Even in the 18th century, governments of all sorts relied on tough politicians who were willing to do the dirty work to keep administrations afloat. In the latest post for the Georgian Lords, Dr Robin Eagles highlights the case of Henry Fox, Lord Holland, one of the most notorious of them all, who died 250 years ago. In the winter of 1762/3 Holland oversaw the highly controversial ‘Slaughter of the Pelhamite Innocents’, yet always felt that he was the one who had been most betrayed…
Henry Fox, who died 250 years ago this July, was the father of the now much better remembered Charles James Fox, but in his day was one of the period’s most recognizable and controversial politicians. His own father, Sir Stephen, had risen from obscurity to a place in the royal household, acquiring great wealth along the way. Henry had then started out in life as a Tory standing unsuccessfully for the ‘notoriously venal’ borough of Hindon in Wiltshire in a particularly brutal election. In 1728 he had tried again at Old Sarum, gaining just one vote to the successful candidate’s two but in 1735 it was third time lucky for him as he finally secured election standing at Hindon once again, this time at a by-election, having by then gone over to the Whigs. Nine years later he scandalized society by eloping with the duke of Richmond’s daughter, thereby effectively marrying into the royal family.
For the rest of his career in the Commons, Henry Fox enjoyed office of some sort, but only twice was he able to secure the kind of high office that might have been expected. Indeed, he shied away from opportunities to become Prime Minister more than once. It was a perhaps unexpected quality given his reputation as a bruiser and for employing particularly strident language when speaking in Parliament.
There was certainly no hesitancy in the way he went about weeding out the Bute ministry’s opponents and, having taken on the role of Bute’s fixer in the House of Commons, Fox became synonymous with the brutal culling of the Pelhamite Whigs, who had previously dominated in administrations. He had actually been reluctant to take on the role, summoned out of effective retirement by the king, who offered him the office of secretary of state. He declined that, but agreed to be Leader of the Commons, and as such oversaw the removal of many of his old colleagues from their posts. He started at the top with the old duke of Newcastle, advising Bute to ‘Strip him of his three lieutenancies immediately’. He himself would then proceed ‘to the general rout’. It was a bloody business and he was in no doubt about how he would emerge from it, though he insisted ‘I don’t care how much I am hated’ as he believed it was ‘honest and essential service to the King’.
When Bute stepped down in 1763, he recommended Fox as his successor, but the king would not stomach it, pointing out Fox was ‘a man void of principles’. After some delay, the king was forced to rethink and offer Fox the job, but now Fox’s familiar streak of uncertainty reasserted itself. His wife, Lady Holland, also proved key in his decision-making and helped persuade him not to accept. He walked away from the prospect of leading the administration and, bar the office of paymaster general, which he retained for another two years, never held significant office again.
In place of being Prime Minister Fox went to the Lords as Baron Holland. This too his wife had opposed but, on this occasion, Fox stuck to his guns. In many ways his path to the Lords was unusual. Lady Holland had been made a peeress in her own right in May 1762, taking the title Baroness Holland of Holland (Lincolnshire). Now Fox secured his own peerage, as Baron Holland of Foxley (Wiltshire). The curious double grant meant that in time his heir, Stephen, succeeded as Baron Holland and Holland. Lord Holland, as Fox now was, was disappointed at being fobbed off with a mere barony. He had wanted a viscountcy at least, and preferably an earldom. Securing the higher title would dominate the remainder of his career, though it was something he would never achieve. He always felt that he had been short-changed and thereafter there would be an air of resentment both in the way he conducted himself and in the way his middle son, Charles James, responded to people he felt had stood in Holland’s way.
Holland spent much of the remainder of his career overseas. In October 1766 he announced to his friend John Campbell: ‘I leave all thoughts of a Court & politicks, (incomprehensible if not absurd) and of all business, behind me…’ [Campbell Correspondence, 305]. If he did not escape altogether, his hopes turned increasingly to the precocious Charles, who was looked to, to revive the family’s political fortunes. But here, once more, Holland was to be disappointed.
Holland died on 1 July 1774, ‘embittered by the extravagance and callousness of his two elder sons’ [Namier]. That this had not always been the case was shown by how Holland had doted on Charles. According to Leslie Mitchell, when Charles was only three years old, his father ‘enjoyed breakfasting with him’ and when not very many years older, it was a nuisance to Holland that business in the Commons interrupted time he would much rather have spent in his son’s company. [Mitchell, 4] Latterly, Charles may have caused Holland considerable worry, but he remained loyal to his father’s memory long after his own career had taken him off in a very different direction and he spoke up for his father against all comers. As Mitchell put it, ‘This was Henry Fox’s reward for his indulgence of “the Boys, who together shall ever govern me”.’ [Mitchell, 6]
RDEE
Further Reading:
LG Mitchell, Charles James Fox (1992)
JE Davies, ed., The Correspondence of John Campbell MP… (2013)
