Robert Walpole Becomes First Prime Minister

April 3, 1721

The Norfolk squire, resurrected from political ruin by the South Sea crash he alone had seemed to see coming, took the Treasury and did not let it go for twenty-one years. He refused the title prime minister as an insult, while inventing the office. Cabinet government had quietly begun. His formula was simple and effective: keep the king pleased, keep taxes low, and keep Britain out of war.