Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford (13 April 1732 – 5 August 1792), styled The Honourable Frederick North before 1752 and Lord North between 1752 and 1790, being best known to history by the latter title, was a British statesman who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1770 to 1782. Aligned with the Whigs from 1754, he had developed strong Tory sympathies by the time he became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1767. North is most often remembered for losing the 13 colonies in the American Revolutionary War. The war ended in 1783 with the Treaty of Paris, as part of which Britain recognised American independence.
North's reputation among historians has varied wildly, reaching its lowest point in the late 19th century, when he was depicted as a creature of King George III and an incompetent who lost the American colonies. In the early 20th century a revised view emerged which emphasised his strengths in administering the Treasury, handling the House of Commons, and in defending the Church of England. The historian Herbert Butterfield, however, argued that his indolence was a barrier to efficient crisis management; he neglected his role in supervising the entire war effort.
Frederick North was born in London on 13 April 1732 at the family house at Albemarle Street, just off Piccadilly. He spent much of his youth at Wroxton Abbey in Oxfordshire. North's strong resemblance to King George III suggested to contemporaries that George III's father, Frederick, Prince of Wales, might have been North's real father, making North the king's half-brother, a theory compatible with the prince's reputation but supported by little else other than the circumstantial evidence.
King George IV remarked that "either his royal grandfather or North's mother must have played her husband false", North's father, Francis North, 1st Earl of Guilford, was from 1730 to 1751 Lord of the Bedchamber to Frederick, Prince of Wales, who stood as godfather to the infant, christened Frederick, possibly in honour of his real father.
North was descended from Henry Montagu, 1st Earl of Manchester, paternal uncle of Edward Montagu, 1st Earl of Sandwich and was related to Samuel Pepys and the 3rd Earl of Bute. He at times had a slightly turbulent relationship with his father, Francis, yet they were very close. In his early years the family were not wealthy, though their situation improved in 1735 when his father inherited property from his cousin.
Frederick's mother, Lady Lucy Montagu, a daughter of George Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax, and his first wife, Ricarda Posthuma Saltonstall, died in 1734. His father remarried, but his stepmother, Elizabeth Kaye, widow of George Legge, Viscount Lewisham, eldest son of William Legge, 1st Earl of Dartmouth and his wife, Lady Anne Finch, third daughter of Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Aylesford, died in 1745, when Frederick was thirteen. One of his stepbrothers was William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth, who remained a close friend for life.
He was educated at Eton College between 1742 and 1748 and at Trinity College, Oxford, where in 1750 he was awarded an MA. After leaving the University of Oxford he travelled in Europe on a Grand Tour with Lord Dartmouth. They stayed in Leipzig for nearly nine months, studying under Leipzig University professor of constitutional law Johann Jacob Mascov. They continued through Austria and Italy, staying in Rome from December 1752 to Easter 1753, then through Switzerland to Paris, returning to England in early 1754.
On 15 April 1754 North, then 22, was elected unopposed as the member of Parliament for Banbury. He served as an MP from 1754 to 1790 and joined the government as a junior Lord of the Treasury on 2 June 1759 during the Pitt–Newcastle ministry (an alliance between the Duke of Newcastle and William Pitt the Elder). He soon developed a reputation as a good administrator and parliamentarian and was generally liked by his colleagues. Although he initially considered himself a Whig, he did not closely align with any of the Whig factions in Parliament, and it became obvious to many contemporaries that his sympathies were largely Tory.
He was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the 1st Somerset Militia on 23 June 1759 when it was embodied for fulltime service, and commanded it in the West Country for Earl Poulett, the colonel, who was also Lord Lieutenant of Somerset. However, North resigned in November 1761 and concentrated on his political career.
In November 1763, he was chosen to speak for the government concerning the radical MP John Wilkes. Wilkes had made a savage attack on both the Prime Minister and the King in his newspaper The North Briton, which many thought libellous. North's motion for Wilkes to be expelled from the House of Commons passed by 273 votes to 111. Wilkes' expulsion took place in his absence, as he had already fled to France following a duel.
When a government headed by the Whig magnate Charles Watson-Wentworth, Lord Rockingham, came to power in 1765, North left his post and served for a time as a backbench MP. He turned down an offer by Rockingham to rejoin the government, not wanting to be associated with the Whig grandees that dominated the Ministry.
He returned to office when Pitt returned to head a second government in 1766. North was appointed Joint Paymaster of the Forces in Pitt's ministry and became a Privy Counsellor. As Pitt was constantly ill, the government was effectively run by Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, with North as one of its most senior members.
In December 1767 he succeeded Charles Townshend as Chancellor of the Exchequer. With the resignation of the secretary of state Henry Seymour Conway in early 1768, North became Leader of the Commons as well. He continued to serve when Pitt was succeeded by Grafton in October.
When the Duke of Grafton resigned as Prime Minister, North formed a government on 28 January 1770. His ministers and supporters tended to be known as Tories, though they were not a formal grouping and many had previously been Whigs. He took over with Great Britain in a triumphant state following the Seven Years' War, which had seen the First British Empire expand to a peak by taking in vast new territories on several continents. Circumstances forced him to keep many members of the previous cabinet in their jobs, despite their lack of agreement with him. In contrast to many of his predecessors, North enjoyed a good relationship with George III, partly based on their shared patriotism and desire for decency in their private lives.
North's ministry had an early challenge with the Falklands Crisis in 1770. Great Britain faced a Spanish attempt to remove the British settlement at Port Egmont on the Falkland Islands, nearly provoking a war. Both France and Spain had been left unhappy by Great Britain's perceived dominance following the British victory in the Seven Years' War. Spanish forces seized the British settlement on the Falklands and expelled the small British garrison. When Britain opposed the seizure, Spain sought backing from her ally France which King Louis XV of France was reluctant to give. The Spanish then chose to reach a negotiated settlement with the British. Louis also dismissed the Duc de Choiseul, the hawkish Chief Minister of France, who had advocated war and a large invasion of Great Britain by the French.
Most of North's government was focused first on the growing problems with the American colonies. Later on, it was preoccupied with conducting the American War of Independence that broke out in 1775 with the Battle of Lexington. Following the Boston Tea Party in 1773, Lord North proposed a number of legislative measures that were supposed to punish the Bostonians. These measures were known as the Coercive Acts in Great Britain, while dubbed the Intolerable Acts in the colonies. By shutting down the Boston government and cutting off trade, he hoped they would keep the peace and dispirit the rebellious colonists. Instead, the acts further inflamed Massachusetts and the other colonies, eventually resulting in open war during the Boston campaign of 1775–76.