Fox, Charles James

Fox, Charles James (1749–1806). A brilliant orator and a man of dazzling charm, Fox never fulfilled his immense potential as a politician. The main reason for this was that his political judgement was erratic. At crucial times in his career he committed errors which proved decisive in denying him the office for which he craved.

Fox was educated at Eton and Oxford and entered the House of Commons while still under age in 1768. He held minor office under North but fell foul of the king and the prime minister over the Royal Marriages Act and the admission of reporters to debates in the Commons. Once in opposition Fox was drawn to alliance with the Rockinghamite Whigs. He became a critic of the influence of the crown, an opponent of British policy towards the American colonists, and the advocate of greater collective responsibility within the cabinet, arguing that cabinets should have a greater say in the choice of prime ministers. He favoured recognizing the independence of the American colonies and made no secret of his belief that the influence of the crown was the cause of British humiliation. He supported parliamentary reform, the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, and closer collaboration between parliamentarians and popular reform movements.

When North fell in 1782

Fox became foreign secretary under Rockingham. He wanted to recognize American independence in the hope of securing American goodwill during the peace negotiations but finding himself in disagreement with Shelburne and other colleagues he resigned office on Rockingham's death. This proved to be a grave misjudgement. He was driven to seek new political allies and entered into alliance with his old foe, North. There was nothing inherently disastrous about this. Coalition was an inescapable fact of political life, but working with North was bound to be risky: many MPs remembered the ferocity with which Fox had denounced North as an agent of corruption. By defeating Shelburne over the draft peace terms, Fox and North forced themselves upon the king. When they tried to reform the administration of the East India Company, George III procured the defeat of the India Bill in the Lords, dismissed the coalition, and after installing Pitt as prime minister in December 1783 saw him win a great victory at the 1784 general election. Fox's gamble had failed and he faced the prospect of long years in opposition.

Even when Pitt was defeated over parliamentary reform and Irish free trade, there was little comfort for Fox. When George III became ill in the autumn of 1788 Fox expected that the prince of Wales would call him into office once he had become regent. Fox supported the prince's inherent right to be regent with full powers, but Pitt's advocacy of the need for Parliament to act proved more popular. The king recovered in February 1789 and Fox was blamed by many of his colleagues for mishandling the regency question. His fortunes were again at a low ebb.

When the French Revolution broke out in May 1789 Fox believed that the French were at long last imitating the English Revolution of 1688. But the Foxite party split over the French Revolution, and by 1794 Fox had only 60 supporters in the Commons. Though disgusted by the excesses of the Jacobins, he opposed war with France, arguing the case for a negotiated peace. He bitterly resented the desertion of so many old friends and for a time ceased to attend the Commons.

When Addington resigned in 1804 George III vetoed Pitt's proposal that Fox should be foreign secretary in a grand coalition. Only after Pitt's death in January 1806 was the king compelled to accept Fox as foreign secretary in Grenville's ministry. But he was now in poor health. Attempts to negotiate a peace with Napoleon collapsed ignominiously. The only consolation for Fox in his last days was the condemnation of the slave trade by the House of Commons. In September 1806 Fox died. He became the inspiration for Whig legend. His advocacy of peace, retrenchment, parliamentary reform, and civil and religious liberty inspired many later reformers. One irony was that the hero of Victorian liberals was so un-Victorian in his private life. In his youth Fox had been a compulsive gambler and womanizer. Though he found happiness with his mistress Elizabeth Armistead, whom he married in 1795, he could never manage his private finances.

John W. Derry

Bibliography

Ayling, S. , Fox (1991).