Sir Dudley, styled by Macaulay "one of the ablest men of his time," was the third surviving son of Lord North, Baron of Kirtling, and was born on the 16th May 1641. He received at Bury and at a writing school in London an education which fitted him for a mercantile life. Being then bound to a Turkey merchant, he was soon afterwards sent out to Smyrna as a factor. The young trader began his career with a scantily-stocked warehouse, but with a determination to make a fortune which might enable him to close his days in ease and luxury at home. Though naturally fond of frolic and pleasure, he kept himself apart from profligate companions, lived with the most careful thrift, and turned all the faculties of his powerful mind upon the duties of his calling. But it was not until in course of time he had been engaged to take the management of an embarrassed factory at Constantinople that he obtained any prospect of success. After collecting the debts of his employer, he established himself in a factory of his own, and began to achieve success by an artful system of policy. He sought the acquaintance of the various foreign ambassadors at Constantinople; he did not hesitate to conciliate the Turks by accommodating his conduct to their superstitions; and he employed all the strategems of trade with an ability which the most wily Jew could not overreach. The result was, that in 1680 the great object of his life had been gained, and he was on his way home to England. Dudley North had not been long settled in London when his profound knowledge both of the theory and practice of commerce was the means of introducing him into public notice. He was advanced to the office of sheriff, and proved himself a most efficient and unscrupulous tool of the dominant Tory faction. His services were rewarded with a knighthood, an alderman's gown, and the post of a commissioner of the customs. Returned to Parliament for Banbury in 1685, he rendered himself unfavourably distinguished by proposing and carrying a tax on sugar and tobacco. But the most permanent cause of his reputation was the publication, in 1691, of his Discourses on Trade, a work which is said by Mr M'Culloch to contain "a much more able statement of the true principles of commerce than any that had then appeared." The author died on the 31st December of the same year.

Francis, Baron Guildford, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, was the elder brother of the preceding, and was born on the 22nd October 1637. From the school of Bury he passed, in 1653, to St John's College, Cambridge, and after studying there for two years as a fellow-commoner, he became a member of the Middle Temple. Young North began his legal career with all that concentration of purpose which distinguished his family. His volatile disposition and his passion for pleasure were kept in check; and, setting himself doggedly to the study of law, he endeavoured to subject all his propensities to the calm control of self-interest. The same line of policy was pursued when he had been called to the bar in 1661, and began to travel the circuit. No kind of influence was thought too insignificant to be won. He truckled to the prejudices of the judges; fawned upon those whose hands were full of briefs; and sometimes chose to ride and starve with a certain miserly sergeant named Earl, in order that he might draw from the large experience of his fellow-traveller an account of all the tricks and subtleties of law. By such means the time-serving aspirant soon acquired a proficiency and reputation which combined to lead him on to the highest legal preferments. He was appointed solicitor-general in 1671, attorney-general in 1673, and lord chief justice of the Common Pleas in 1675. At length, in 1682, the Great Seal was intrusted to his keeping. In this high position, where he was the object of general attention, and at this time, when the political world was torn into two factions, North stood prominently out as the most temporizing of the Trimmers. With that low species of tact which cowardice supplies, he shunned every occasion and every company where he might be betrayed into an express statement of his political creed. The letter of the law was the moral code by which he justified his public conduct, and allegiance to the sovereign was the virtue with which he covered his private bearing. It was only when he was sinking into the grave amid general neglect and distrust, that he first showed courage, by warning the infatuated James II. of the ruin towards which the government was tending. His death took place on the 5th September 1685.

The Lives of Dudley and Francis North, and of Dr John North, a younger son of the same family, written by their brother Roger North, were published in 2 vols. 4to, 1740-42, and republished in 3 vols., London, 1826. The biographer, although a partial, self-conceited gossip, and a bigoted Tory, unconsciously blabs out now and then many little circumstances which silently cancel his absurd eulogies, and exhibit his heroes in their real characters. (See also Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, and Macaulay's History of England.)

Frederick, Earl of Guildford, the favourite minister of George III., was of the same family as the preceding, and was born on the 13th April 1733. After receiving his education at Eton, and at Trinity College, Oxford, he resided for some time on the Continent preparing himself for his future career. An early entrance into Parliament was followed by a gradual rise through several cabinet offices, until in 1769 he became chancellor of the exchequer, and leader of the House of Commons, under the ministry of the Duke of Grafton. His success in this high position soon proved that he was a proficient in parliamentary strategy. Accordingly, on the resignation in 1770 of the nobleman at the head of the ministry, he was requested to assume the vacant office. The readiness with which North obeyed the request, and relieved the embarrassed mind of the king, made him a great favourite with George III., as he was already with the House of Commons. Yet the administration so auspiciously begun soon became remarkable for the calamities it brought upon the nation, and the strong and malignant opposition it excited. The refusal of the ministry to relieve the American colonists from the paltry duty on tea, led to disturbances in 1773 which issued in open rebellion in 1775. Then the Whig Opposition, led on by Burke and Fox, commenced a series of the most virulent attacks that had ever been witnessed in the British senate-house. Not content with execrating the public policy of the minister, they blackened his private character, cast taunts upon his capacity, raked up every family scandal, and even clamoured for his head. The Parliament hall resounded with the most confused and boisterous wrangling. Yet on many a stormy night Lord North fought almost single-handed against his great adversaries, meeting their bold measures with his consummate tact, counteracting the effect of their grand rhetorical displays with his strong common sense, and blunting the edge of their satire with his pungent wit and imperturbable good humour. For six years he thus kept his ground triumphantly. By that time, however, affairs were beginning to draw towards a crisis. The British were shamefully failing in their attempts to suppress the Americans; France and Spain had espoused the cause of the colonists; the public were waxing loud in their indignation against the ministry; and in 1781 William Pitt, entering Parliament, consummated the oratorical strength of the Opposition. Lord North, though he still held his original opinion regarding the justice of the American war, would then willingly have resigned. But he was repeatedly induced