Fox's "History of the Reign of James II.," which begins with his view of
the reign of Charles II. and breaks off at the execution of Monmouth, was
the beginning of a History of England from the Revolution, upon which he
worked in the last years of his life, for which he collected materials in
Paris after the Peace of Amiens, in 1802--he died in September, 1806--and
which was first published in 1808.
The grandfather of Charles James Fox was Stephen, son of William Fox, of
Farley, in Wiltshire. Stephen Fox was a young royalist under Charles I.
He was twenty-two at the time of the king's execution, went into exile
during the Commonwealth, came back at the Restoration, was appointed
paymaster of the first two regiments of guards that were raised, and
afterwards Paymaster of all the Forces. In that office he made much
money, but rebuilt the church at Farley, and earned lasting honour as the
actual founder of Chelsea Hospital, which was opened in 1682 for wounded
and superannuated soldiers. The ground and buildings had been appointed
by James I., in 1609, as Chelsea College, for the training of disputants
against the Roman Catholics. Sir Stephen Fox himself contributed
thirteen thousand pounds to the carrying out of this design. Fox's
History dealt, therefore, with times in which his grandfather had played
a part.
In 1703, when his age was seventy-six, Stephen Fox took a second wife, by
whom he had two sons, who became founders of two families; Stephen, the
elder, became first Earl of Ilchester; Henry, the younger, who married
Georgina, daughter of the Duke of Richmond, and was himself created, in
1763, Baron Holland of Farley. Of the children of that marriage Charles
James Fox was the third son, born on the 24th of January, 1749. The
second son had died in infancy.
Henry Fox inherited Tory opinions. He was regarded by George II. as a
good man of business, and was made Secretary of War in 1754, when Charles
James, whose cleverness made him a favoured child, was five years old. In
the next year Henry Fox was Secretary of State for the Southern
Department. The outbreak of the Seven Years' War bred discontent and
change of Ministry. The elder Fox had then to give place to the elder
Pitt. But Henry Fox was compensated by the office of Paymaster of the
Forces, from which he knew even better than his father had known how to
extract profit. He rapidly acquired the wealth which he joined to his
title as Lord Holland of Farley, and for which he was attacked
vigorously, until two hundred thousand pounds--some part of the money
that stayed by him--had been refunded.
Henry Fox, Lord Holland, found his boy, Charles James, brilliant and
lively, made him a companion, and indulged him to the utmost. Once he
expressed a strong desire to break a watch that his father was winding
up: his father gave it him to dash upon the floor. Once his father had
promised that when an old garden wall at Holland House was blown down
with gunpowder before replacing it with iron railings, he should see the
explosion. The workmen blew it down in the boy's absence: his father had
the wall rebuilt in its old form that it might be blown down again in his
presence, and his promise kept. He was sent first to Westminster School,
and then to Eton. At home he was his father's companion, joined in the
talk of men at his father's dinner-parties, travelled at fourteen with
his father to the Continent, and is said to have been allowed five
guineas a night for gambling-money. He grew up reckless of the worth of
money, and for many years the excitement of gambling was to him as one of
the necessaries of life. His immense energy at school and college made
him work as hard as the most diligent man who did nothing else, and
devote himself to gambling, horse-racing, and convivial pleasures as
vigorously as if he were the weak man capable of nothing else. The Eton
boys all prophesied his future fame. At Oxford, where he entered
Hertford College, he was one of the best men of his time, and one of the
wildest. A clergyman, strong in Greek, was arguing with young Fox
against the genuineness of a verse of the Iliad because its measure was
unusual. Fox at once quoted from memory some twenty parallels.
From college he went on the usual tour of Europe, spending lavishly,
incurring heavy debts, and sending home large bills for his father to
pay. One bill alone, paid by his father to a creditor at Naples, was for
sixteen thousand pounds. He came back in raiment of the highest fashion,
and was put into Parliament in 1768, not yet twenty years old, as member
for Midhurst. He began his political life with the family opinions,
defended the Ministry against John Wilkes, and was provided promptly with
a place as Paymaster of the Pensions to the Widows of Land Officers, and
then, when he had reached the age of twenty-one, there was a seat found
for him at the Board of Admiralty.
At once Fox made his mark in the House as a brilliant debater with an
intellectual power and an industry that made him master of the subjects
he discussed. Still also he was scattering money, and incurring debt,
training race-horses, and staking heavily at gambling tables. When a
noble friend, who was not a gambler, offered to bet fifty pounds upon a
throw, Fox declined, saying, "I never play for pence."
After a few years of impatient submission to Lord North, Fox broke from
him, and it was not long before he had broken from Lord North's opinions
and taken the side of the people in all leading questions. He became the
friend of Burke; and joined in the attack upon the policy of Coercion
that destroyed the union between England and her American colonies. In
1774, at the age of twenty-five, Fox lost by death his father, his
mother, and his elder brother, who had succeeded to the title, and who
had left a little son to be his heir. In February of that year Lord
North had finally broken with Fox by causing a letter to be handed to him
in the House of Commons while he was sitting by his side on the Treasury
Bench.
"His Majesty has thought proper to order a new commission of the
Treasury to be made out, in which I do not perceive your name. NORTH."
By the end of the year he was member for Malmesbury, and one of the
chiefs in opposition. When Lord North opened the session of 1775 with a
speech arguing the need of coercion, Fox compared what ought to have been
done with what was done, and said that Lord Chatham, the King of Prussia,
nay, even Alexander the Great, never gained more in one campaign than
Lord North had lost. He had lost a whole continent. When Lord North's
ministry fell in 1782, Fox became a Secretary of State, resigning on the
death of Rockingham. In coalition with Lord North, Fox brought in an
India Bill, which was rejected by the Lords, and caused a resignation of
the Ministry. Pitt then came into office, and there was rivalry between
a Pitt and a Fox of the second generation, with some reversal in each son
of the political bias of his father.
In opposing the policy that caused the American Revolution Fox and Burke
were of one mind. He opposed the slave trade. After the outbreak of the
French Revolution he differed from Burke, and resolutely opposed Pitt's
policy of interference by armed force.
William Pitt died on the 23rd January, 1806. Charles James Fox became
again a Secretary of State, and had set on foot negotiations for a peace
with France before his own death, eight months later, at the age of fifty-
seven.
During the last ten or twelve years of his life Fox had withdrawn from
the dissipations of his earlier years. His interest in horse-racing
flagged after the death, in 1793, of his friend Lord Foley, a kindly,
honourable man, upon whose judgment in such matters Fox had greatly
relied. Lord Foley began his sporting life with a clear estate of 1,800
pounds a year, and 100,000 pounds in ready money. He ended his sporting
and his earthly life with an estate heavily encumbered and an empty
pocket.