The award-winning biography of William Pitt the Younger by William Hague, the youngest leader of the Tory Party since Pitt himself.

William Pitt the Younger (1759-1806) dedicated his life to the exercise of power, possessing superb oratory skills, personal probity and a deep understanding of politics. He presided over reforms that set up modern government in Britain. This title shows what Pitt achieved and how he achieved it.

Charles James Fox and William Pitt the Younger were the two political giants of their day - the greatest of orators, and the fiercest of rivals. But did the two men have anything in common? Each was a younger son of distinguished fathers, who themselves had been bitter rivals for power a generation earlier, and each came to prominence at a very young age. Temperamentally, however, they could hardly have been more different. Fox was genial, tolerant, gregarious, self-indulgent, rash, a reckless gambler and a drinking companion of the Prince of Wales (later the Prince Regent and George IV) whereas Pitt was cautious, self-controlled (though also a heavy drinker), calculating, ruthless and misanthropic. Their fates were heavily influenced by their respective relationships with George III, who formed an insensate hostility to Fox, using unconstitutional means to exclude him from power, while favouring Pitt, whom he appointed as Prime Minister at the age of 24, and maintained in office for 17 years (plus a further two years in his second administration). The result was that Fox enjoyed only three very short periods as Foreign Minister, and was effectively Leader of the Opposition for a record 23 years. But he did achieve a late triumph when, following the death of Pitt, he became the dominant member of the `Government of All the Talents' and lived long enough to be able to introduce the bill which abolished the slave trade. Featuring a wide cast of characters, this book sheds new light on the political landscape of Georgian England and two of the leading political players of the age.

Following his earlier surveys of 19th and 20th Century British Prime Ministers, Dick Leonard turns his attention to their 18th Century predecessors, including such major figures as Robert Walpole, the Elder Pitt (Lord Chatham), Lord North and the Younger Pitt.

Robespierre's Reign of Terror spawned an evil little twin in William Pitt the Younger's Reign of Alarm, 1792-1798. Terror begat Alarm. Many lives and careers were ruined in Britain as a result of the alarmist regime Pitt set up to suppress domestic dissent while waging his disastrous wars against republican France. Liberal young writers and intellectuals whose enthusiasm for the American and French revolutions raised hopes for Parliamentary reform at home saw their prospects blasted. Over a hundred trials for treason or sedition (more than ever before or since in British history) were staged against 'the usual suspects' - that is, political activists. But other, informal, vigilante means were used against the 'unusual suspects' of this book: jobs lost, contracts abrogated, engagements broken off, fellowships terminated, inheritances denied, and so on and on. As in the McCarthy era in 1950s America, blacklisting and rumor-mongering did as much damage as legal repression. Dozens of 'almost famous' writers saw their promising careers nipped in the bud: people like Helen Maria Williams, James Montgomery, William Frend, Gilbert Wakefield, John Thelwall, Joseph Priestley, Dr. Thomas Beddoes, Francis Wrangham and many others. Unusual Suspects tells the stories of some representative figures from this largely 'lost' generation, restoring their voices to nationalistic historical accounts that have drowned them in triumphal celebrations of the rise of English Romanticism and England's ultimate victory over Napoleon. Their stories are compared with similar experiences of the first Romantic generation: Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, Lamb, Burns, and Blake. Wordsworth famously said of this decade, 'bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven!' These young people did not find it so-and neither, when we look more closely, did Wordsworth.

George III was a high-profile and well-known character in British history whose policies have often been blamed for the loss of Britain's American colonies, around whom rages a perennial dispute over his aims: was he seeking to restore royal power or merely exercising his constitutional rights?