Abram: Oh, he's always sick.

Joe: Him being sick is pretty much the through line of his entire career. He is a brilliant, very sick person.

Joe: At this point, Pitt was also trying to reintroduce himself to the Leicester House faction, now with an increasingly powerful Lord Bute at its head.

Abram: Bute.

Joe: In a letter, he calls himself, quote, "the very anxious and truly devoted friend" to Lord Bute. Something that I don't think he'd say a little bit later.

Joe: We also can't forget what was happening across the pond. George Washington had just decided to pick a fight with some French people at Jumonville Glen.

Abram: Why?

Joe: Because they were French.

Abram: Oh.

Joe: And that would snowball into a little bit of a completely world-encompassing war. Which war? Well, in the U.S., we call it the French and Indian War.

Abram: The Seven Years' War.

Joe: Exactly. As the months rolled by and the situation in the Americas became more serious, Britain began to prepare for that war. George II had asked Britain to subsidize Hanover's defense, including paying for tens of thousands of troops.

Abram: Why did George Washington start a war? Didn't he start two wars then?

Joe: I don't think he technically started the American Revolution.

Abram: But he kind of— he was important in two wars.

Joe: He was important in two wars, once for the British and once for the Americans.

Abram: That happened in the opposite order, or he would have been betraying the Americans.

Joe: Yes, well, there's, you know, Benedict Arnold, but maybe we'll talk about that when we get to the Revolution.

Abram: I bet they're— I bet the British are deaf. I watched Hamilton recently.

Joe: Yes, did you like it?

Abram: Yeah, until Hamilton dies.

Joe: So George II asked Britain to subsidize Hanover's defense, including paying for tens of thousands of troops, both Hessian and Russian, to keep the electorate safe in the event of another war. And while Pitt had supported Hanover for Pelham, maybe reluctantly, the costs were too high this time, and his relationship with Newcastle was too poor.

Joe: Quite frankly, Pitt just couldn't contain his anger and his frustration. He began speaking out about the government that he's in. This was not a way to convince Newcastle that he could be a trusted lieutenant. And if the Prime Minister wanted help, he was going to have to find it elsewhere.

Joe: And so this came to a head in November 1755. William Pitt and Henry Fox both stood in front of the Commons, both Whigs, but now on different sides.

Abram: None of them are Tories.

Joe: Pitt argued against the subsidies, placing his faith in Britain and the British Navy. He didn't want to risk the defense of his home on a faraway German province. And he accused Fox of being just another Lord Carteret.

Joe: None of these words are written down, of course. We have to take it on hearsay that Pitt was one of the greatest speakers of his generation. But despite his words, Fox and Newcastle won.

Abram: How?

Joe: Well, Newcastle controlled a lot of money, and Fox was a very good speaker.

Abram: Isn't Pitt a better speaker?

Joe: Possibly. But Fox was healthy, right?

Abram: Well, Fox was healthy.

Joe: The subsidies were passed by the Commons. Pitt had shown where his loyalties lay, and well, they weren't with Newcastle.

Joe: And so only days later, Newcastle rewarded Fox by making him the Leader of the House of Commons and the Southern Secretary, and Fox was going to now take the lead in implementing Newcastle's vision.

Joe: Pitt, well, his reward was being fired. He is no longer Paymaster of the Forces.

Abram: How dare they fire him!

Joe: And he returned to the waiting embrace of the opposition, to Cobham's Cubs and Leicester House.

Joe: In his time as Paymaster, Pitt had dramatically improved the position. He made the payments of pensions more consistent. He overall built a more stable financial machine for the British military, and he did so without any overt corruption. Now, his successors are going to go back to using this office as a piggy bank. But William Pitt at least left with his head held high.

A Year of Disaster

Joe: As Pitt and Fox debated troop subsidies for Hanover, the cause of their argument continued to rage. This is the war that had started in the Americas, and Britain was losing. It wasn't going to be long from this point until France woke up and we would see the start of one of the largest wars in the world to date. Which one?

Abram: The Seven Years' War.

Abram: It's only seven years long.

Joe: Yeah.

Abram: Isn't it actually nine years long?

Joe: I'm not sure.

Abram: So 1754 to '63.

Joe: I don't think anyone noticed.

Joe: Anyway, I'm going to avoid going into too much detail about the war. We've already covered it in Newcastle and Devonshire and Bute.

Abram: Who's Devonshire?

Joe: William Cavendish, the Duke of Devonshire.

Abram: Okay.

Joe: Newcastle tried to negotiate an alliance with Prussia, only to see Prussia's enemy Austria side with France. We're a hundred years out from our Italy episodes, and like the same political feuds that we talked about last week are happening in this episode too.

Abram: History. It's beautiful when you know more of it. It's history. It's the most beautiful thing in the world. People dying on a battlefield. Isn't it so beautiful, history?

Joe: You had me up to that point.

Joe: So the key event is that France eventually declares war on Britain, and they kick off the European theatre by capturing— do you remember what island they captured at the beginning?

Abram: St. Lucia?

Joe: No. Mediterranean.

Abram: Malta?

Joe: Got the right letter. M—

Abram: Mallorca! Yes! They captured Mallorca!

Joe: So Admiral Byng was sent to relieve the besieged British, but he fails miserably. Newcastle tries to blame all the mismanagement of the war on him. All the while, Pitt and the rest of the opposition in the Commons are just shouting about how badly Newcastle is losing.

Joe: The outcome of that, by the way, is Admiral Byng's trial and execution for incompetence, and we'll get there in a little bit. Pitt was one of many voices that argued that the blame should have been spread around.

Abram: It's not Byng's fault, but like, he shouldn't be the only one punished for it, right? He should be like, you should have done better. He shouldn't have been executed. Newcastle should have been given the boot.

Joe: That's exactly what Pitt thought, yes.

Joe: But Newcastle's losses didn't end with Byng at Minorca. Calcutta is taken in India. Fort Oswego is taken in America. Pitt is pounding on every one of his missteps in the Commons.

Joe: Henry Fox, who just got promoted to Southern Secretary, he resigns. He doesn't want to see the war going this way. And at this point, King George II knew that it was time that he needed to find a replacement.

Joe: As early as October, before even Newcastle resigned, Pitt was asked through intermediaries if he could assemble a government. Pitt said maybe, but only if Newcastle is definitely gone. And he even floats a union between himself and Fox, like Pitt and Fox together at last, but that doesn't work either, before settling in to propose a Cobham's Cubs-based government, which the king also rejects.

Joe: On October 28th, Newcastle announced his intention to resign. By coincidence, Pitt and Henry Fox learned of the resignation while at Leicester House, and they got together to discuss. But that doesn't come to anything. There's just too much bad blood between them, even as it's clear that they're really the two strongest, almost even like-minded orators in the Commons.

Abram: Hmm.

Joe: How history might have been different if Pitt and Fox didn't hate each other.

Abram: Oh, how it could have been different. History is beautiful. Oh, it's beautiful, isn't it?

Joe: All right, the public was on Pitt's side. A cartoon in London Magazine printed him as being the savior of Britain. He was even supported by lots of Tories, but no matter what he did, the Parliamentary math just did not come together. Between the Cubs, the Leicester House faction, and the moderate Tories, Pitt could only get a coalition of 160 votes together, and that would make him very valuable to anyone else assembling a government, but it was not enough for him to assemble a government on his own.

Joe: The king quickly settled on William Cavendish, the Duke of Devonshire, as a compromise candidate. He was well respected by many Whigs, and he could be the glue that would hold, at least for a while, a faction together, if that faction included Pitt.

Joe: Newcastle's resignation took effect on November 11th. By the 16th, Devonshire—

Abram: Wait, what year did this happen?

Joe: I believe we're in 1757.

Abram: Yeah, so that means 268 years ago today, I think. Yep, that happened. Okay, continue.

Joe: Newcastle's resignation took place on November 11th. By the 16th, Devonshire was Prime Minister. It took a couple weeks more after that before George II would agree to let Pitt in, but Pitt would be let in as both the Leader of the House of Commons and the Southern Secretary.

Joe: From the start, the Devonshire Ministry was wobbly. Pitt and Devonshire together barely had enough votes to hold together the Commons, especially now that Newcastle was fighting them in the opposition. But Pitt was excited. He was finally, finally given the chance to put his policies into practice, and he said, quote, "My Lord, I am sure that I can save this country and no one else can."

Abram: Selfish. Slightly conceited. Yes.

Pitt and Devonshire

Joe: This is a huge moment for William Pitt and for Britain. So historian Basil Williams says that this is the first time in Britain that, quote, "a man was called to supreme power by the voice of the people."

Joe: Well, obviously, it's Pitt's adoring masses that made this administration different, even though Robert Walpole and Henry Pelham, they were also common. But like, Pitt's really fundamentally a populist, a popular candidate.

Joe: And even though it's a little bit weird to say "supreme power" when we're talking about the Devonshire, William Cavendish administration, and Pitt wasn't even Prime Minister, he was just the Leader of the House of Commons, but it's still pretty cool.

Joe: Newspapers at the time called this Pitt's administration, and even the Encyclopaedia Britannica calls William Pitt "virtually Prime Minister" from this point. So we're going to follow the official list for scoring, which says that Pitt doesn't become Prime Minister.

Abram: Remember, our scoring system is based off of their entire political career, not while they're Prime Minister.

Joe: That's true. But then we give points for how long they were Prime Minister.

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: So we're going to have a choice. Are we going to just have him be Prime Minister when the history books usually say? Does he get some credit for the two times that he was almost Prime Minister? Like, he's not even really Prime Minister the third time because he's just—

Abram: The time where he's actually counted.

Joe: The time that he's actually counted, he wasn't First Lord of the Treasury. So we have Pitt being kind of Prime Minister three times, and only one of the three, you know, which is the one with the least argument, which is the one that he probably did the least.

Abram: Yes.

Joe: So it's a weird situation. And when we get to the rating next time, we can figure out how we want to handle it.

Joe: So Pitt is coming in and the war is going badly. So the most important thing is for him to establish a strategy for the Seven Years' War. And what he does, and he does this first with Devonshire and later with Newcastle, it's kind of the same strategy, is that he decides that Britain can win if they focus on the Navy, because they have a great Navy, and focus on control over North America.

Joe: In order to keep the French away from Britain and away from where they could do the most damage, he would keep them locked down in Europe. He would support subsidies which he never would have supported before, just to make it so that the Prussians would keep France busy so that France couldn't be as effective in fighting him where he wanted to be fought.

Joe: Now, I should say, of course, that Pitt is not a general. Pitt is not establishing battle tactics. What he is doing is he is setting the strategy for the war. He is hiring and firing admirals and generals.

Abram: Firing and firing and hiring and hiring and hiring and firing and firing.

Joe: Yep. So he gets to decide who's in charge, and he did it in a slightly weird way. Do you want to hear how he did it?

Abram: What?

Joe: He often would pick people because they were the best and most qualified people for the job and not because they paid the most money.

Abram: That's a real way of hiring and firing. If not— firing, firing.

Joe: You're weird.

Joe: Anyway, Pitt did a lot of stuff during the Devonshire Ministry. As I said, he set some subsidies, he established a militia bill to bring in fighters to protect Britain from French invasion. But he was really just getting started.

Joe: He already wasn't as universally liked as he'd previously been. Henry Fox had started a newspaper called The Test, which he used to denounce Pitt. And then Pitt supporters, they started their own newspaper. Do you want to guess what it was called?

Abram: No.

Joe: The Con-Test. So we have the Test versus the Con-Test, and it would be kind of cute if it wasn't so serious.

Abram: That's a funny quote. Would have been cute if it wasn't serious.

Joe: Yeah, well, so the good news though for Henry Fox and the Test newspaper is that actually Pitt didn't really enact a whole bunch of Patriot Whig policies. He didn't start investigating Thomas Pelham-Holles, and even Fox would later admit that Pitt really didn't change the policy that much. He just helped execute it better than had been done under Thomas Pelham-Holles.

Joe: So ultimately, though, we know that that administration didn't last long. When it came time to sentence Admiral Byng to death, remember him, Pitt pushed for him not to be executed. He said that Byng was just being punished as a scapegoat for Newcastle. But George was very upset, and he drummed Pitt out of office on April 6th, 1757. He had only been in charge of the war, only been Southern Secretary for about 124 days.

Joe: Now, maybe that was just an excuse. Maybe Cumberland still hated Pitt and didn't want to fight the war under his leadership. Quite frankly, George II still hated him for all the times he said bad things about Hanover, but regardless, the Devonshire government couldn't survive without Pitt.

Joe: They briefly tried to bring Waldegrave in. That didn't work, and Devonshire transitioned to power broker. He decided that if he couldn't be Prime Minister, the best thing to do would be to reconcile Pitt and Thomas Pelham-Holles, bring them both together, and that would be a more stable coalition.

A Government of Enemies

Joe: Devonshire managed to fix it. They were in the middle of the Seven Years' War. Britain was losing. Pitt started coming in, and maybe it was starting to be better, but with 124 days, he couldn't do all that much, and there was no one really in charge of government. And Waldegrave— I mean, who would bring in Waldegrave, right? But he wasn't ultimately successful.

Joe: But Devonshire fixed it. He managed to convince King George and Thomas Pelham-Holles, the Duke of Newcastle, and William Pitt to all come together to form a coalition that would hopefully last a little bit longer than his own administration.

Joe: Thomas Pelham-Holles would lead the House of Lords. William Pitt would lead the House of Commons, he would get his Southern Secretary job back, and together they're going to do some great stuff. In fact, they're even going to patch up with Henry Fox, and he's going to be coming in and working as the Paymaster of the Forces, the same job that William Pitt had under Henry Pelham.

Joe: Quite frankly, it was a masterstroke. We didn't give Devonshire enough credit at the time for managing to pull this off.

Joe: Horace Walpole summarized this arrangement as, quote, "Mr. Pitt does everything while the Duke gives everything." In other words, it's Pitt's ministry. Newcastle's just paying for it.

Joe: Now, we've covered the war in detail in multiple episodes, so I'm not going to do that again. Remember, we have those game pieces in the box down there. We have the playing cards that we used in order to talk about all the territories and all the introductory stuff. If anybody wants to go back and listen to those episodes again, they can. But let's just summarize.

Joe: Pitt believed in the British Navy. He launched a plan to do coastal raids into France. They didn't accomplish all that much, but it did force the French to keep their ships nearby. Because the British Navy was keeping the French forces occupied, that gave the British a much stronger hand to battle the French in North America.

Joe: Admiral Boscawen managed to defeat a French fleet at Lagos. In North America, Britain managed to take Louisbourg on top of Nova Scotia. They advanced into New France, taking Quebec. They took what's now Kingston, Ontario. They take what is now Pittsburgh.

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: The point is that under Pitt, the tide was shifting. In Europe, France is completely occupied. They have the Battle of Minden. There's fear that the French are going to try to invade Britain, but at this stage Britain really has them occupied, if not on the ropes.

Joe: And this is when our Picture This takes place. November 1759 brought the Quiberon Bay Crisis. I hope I'm pronouncing that word right. Pitt was once again in bed with gout, while he and Thomas Pelham-Holles bickered over whether or not to send Admiral Hawke out in bad weather.

Joe: Pitt favored bravery, while Newcastle, he wanted to be cautious. But of course, as we know, Pitt won, and Hawke was able to decisively defeat the French, and he prevented the invasion of Britain, capping off what would be known to history as Britain's miracle year, the Annus Mirabilis.

Abram: Should we hire Totalus Rankium to decipher that?

Joe: Maybe. I think this is actually Latin, not fake Latin.

Joe: For all that it seemed that Pitt and Newcastle were destined for misery, like they hated each other like six months ago, they actually made a really good team. And we called Thomas Pelham-Holles in his episode the Pitt Whisperer because somehow he managed to keep Pitt on sides through this whole thing.

Abram: Why do you use soccer terms?

Joe: I don't know. Why do I use soccer terms?

Joe: Horace Walpole summed up how well it was going by saying, quote, "Our bells are worn threadbare with ringing for victories."

Joe: There was another smaller miracle in May 1759 that will have maybe an even bigger impact on Britain. What is it? Pitt's fourth child, a boy, was born in Hayes, outside of London. Do you want to guess what that child's name is?

Abram: William Pitt.

Joe: William Pitt. The Younger.

Abram: The Younger.

Joe: Do you want to put a pin in him for another episode?

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: In the months that followed, Britain took victories in India, the Caribbean. They captured most of French North America, territories in Africa, and more. But in October 1760, something happened that changed everything. Oh, you should know this one. Someone died.

Abram: Is it Pitt? Finally. How could he die?

Joe: We still have a part three. George II died—

Abram: Oh, he hasn't even become part of the story.

Joe: —on like the toilet, right? I don't know where he died. That's a good question. And George III came to the throne. But George III has a different favorite minister. His name is—

Abram: John Stuart.

Joe: John Stuart.

Abram: Lord Bute.

Joe: Lord Bute. And they have very different ideas about the war. So despite the clamoring of the victory bells, George III decided, hey, it's time for peace.

Chafing Under His Bute

Joe: The coming of George III changed everything. Instead of a German-born king with a focus on Hanover, we have a British-born monarch with far less of a connection to his electorate.

Joe: George III also came with his own group of advisors, many of which had been part of the old Leicester House faction. And as you know, that faction was increasingly led by John Stuart, the Earl of Bute.

Joe: At least at first, the government continued with relatively few changes. Just as Robert Walpole had weathered the transition from George I to George II, Thomas Pelham-Holles weathered the transition, remained as Prime Minister, from George II to III. In fact, the Newcastle-Pitt government was popular, and it did very well in the 1761 election, so maybe they could stick around.

Joe: But George III had Tory leanings and a tight relationship with John Stuart. He brought Bute into government, he made him Northern Secretary, and increasingly pushed to end the war on his terms. It was a very expensive war, and William Pitt's style of fighting was not cheap.

Joe: And while Britain had collected a massive collection of new territories on four continents, concerns were growing about how Britain was actually going to pay for this empire that Pitt was building.

Joe: But first, they needed to find a way to push the victorious William Pitt out of office. And that path opened up October 1761. There was a family compact, a Bourbon Compact, between France and Spain that terrified Pitt. He was worried that Spain was going to enter the war.

Joe: And quite frankly, Britain didn't need another enemy, especially given how strong Spain's navy was, and especially given how easy it would be for Spain to attack Britain's ally Portugal, or Gibraltar, or any other territory that they could get to.

Joe: Pitt felt that the only way to defend against this possibility was to take the offensive. Attack Spain first before they're ready. But Bute and King George III absolutely did not want to expand the war, and they also didn't want to attack first. They thought that wasn't the right choice, and Thomas Pelham-Holles came to agree with them.

Joe: Pitt insisted, but the ministry and the king refused, and so Pitt resigns.

Abram: Bye!

Joe: Standing up in the cabinet, he proclaimed, quote, "I was called by my sovereign and by the voice of the people to assist the state when others had abdicated the service of it. That being so, no one can be surprised that I will go on no longer since my advice is not taken. Being responsible, I will direct and will be responsible for nothing that I do not direct."

Joe: If they had invented microphones then, William Pitt would have dropped his mic as he walked out of the room.

Abram: Why?

Joe: Because in the 18th century, that's a really great dig. I mean, "I will be responsible for nothing that I do not direct." Drop the mic. Leave the room. I mean, it's—

Abram: Huh.

Joe: Okay, clearly you're not impressed. I get it.

Joe: He had been unofficially Prime Minister the second time for four years, three months, and eight days. He had taken Britain from the brink of defeat to some of its greatest ever victories. He had expanded the size of the empire far more than anyone could have hoped or dreamed when George Washington lost that battle to the French a couple years earlier.

Joe: For just about any other man, this would be the end of their story, but for William Pitt, it's just the beginning of his next chapter.

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: But that, Abram, is where we're going to leave it for today. Next time, we will finish the story of William Pitt's life, and we're going to finally rate him. What did you think, Abram?

Abram: It was fine.

Joe: You're so—

Abram: Bye, microphone.

Joe: You forgot one thing.

Abram: What?

Joe: We have to do one thing.

Abram: No, we don't.

Joe: Yes, we do.

Abram: What is it?

Joe: Say goodnight, Abram.

Abram: Good evening.

Joe: Such a nudge. Bye-bye.

Abram: Bye.

Bibliography

Joe: I am so glad to be back talking about British Prime Ministers. It has been too long, especially as our special episodes, well, they took a lot longer than normal to research and record and coordination. It was a lot of work.

Joe: I hope you enjoyed our Picture This. Abram and his friend Adam had a fun time yelling at each other, and I felt like I won a history parenting award because I heard them afterwards talking about writing a Hamilton-style song about Pitt and Newcastle's rivalry. I love that Abram's love of history is infectious.

Joe: My key sources this time are Pitt the Elder by Jeremy Black, written in 1992, and Lord Chatham: His Early Life and Connections by Lord Rosebery, written in 1910.

Joe: I know that my fellow history podcasters, especially our friends at Primetime, they swear by the Edward Pearce Man of War book. But I found it less enjoyable and ended up taking very few notes from it for this episode.

Joe: If you enjoy listening, please consider writing a review or liking us on your favorite podcast app. It really does help us get the word out. And if you are interested in watching not only Prime Factors, but many other history podcasts this coming February, please consider signing up for Intelligent Speech 2026. And don't forget that you can use our coupon code FACTOR, F-A-C-T-O-R, to save a little bit as well as save the manatees.

Joe: Our award-winning editor is Paley Bowe of radioguru.co.uk. We love the work that he does on the podcast and hope that you'll check him out for any of your podcast production needs.

Joe: Next time, we're going to wrap up William Pitt the Elder, and I hope to see you then. Goodbye.

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