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

Episode Date: April 4, 2021

We're heading back to the Eighteenth century as 300 years ago Sir Robert Walpole became the first prime minister. In this first episode of our Prime Minister's season, 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.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. This is one of my favourite subjects on this podcast today. We are returning to the 18th century. The best century, folks. The best century. And by 18th century, I obviously mean 1688 to 1815. All 18th century historians nick the best bits of the previous and following centuries. Why not? We're heading back to the 18th century because 300 years ago, this week, Sir Robert Walpole became the King's First Minister. The term Prime Minister came to be used as an insult, a sort of implication that they were power-hungry, would-be despots. But the term stuck and by the early 20th century officially entered statutes, entered the British constitution, don't at me, as a real job, as a

description of the leader of the executive branch on behalf of the sovereign. So Robert Walpole was Prime Minister for 20 years. In this podcast, to mark this gigantic 300th anniversary, we are going to be talking about Prime Ministers. We're going on a whirlwind tour. This is the first of several parts of our Prime Minister season. It will culminate in us talking to somebody who was a Prime Minister of this country. Yes, coming on history hit, a former British Prime Minister. It's going to be awesome. So check it out. We're going all in. We're going all in on this Prime Minister birthday. They're such popular people. Why would you not want to do that? You'll be hearing in this first episode from the very brilliant Dr. Hannah Gregg.

She's a historian of 18th century Britain. She's been on here before because she does things like advise Poldark on historical accuracy. She's got her own podcast. She writes books about fashionable society in Georgian England. She's totally brilliant. She tells me off on the many occasions I get things wrong. She tells it as it is, and she's come on now, and we're going to rampage through the long 18th century prime ministers, from Walpole all the way up to that other very long-serving prime minister, Lord Liverpool. It's a whirlwind tour, folks. You're going to absolutely love this. Then we've got the very brilliant Robert Saunders coming on next time. He teaches at the School of History, Queen Mary University of London, and he's going to take us through the rest of the 19th and the

early 20th century. Then we're going to have someone else doing the 20th century partitions. I mean, I hope you love Prime Ministers because that's what we're selling over the next few weeks. So get your fill. If you want to go back and watch documentaries about the 18th century, which you probably do, the only place realistically you can do that in the world is HistoryHit.tv. Go to HistoryHit.tv. It's like a Netflix for history. Unlike a little thin fare you might get on other channels, this has got proper history for proper history fans. You head over there, and then you subscribe subscribe and you can support everything we're doing. We went out on a boat on the Thames Estuary this week looking at forts, all thanks to you guys. So

thank you for your support. Anyone who's interested in joining, please do. It's great to have you on. Join the tens of thousands of people subscribing. Historyhit.tv. But in the meantime, folks, here is Hannah Gregg talking about prime ministers. Hannah, it's great to have you on the podcast. Hi, Dan. It's a big anniversary, eh? 300 is, well, is it? I mean, this is the problem with bloody British history. Is it the 300th anniversary of the office of prime minister? 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

who 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 Mantel's, 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 Stanhope 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 organized a bit more professional and by the 1720s that power becomes pretty firmly entrenched i guess that's organized it's kind of interesting what they 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, enacting 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 so well he liked to be a bit of a backseat driver after as well didn't he stand up 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've got Newton and all 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 he 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 out 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 who'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 i know which is 10 times the number of children that i have so it's got he's one of 19

siblings you're gonna count them should we look them up do you have one do you have 1.9 children no he's 20 he's one he's okay so he's the 20th right i was gonna say man but i've met your kids and they both seem i'm like 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 it's 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 comm 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 their lives whereas war pawn 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 yeah 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 the key to george i is his mistress not his wife yes and that was my expression is a good norfolk so you get the right sow by the ear after 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 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. I mean, 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 what it's all about interesting things happen as well in his tenure so he creates the first standardized loaf of bread shape because he recognizes that people need to be well fed in order to reduce social conflicts and public tension he 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 gonna 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 ten it's a bit of a whirlwind so 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 you cast 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 it's like the older one takes over oh yeah 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 i mean prime minister but he's an 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 sixth 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 new castle administration it's sometimes called the pit new castle 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 their 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 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 pitts of course become this massive political dynasty their name which most people would recognize 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 being a big noise basically as william pitt 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? Because George II dies 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 do 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. And 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. 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 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 the public he's unpopular in parliament he just can 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.

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Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. 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 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 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 gonna do my own thing and go crazy yeah so george iii is 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 they excluded his son from the succession and found a fairly random German to be king, like my ancestors. So 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 I who spoke to his ministers in Latin. Also, the significance of maintaining this crown and securing a more stable succession going forward. And 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? Yeah, I know. Well, as they blend into one, I forgot to ask you my little quiz and see if you know. It's a test you ate at Century Knowledge Dam, which is where do you think Walpole went to school? Walpole. Don't tell me you went to Eton. Yeah. Where do you think Lord Bute went to school? Oh, OK. Did he go to Eton College? He did. Where did George Gavel 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

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 written 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 refused 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

Grenfell 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 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 take a message don't worry i'm not going to tax the paper but just to remind you that we are going to tax whatever you 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 got all these administrations we got five administrations that last yeah 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 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 bolshie and career

politicians so rockingham is not the answer to our problems here no rockingham's not the answer to problems so george the thought is like oh this is going very well is that i'm just not getting a very good handle on this so he gets rid of him and. And now he turns to William Pitt, 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. 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 Thayer's 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 elevates 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 hardnoblement. 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 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 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 organizing 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. Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient egypt and avoid the poisoner's cup in renaissance florence each week on echoes of history we uncover the epic stories that inspire assassin's creed we're stepping into feudal japan in our special series chasing shadows where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer.

Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. 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. Like, 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 the 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, the other number of 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 powers will 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 politicians give an excellent quote. So they do now have 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. There's a whole thing. Lord Salisbury almost died. David Lloyd George almost died. Boris Johnson almost died. Okay, so Rockingham'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. Number 14. Again, another just very brief interlude. He's only in office for eight months and three of those is actually only 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 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. 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. 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 loves 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 can it be? Well, just before Christmas, 1783. Number 16, Prime Minister of the 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, 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. 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, passage of bills, 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 century is always chop off the first 15 years of the 19th century yeah how far should we go the long yeah let's just well let's just steal the 19th century because well we got you hannah let's just quickly we 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, 17 years since his 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 Pitt'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. It 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 forced on a reluctant British government only 20-something years later. Yes. Silly 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 that was really the key to Pitt's success. 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 that 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 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 uh 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 yeah lots of the terminologies that were used at the time are insults the ministry 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 insults

for most of the 18th century like the idea that one minister should have all of the power was not something that was to be highly regarded it was originally the 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 I did Ministry of Oral 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 Pitt, 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 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 country only one has been assassinated and that's this next one spencer percival okay so george iii 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 with 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 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, this sense in which this, oh, who knows what kind of prime minister he might have been, and the turn of the century, time of change. And as always, the government's looking

terrified about threats from the radicals from the revolutionaries from the irish separatists in fact it's just a really annoyed merchant who ends up striking the blow yes yes 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 in carriages. You can walk in and out of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. There's one case in the 18th century where they're doing voting in the House of Commons. And what you do is you just divide the house or whatever. And there were a couple of visitors in there and they just joined in. 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 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. Tell everyone about your new brilliant podcast. So we've got a new podcast, not about politicians, but about the History Film Club,

it's called. And it's for anyone who loves period dramas. We talk to historians, filmmakers, scriptwriters, actors about how history is transferred onto screen. I cannot wait to come and have a real in the flesh night out with all you guys. We'll watch some historical films. Dan is a member of the History Film Club, so we will be having a party eventually and inviting all of our guests. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. so much. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone and finished. Hi everyone, thanks for reaching the end of this podcast. Most of you are probably asleep, so I'm talking to your snoring forms, but anyone who's awake, it would be great if you could do me a quick favour, head over to wherever you get your podcasts and rate it five stars and then leave a nice

glowing review. It makes a huge difference for some reason to how these podcasts do. Madness, I know, but them's the rules. Then we go further up the charts, more people listen to us and everything will be awesome. So thank you so much. Now sleep well. you