No one in late eighteenth century Scotland was as powerful as Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville. Trained as a lawyer, Dundas moved speedily into politics. Solicitor-General at twenty-four, Lord Advocate at thirty-three, Dundas became the 'intimate friend and trusted lieutenant' of the British prime minister, William Pitt. He controlled Scottish elections and patronage and was widely known as 'Harry the Ninth, the uncrowned King of Scotland'.