In the first decade of George III’s reign, six men held the office of prime minister, better known at the time as chief or first minister. They had little in common other than slender competency and an unsteady handling of Parliament. In 1770 the king turned to a childhood playmate—he and North had acted together in a schoolboy production of Joseph Addison’s Cato—and a political partnership began that would endure through a dozen difficult years. George knew he had his man when he wrote North
