Horace Walpole asserts that when Pulteney wished to withdraw from the peerage it was forced upon him by the king, and another chronicler of the times records that when Walpole and Pulteney met in the House of Lords, the one as Earl of Orford, the other as Earl of Bath, the remark was made by Orford: "Here we are, my lord, the two most insignificant fellows in England." On 14 July 1742 Pulteney was created Baron Pulteney of Heydon, Viscount Pulteney of Wrington, Somerset, and Earl of Bath. On 20 February he had been restored to his rank in the privy council. At Wilmington's death in 1743 he made application to the king for the post of First Lord of the Treasury, only to find that it had been conferred on Henry Pelham.