Dan Snow's History Hit - 300 Years of British Prime Ministers Part 1

Episode Date: August 10, 2022

1/2. It's a big summer for British politics with Boris Johnson's resignation and the race between conservative hopefuls Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss to take his place firmly on. To make sense of this coveted premiership, we've delved into the History Hit podcast archives for a rampage through the history of British Prime Ministers. In this episode, Dan is joined by Dr Hannah Grieg for a whirlwind tour of the eighteenth century's many Prime Ministers. From Sir Robert Walpole through William Pitt the younger through to Lord Liverpool, they discuss the creation of the office, prime ministerial control of the House of Commons, conflicts with the king and how politics has changed from continuity to constant change.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today!To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

All right, folks, welcome to Dan Snow's History. We're talking about prime ministers today. We're talking about that ancient office, 300 years old at the moment. 301 years old, I think, to be fair. We're dating the first prime minister as Sir Robert Walpole, although you know what? Someone like Stan Up just before him, pretty good claim as well. But let's not get into the weeds on that. We're talking about prime ministers. Why are we talking about prime ministers? Because Boris Johnson, the current United Kingdom prime minister, resigned as party leader on the 7th of July 2022. So this triggered an election for conservative party leader. He's still kind of prime minister until that new leader takes office and goes to visit the Queen and the Queen appoints them her Prime Minister. Those results are expected on the

5th of September 2022. From eight original candidates it's down just to two, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. Remember folks, in Britain we don't choose the Prime Minister. We elect a local representative, an MP, they're a member of parliament, they then effectively choose a prime minister. All of this membership choosing leaders, which you see in the Labour Party now, and the Conservative Party, is new. It's all newfangled. The Conservative version has only been going on about 20 or so years.

It's a bold to daring constitutional experiment we're involved in here, folks. So that's very exciting. In this episode, now I'm going to revisit one of our episodes from our archive, because we talked about prime ministers a lot last year. We did a marathon, in fact, a marathon. We went through every single prime minister who has served over the last 300 years. We're going right the way back in this episode to the 18th century, which is, as you know, the best century. We're starting off with Robert Walpole, George I's premier minister, his first minister. The term actually prime minister began as a kind of insult from political opponents, meaning someone who sets himself up in a position of such dominance. It's almost despotic. It's almost in danger of usurping the king's power of parliament's

authority in their own person. But eventually the term stuck and it became useful for the king to have a manager in the House of Commons, effectively a prime minister. And by the early 20th century, the word had actually finally entered our curious, uncodified British constitution as a real job description. It's mentioned in Acts of Parliament. So today and tomorrow we are going to be going on a whirlwind tour of British Prime Ministers. We're going to be hearing first up from the very brilliant Anna Gregg. She's been on the Queen's Roundtable. She's a historical advisor on movies and TV shows like Poldark. She's been talking about that. She's been on lots of times and she is the great authority on Georgian England and she's an amazing friend of the podcast. We're going to rampage through the 18th century and we're going to get up to Lord Liverpool because us 18th centuryists like to

nick the first part of the 19th century, as you know. And then tomorrow we're going to have Dr. Robert Saunders, the brilliant Dr. Robert Saunders, expert in modern British history, take us through the 19th and 20th centuries. But for now, just enjoy this rampage of the 18th century. Hannah, great to have you on the podcast. When did the first Prime Minister come to be? I'm knocking about in the early 17-teens. I'm thinking there's a lot of Prime Ministers around here who aren't called Prime Ministers. Like, stand up, surely. He's a prime minister, isn't he? Well, supposedly. But I mean, actually, we could just say there's no prime ministers in the 18th century at all and just end the podcast here. It's always retrospectively applied by historians. I

can't think of any leading politician in the 18th century actually uses the term themselves, but maybe I'm wrong about that. But it's always something that's applied retrospectively. And I think it comes into terminology in the 19th century. So we could just skip ahead, if you like. All right, well, thanks for coming on the pod. Here's some more adverts. Here's some adverts, everyone. Enjoy. See you later. I hadn't agreed. What we do have in the 18th century is lots of very influential politicians that historians have identified as the first prime minister and prime minister subsequently. And there's quite a lot of them, actually. So if you want to whip through them, then we're gonna have to buckle up,

I think, and get started. We are. Okay, just quickly, though, why post-George I coming to Britain, do you see this crop of, I mean, we all read our Hilary Mantels, we're all being made very aware of these super powerful politicians in the 16th century. But why do we suddenly start talking about these guys, like Lord Stanup in the late 1710s, Walpole, obviously, 1721? Why do they emerge, these super powerful politicians? So there's a big shift in the political organisation and political culture in the late 17th century. We have a revolution, 1688 to 1689, that sometimes people forget about, but it reframes the relationship between Parliament and the Crown. And it effectively and gradually gives Parliament increasing authority, largely because they control finances for the nation and for the monarch. So the monarch is

more beholden to Parliament than previously. Parliament meets every year for the first time in all of its history. So it becomes a very regular event. And it becomes firmly established as a sort of increasingly modern democracy is how we describe it. But we can talk about that terminology in another podcast. But we see it as the emergence of a relationship between crown and parliament that's increasingly modern and the development of a constitutional monarchy. So the politicians have more power than previously. And it just becomes a bit more organised, a bit more professional. And by the 1720s, that power becomes pretty firmly entrenched.

I guess that's organised is kind of interesting, wasn't it? Because the Crown has got to have someone who can go into Parliament and just shepherd those maniac MPs and just get them to pass budgets, just do the things that you need to do to run a state, right? Is that why Walpole proves so valuable to George I and his son? Yeah, the monarch needs someone in Parliament who can do their business, basically. He can command authority in Parliament to get the business done, to get bills passed and act in the interests of the crown. So you end up having ministers who have this important influence who can control voting patterns in the Houses of Commons and House of Lords.

Robert Walpole is often regarded as the first to have this authority, but it could have been someone else. The other person you mentioned at the beginning, James Stanhope. He is also a really big cheese in the early 1720s, late 17-teens. He holds lots of important offices of state. He has a huge amount of authority in Parliament. And it could easily have been him. But he does what happens quite a lot in the 18th century, and he dies quite unexpectedly. And so this creates a bit of a power vacuum in Parliament. And it's Robert Walpole who ends up with all the power in his lap. And he becomes regarded as the first Prime Minister. He's got a whole sequence of other

titles, 18th century office holding titles that come together. So he's first Lord of the Treasury, he's Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he's leader of the House. And all of those things come together to make him the most influential minister, and we call him the first prime minister. And he hangs around for quite a while. He has a tenure of just over 20 years. He almost makes it to 21, but doesn't quite make it. And I always think, oh, I wonder if that really annoyed him. If he lived his life thinking, I wish I'd only got to 21 years of being prime minister. But no, it was 20 years and something like a couple of hundred days or something.

Well, he liked to be a bit of a backseat driver after as well, didn't he? Stanup, you mentioned he dies. He's got one of the best burial plots in Westminster Abbey. You go through, you're on the way into the choir, you like newton and all over these guys and then you get stand up and i always think god that just shows in a way how regarded he was or how well connected in westminster abbey was at the time why did walpole last why was he so good what does his tenure tell us about what prime ministers need to be good at grabbing the right sow by the ear or maintaining the trust of these crusty backbench MPs who came

down from their country estates? Well, I mean, Walpole tells us what makes an important politician in the 18th century, but it's not really helpful for modern prime ministers in figuring what they need to do. Because 18th century politics in particular is about a steady ship. It's about avoiding confrontation. It's about trying to think things calm. There's a real concern about avoiding political strife. It's a generation of the nation that remembers things like civil war, revolution, constitutional upheaval, and what politicians regard as their fundamental duty as office holders is to avoid any major drama. So it's about keeping things pretty chill and being a good negotiator, a calming influence. And that's not really what we think of in terms of politics and the activities

of the House of Commons and the Prime Minister's role today, which is much more about whipping up kind of political conflict. Walpole's role was about slow and steady and it works. He's there for 20 years. Everyone's pretty happy. But gradually his power ebbs away and it's time for a change. It's interesting, like change though and how different it is today when basically everyone gets elected on the promise of change.

Even if you're running against yourself, even if you've been in office for 10 years like the Tories, they go, we need some change around here. Vote for me again. And isn't that almost precisely opposite? And in fact, he does fall, doesn't he? Because he gets involved

in the opposite of steady as she goes. He gets involved in the war that he didn't want to be involved in and it all goes badly and he's out. He's out. But then there's these kind of very much Walpole successors, aren't they? You've got Spencer Compton, who follows him, and Pelham. I was always a big Pelham fan myself. I liked him. I thought he got the job done. He got the job done. Yeah, we get a run of prime ministers after that who are sort of brought up in Walpole's influence. They're a bit like Walpole and they're the next people in charge. And there's other nice things to remember about Walpole, though, other than that he's just the guy who hangs around for a long time. And these are the things that interest me. Right. So he's our first prime minister. He's the prime minister. He's the longest in office. He's also the prime minister with the most number of siblings.

This is an interesting history fact. He has 19. So he's one of 20. What? I know, which is 10 times the number of children that I have. So he's one of 19 siblings. You're going to count them. Should we look them up? Do you have 1.9 children?

No, he's 20. Oh, okay, okay, sorry. So he's the 20th, right? I was going to say, man, but i've met your kids and they both seem real i'm like they're whole i'm like that's a tough hit no so he's one of 20 children he's got 19 siblings so that's 19 plus one dan it's 20 okay just 10 10 times he's been homeschooling 10 times too so he also does some cool things like he's very good at product placement. So he likes to sit in the House of Commons munching on Norfolk apples from his

Norfolk estate to showcase his local interest. And I kind of love some of that sense of this 18th century House of Commons chamber where everyone's sitting around eating a bit of food. Sometimes there's someone sleeping, having a little nap on the back benches. You know, it's a very different kind of vibe to how we see the House of Commons operating today. But that munching apples on the front row is something that I always like to keep in my mind. And it's funny how often you hear modern politicians

using the kind of archaic language of voting for supply and managing the House. And that's all balls nowadays. MPs are whipped to an inch of their lives, whereas Walpole munching an apple, spending time in the chamber, he did manage that chamber, right? He had to win votes through speaking and being there and receiving redress and things like that. Yeah. He also played a clever card in that he said that the House of Commons shouldn't sit on Saturdays so everyone could go hunting,

which was also a sensible thing to keep everyone on side, I think. But he's also like the first of other things. So he was gifted 10 Downing Street, our very famous resident now for prime minister, but he refused it as a personal gift from the king and said it should be a gift to the first lord of the treasury, our prime minister, and be a house for government. So that's why we have 10 Downing Street today, is because of him and the choices that he made. So the other thing that's interesting about him, or at least to me,

is that when he's prime minister, he lives with his mistress, not his wife. And actually he marries his mistress as well later on. So they always have quite an interesting family life going on as well, our 18th century prime ministers. You can say that again. And obviously he cleverly works out that the key to George I is his mistress, not his wife yes and that was my expression he is a good norfolk

speaker i get the right sow by the ear then when george ii comes in he realizes that it's actually george ii's wife not his mistress who's the one he needs to yeah i mean we could do another podcast about the women actually involved in this political story which is another narrative entirely obviously with prime ministers it's man after man after man but behind them are all these women's stories interwoven women who hold power women who influence these you know important politicians how public scandal becomes involved in some of their political careers and things like that so but we could do that another time maybe well you had me at another podcast hannah i'll have you on any time so we've got spencer compton who's around for like a year so we don't have to worry too much about him Spencer Compton is around for about a year so

he's our number two so then we can just move straight on to number three yeah Henry Pelham is very much the successor of Walpole right that Pelhamite the way of doing things diffusing difficult things that might lead to the restoration of Jacobite stuff like that foreign entanglements yeah it's a continuity of this kind of calm and steady idea of politics. It's not about conflict. It's about resolving tensions. And he kind of continues in that vein. My students are always amused that he runs this broad-bottomed administration, which has nothing to do with bottoms, but it's about creating collaboration across different political parties, about bringing different people together to have

a collective view of politics. So that's all it's all about. Interesting things happen as well in his tenure. So he creates the first standardised loaf of bread shape, because he recognises that people need to be well fed in order to reduce social conflicts and public tension. He also enacts a bill to keep infectious diseases out of the country by looking at how people can quarantine ships and things like that. So that has some kind of modern resonance for us today that it wouldn't have done a few years ago. And he has a really good run of things. I mean, he's 10 years in office. So, you know, it looks like this office of prime minister is going to be one that allows people to hold power for a long period of time.

We had Walpole for 20. Spencer Compton comes in. He's only a year, but that's because he dies, unfortunately. And then Pelham, 10 years. So it looks like we're going to have a nice, steady 18th century. But then Pelham dies and it gets crazy. And it gets very choppy for kind of Prime Minister's number four to 10. It's a bit of a whirlwind. Well, I can't wait because we're getting towards seven years war now which is a period that i'm fascinated by and to also get towards that bloody useless william pitt who we'll talk about in a second okay so so pelham is succeeded by another pelham is it remind me the chicken newcastle is his brother his older brother so pelham dies his big brother older

brother it's weird isn't it yeah well it seems weird to us but the 18th century house of commons and lords is mostly brothers cousins everyone is kind of related in some way in-laws and that sort of thing so it's not as surprising to them as it is to us no but i just meant the kid brother like imagine watching your brother and then it's like the older one takes over oh yeah it's a flip it's a flip it's a flip around yeah the way things usually work was the duke of newcastle sitting there for years just thinking like, all right, little bro, okay, 10 years of being Prime Minister. I don't know.

But he's in the House of Lords, isn't he? So what's going on here? Because this is obviously, it's still possible to be Prime Minister from the House of Lords in this period. Yeah, you've got to have some good friends in the House of Commons to help control that chamber. We have quite a lot of our leading ministers in the 18th century sitting in the House of Lords because most of them have aristocratic families in order to be in the Commons as well.

So yeah, you need some mates in the Commons, but Newcastle doesn't pick very well. So he doesn't keep very good control of the two chambers. So he's only in office for two years. And then he's replaced by William Cavendish, the fourth Duke of Devonshire, who is probably the most reluctant Prime Minister of history. Talk about a tough caretaker who just comes in and... He doesn't want to do it at all. It's far too big a job for someone like him. He doesn't know anything about it. So he agrees to do it for the rest of the political season. It's about 10 months and then Newcastle gets his act together and he's back in. So this is number six now we're on, 6th Prime Minister's Newcastle back in. And he does a better job this time of managing things.

He's around for about three years but this is the really interesting one isn't it this second newcastle administration it's sometimes called the pit newcastle because you've got this kind of maverick william pitt who's in the commons at this point isn't he and he's not prime minister during the seven years war that's like vikings didn't have horns on the helmets and william pitt the elder was not prime minister during the Seven Years' War, so everyone leave me alone. But does he help manage things in the Commons? Is that his skill? Yeah, he does.

And I think he's one of the reasons that Newcastle doesn't really get it right the first time because he overlooks Pitt. Newcastle's a bit nervous about very strong men in the Commons and he goes for kind of weaker allies. And then he gets his act together in his second term of office and he harnesses Pitt's authority in the House of Commons chamber. And the Pits, of course, become this massive political dynasty. They're a name which most people would recognise, but they're of a different

kind of background to some of those guys in the Lords. They're a much newer family. Money from India. Money from India around diamonds. This is the imperial story. Yeah, it's a diamond that was brought over by Thomas Diamond Pitt and sold. And on the back of that, the family managed to get a lot of property that has a number of rotten and pocket boroughs. That means that the sons and the grandsons are secure in their political position, but they're in the House of Commons and they become incredibly adept

at managing the House of Commons. They're highly skilled. They're brilliant orators. They're really well respected. And this William Pitt, our first William Pitt, or William Pitt the older, is an absolutely brilliant debater and he's an orator. And he spends most of his career actually in the Commons, not as Prime Minister. But at the end of his life, he does take on the role of Prime Minister and we'll come to him again a bit later. But he's hanging around in the Commons being a big noise, basically, as William Pitt.itt and there's a sense although it's contested but there's a sense that he's the sort of driving genius behind britain's success in the seven years war in terms of his sort of global outlook his ability to make war all these different fronts against france and then spain but we then got

quite a big radical discontinuity haven't we we? Because George II dies. Yep. And we get George III, his grandson, and he's got very different ideas about things. What's going on now? Yeah, we've got a big shift. So we're in the early 1760s. George III has succeeded to the throne in 1760. And he is the grandson of George II. So you have to imagine he was this young kid, young man growing up. His father, Prince Frederick, died very unexpectedly. And he is sort of brought up in a household of tutors and influencers. And he's seen his dad have all these big politicians and the Whigs, Walpole's party, have been in power the whole time. You know, these big grandees, big political positions. And George III is not happy about this. And the Tory party has spent a long time befriending him hanging out at his court and when he comes to the crown he has a big switch

around and he puts the wigs out and the Tories come in and then he decides to pick a prime minister and who would you think he might pick if he's been a young man he's had a tutor at home. He hasn't had a dad. Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? He picks his tutor. I mean, he picks his tutor, Lord Bute. I mean, people think politicians have a hard time. I mean, Bute got slagged off like no one I've ever seen. Yeah, he definitely gets a really rough ride in the press and also in terms of government and politics. And you can see why. I mean, sometimes I think, what a terrible idea. If you're going to have a massive change of power, what you don't want to do is just bring in your court favourites, because not only are you going

to really annoy the public in terms of your authority as a monarch at a time where people are thinking carefully about constitutional politics, you're also going to really annoy all these senior politicians as well. So it's not a great move, really, by either George III or Lord Bute. Does this tell us something really important about the nature of politics now, which is the king's like, I'm allowed to choose my servants. And it's like, dude, you're not Henry VIII. You cannot just elevate whoever you like to this office. They have to be somebody who has the confidence of both houses,

but particularly probably the House of Commons. And your random tutor is not that guy. Yeah. And also there's a growing kind of press and public opinion. I mean, for historians we often think about it as a kind of modern political culture, but the infrastructure is never really formally reformed. So there is a sense in which the king still has the authority to summon and dismiss the government to pick his prime minister. The king still has the authority to summon and dismiss the government to pick his prime minister. But actually, the practical operation of that has changed somewhat. But the actual structure, there's no formal constitution that decides what people can and can't do.

So in theory, George III is perfectly within his rights to do that. But actually, in practice, it becomes very tricky. And so it's a useful moment, actually, to see how much politics has shifted over the course of the 18th century compared to what was happening in centuries before and the monarch's authority. Because George III tries this and it does not go well. So Lord Boot becomes prime minister. And he is really unpopular. He's unpopular with the public. He's unpopular in parliament. He just can't command any power at all.

So he's only there for a few months. in Parliament, he just can't command any power at all. So he's only there for a few months. He does some other things, like he tries to raise money to meet the debts of war, and he looks to a cider tax to do that, to tax cider. So it's really not a good idea. In the 18th century, there's an awful lot of MPs in the West Country. Cornwall has the highest representation in the House of Commons. And if you really want to upset the West Country, then you're going to want to try and tax cider. So, you know, it's a very bad move. So I don't think he was ever going to be successful. So he steps down as prime minister and he's replaced by number eight, George Grenville. George III, the king, has just a terrible time. I mean, I know obviously the Stuarts have a terrible time in Parliament,

but the constitutional monarchy in Britain, people's about the crown in Parliament. This 30 years that's coming up feels like a really important time when the king simply has to come to terms with the fact that he cannot have in his executive branch just whoever he wants. And this is something that George III sort of famously reflects on later in life and moments of delirium. It's like, I'm the king without any power. I've lived my life in this kind of role. And there's a sense of this growing frustration that he doesn't have the authority that he thinks should be associated with the Crown. But we can't take that too far, because this is still a time where the Court and Crown operate in a very political way. It's also a very kind of important time in terms of what politics has to do in terms of managing

global warfare, about seeing massive social and political change. So it's a time where Parliament also has to begin to operate very professionally and get some business done. And that has a significant influence as well on the chopping and changing that's going on. You're listening to Dan Snow's History. We're working through all the Prime Ministers here. Yes, we are. More after this. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Eleanor Janaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, Kings and Popes, who were

rarely the best of friends. Murder, rebellions and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. yeah and i guess later we could talk about the fact that george the third kind of usefully goes mad and his son is a ridiculous dilettante and so perhaps had there been a really activist had there been a henry v that came along there we could have had a really big problem but maybe in a way for different reasons their characters meant that that transition was easier than perhaps it might have been in a different country. I think possibly, I think it's also a kind of testament to, well, the upheavals of the 17th century, the real moment of political crisis in 1688-89, which we don't really talk about in terms of popular history, but it was a massive shift of monarchical power where one monarch is deposed and replaced by

William and Mary. So James II is basically asked to leave and he's replaced by William and Mary. So there's a sense in which there's a political coup. That's how sometimes it's described and a moment of flexing of authority by politicians. So monarchs are going to remember that. There's another constitutional crisis in 1714 with Queen Anne and the transfer of power to the Hanoverians in terms of skipping quite a few Catholics and finding a Protestant monarch and then Jacobite angst and revolution and there's always a threat to the crown there's always a real sense in which this could all tumble at any moment which is why politics is all about trying to avoid that about trying to knit things together

and I think it would be really hard for any monarch to actually try and suddenly become a tyrant or set up an autocracy in that environment when everything is being composed against it. Everyone just really wants to avoid it. And there's revolutions happening in France, you know, America's in turmoil in the 1770s. And it feels like a very hot political period. And sometimes political historians think, oh, the 18th century, nothing happens. It's all so stable. Ticks along, ticks along.

But that's the kind of surface. And underneath that is all of this swirling tension. So I think it would be really hard for a monarch to suddenly go, oh, I'm just going to do my own thing and go crazy. Yeah. So George III's thinking, I wish I had more power. Then he looks around the world and he thinks, right, in the last hundred years, they killed Charles I. They kicked out his son. hundred years they killed charles the first they kicked out his son they excluded his son from the succession and found a fairly random german to be king like my ancestors so yeah i guess he would

have been constantly aware that he was not in some divine right institution he's the first english speaking monarch for a while as well and the first one born in england i mean i think it was george the first spoke to his ministers in Latin. Also the significance of maintaining this crown and securing a more stable succession going forward. So then unfortunately, he doesn't go with his son, so it doesn't go very well for him. But yeah, I think it is all quite important. And you're so right. After the 1790s, once fat King Louis gets his head chopped off, frankly, any king over here is just glad he's alive, I expect, and gets bullied by the odd politicians.

Not a bad one. So where have we got to? Number eight, George Grenville, 1760s. Grenville and the Rockinghamites. Yes. Now, I'm supposed to remember what happened with these guys, and I've forgotten, so I'm glad you're here. Talk to me about George Grenville.

Oh, my goodness. They all kind of blend into one, don't they, really? Yeah, I know. Well, as they blend into one don't they really i know well as they bend into one i forgot to ask you my little quiz and see if you know it's test your eight century knowledge down which is where do you think walpole went to school walpole don't tell you went to eton yeah where do you think lord butte went to school oh okay uh did he go to eton college he did where did george Did he go to Eton College? He did. Where did George Grenville go to school? Did he go to Falmouth Grammar School?

Oh, he did. No, he didn't. He went to Eton. So, you know, it's hard, isn't it? But they didn't all go to Eton, but most of them go to Eton. So in my mind, they sometimes do blend into one, but I mustn't say that because I'm a historian. And of course, these are all very important individuals who have a lot of power. So George Grenville, number eight, went to Eton. So he's in for two years, 1763 to 1765. And it is a big moment. And I'm sure it's one you have studied because it's where we start to try and tax colonies in America. And this does not go well. So one of the things that Grenville introduces is a stamp tax, which is basically a levy on paper in America. So all paper has to be made in Britain and stamped with a revenue of Britain and paid for in British currency and that's everything from

newspapers to legal documents to playing cards. So it's kind of a massive way to try and make some money and it's not well received unsurprisingly. A completely legitimate, very small, very useful tax on people. On your everyday items. On everyday items, people that are enjoying the benefits of being part of the great British imperial family and who've just been lucky enough to be protected from the French by the British Army and Navy and refusing to pay for it. Anyway, keep going. Yes, exactly. So with hindsight, we can see this might not be a brilliant idea, but it takes a while for the 18th century politicians to realise what a bad idea it is.

But it is all feeling quite hot. There's a lot of tension in Parliament around who can tax who, how much constitutional authority there is over the colonies. There's an increasing sense of opposition to the idea that we can just take as much money as we like from America. And so things are really hotting up in the debating chambers of the House of Commons. And George III thinks that George Grenville is not up to the job. So he basically thinks, oh, I need to change. I'm going to get rid of him. And he asks the Marcus of Rockingham to take

over instead, who's our number nine. Now, he's only here for a year, so it's getting choppy. And again, he needs to do something about America. The House of Commons chamber is not any different place. All of a sudden, neither is the House of Lords. He gets rid of the Stamp Act, but what he does is he says, oh, but let's make sure we can always tax America anyway. So he introduces another act that confirms the British government's right to introduce taxations in America as they choose.

Like, we're dropping the tax, but just so you know, we are still allowed to tax you. Yeah, pretty much. That's basically the take home message. Don't worry, I'm not going to tax the paper, but just to remind you that we are going to tax whatever we like whenever we feel like it. So I'm just putting that out there just in case you need to know it. We're saying turbulent here. So we've got all these administrations. We've got five administrations that last less than three years. Is that because we don't find that all-important, the man of business, the man that can control Parliament,

or is this just turbulent times? I think it's both of those things. I think it's turbulent times. I think the shift from Whig to Tory is important. I mean, the Whigs previously had this sense of their entitlement to government. The Walpole legacy lasted for quite a long time. And then we're trying to shake things down under George III. And it just takes a while for that to roll.

There's also some really strong voices of opposition in the House of Commons. There's these really great debaters, it becomes much harder, I think, to control that chamber. So you have Pitt, you start to have Fox, people whose names become very prominent in the second half of the 18th century. So I think that is one of the things that's going on as well, is it becomes very difficult to control what's happening in the House of Commons and House of Lords because they're starting to get a bit more bulshy and career politicians. So Rockingham is not the answer to our problems here? No, Rockingham's not the answer to our problems. So George the Thor's like, oh, this is going very well, is it? I'm just not getting a very good handle on this. So he gets rid of him. And now

he turns to William Pitt, who is a name that people is it? I'm just not getting a very good handle on this. So he gets rid of him. And now he turns to William Pitt. Yes. Who is a name that people might know. Right. And everyone says one of the great prime ministers, he was actually, by this stage, he was a little bit old. He was past his best. Yeah.

He'd been ennobled. So he was now Earl Chatham sitting in the House of Lords, which is exactly the opposite of what you expect from Team Pitt. They're meant to be in the House of Commons, keeping it real and convincing backbenchers. Now he's an Earl. Yes, I know. We like to think of him as this great prime minister and things, but actually he's a really important politician.

And he has a very distinguished political career in the House of Commons. And he really makes a big noise there. But it's only towards the end of his career that he becomes prime minister. Partly because George III is trying to look for someone who can command that authority. But a few things happen. First is one of the things that he does is he's elevated to the House of Lords, and that makes the commons pretty unhappy. Because one of the things that was Pitt's calling card was that he was a representation of the people and he was a commoner. He wasn't one of these lords, but he accepts the ennoblement. He sits in the House of Lords. And he's not very well either.

I mean, he's hardly there for those years. People find it very hard to reach him. He even turns down an audience with the King because of ill health. So he's never going to have this grand moment, really, as Prime Minister, even though we do remember him as this very important politician. So it's kind of sad, really, that he's been in Parliament for 30 years, then he suddenly gets the big job right at the end, and he just can't quite make it poor health and he just can't do it he can't bring the houses together so he needs to be replaced so it's a few years in the job and then we come to number 11 which is Augustus Fitzroy the third duke of Grafton who is only there for a short time he's two years but Grafton interests me because suddenly we have these,

I don't know, these kind of George III politicians, the Lords and then the Sparky guys in the Commons. And then we have Third Duke of Grafton, who stands out partly because he's young. So we've had the elderly William Pitt. And then the Duke of Grafton is in his 30s, he's 33. And he's the youngest prime minister until we get to another even younger one a little bit later. He's pretty cheeky. He's a bit of a rake. He's not really a very brilliant

politician, but he has a kind of colourful private life, which always makes him jump out in some of the history books. So for a very long time, he was the only prime minister to be divorced and then remarried in office. He held that status until 2020, when there's been a more recent example of a prime minister having that kind of private life in office. But yeah, for a long time, that was Grafton's claim to fame as prime minister. Illegit descended from Charles II, so probably a better claim to the throne than George III, for goodness sake. Yeah, probably. I've never done the family trees because I'd lose interest after the second line,

but yeah, it could be. And a duke. Interesting, because duke, obviously the highest pinnacle aristocrat, and one of the few dukes to have become prime minister. So he's got it all at this point. He could have it all, but it just doesn't work out for him. He's not really around long enough for us to remember him for any massive political moments. And you know, a lot of the problem is the unrest in America and how politicians are talking about that and dealing with it. And it's almost like no one can really quite get a handle on how the British government should be responding and behaving and organising, increasing military presence and things like that. So he doesn't have much power in Parliament,

it seeps away. So George III once again goes, oh, I just can't get the right person in for the job. So Grafton resigns. And then we get to number 12, Prime Minister. And we have a little bit of a breather because this one is going to stick around for a little bit longer. And he is Lord North. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries. The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the greatest millennium in human history.

We're talking Vikings. Normans. Kings and popes. Who were rarely the best of friends. Murder. Rebellions. And crusades. Find out who we really were.

By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, a difficult reputation because of how it all ends. But although he's a lord, he sits in the commons, doesn't he? It's a courtesy title, I think, isn't it? Yeah, it's a courtesy title. Yeah. So he's in the commons. So he has a bit more of a chance of controlling that increasingly unruly house and kind of commanding authority. He's talked about in history or caricatured as the prime minister who lost the colonies in America, as though he sort of misplaced them in a draw. It's a terrible term,

isn't it? That totally elides all of the global historical complexity, all of the importance of the relationships between the countries and how it affected so many different countries around the world. It's like, oh, we lost them. Where did we put them? So I always get very cross about the terminology that we use sometimes as historians, but yeah, America went wrong. We're not all right, depending on your position. Also, we kept the most important colonies, kept Canada, which is the most important part of the world. So to be fair to Lord North, in terms of raising tons of money, maintaining majorities for the maintenance of this war, a war in which Britain faced an absolutely unrivaled galaxy of opposition,

I think he kind of did pretty well, didn't he? He did do pretty well. And he's also in office for 12 years, which considering the run that there's been previously to him than other numbered prime ministers, that's a really long block of time. So we do get this moment of government management of Lord North as prime minister for a significant chunk of the century. And it's a busy time for him. It's a difficult time for him. It's really challenging, but he does manage to keep it all together. And although the wars in America, the battles are lost, the colonies become independent, Lord North managed to navigate all of that moment. And eventually the power does seep away and it is, again, debates around America that causes him the most problems. But he's 12 years in power, so it's pretty good, right? It's pretty good. It's pretty good. And do you know what? Fighting a utterly inconceivably complicated war in a distant place with the technology and the tools they had available,

it must have been on anyone, I think. But famously, when he got the news of Yorktown, didn't he just shout, oh God, it's all over? Yeah, something like that. I have to say, actually, sometimes 80th century prime minister politicians give an excellent quote. So they do know how to deliver a line that will reverberate through the history books. Like Walpole, interestingly, he's forced out through a vote of no confidence as a result of mishandling war, interestingly. And so they're gone.

Who follows him? Is it Shelburne or...? We've got Lord Rockingham again, briefly, very briefly, back in, back in for another crack at the whip. So he was number nine, now he's number 13 Prime Minister. He's sadly only Prime Minister for 14 weeks. And it's almost like this kind of missed moment of 18th century history. So a lot of the big 18th century political historians, like Paul Langford and other people like that, single out Rockingham as someone who had this moment of potentially landmark administration. And one of the reasons they really single it out as important is because there's a massive transfer of authority from

one side of the house to the other. And normally there's a kind of little bit of a moving around or blending, but this is what we see now as more of our kind of modern political moment where you pick your party or you pick your side and then you shift when there's a government shift. And that happens with Rockingham. So it could have been this really significant political historical moment, but sadly we'll never know because he dies of flu during an epidemic in the summer of 1762. So he's only 14 weeks in office and then it's an epidemic that gets him. So he's in and out. Interesting. a whole thing lord salisbury almost died david lord george almost died boris johnson almost died okay so rockeam's out in the 18th century they do tend to die rather than almost die they tend to go so then right lord shelburne next um number 14

again another just very brief interlude he's only in office for eight months and three of those is actually when parliament's sitting so again we're getting to choppy times. It looks like things are not going to go well in the House of Commons and Lords. It's a really disastrous term of office. He resigns at the end of it. It just all gives up. And then we get to, well, what could be number 15 in prime ministers.

It's difficult to categorise. It's a coalition. It's interesting. He was brought down because he was extraordinarily generous to the USA. So he's fantastically important, isn't he? Because he gives the USA all the lands east of the Mississippi, which people weren't really expecting. So he turns this young USA into a gigantic continental power with a stroke of a pen. No wonder he's forced from office. God damn it. Well, he has a vision, which, you know, again, with hindsight, you can see that it's a very

interesting move in which he thinks this could be a massive global trading force and if we support the independence of America and we create a trading partnership then this could be economically very fruitful for everybody involved and so he has this idea this kind of vision and of course there's no precedent for that is there there's no real sense of how that could have happened so I think everyone else just thinks he's gone a bit mad and you know better than having the Spanish or the French kind of move back in, I guess, was his point of view. Yes, he wanted to kind of create that buddy system. Anyway, it doesn't work well for him politically, but it's interesting in terms of our kind of politics today.

Now this guy shows up for the first time. Yes, Duke of Portland. And he always sort of disappears slightly because it's a coalition government. So it's almost like, is he really prime minister or not? He has the title, I think, of the first lord of treasury, but he's also got Charles James Fox involved in his administration, who is now the vibrant, feisty, powerful House of Commons orator. Fox is an ardent supporter of an independent America. He is a brilliant debater. an independent America. He is a brilliant debater. He is a wonderful engager of the public. He's seen a lot in the press. He is this political force to be recognised. And he's one of those characters where you think his name is well recognised. Modern politicians love to talk about him and write about him and think about Charles James Fox as though he's this great

ancestor. But he's a commons orator. He's not like Walpole. He's not prime minister for 20 years. He's a bit of a rebel really, I think. Anyway, so he's very important. So Duke of Portland is allegedly our prime minister, but we've also got Charles James Fox, who is there exercising some power. And doesn't the king hate Fox, doesn't he? Yes, absolutely loathes him. Because there's Fox hanging out in his blue and buff uniform of the American Revolutionary Army. It's not really going to make the King particularly happy, is it? So he's looking for someone like Fox who can control the House of Commons and get some business done. Who's it going to be? Yes. So who could it be? Well...

Just before Christmas, 1783. Number 16, Prime Minister of 18th Century, and it is William Pitt the Younger. Arguably one of the most famous Prime Ministers of all of the centuries, I think. Interestingly, though, he's not expected to be very good. He is very young. He's only 24, I think, when he becomes Prime Minister. He is the son of William Pitt, the elder. He's

a career politician. He's only recently really in the House of Commons, but he's come from this legacy now of this really political family. So he's the young guy in the House of Commons. He's not expected to last because of his youth. I mean, this is not a time where really the young men have really been distinguishing themselves in terms of being prime minister. It's a very big and remarkable change, but he does stick around and he proves to be a very effective and longstanding prime minister. And he's prime minister for 17 years. So it's almost like a Walpole kind of reign and the only one to get anywhere near Walpole in terms of his tenure. And of course, over that long period of time, there's a lot that Pitt does. I don't think you can really say he's one kind of politician

because he is involved in a huge amount of different kinds of administration, of passage of bills, of issues of business. But I think one of the things that we would probably see him as is someone who is trying to create a successful administration, a successful form of government. He's interested in reform, of management, of professional behaviours. And some of that is exacerbated by a caricature system where he's seen as the sober one and Charles James Fox is seen as the loose and loud one. So it's partly about their reputation and how that was kind of being framed. But I think there is a lot in that, that Pitt is, he's a very dedicated, hardworking politician. And that is pretty much all he does really, is he becomes

prime minister and it exhausts him. In his forties, he's totally shattered. And actually he pops back again later for a brief time as prime minister, but that basically ends in his death and this political career, because I think he gives it all to politics. He's incredibly hardworking and professional. So that is how I see him. But yeah, he does lots of other stuff as well. Remarkable figure. Now, because 18th centuryists always chop off

the first 15 years of the 19th century. Yeah, how far should we go? Let's just steal the 19th century, because while we've got you, Hannah, let's just quickly, we've got Henry Addington who pops in briefly after William Pitt. And then back to Pitt again. So it's a little bit of a switcheroo. So let's just get through that and then that'll kind of set us up for the 19th century, won't it? So 1800-1801, it's the end of Pitt's tenure as 17-year Stentor's Prime Minister. It's a really important moment, actually, the end of his time, because he creates the union between Britain and Ireland in 1801. And that actually also changes the shape of the House

of Commons in the 19th century, because we get representation from Ireland as well a little bit later on. It's also one of the reasons that Peirce's tenure ends, because he believes that there should be Catholic representation, that there should be Catholic emancipation, and they should have the right to sit in office in government. And this is opposed by George III, who very firmly believes the opposite. And that is the end of Pitt and George III's longstanding collaboration and relationship is an issue over the Act of Union and Catholic emancipation. So Pitt resigns over the issue. And that's the end of him for now. Well, Pitt was right, I suppose, and Catholic emancipation will be Pitt resigns over the issue. And that's the end of him for now.

Well, Pitt was right, I suppose. And Catholic emancipation will be forced on a reluctant British government only 20-something years later. So the old George III. Yeah, but it's a reminder of the legacy of monarchical relationships about the longer history that's underpinning all of this kind of 18th century moment. But he's off. And then Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth is next up he has a brief spell kind of three years in office but he really struggles to command the control in parliament that Pitt secured that there was really the key to Pitt's success so he doesn't stay for very long he resigns because he can't control the houses and William Pitt's back from

1804 to 1806 so it's like is he going to have another moment of greatness is this going to be the next setting up into the 19th century but sadly he dies in office his liver was a wreck yeah dies in office age 46 and that's it game over yeah and then we got a couple of short ones we got grenville the government of all the talents which was actually an insult wasn't it the people now try and say we need to have government of all the talents, which was actually an insult, wasn't it? People now try and say we need to have government of all the talents. Yeah, lots of the terminologies that were used at the time are insults. The ministry of all the talents was actually prime minister was a term of insult for most of the 18th century. The idea that one minister should have all of the power was not something that was to be highly regarded.

It was originally a term of abuse. Other terms, the great commoner that was applied both to Walpole and to Pitt later that was seen as also a term of abuse because you haven't got your seat in the house of lords what kind of guy are you if you haven't got your legacy of property ownership and things like that but both of them turned that terminology to their favour and the same way that idea of ministry of all talents was a kind of criticism but it's now been adopted as if it's this great model of success. So Grenville cousin of, very much keeping Pitt's tradition alive in terms of foreign policy, government, all that sort of stuff.

Yep, so Grenville is next. He's Pitt's cousin, keeping it in the family, very much in the Pittite tradition. And actually, the end of his office is similar to what Pitt experienced a few years before. So Grenville suggests that Catholics should be allowed to serve in the army up to high rank. And George III is again, not happy. He asks his ministers to pledge that they

will not continue to raise this issue about the Catholics and their position in the state. And so the government resigns because they are probably not prepared to do that. So that is the end of Grenville. And then... It's the old safe pair of hands back in the game now. Yeah. Duke of Portland's back again. So I guess this is George III trying to find someone who's going to steady the ship again. So he stays the ship. Britain all hands the pumps, really. Some of the darkest days of the war against Napoleon, lots of victories on the continent. And then a very dark episode in British history, because beside all the bizarre and

prodigal and frankly mad people we've had as Prime Minister of this country, only one has been assassinated, and that's this next one, Spencer Percival. Okay, so George III's hoping the Duke of Portland's going to be a safe pair of hands, but he makes a bit of a mistake. He's an elderly gentleman. And actually, like some of the others before him, he dies in office. So next up, into the early 19th century now is Spencer Percival, who is important and distinguished for being the only prime minister to be assassinated whilst in office. So he has a very dramatic and interesting intervention as a prime minister in our long history of prime ministers. Yeah, I mean, grim times, the polling at war not going very well.

And then he's assassinated someone with a grievance, basically just walks into Parliament and shoots him. Yes. Extraordinary. It is extraordinary. I think it's also extraordinarily successful because there's quite a lot of assassination attempts on different people in the course of the 18th century

and early 19th century. I mean, there's an attempt on George III's life at one point in the theatre. Someone tries to stab him once and he tries to get out of a carriage. You know, it's a pretty hazardous old business being in London in the 18th and early 19th century. But yes, Spencer Percival has the unfortunate experience of actually being successful. It's a merchant who turns up and shoots him in the parliamentary lobby. So it's very poignant as well.

There's a sense in which this, oh, who knows what kind of prime minister he might have been. And the turn of the century, you know, time of change. And as always, the government's looking terrified about threats from the radicals, from the revolutionaries, from the Irish separatists. And in fact, it's just a really annoyed merchant who ends up striking the blow. Yes. Yeah, someone they hadn't been expecting, people with grievances and access to politicians. I mean, that's one of the facets of 18th century political life is that Parliament is considered to represent the people, that even though there's lots of lords and aristocrats hanging out there, they do see it as their important public office and public duty to represent their constituents. constituents should have access easy access to their representatives in parliament either at their country seats or in london there's a lot of lobbying going on there's a lot of movement around the streets there's a lot of freedom there's just people walking carriages that you can walk in and out of the house of commons and their house of lords there's one case in the 18th century where they're doing voting in their house of commons and what you do is you just divide the

house whatever and there were a couple of visitors in there and they just joined in. And it was only after a while that they realised they weren't actually MPs and they were being counted in the votes and divisions. So it's just been popped in for a look, you know, oh, this is nice. What are we doing here? So it's a very porous, open space as well. You could visit, you could watch from the chambers. Women could watch the debates as well for much of the 18th century. And so it's a very open, busy public space. There's places to eat and drink there. There's a lot of movement.

It's legacy of Westminster Palace. It's a shabby old building. So it has that air of possible for anyone to be hiding around the corner. And that's what happens. Very different to now on both sides of the Atlantic when our public institutions are like fortresses. Hannah, that was amazing. Thank you very much indeed. That was a tour de force. We have

smashed through almost 100 years of Prime Ministerial history. Thank you for coming on the podcast. Thank you very much for having me, Dan. That's all from Dr Hannah Gregg and me. Don't forget to look out for part two of our tour de force of British Prime Ministers tomorrow with the brilliant Dr Robert Saunders, who's a reader in modern British history at Queen Mary University London.

He'll be taking us through the 19th and 20th century. We've got some big names, you might have heard of them. We've got the Robert Peels, the William Gladstones, the Lloyd Georges, the Churchills. Woo! It's going to be exciting. you