Granville, Earl Gower and the post of Lord Privy Seal

Description:Earl Gower’s response to Pitt’s request tells us about ‘the motives’ which induced him ‘to enter again into his Majesties service’. Earl Gower re-entered national politics in 1767 as Lord President of the Council, an office in which he served until 1779 and was again appointed to in 1783 at the beginning of the Pitt administration. Gower suggests that he returned to political office in order to ‘contribute towards removing’ those who held principles of which he had ‘the worst opinion’. In addition, he states that his aim was to provide ‘my little assistance’ to those who held good principles ‘who I thought were most likely to give ease to the Kings mind & relief to this debilitated country’. Gower summarises that ‘in short I had the most perfect confidence in the intentions and abilities of yourself & my friend the Chancellor’.

Gower accepts Pitt’s suggestion, writing that ‘anything that will contribute to strengthen & support the present administration, I would readily come into’. However, he is concerned about the appearance of his ‘removing to what is esteem’d an inferior office’, suggesting that ‘one must therefore be cautious in the mode of doing it’. He wishes that ‘nothing may be done respecting this change of office till I arrive in town’ and ‘that it may be a request of my own’, expressing his concern that ‘in any other mode, it may by the world be thought a disgrace’. As Gower’s letter demonstrates, much of public life at this time depended on maintaining an honourable appearance. Granville, Earl Gower was rewarded for his political loyalty by Pitt in 1786 when he was created the first Marquis of Stafford.