Of the 91 men and one woman who have occupied No 10 Downing Street since 1732, when Sir Robert Walpole moved in at the suggestion of George II, only one so far has come from an Oxfordshire constituency.

He was Frederick, Lord North (1732-92), the reluctant Tory Prime Minister from 1770-82, who is now most famous for losing the American War of Independence.

He was MP for Banbury, a constituency then under the control of his father, the first Earl of Guildford; and he lived at the beautiful Jacobean Wroxton Abbey, Wroxton St Mary, which, ironically, has since 1965 been the English outpost of the American Farleigh Dickinson University of New Jersey.

Lord North’s government started off well enough when he faced down calls for war with Spain and France over the Falklands crisis of 1770, during which a British colony was unceremoniously thrown off the islands by an overwhelming Spanish force sailing from Spain’s dominions in South America.

The attack was intended as step one in a full-scale Franco-Spanish war against Britain, but through diplomacy and an impressive show of power by the British Royal Navy, Louis XV of France got cold feet and backed down – thus allowing Lord North to drive a wedge between his enemies; he even employed Dr Samuel Johnson to write a pamphlet outlining the case for peace.

But that early success was short-lived, and the rest of his ministry was disastrous. He pleaded with George III, who had persuaded him against his better judgement to become Prime Minister in the first place, to allow him to resign; but to no avail.

Abroad, the situation in the American colonies went from bad to worse with defeats at Saratoga in 1777 and at Yorktown in 1781; at home he had to watch the Gordon Riots of 1780, against the repeal of the Catholic Relief Act, from the windows of 10 Downing Street.

The two disasters were related because the old anti-Catholic laws meant that many people were unable to enrol in the army.

The riots left 253 people dead and were sufficiently dreadful for the French and Spanish to again start thinking about attacking a weakened Britain.

Poor Lord North, he has the dubious distinction of being the only Prime Minister forced to resign after a vote of no confidence.

It all seems a little unfair, for Lord North was doggedly loyal to the Hanoverian cause (as opposed to the Stuart Catholic one), as a visit to the delightful village of Wroxton illustrates.

The obelisk on a hillside above his former mansion of Wroxton Abbey records the 1739 visit there of Frederick, Prince of Wales (son of George II and father of George III) who was not popular here and was already 21 when he first came to Britain from Hanover.

Walking round the thatched village of Wroxton last weekend – past All Saints Church which houses Lord North’s tomb (pictured left); then, interestingly, passing a thatched Catholic church founded by one of his descendants; before following the footpath to the obelisk – I could not help envying the American students studying at his former mansion. What a lovely impression of Britain they must get in such surroundings, complete with lakes and neo-Gothic follies.

I could not help pondering on Prince Frederick (1707-51), too, about whom so little is remembered that someone coined an epitaph containing these words: “But since ’tis only Fred, Who was alive, and is dead, There’s no more to be said.”

However, I will add, that he was a cricket fan and some say he died early as a result of an abscess caused by being hit on the head by a cricket ball!