Rightly or wrongly, I always tell my students that the modern prime
ministership began with the reappointment of William Pitt the younger
in 1804--on the understanding that he would be "an avowed and real
Minister , possessing the chief weight in the Council, and the
principal place in the confidence of the King .... [with] no rivality
or division of power.... [because] that power must rest in the person
generally called the First Minister, and that Minister ought . . .to be
the person at the head of the finances [i.e. the First Lord of the
Treaury]." Earl Stanhope, LIFE OF WILLIAM PITT (1879), reprinted in
Schuyler and Weston, CARDINAL DOCUMENTS IN ENGLISH HISTORY (Anvil,
1961).
Michael Landon
Dept of History
Univ. of Mississippi