Turmoil in Downing Street and a rapid turnover of Prime Ministers is not new. It has been part of the system since the 18th century and depends much on personalities as on events. In the 305 years since Sir Robert Walpole became First Lord of the Treasury and de facto Prime Minister, there have been 58 holders of the office, if Lord Bath and Lord Waldegrave are excluded, as they usually are (Bath was given the seals of office as First Lord of the Treasury, but returned them after 48 hours in 1746 as he could not form a government, while Waldegrave tried for five days in 1757 in similar circumstances and also failed).
Waldegrave’s mini prime ministership came in a period almost as volatile as our own. From 1756 to 1766, the Duke of Newcastle was replaced by the Duke of Devonshire in 1757, who was briefly succeeded by Waldegrave, who was then superseded by a returning Newcastle. He lasted five years, including over the transition from George II to George III, until the Earl of Bute took his place for just under a year before Grenville assumed office until 1765, when the Marquis of Rockingham kissed hands, only to be replaced by William Pitt the Elder.
Thus in ten years there were seven complete appointments of a Prime Minister and one aborted one. During this period the country did rather well, even though it was at war for much of it. The Seven Years’ War, which Pitt strongly supported, ran from 1756 to 1763, and included the great and famous year of victories, 1759, when successes such as Pondicherry secured India and the wonderful generalship of Wolfe’s victory at Quebec removed the French threat from Canada. War obviously has an economic cost and adds to taxation, which is never popular, so was part of the reason for the instability.
Personal factors also mattered. Pitt was the driving force of the time, a much bigger political figure than any of his rivals, possibly on the scale of Boris Johnson in terms of his charisma and popular appeal. He was loved by the people and known as the Great Commoner. It was down to him that England was victorious in the Seven Years’ War, and it was said in 1759 that “The church bells were worn threadbare with ringing for victories”.
Yet Pitt was not a collegiate man, and George III disliked him because he had, in his view, betrayed his father, Frederick, Prince of Wales, by serving George II. Hanoverian fathers rarely got on with their sons. Thus George I hated George II, who likewise loathed his heir Frederick Prince of Wales, the father of George III. In this context anyone who abandoned Frederick to support George II was deemed to be a traitor by George III.
Pitt was also mad, not just as a term of political abuse, but in the sense that in a modern age he would probably have been certified. On some occasions he could not bear to see anyone at all, so his food was simply taken to his room by a footman and he would eat it alone. As the footman brought the food in, Pitt would be looking out of the window, as he could not bear even to see anyone else. Perhaps understandably, George III did not want this man to be his Prime Minister, so avoided it by giving his tutor Bute the role once he had eased out Newcastle.
It was also a period of political transition. Boswell recorded Johnson saying, “Walpole was a minister given by the King to his people: Pitt was a minister given by the people to the King”. This epigram illustrates the constitutional development that was taking place at the time, although one it is easier to spot in retrospect.
Although the country was a long way from reform, the position of prime minister was moving from being one purely of royal patronage, but a place that needed popular support as well. The age of Walpole and Pelham had gone, the King’s ministers who knew how to control the Commons, and now the Commons was more sensitive to popular demands, and a king might well have to appoint a prime minister who was not his first choice.
