This is the sort of book that becomes your friend. Such is Hague's comprehensive mastery of the details and the easy flow of his prose that we are drawn into the world of our hero, his friends and enemies and all the swirl of the political dramas. There are plenty. Probably best of all, superbly told by Hague, is right at the start when Pitt becomes the King's minister on his own terms and then uses all the crown's patronage to turn around a very hostile Commons. It's gripping stuff. As is the drama of the King's madness. Will the dissolute Fox and his prince sweep out the hard working Pitt from Number Ten? We all know the answer, but we still keep on turning the pages.
Hague gives space to Pitt's private life - his concern for his mother, his loyalty to his friends (so his refusal to abandon Melville when he is accused of financial irregularity), the lack of romance in his life, his debts - but we are never far from the dispatch boxes and the politics, because Pitt wasn't. The pressure is relentless. The French Revolution, the ensuing war, Catholic Emancipation, riots, and slowly but surely you sense that Pitt has something heroic about him. He gets the big questions right - inflexible opposition to Jacobinism, security before freedom - and works himself to an early grave for his country. But there is also a touch of Shakespearean tragedy about it all too. When he died many of the causes dear to his heart were flickering in the wind. Napoleon was the undisputed master of Europe after Austerlitz, so there was no end in sight of the war Pitt had vowed to win; this meant more public debt, something he had vowed to reduce; Catholics were still restricted from entering public office, so endangering Ireland, something he had once resigned over; the slave trade which he loathed was still legal; and his command in the Commons was seriously threatened. It would seem events had swept away all that Pitt had stood for. But then our narrator comes onto the stage and shows us the future and we see he had not died in vain. For at least a quarter of a century Pitt's friends ruled Britain and all his causes eventually saw victory. The war was won at Waterloo; Catholics were freed; slavery was abolished; and Pitt's rigorous system in the Treasury became the foundation for Britain's great expansion in the 19th C. His legacy most certainly lived on, even today, as for Hague it is not Peel who is the founder of the Conservative party, but William Pitt The Younger.
Hague gives space to Pitt's private life - his concern for his mother, his loyalty to his friends (so his refusal to abandon Melville when he is accused of financial irregularity), the lack of romance in his life, his debts - but we are never far from the dispatch boxes and the politics, because Pitt wasn't. The pressure is relentless. The French Revolution, the ensuing war, Catholic Emancipation, riots, and slowly but surely you sense that Pitt has something heroic about him. He gets the big questions right - inflexible opposition to Jacobinism, security before freedom - and works himself to an early grave for his country. But there is also a touch of Shakespearean tragedy about it all too. When he died many of the causes dear to his heart were flickering in the wind. Napoleon was the undisputed master of Europe after Austerlitz, so there was no end in sight of the war Pitt had vowed to win; this meant more public debt, something he had vowed to reduce; Catholics were still restricted from entering public office, so endangering Ireland, something he had once resigned over; the slave trade which he loathed was still legal; and his command in the Commons was seriously threatened. It would seem events had swept away all that Pitt had stood for. But then our narrator comes onto the stage and shows us the future and we see he had not died in vain. For at least a quarter of a century Pitt's friends ruled Britain and all his causes eventually saw victory. The war was won at Waterloo; Catholics were freed; slavery was abolished; and Pitt's rigorous system in the Treasury became the foundation for Britain's great expansion in the 19th C. His legacy most certainly lived on, even today, as for Hague it is not Peel who is the founder of the Conservative party, but William Pitt The Younger.
Was there an Clive entanglement amid all this? It would be intriguing to know.
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