Charles James Fox
Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty | |
---|---|
In office 28 February 1770 – 20 February 1772 | |
Prime Minister | Lord North |
Preceded by | Charles Townshend Sir George Yonge, Bt |
Succeeded by | Thomas Bradshaw |
Member of Parliament for Westminster | |
In office 1785–1806 | |
Preceded by | Parliamentary scrutiny |
Succeeded by | Sir Alan Gardner, Bt Earl Percy |
In office 1780–1784 | |
Preceded by | Viscount Malden Lord Thomas Pelham-Clinton |
Succeeded by | Parliamentary scrutiny |
Member of Parliament for Tain Burghs | |
In office 1784–1785 | |
Preceded by | Charles Ross |
Succeeded by | George Ross |
Member of Parliament for Malmesbury | |
In office 1774–1780 | |
Preceded by | Earl of Donegall Hon. Thomas Howard |
Succeeded by | Viscount Fairford Viscount Lewisham |
Member of Parliament for Midhurst | |
In office 1768–1774 | |
Preceded by | John Burgoyne Bamber Gascoyne |
Succeeded by | Herbert Mackworth Clement Tudway |
Personal details | |
Born | London, England | 24 January 1749
Died | 13 September 1806 Whig (Foxite) | (aged 57)
Spouse | Elizabeth Armistead |
Parents | |
Education | Eton College |
Alma mater | Hertford College, Oxford |
Profession | Statesman, abolitionist |
Signature | |
Charles James Fox (24 January 1749 – 13 September 1806), styled
Fox rose to prominence in the
Fox became a prominent and staunch opponent of King
Though Fox had little interest in the actual exercise of power
Early life: 1749–1758
Fox was born in London on 24 January 1749, the second surviving son of
Fox was the darling of his father, who found Charles "infinitely engaging & clever & pretty" and, from the time that his son was three years old, apparently preferred his company at meals to that of anyone else.[4] The stories of Charles's over-indulgence by his doting father are legendary. It was said that Charles once expressed a great desire to break his father's watch and was not restrained or punished when he duly smashed it on the floor. On another occasion, when Henry had promised his son that he could watch the demolition of a wall on his estate and found that it had already been destroyed, he ordered the workmen to rebuild the wall and demolish it again, with Charles watching.[5]
Given carte blanche to choose his own education, Fox in 1758 attended a fashionable
Fox entered
Early career: 1768–1774
Member of Parliament
For the 1768 general election, Henry Fox bought his son a seat in Parliament for the
Between 1770 and 1774, Fox's seemingly promising career in the political establishment was spoiled. He was appointed to the
After 1774, Fox began to reconsider his political position under the influence of Edmund Burke – who had sought out the promising young Whig and would become his mentor – and the unfolding events in America. He drifted from his rather unideological family-oriented politics into the orbit of the Rockingham Whig party.
During this period, Fox became possibly the most prominent and vituperative parliamentary critic of Lord North and the conduct of the American War. In 1775, he denounced North in the Commons as
the blundering pilot who had brought the nation into its present difficulties ...
Lord Chatham, the King of Prussia, nay, Alexander the Great, never gained more in one campaign than the noble lord has lost – he has lost a whole continent.[3]
American Revolution
Fox, who occasionally corresponded with Thomas Jefferson and had met Benjamin Franklin in Paris,[3] correctly predicted that Britain had little practical hope of subduing the colonies and interpreted the American cause approvingly as a struggle for liberty against the oppressive policies of a despotic and unaccountable executive.[3] It was at this time that Fox and his supporters took up the habit of dressing in buff and blue, the colours of the uniforms in Washington's army. Fox's friend, the Earl of Carlisle, observed that any setback for the British Government in America was "a great cause of amusement to Charles."[13] Even after the Battle of Long Island in 1776, Fox stated that
I hope that it will be a point of honour among us all to support the American pretensions in adversity as much as we did in their prosperity, and that we shall never desert those who have acted unsuccessfully upon Whig principles.[14]
On 31 October the same year, Fox responded to the King's address to Parliament with "one of his finest and most animated orations, and with severity to the answered person", so much so that, when he sat down, no member of the Government would attempt to reply.[15]
Fox shared a mutual antipathy with George III, this profoundly shaped Fox's political career. George III was among the most enthusiastic prosecutor of the American Revolutionary War. Fox became convinced, that George III was determined to challenge the authority of parliament and the balance of the constitution established in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 to achieve a continental-style tyranny. George III in return thought that Fox had "cast off every principle of common honour and honesty ... [a man who is] as contemptible as he is odious ... [and has an] aversion to all restraints."[citation needed] It is difficult to find two political figures in British history more greatly contrasted than Fox and George: the former a notorious gambler and rake; the latter famous for his virtues of frugality and family. On 6 April 1780 John Dunning, 1st Baron Ashburton introduced a motion, asking that "The influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished". It was passed by the Commons in a vote of 233 to 215.[16] Fox thought that the motion is "glorious", saying on 24 April that:
the question now was ... whether that beautiful fabric [i.e. the constitution] ... was to be maintained in that freedom ... for which blood had been spilt; or whether we were to submit to that system of despotism, which had so many advocates in this country.[3]
Fox, however, had not been present in the House of parliament for the beginning of the Dunning debate, as he had been occupied in the adjoining eleventh-century
Foreign Secretary: 1782–1783
Fox-North Coalition
When North finally resigned under the strains of office and the disastrous American War in March 1782, after
The
Constitutional crisis
Happily for George, the unpopular coalition would not outlast the year. The
In Fox's own constituency of Westminster, the contest was particularly fierce. An energetic campaign in his favour was run by
However, the King and Pitt had great popular support, and many in the press and general population saw Fox as the trouble-maker challenging the composition of the constitution and the King's remaining powers. He was often caricatured as Oliver Cromwell and Guy Fawkes during this period, as well as Satan.[27]
Opposition: 1783–1797
One of Pitt's first major actions as prime minister was, in 1785, to put a scheme of parliamentary reform before the Commons, proposing to rationalise somewhat the existing, decidedly unrepresentative, electoral system by eliminating thirty-six
In 1787, the most dramatic political event of the decade came to pass in the form of the
The Regency Crisis
In late October 1788, George III descended into a bout of mental illness. He had declared that Pitt was "a rascal" and Fox "his friend".
Fox, however, was incommunicado in Italy as the crisis broke; he had resolved not to read any newspapers while he was abroad, except the racing reports.[33] Three weeks passed before he returned to Britain on 25 November 1788, and then he was taken seriously ill (partly due to the stress of his rapid journey across Europe). He would not recover entirely until December 1789. He again absented himself to Bath from 27 January to 21 February 1789.[34]
When Fox did make it into Parliament, he seemed to make a serious political error. In the Commons on 10 December, he declared that it was the right of the Prince of Wales to install himself as regent immediately. It is said that Pitt, upon hearing this, slapped his thigh in an uncharacteristic display of emotion and declared that he would "unwhig" Fox for the rest of his life. Fox's argument did indeed seem to contradict his lifelong championing of Parliament's rights over the Crown. Pitt pointed out that the Prince of Wales had no more right to the throne than any other Briton, though he might well have a better claim to it as the King's firstborn son. It was Parliament's constitutional right to decide who the monarch could be.
There was more than naked thirst for power in Fox's seemingly hypocritical Tory assertion. Fox believed that the King's illness was permanent, and therefore that George III was, constitutionally speaking, dead. To challenge the Prince of Wales's right to succeed him would be to challenge fundamental contemporary assumptions about property rights and primogeniture. Pitt, on the other hand, considered the King's madness temporary (or, at least, hoped that it would be), and thus saw the throne as temporarily unoccupied rather than vacant.[35]
While Fox drew up lists for his proposed Cabinet under the new Prince Regent, Pitt spun out the legalistic debates over the constitutionality of and precedents for instituting a regency, as well as the actual process of drawing up a
French Revolution
Fox welcomed the French Revolution of 1789, interpreting it as a late Continental imitation of Britain's Glorious Revolution of 1688. In response to the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July, he famously declared, "How much the greatest event it is that ever happened in the world! and how much the best!"[3] In April 1791, Fox told the Commons that he "admired the new constitution of France, considered altogether, as the most stupendous and glorious edifice of liberty, which had been erected on the foundation of human integrity in any time or country."[37] He was thus somewhat bemused by the reaction of his old Whig friend, Edmund Burke, to the dramatic events across the Channel. In his Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke warned that the revolution was a violent rebellion against tradition and proper authority, motivated by Utopian, abstract ideas disconnected from reality, which would lead to anarchy and eventual dictatorship. Fox read the book and found it "in very bad taste" and "favouring Tory principles",[38] but avoided pressing the matter for a while to preserve his relationship with Burke. The more radical Whigs, like Sheridan, broke with Burke more readily at this point.
Fox instead turned his attention – despite the politically volatile situation – to repealing the
Persecution always says, 'I know the consequences of your opinion better than you know them yourselves.' But the language of toleration was always amicable, liberal, and just: it confessed its doubts, and acknowledged its ignorance ... Persecution had always reasoned from cause to effect, from opinion to action, [that such an opinion would invariably lead to but one action], which proved generally erroneous; while toleration led us invariably to form just conclusions, by judging from actions and not from opinions.[39]
Pitt, in turn, came to the defence of the Acts as adopted
by the wisdom of our ancestors to serve as a bulwark to the Church, whose constituency was so intimately connected with that of the state, that the safety of the one was always liable to be affected by any danger which might threaten the other.[39]
Burke, with fear of the radical upheaval in France foremost in his mind, took Pitt's side in the debate, dismissing Nonconformists as "men of factious and dangerous principles", to which Fox replied that Burke's "strange dereliction from his former principles ... filled him with grief and shame". Fox's motion was defeated in the Commons by 294 votes to 105.[40]
Later, Fox successfully supported the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791, extending the rights of British Catholics. He explained his stance to his Roman Catholic friend, Charles Butler, declaring:
the best ground, and the only ground to be defended in all points is, that action, not principle is the object of law and legislation; with a person's principles no government has any right to interfere.[41]
On the world stage of 1791, war with Great Britain was threatened more with Spain and
On 6 May 1791, a tearful confrontation on the floor of the Commons finally shattered the quarter-century friendship of Fox and Burke, as the latter dramatically crossed the floor of the House to sit down next to Pitt, taking the support of a good deal of the more conservative Whigs with him. Officially, and rather irrelevantly, this happened during a debate on the particulars of a bill for the government of Canada.[43] Later, on his deathbed in 1797, Burke would have his wife turn Fox away rather than allow a final reconciliation.
"Pitt's Terror"
Fox continued to defend the French Revolution, even as its fruits began to collapse into war, repression and the
Peace is the wish of the French of Italy Spain Germany and all the world, and Great Britain alone the cause of preventing its accomplishment, and this not for any point of honour or even interest, but merely lest there should be an example in the modern world of a great powerful Republic.[45]
Rather ironically, while Fox was being denounced by many in Britain as a Jacobin traitor, across the Channel he featured on a 1798 list of the Britons to be transported after a successful French invasion of Britain. According to the document, Fox was a "false patriot; having often insulted the French nation in his speeches, and particularly in 1786."[46] According to one of his biographers, Fox's "loyalties were not national but were offered to people like himself at home or abroad".[3] In 1805 Francis Horner wrote, "I could name to you gentlemen, with good coats on, and good sense in their own affairs, who believe that Fox...is actually in the pay of France".[47]
But Fox's radical position soon became too extreme for many of his followers, particularly old Whig friends like the
Fox, however, still insisted on challenging the repressive wartime legislation introduced by Pitt in the 1790s that would become known as "Pitt's Terror". In 1792, Fox had seen through the only piece of substantial legislation in his career, the
Fox spoke in opposition to the
We had no invasion to fear but an invasion of the constitution.[51]
In 1795, the King's carriage was assaulted in the street, providing an excuse for Pitt to introduce the infamous Two Acts: the
if you silence remonstrance and stifle complaint, you then leave no other alternative but force and violence.[52]
He argued that "the best security for the due maintenance of the constitution was in the strict and incessant vigilance of the people over parliament itself. Meetings of the people, therefore, for the discussion of public objects were not merely legal, but laudable."[citation needed]
Parliament passed the acts. But Fox enjoyed a swell of extra-parliamentary support during the course of the controversy. A substantial petitioning movement arose in support of him, and on 16 November 1795, he addressed a public meeting of between two- and thirty-thousand people on the subject.[52] However, this came to nothing in the long run. The Foxites were becoming disenchanted with the Commons, overwhelmingly dominated by Pitt, and began to denounce it to one another as unrepresentative.[54]
Political wilderness: 1797–1806
Later life
By May 1797, an overwhelming majority – both in and outside of Parliament – had formed in support of Pitt's war against France.
Fox's following in Parliament had shrivelled to about 25, compared with around 55 in 1794 and at least 90 during the 1780s. Many of the Foxites purposefully seceded from Parliament in 1797; Fox himself retired for lengthy periods to his wife's house in Surrey.[54] The distance from the stress and noise of Westminster was an enormous psychological and spiritual relief to Fox,[55] but still he defended his earlier principles: "It is a great comfort to me to reflect how steadily I have opposed this war, for the miseries it seems likely to produce are without end."[citation needed] On 1 May 1798, Fox proposed a toast to "Our Sovereign, the Majesty of the People". The
After Pitt's resignation in February 1801, Fox had undertaken a partial return to politics. Having opposed the
During the French Revolutionary Wars, Fox supported the French Republic against the monarchies that comprised the
By July 1800, Fox had "forgiven" the means by which he had come into power and claimed Napoleon had "surpassed...Alexander & Caesar, not to mention the great advantage he has over them in the Cause he fights in".[60] In October 1801, a preliminary peace agreement between Britain and France was published and Fox was delighted. In a speech to his constituents on 10 October Fox said, "We have not, I acknowledge, obtained the objects for which the War was undertaken – so much the better – I rejoice that we have not. I like the Peace the more on this very account".[61] Many of his friends were shocked at such open language, but as Fox said in his reply to a remonstrance from Grey: "...the truth is, I am gone something further in hate to the English Government than perhaps you and the rest of my friends are, and certainly further than can with prudence be avowed. The triumph of the French Government over the English does in fact afford me a degree of pleasure which it is very difficult to disguise".[62]
After the subsequent Treaty of Amiens was signed in March 1802, Fox joined the thousands of English tourists flocking across the Channel to see the sights of the revolution. Fox and his retinue were kept under surveillance by officials from the British embassy during their trip of 20 July to 17 November.[3] In Paris, he presented his wife for the first time in seven years of marriage, creating yet another stir back at court in London, and had three interviews with Napoleon, who – though he tried to flatter his most prominent British sympathiser – had to spend most of the time arguing about the freedom of the press and the perniciousness of a standing army.[3]
Fox's stay in France enabled him, through his connections with
Fox confessed in December 1802 that he was "obstinate" in his belief that Napoleon's "wish is Peace, nay that he is afraid of war to the last degree".[63] In March 1803 he believed that Napoleon's belligerence towards Piedmont, Malta and Switzerland was regrettable but did not constitute a casus belli, writing to the Duchess of Devonshire "if I am to shew a feeling for the wounded honour of the country you or somebody must shew me the wound, for the life of me I cannot find as single instance since the definitive treaty where the Govt. of France has behaved ill to us".[63]
When war broke out again in May 1803, Fox blamed the Prime Minister Henry Addington for not standing up to the King. The British government had not left Napoleon "any alternative but War or the most abject humiliation" and that the war "is entirely the fault of our Ministers and not of Bonaparte".[64] Upon hearing of the spectacular French victories at Ulm and Austerlitz later in 1805, Fox commented: "These are wonders indeed but they are not much more than I expected".[65] When Pitt (who had taken over from Addington as premier in 1804) tried to persuade Prussia into an anti-French alliance, Prussia refused, to Fox's delight.[65] He was a close friend and colleague of Samuel Whitbread and supported by Fox, Whitbread in 1805, led the campaign to have Viscount Melville removed from office; Melville resigned. However, The House of Lords found Melville not guilty and he was acquitted of all charges.[66]
Final year
When Pitt died on 23 January 1806, Fox was the last remaining great political figure of the era and could no longer be denied a place in government.[citation needed] When Grenville formed a "Ministry of All the Talents" out of his supporters, the followers of Addington and the Foxites, Fox was once again offered the post of Foreign Secretary, which he accepted in February. Fox was convinced (as he had been since Napoleon's accession) that France desired a lasting peace and that he was "sure that two civil sentences from the Ministers would ensure Peace".[67] Therefore, peace talks were speedily entered into by Fox and his old friend Talleyrand, now French foreign minister. The mood had completely changed by July, however, and Fox was forced to acknowledge that his assessment of Napoleon's pacific intentions was wrong.[68] Negotiations over Hanover, Naples, Sicily, and Malta faltered and Talleyrand vetoed Russian participation in the negotiations. King George believed this was a ploy to divide Britain and Russia as French interests would suffer if she had to deal with an Anglo-Russian alliance. Fox was forced to agree that the King's belief was "but too well founded".[33]
In June,
Fox's biographer notes that these failed negotiations were "a stunning experience" for Fox, who had always insisted that France desired peace and that the war was the responsibility of King George and his fellow monarchs: "All of this was being proved false...It was a tragic end to Fox's career".[70] To observers such as John Rickman, "Charley Fox eats his former opinions daily and even ostentatiously showing himself the worse man, but the better minister of a corrupt government", and who further claimed that "He should have died, for his fame, a little sooner; before Pitt".[71]
Though the administration failed to achieve either Catholic emancipation or peace with France, Fox's last great achievement would be the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. Though Fox was to die before abolition was enacted, he oversaw a Foreign Slave Trade Bill in spring 1806 that prohibited British subjects from contributing to the trading of slaves with the colonies of Britain's wartime enemies, thus eliminating two-thirds of the slave trade passing through British ports.[citation needed]
On 10 June 1806, Fox offered a resolution for total abolition to Parliament: "this House, conceiving the African slave trade to be contrary to the principles of justice, humanity, and sound policy, will, with all practicable expedition, proceed to take effectual measures for abolishing the said trade..." The House of Commons voted 114 to 15 in favour and the Lords approved the motion on 24 June.[citation needed][72] Fox said that:
So fully am I impressed with the vast importance and necessity of attaining what will be the object of my motion this night, that if, during the almost forty years that I have had the honour of a seat in parliament, I had been so fortunate as to accomplish that, and that only, I should think I had done enough, and could retire from public life with comfort, and the conscious satisfaction, that I had done my duty.[3]
Death
Fox died – still in office – at
Private life
Fox's private life (as far as it was private) was notorious, even in an age noted for the licentiousness of its upper classes. Fox was famed for his rakishness and his drinking; vices which were both indulged frequently and immoderately. Fox was also an inveterate gambler, once claiming that winning was the greatest pleasure in the world, and losing the second greatest. Between 1772 and 1774, Fox's father – shortly before dying – had to pay off £120,000 of Charles' debts; the equivalent of around £16 million in 2021. Fox was twice bankrupted between 1781 and 1784,[3] and at one point his creditors confiscated his furniture.[citation needed] Fox's finances were often "more the subject of conversation than any other topic."[74] By the end of his life, Fox had lost about £200,000 gambling.[75]
In appearance, Fox was dark, corpulent and hairy, to the extent that when he was born his father compared him to a monkey.
Fox was frequently ridiculed – most famously by
Fox was also regarded as a notorious womaniser. In 1784 or 1785, Fox met and fell in love with
Despite his celebrated flaws, history records Fox as an amiable figure. The Tory wit
In a letter published in The Daily Telegraph in 2020, Lord Lexden compared him to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, saying that "Johnson is an 18th Century figure in many ways" and that the two leaders may be commended in similar ways.[81]
Legacy
In the 19th century, liberals portrayed Fox as their hero, praising his courage, perseverance and eloquence. They celebrated his opposition to war in alliance with European despots against the people of France eager for their freedom, and they praised his fight for
While not wholly forgotten today Fox is no longer the famous hero he had been, and is less well remembered than
The Fox Club was established in London in 1790 and held the first of its Fox dinners – annual events celebrating Fox's birthday – in 1808; the last recorded dinner took place at
The town of Foxborough, Massachusetts, was named in honour of the staunch supporter of American independence. Fox is remembered in his home town of Chertsey by a bust on a high plinth (pictured left), erected in 2006 in a new development by the railway station. Fox is also commemorated in a termly dinner held in his honour at his alma mater, Hertford College, Oxford, by students of English, history and the romance languages.[citation needed]
A statue of Fox by Edward Hodges Baily was erected in Westminster Hall in 1857.[85]
Fox was the subject of the epigraph in John F. Kennedy's Pulitzer-prize winning book Profiles in Courage: "He well knows what snares are spread about his path, from personal animosity…and possibly from popular delusion. But he has put to hazard his ease, his security, his interest, his power, even his…popularity. …He is traduced and abused for his supposed motives. He will remember that obloquy is a necessary ingredient in the composition of all true glory: he will remember…that calumny and abuse are essential parts of triumph. …He may live long, he may do much. But here is the summit. He never can exceed what he does this day." — Edmund Burke's eulogy of Charles James Fox for his attack upon the tyranny of the East India Company. House of Commons, 1 December 1783[86]
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Charles James Fox, c.1802,National Gallery of Scotland
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Statue of Charles James Fox in Bloomsbury Square, London
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Memorial to Fox erected by William Chamberlayne on his estate at Weston, now within Mayfield Park, Southampton.
Fox has been portrayed on screen by many actors:
- Robert Morley in the 1942 film The Young Mr. Pitt
- Leslie Banks in the 1947 film Mrs. Fitzherbert
- Peter Bull in the 1954 film Beau Brummell
- Ronald Lacey in the 1975 television series The Fight Against Slavery
- Keith Barron in the 1979 television series Prince Regent
- Jim Carter in the 1994 film The Madness of King George
- Hugh Sachs in the 1999 television miniseries Aristocrats
- Michael Gambon in the 2006 film Amazing Grace
- Simon McBurney in the 2008 film The Duchess
- Blake Ritson in a 2011 episode of the television series Garrow's Law
References
Note
Bibliography
- ^ a b Mitchell 1992, p. 264
- ^ Reid 1969, pp. 7–9
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai Mitchell 2007
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 4
- ^ Reid 1969, p. 10
- ^ Lascelles, Edward, The Life of Charles James Fox, London, 1936, p. 11
- ^ Reid 1969, p. 16
- ^ The Macaronis and Dandies of Macaroni Downs
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 8
- ^ Reid 1969, p. 26
- ^ Rudé 1962, p. 162
- required.)
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 27
- ^ Reid 1969, p. 62
- ^ Reid 1969, p. 63
- ^ Reid 1969, p. 108
- ^ Reid 1969, p. 109
- ^ Thompson 1963, p. 78
- ^ Reid 1969, p. 137
- ^ Reid 1969, p. 169
- ^ Pares 1953, p. 120
- ^ Reid 1969, p. 171
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 88
- ^ Reid 1969, p. 190
- ^ Reid 1969, p. 206
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 75
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 73
- ^ Reid 1969, p. 214
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 76
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 77
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 78
- ^ a b Mitchell 1992, p. 80
- ^ a b Mitchell 1992, p. 232
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 81
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 82
- ^ Reid 1969, p. 245
- ^ Reid 1969, p. 266
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 113
- ^ a b Reid 1969, p. 261
- ^ Reid 1969, p. 262
- ^ Reid 1969, p. 260
- ^ Reid 1969, p. 267
- ^ Reid 1969, p. 269
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 124
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 162
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 159
- ^ Horner 1843, p. 323
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 136
- ^ Thompson 1963, p. 135
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 132
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 133
- ^ a b c Mitchell 1992, p. 140
- ^ Watson 1960, p. 360
- ^ a b Mitchell 1992, p. 141
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 146
- ^ Emsley 1979, p. 67
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 152
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 165
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 166
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 167
- ^ The Times (12 October 1801), p. 2.
- ^ E. A. Smith, Lord Grey. 1764–1845 (Alan Sutton, 1996), p. 86.
- ^ a b Mitchell 1992, p. 201
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 202
- ^ a b Mitchell 1992, p. 218
- ^ "The Trial of Henry Lord Viscount Melville". Longman. 1806.
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 227
- ^ Mitchell 1992, pp. 229–230
- ^ a b Mitchell 1992, p. 234
- ^ a b Mitchell 1992, p. 235
- ^ Mrs. Henry Sandford, Thomas Poole and His Friends. Volume II (London: Macmillan, 1888), p. 160.
- ^ "Abolition of the Slave Trade. (Hansard, 24 June 1806)". api.parliament.uk. Retrieved 17 August 2020.
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 106
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 101
- ^ Olmert 1996, p. 98
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 14
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 179
- ^ a b Christie 1970, p. 143
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 12
- ^ Mitchell 1992, p. 265
- ^ "Whig and Tory Lotharios – Charles James Fox and Boris Johnson". Lord Lexden. 3 April 2020. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
- ^ Greaves 1973, pp. 687–88
- ^ "parliament.uk: "Architecture of the Palace – St Stephen's Hall"". UK Parliament. Retrieved 4 October 2014.
- ^ Reid 1969, p. 268
- ^ Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660–1851 by Rupert Gunnis
- ^ "Frontispiece: Item 3- Edmund Burke quotation, typescript". Retrieved 4 October 2014.
Sources
- Christie, I. R. (1970). Myth and Reality in Late-Eighteenth-Century British Politics and Other Papers. Macamillan.
- Emsley, Clive (1979). British Society and the French Wars, 1793–1815. Macmillan.
- Greaves, R. W. (June 1973). "Reviews of Books". American Historical Review. 78 (3).
- Horner, Francis (1843). Horner, Leonard (ed.). Memoirs and Correspondence of Francis Horner, M.P., Volume I. John Murray.
- Lascelles, Edward (1936). The Life of Charles James Fox. Oxford University Press.
- Mitchell, Leslie (1992). Charles James Fox.
- Mitchell, Leslie (2007). Charles James Fox. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
- Olmert, Michael (1996). Milton's Teeth and Ovid's Umbrella: Curiouser & Curiouser Adventures in History. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-80164-7.
- Pares, Richard (1953). King George III and the Politicians. Archived from the original on 20 August 2011. Retrieved 25 August 2017.
- Reid, Loren (1969). Charles James Fox: A Man for the People. [Columbia] University of Missouri Press.
- Rudé, George (1962). Wilkes & Liberty.
- Thompson, E.P. (1963). The Making of the English Working Class.
- Watson, J. Steven (1960). The Reign of George III, 1760–1815. Archived from the original on 22 August 2011. Retrieved 25 August 2017.
Primary sources
- Fox, Charles James (1853). The Speeches of the Right Honourable Charles James Fox in the House of Commons. Aylott and Company.
charles james fox.
Further reading
Books
- Christie, Ian R. (1958) "Charles James Fox" History Today (Feb 1958) 8#2 pp 110–118.
- Derry, John W. (1972). Charles James Fox. New York: St. Martin's Press.
- Kanter, Douglas. "The Foxite Whigs, Irish legislative independence and the Act of Union, 1785–1806." Irish Historical Studies 36.143 (2009): 332–348.
- Mitchell, Leslie (2004). "Fox, Charles James (1749–1806)". required.)
- Powell, Martyn J. "Charles James Fox and Ireland" Irish Historical Studies (2003) 33#130 pp 169–190.
- Rae, William Fraser (1879). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. IX (9th ed.).
- Trevelyan, George Otto (1912). George the Third and Charles Fox: The Concluding Part of the American Revolution. Vol. 1.
- Trevelyan, George Otto (1912). George the Third and Charles Fox: The Concluding Part of the American Revolution. Vol. 2.
- Trevelyan, George Otto (1880). The Early History of Charles James Fox.
External links
- Works by Charles James Fox at Project Gutenberg
- History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Charles James Fox at Internet Archive
- Guardian article on Fox as the 200th anniversary of his death approaches
- BBC article