You may like or loathe the British Empire. But if the aim was to build it, few people did it with such skill or such success as William Pitt the Elder when, at last, he found himself the driving force in government. However, to achieve his goal, he spent huge amounts of money, for which he drove up the national debt to levels many thought unacceptable, because unsustainable. And one of those people was the king.

This is a recurring occurrence in English history. From time to time the cost-cutters take charge. When it comes to bold or dramatic initiatives, that means killing them. The architects of such initiatives are, of course, simply discarded.

So failure was the reward for all Pitt’s success, when he was driven from office.

Illustration: William Pitt after the failure with which his peers and his king had rewarded all his success. After Richard Brompton, based on a work of 1772

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License