ABSTRACT
To William Pitt a united Government, loyal to the existing arrangements, seemed as needful then as it was in the last years of Queen Anne; and his own claims to a leading position in such a government were incontestable. When he threw in his lot with the Pelhams his ambition had been for a post offering scope for his capacity, and he accepted the Paymastership merely as a stepping-stone, on the understanding that the King’s objections to his attendance in the Closet would be removed. By the year 1754 it appeared unlikely that Pitt would ever marry. He was then forty-six, and physically seemed older, owing to the crippling attacks of gout to which he had been subject during the last few years. At the age of forty-six Pitt suddenly discovered a passionate love for one whom he had known and frequently seen for at least twenty years. Lady Hester, the Grenvilles’ only sister, was then thirty-three.
