In a recent message regarding Lord North, Michael Bennett writes:
>> Further to Daniel Szechi, the reference to him as a 'noble
>> commoner' relates to the fact that Lord North was a
>> courtesy title' which he assumed after his father was
>> created earl of Guilford in 1752. He did not formally
>> succeed to the titles until his father's death in 1790. Thus
>> North remained a member of the House of Commons. If the
>> reference is after the dismissal of the North-Fox ministry
>> at the end of 1783, the reference has a further point
>> because it was widely assumed that North would be given a
>> peerage to get him out of the Commons. North himself refers
>> to the possibility of his being 'kicked upstairs'(the earliest
>> use of that expression I have seen.)
The expression "kicked upstairs" had (first?) been used a hundred years
earlier, in 1684, by George Savile, Marquis of Halifax and Lord Privy Seal,
to refer to the transfer of Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, from his
position as First Lord of the Treasury to the much less effective office of
Lord President of the Council.
Richard Millard