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Fred & George III: Friends that Lost an Empire (Intelligent Speech 2026 Presentation)

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Fred & George III: Friends that Lost an Empire (Intelligent Speech 2026 Presentation)

Episode Transcript

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

Introduction

Abram: Hello and welcome back to Prime Factors. I'm Abram and I'm here with my dad reviewing all the British Prime Ministers from Robert Walpole to Keir Starmer. This week is something special. Frederick North and George III, friends that lost an empire.

Joe: This February, Abram and I presented an Intelligent Speech. We had two panels, this one and then a later one that we did with PrimeTime.

Abram: Don't forget the hangout with Rob.

Joe: Yeah, but we didn't record the hangout with Rob. That was just a hangout.

Abram: But I did still have a lot of fun and look forward to doing it next year. We decided to put this out now while we're still covering Lord North in the main feed. Dad covered this in Lord North Part 1, but this goes into more detail. Don't forget that you can find us at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and at primefactorspodcast.com. Also on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram. If you enjoy listening, please like, subscribe, comment, and review. This episode is also available as a YouTube video. Please search for our YouTube channel Prime Factors Podcast for the video version of this presentation.

Panel Presentation

Joe: Without further ado, here is our conference panel. Hi, I was expecting to do this alone, but Abram has graciously agreed to join the panel. We are Prime Factors. We are a father and son podcast about British prime ministers. We are the other British prime minister podcasters.

Abram: PrimeTime also exists.

Joe: Yeah, they exist and they were first.

Abram: They're older than us. And then we were worried we had to stop podcasting because they existed. And then we met up in April-ish.

Joe: Yeah. And we're gonna have a whole panel.

Abram: Yeah, and I got to see Parliament with them, so thanks.

Joe: Yeah, we're gonna have a whole panel talking about us and them and our—

Abram: Them and us and us and them and them and us and us and them.

Joe: Contentious relationship. Okay, let me start here. Today I'm going to talk to you about a very special relationship between Frederick North, the Lord North, Prime Minister, and George III. And the first thing that you're going to say is, I don't understand Georgian politics, why do I want to watch or listen to a podcast about this?

Joe: And really, it's a very weird, different world back then. They had like a two-tiered legal system. They had a king that tried to get away with stuff that he shouldn't have gotten away with. There was open corruption. I know that we have trouble understanding these things today, but through the power of pretend, I hope that you can put yourself in the mindset of what it must have been like to live back in that era.

Joe: And if you need a little bit of help, we have a great episode that we just put out about Britain in 1770, because it's going to lead to this thing called the American Revolution. It's awesome. We're going to be talking about it a lot over the next couple of months. We hope that you will join us.

Joe: So allow me to introduce our protagonists for this talk today. This is King George III and his prime minister Frederick North, the Lord North. And you take a look at these two guys and, well, there's something special about Lord North as we look back on his history.

Abram: Different people.

Joe: They are different people. It is difficult to understand. But the big thing is that George III, well, he really struggled with prime ministers, right? And he went through a lot of them very, very quickly. They couldn't either maintain his support or they went insane or died or whatever. But the point is that George III really, really didn't have longstanding relationships with his prime ministers except for one. And that one here is Lord North.

Joe: And Lord North survived politically a lot of stuff, like over that 12 years that he was prime minister. He started literally the month of the Boston Massacre. He didn't leave until after Britain had surrendered at Yorktown. We have the Tea Party, the Intolerable Acts— or the Coercive Acts— and Lexington and Concord, and just so much stuff happened that most of it wasn't good for Britain. And yet, despite his predecessors like getting knocked over by a feather, he managed to stick around. And so this is really investigating a couple of the things that made him special. And I think a lot of that specialness is his friendships.

Abram: First, can we introduce our special guest?

Joe: Oh, Abram's introducing our special guest, Manatee.

Abram: Hello! You might recognize Manatee from some of our more recent episodes, and he was sitting with us. He's been listening to this event much more than I have, and about as much as you have. And so Manatee's here to join us. He won't be making that many comments, maybe towards the end, but he's— just know that he's here.

Joe: All right, let's play a game, shall we? So this game is called Fred or George. Now, we're not going to let Abram play because he is really, really good at this. So this, who is this? Is this Fred or George? Well, you can tell from the robe it is King George III, right? A normal human doesn't get to wear this kind of robe. This, of course, is Lord North. But here's a tougher one.

Abram: Which is which?

Joe: I've actually forgotten now which one is which.

Abram: Let's have some more go on. Someone says—

Joe: George on the left, he thinks. And, okay, George is on the left and North is on the right. So good job there.

Abram: I was thinking it was the opposite.

Joe: Yeah, yeah, it's tough. How about this one? This is when they're younger, obviously. And I'll give you a second to think. Someone says it's Georges all the way down. It's actually not. So the left is Lord North, the middle one is George III.

Abram: Your dad's trying to throw in a trick.

Joe: And I'm tricking you with the third one. Who's the third one?

Abram: Frederick.

Joe: Frederick, Prince of Wales, who would be, of course, George III's dad. The point is, they look alike. They look alike.

Abram: They look alike.

Joe: And this isn't like a modern revelation. It's like, you know, at the time people were talking about how much they looked alike. This is one of several political cartoons of the era that sort of has them dressed and looking in a similar way.

Abram: That one's short.

Joe: Yeah. I mean, they're not exactly the same. And it was commented upon. Charles Townshend has one of the earliest examples of a written comment while he was still Chancellor of the Exchequer. Yes. Where he basically called Lord North a changeling.

Joe: Here we have historian Nathaniel Wraxall from 1815, and we're going to watch this excite much pleasantry on the part of Frederick himself, who often jested on the subject with Lord Guilford, which of course is the current name at this time of Frederick's dad. And here we have a—

Abram: What's George IV doing here?

Joe: Well, in 1786, George, the Prince of Wales, supposedly said that either his royal grandmother, Princess Augusta, or North's mother must have played her husband false. And I don't know if Abram knows what that means, but I suppose everyone else here can guess.

Joe: And so let's look at that for a second. 1728, Francis North, that's his dad, married Lady Lucy Montagu. Francis's dad died the following year, so that made him Baron Guilford, Lord Guilford.

Abram: And if I'm mispronouncing that because we're not British— we're not British, as the person who introduced us said— I apologize.

Joe: The following year, as he is sort of rising, Prince Frederick makes Francis into a gentleman of the bedchamber. This is a person who, in a largely ceremonial way, he's part of the prince's social circle. He has to supervise the people that actually dress the prince. Maybe he shows up at parties, maybe he has to perform some activities, but the trick is he is very much in that social circle, and they're very much guests of the prince. They're very much involved in that.

Joe: And then in 1732, their first son is born, and that, of course, will become Lord North. They're gonna name the son Frederick in honor of their patron. Frederick becomes the child's godfather.

Joe: Now, you might say, if one of them played the other false, which one could it have been? Is it Guilford who slept with the princess, or is it the other way around? And start off by saying that Frederick, Prince of Wales, was known to get around. I'm sorry for saying that in front of Abram.

Joe: He has multiple known affairs and multiple children from these affairs. And Jane, Lady Archibald Hamilton— I don't know why it's Archibald Hamilton, but that's what she's called— he is rumored to have a relationship with Lord Hervey, or as PrimeTime calls him, Curvy Hervey, who you might observe is male. So Frederick kind of got around.

Joe: There's a very famous case of this person called Margaret, Countess of Marsac, who probably wasn't really a countess and possibly didn't exist. The point is that Frederick has some history of affairs and Guilford doesn't. So could he have slept with the princess and secretly been the sire of the future British monarchy? Well, probably not, but hey, if it worked for these losers, it could work for him too.

Joe: Now I'm going to stop and I'm just going to say—

Abram: Warning!

Joe: No serious historian is advocating a lot that George and Frederick are related. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence. They look alike. Frederick certainly took a deep interest in the child. He was named after him. He's a godfather.

Joe: Later on, Frederick's father is going to largely not support him financially, and George III is going to end up being that rock that he needs in order to pay his bills, quite frankly. There are some medical commonalities, like they both had eye issues, right? There's a lot of circumstantial evidence, but it's not proven. I'm not going to sit here and argue that it is definitely the case.

Joe: But when you look, it's really hard to not suggest that they don't have something interesting going on. That said, even if they weren't half-brothers, they had been friends since childhood. They had been very, very close.

Beatles Break

Abram: We have a Beatles break.

Joe: We're gonna do a very quick Beatles break.

Abram: And if that image, since it's a bit too— AI isn't good enough, I have something that will change—

Joe: I'll just hand it to you so that you don't have to go.

Abram: This will hopefully change your mind.

Joe: All right, here's how this Beatles intermission is going to go. I need somebody to give us a number, a random number between 1 and 12.

Abram: And another random number between—

Joe: 1 and 13.

Abram: 1 and 14.

Joe: 1 and 14, okay.

Abram: Good enough.

Joe: All right, I'm just picking 2: 11 and 9. Is that okay?

Abram: Okay, so the 11th album, I'm counting. Should we go by release date or recording date?

Joe: We're gonna go by release date.

Abram: Okay, so 11 would be, I think, Yellow Submarine.

Joe: Okay, great.

Abram: And 9. So 9th album, 9th track. It's— that's one of the instrumentals. So I might be wrong on this, but if 6 is— that means it's the 3rd instrumental, which means it's Sea of Holes.

Abram: Sea of Holes is— I would normally be able to say how long it is and who it's written by, but it's a Yellow Submarine instrumental, so I can't. It features, I think, clarinet, and apparently, according to totally rancid sources, backwards harp.

Abram: I'll flip those around in case you want. Which gets me to All You Need Is Love. That is a Lennon-McCartney song, mainly composed by John, for the Our World broadcast. And it is 3 minutes and 47 to 3 minutes and 57 seconds, depending on the sources. And features weird instruments like harpsichord, banjo, and violin played by the Beatles themselves. And George also flails his guitar solo on this song. Okay.

Joe: All right, so you got two for the price of one here, Abram. Here is your—

Abram: I need double the payment.

Joe: Yeah, you get two monies.

Abram: Money!

The Friendship and Its Impact

Joe: Thank you for joining us in our Beatles break. Now back to Lord North. So we've established thus far that North was at least close with Frederick and that they survived a lot. And we're gonna talk a lot about what they survived, not here, because you can't cover the American Revolution in 20 minutes, but we're gonna cover it on our podcast. PrimeTime will be covering it on their podcast. There's the Presidencies Podcast that goes into the Revolutionary War era a bit. There are so many podcasts in this time period. Please listen to ours, but also to theirs because they're great.

Joe: The point is that they survived a lot and they survived a lot together. And as we look at the letters that they sent to each other, as we look at what we know of them as people, we can really see that this is a pair that was close, as close as Abram is to Manatee. Aww.

Joe: I am not an academic historian. I don't have a PhD in history. But in this podcast project, I have read hundreds of letters from different prime ministers to their kings and vice versa. I will tell you, not academically rigorously, that the letters that I have read that were exchanged between George and North are friendlier, more real in some fundamental way.

Joe: All of the letters at this time have this sort of pretentious—

Abram: Shakespeare.

Joe: Almost Shakespearean, yeah. Sort of faux formality to them. And these letters are no different, but somehow they feel more open.

Abram: More like open.

Joe: And real.

Abram: Rather than just someone pretending to be Shakespeare.

Joe: Yeah. And George III famously, like, he had a big friend in Lord Bute, and that friendship was sort of pulled away a number of years prior to this. But you can see real warmth in some of these letters.

Joe: Their friendship over these 12 years is exemplary. George, as I said, helped him out financially. When Lord North several times, as things started going poorly, expressed concern or considered resigning, George III convinced him to stay.

Joe: And ultimately, George III would have continued to convince him to stay up until the point where Parliament basically had— they call it a vote of no confidence. It's not quite as simple as that. Essentially removing North's control over the House of Commons, which effectively made him not the leader, and actually establishing the precedent, maybe for the second time because it happened with Walpole as well, where Parliament themselves can control who's going to be Prime Minister, even against the will of the monarch.

Joe: And so famously, Lord North would say, "Oh God, it's all over" when he heard about this defeat. Now, a little bit less famously, George III considered abdicating.

Abram: The king?

Joe: The king.

Abram: Considered abdicating?

Joe: Yes.

Abram: Twice?

Joe: Twice.

Abram: No.

Joe: Yes.

Abram: I don't believe you.

Joe: You don't have to believe me, but the point is that George—

Abram: I won't believe you because I don't have to.

Joe: Correct. George III considered abdicating. We have drafts of letters, of speeches that he was working on. And here's a little bit of one of those draft abdication speeches.

Joe: You know, a long experience and a serious attention to these strange events, blah, blah, blah. The hour has now come, and I am therefore resolved to resign my crown. And he did not give this speech, but it is notable when he wrote them.

Joe: This first speech was written in 1782, immediately after Lord North resigned. When North's government collapsed, the King considered resigning with him, right? That is the power of that relationship that had come to that moment together.

Joe: And then the following year, which I should mention was 3 prime ministers later because they went really fast as this government was collapsing—

Abram: North sided with the Fox.

Joe: North sided— yeah, this is a spoiler for you, sorry. In 1783, Lord North sided—

Abram: With Henry Fox.

Joe: Henry Fox.

Abram: He's a fox.

Joe: In Portland's government. And this was considered a massive betrayal. Fox was a Republican in the, I don't like kings sort of sense. And George III was so unhappy about this that he actually considered resigning once again. And I could only guess that it was because of a broken heart.

Joe: And while there are many friendships that make and break history, both British history and world history, learning as I have recently about this tremendous friendship between North and George III and how this shaped the American Revolution has been fantastic. And I hope to share that with you as we talk about our American Revolution in our podcast very soon. I hope that you will consider joining us in our podcast. That's it. Thank you. Any questions?

Q&A

Moderator: It's me. I'm your moderator here to facilitate questions. That was great, guys. That was so fun.

Abram: I'm a fox. I'm a fox.

Moderator: That's hilarious. We got Monica here. Did George III have his breakdowns while North was PM?

Joe: Abram, what year did George III have his breakdowns?

Abram: That's hard to say. His major breakdowns started in 1810. He got them as early as the 1780s. The late 1780s though, while North stopped in 1782, his first breakdowns, I think, were like 1789 or so. So no, no, no, that happened much later in his reign.

Joe: See, people think when they watch our podcast that I'm the smart one because I do all the talking. It's really not true.

Moderator: I don't know if anyone had any illusions of otherwise, but—

Abram: I'm a fox. I'm a fox.

Joe: Hey, we gotta hide that fox because he's just gonna keep saying it.

Moderator: Abram, who's your favorite prime minister that you guys have covered so far?

Abram: Henry Pelham.

Joe: Yeah, why is it Henry Pelham?

Abram: Because he got a 72.

Moderator: That's a high school.

Joe: Why did he get a 72?

Abram: Because he was good.

Joe: Yeah, he was.

Abram: It was a lot. That was like 2 years ago.

Moderator: And who can remember that far?

Abram: I'm a fox.

Joe: I really have to hide that picture because he's just gonna keep laughing.

Moderator: Okay, Jerry— Jerry Landry asks, which prime minister are you most excited to cover in the future?

Abram: Um, that's an interesting question, very interesting indeed. And it's really hard to say because I haven't exactly learned enough about the later prime ministers to tell. I'm not really looking forward to anyone in specific. Mostly just finishing our podcast before I'm an adult.

Moderator: Looking at the timeline on some of the other podcasts, I don't know if that's gonna happen, kiddo. One day Geri will cover another president.

Joe: Well, we were faster than our partner peers, but then they sped up, so we're not sure.

Moderator: Maybe this is the true companions in rivalries all along was you two. Yes. Ooh, okay. Melinda says, I don't think this is a secret— it's not on our website yet, but the National Archives of the UK is hopefully displaying one of those George III abdication drafts later this year. Did North talk him out of it?

Joe: I don't know. No. So there's some debate as to who talked him out of it. There seems to be, at least from the research that I've done, and understand that I'm still very much deep in the North research, so there's some areas where I haven't hit yet.

Joe: But my understanding is that he was talked out of it by other members of his cabinet. North was not involved with him at the moments, like he was already sort of mid-resignation. My impression is otherwise, but I look forward to researching this area more.

Joe: And to be honest, I didn't find out a lot about these abdication drafts. It doesn't seem like a key topic, but when you look at exactly the triggering events that seem to be around these abdication drafts, you can't help but think that it could be brokenheartedness.

Moderator: Oh no. In part. Monica asks, did the wife of George III like North?

Joe: Oh God. I haven't come across either like or dislike in my research. So I do not know the answer to that. Regretfully, the social history is sometimes a little bit hard unless you get it in the letters, and I haven't read any of her letters.

Moderator: Totally fair. Bailey asks, if you had to go to lunch with someone that you've covered on your podcast, who would it be?

Abram: Henry Pelham.

Joe: Abram really likes Henry Pelham.

Moderator: I'm getting that vibe.

Abram: He's a 72.

Joe: We should explain. Henry Pelham is like the white knight of early prime ministers. Like Robert Walpole is super duper corrupt. I mean, he established the role of prime minister, but he's corrupt. He's not a role model.

Joe: Whereas Henry Pelham, in part because he had his brother do the dirty work, Henry Pelham could be kind of that heroic early figure. He was very successful. He brought together a wide variety of—

Abram: He's essentially like the George Washington of prime ministers.

Joe: Yeah, I don't think they would put it that way, but I would put it that way. He's—

Abram: He's not like the founder, but like in terms of like what he did is—

Joe: I give Henry Pelham a lot of credit for being a model that others could follow. Like William Pitt tried, certainly, you know, but he came third, right? So how do you— how do you say that? That's, you know, it's tough.

Moderator: That's what we get doing rexy pods. Ben asks, favorite prime-minister-related place that you have visited?

Joe: So what Ben's alluding to is that we visit the prime minister towns when we can. We live in New England. There's lots of towns we've been to.

Abram: They mysteriously stopped in the 1770s.

Joe: Yeah, they mysteriously stopped in the 1770s. So we don't know why they're not naming any more towns.

Abram: We haven't got better.

Joe: After prime ministers. But we've been to like Walpole, Mass. and Wilmington and Newcastle, Maine, and many other places.

Abram: There's the person who's building a castle.

Joe: I would say that was Bath, New Hampshire. Tarleton Castle Arts. There's a guy who's building an art commune castle in the woods of New Hampshire. We don't think he's ever gonna finish it because he's doing most of it by himself and he's a little old. But just going there, we interviewed the guy. It was a phenomenal experience. And we recorded our episode on Bath.

Abram: Shout out to them. Oh, and Cavendish, Vermont has a place of good pies.

Joe: Oh, and Cavendish, Vermont had some amazing pies.

Moderator: Ooh, shout out that. Yeah. I love that you guys do that. That is such a cute idea. I believe in the art commune guy. I think he can do it. Okay, now Ben says, and this might be controversial, favorite kind of pie. This one's gonna be rough.

Abram: Favorite kind of pie was the chocolate chip one.

Joe: Oh my God, that chocolate chip pie shouldn't be legal.

Abram: Yeah, it was really good.

Moderator: How does that work? Like a chocolate chip pie, what's the filling?

Abram: I don't know, like a year.

Joe: It's been a while, but like the pie had like different dough with chocolate chips in it. So it was like you had the outer crust and sort of like the inner kind of like almost like pecan pie, but not. Yeah, it was amazing.

Moderator: I guess I gotta take a trip to Cavendish. Okay, John— it's worth it for the pie. John says, would North or George III have won in a fight?

Abram: I think this should be George III because he could send in the military.

Joe: Yeah, I'll take that.

Moderator: Okay, yeah, okay. But if we're doing an arm wrestle, who do we think's taking gold?

Abram: George III would send the military.

Joe: Oh yeah.

Abram: But if he didn't send the military, then I think that it would probably still be George III because if he ever loses, then he would— then North would probably be arrested soon after.

Joe: I guess. Yeah, I'll buy that too.

Moderator: The long con.

Joe: It's treason. It's treason to beat your liege in an honor thing.

Moderator: And I mean, I feel like he has to be a little strong. He's carrying all those robes all the time. You get a little built. Yes.

Joe: Well, you know, he wasn't all there in the head sometimes, so, you know, they—

Moderator: Maybe that makes him scrappy.

Joe: Burst of manic energy.

Moderator: He gets a little scrappy with it. John's got a good one. Least favorite prime minister so far that you've covered.

Abram: Let me think about that. Yeah, it's a tough one. Who scored the negative again?

Joe: Grafton.

Abram: Yeah.

Joe: Augustus Fitzroy.

Abram: No one fights like him.

Joe: Yeah.

Abram: No one fights like Grafton.

Joe: Yeah, my big shame is that we sometimes do songs on our podcast we shouldn't. I can't sing, it's bad. And like Grafton—

Abram: ♪ Townshend to Jennison and there the places that once existed now are somewhat empty. We can hug up all the seats and give them to a friendly old term. Get a new Townshend to Jennison ♪ Torotori, torotori, torotori.

Joe: We don't need to do them all. Those are our two main ones. But the point is, like, Grafton is an amazing opportunity to do a parody of Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. Yeah. And I get as far as, ♪ I'm especially good at procrastinating. Oh, what a guy, that Grafton. ♪ But the rest is hard to write. So maybe someday.

Moderator: I love that. That is so cute. You guys have your own built-in theme song. You got somebody on lock. Okay, well, we got 5 minutes left. So Abram, what's your favorite fact, period? What's your favorite one you like to share? Beatles related, prime minister related, Mr. Manatee related?

Abram: Someone needs to ask me a question.

Joe: She's asking, like, what's your favorite Beatles related fact? My favorite song?

Abram: Go favorite song and favorite album.

Joe: Sure, go ahead.

Abram: My favorite song is "Hey Bulldog." That— I'm not sure if I've said that to anyone before, but I mean, I've said it to my dad.

Abram: My favorite Beatles album— I rate them. I haven't rated all of them yet. So far it's Magical Mystery Tour, but there's 4 that I would say all could be them. They are Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, and Abbey Road. All of them I would say have an argument for could be the best. Like there are a few others that maybe you could say are the best, like The White Album, but half of that's just filler.

Moderator: So no, I mean, you hit the classics. Jerry agrees Revolver is a personal favorite of his.

Abram: I don't know why people don't like Yellow Submarine. That's another comment I have.

Joe: Ben wants another trivia. So if somebody wants a trivia, you got to give us two random numbers, unless you just want to ask Abram to tell you about a song, which he can also do.

Moderator: Okay, we've got a 3. And we've got an 8.

Abram: A Hard Day's Night track 8, that is "Anytime at All," written by Lennon-McCartney, sung mainly by John, Paul too. "Anytime at All" during the chorus, and it's 2 minutes and 11 seconds. It's featured on A Hard Day's Night but is not in the film because side 2 is not in the film, and it's pretty good. Okay, great. Also, in my opinion, it's essentially the default Beatlemania pop song. Yeah.

Moderator: Okay, John asks, what's Abram's opinion on Revolution 9?

Abram: It's a sound collage that I would like to skip, and I play it to annoy people because when Mom said I could have ice cream but we didn't have ice cream the other day because they thought that would be funny, I just came in and started playing Revolution 9.

Moderator: Diabolical.

Abram: By the Geneva Convention.

Moderator: I think that might be a war crime. Yeah.

Abram: And I generally use it to be like war, as a war theme in a way. I also do that with "March of the Meanies." That's a Yellow Submarine instrumental that's rather good.

Joe: So this is the manic energy that underlies my podcast. Perfect.

Moderator: And that's why we're here for it.

Joe: It gets masked through editing, but not a lot.

Outro

Moderator: Ah, alright. Thank you guys, that was amazing.

Abram: That was so much fun to do.

Joe: Next year's Intelligent Speech Conference will be on rebels. Are there any rebels that you'd like to cover, Abram?

Abram: I don't know yet. I've been thinking about George Harrison, but I'm not sure if that would really work. I'll see when the time comes closer.

Joe: Yeah, and I don't know where we'll be in our podcast by then either, so we'll have to see what we want to talk about. Hope that you enjoyed this special conference presentation.

Abram: I'm Abram, and I've been here with my dad. Don't forget that you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and at primefactorspodcast.com. We're also on Facebook, Bluesky, and Instagram. If you enjoy listening, please like, subscribe, comment, and review.

Joe: Say goodnight, Abram.

Abram: Grrr.

Joe: Shh.

Abram: Grrr.

Joe: Shh.

Abram: Grrr.

Joe: Shh. He's sleeping.