A reaction in favour of Fox set in, and when, at three o’clock on 17th May, the poll closed, the High Bailiff of Westminster declared the results:
| “Lord Hood | 6694 |
| Hon. C. J. Fox | 6234 |
| Sir Cecil Wray | 5998 |
| —— | |
| Majority for Fox | 236” |
Great were the rejoicings when it became known that “the man of the people” had snatched the victory from the Court candidate. The Prince of Wales, who had thrown his influence into the scale, went the same evening to a supper-party given by Mrs Crewe, where all present were arrayed in buff and blue, the victor’s colours. The Prince proposed the health of the hostess with felicitous brevity, “True Blue and Mrs Crewe,” to which the lady wittily replied, “True Blue, and all of you”; and the hero of the hour returned thanks to all and sundry.
It was to Mr Fox and Mrs Armitstead (with whom Fox was then living and whom he married in 1795), at the latter’s house at St Anne’s, Chertsey, that the Prince repaired to pour out his woes when, to evade his compromising attentions, Mrs Fitzherbert went abroad.
“Mrs Armitstead has repeatedly assured me” (Lord Holland relates in his “Memoirs of the Whig Party”) “that he came thither more than once to converse with her and Mr Fox on the subject, that he cried by the hour, that he testified to the sincerity and violence of his passion and his despair by the most extravagant expressions and actions, rolling on the floor, striking his forehead, tearing his hair, falling into hysterics, and swearing he would abandon the country, forego the Crown, sell his jewels and plate, and scrape together a competence to fly with the object of his affections to America.”
When Mrs Fitzherbert returned to England, Fox implored the Prince not to marry her, and received from him a reply, “Make yourself easy, my dear friend! Believe me, the world will soon be convinced that not only is there not, but never was, any grounds for these reports, which have been so malevolently circulated.” On the strength of this letter, when the question was raised in the House of Commons in a debate on the Prince’s debts, Fox denied the marriage, only to be told by a relative of the lady at Brooks’s Club, within an hour of his speech, that the marriage had taken place! It is said that the statesman was furious at the deception that had been practised upon him; but doubtless his sense of humour came to his rescue: one can imagine him shrugging his shoulders with his almost imperturbable good humour, as he reflected that while his position as a dupe was distressing, what must be the feeling of him who had duped him. It was, indeed, a case of the biter bit! Perhaps, too, he was amused at having saved the Prince malgré lui; and certainly it is to his credit that “when urged by his friends to undeceive Parliament, and thus vindicate himself in the opinion of the country, he refused to do so at the expense of the heir to the monarchy.” But there was on his part a coldness towards the Prince for some time, and he never again trusted that royal personage.
It is impossible within the limits of this paper to discuss Fox’s subsequent political career, or to make more than an allusion to the attacks on Warren Hastings during the famous impeachment, to his advocacy of the Prince as the rightful Regent during the King’s illness, and his opposition to many of Pitt’s measures. His remark on hearing of the taking of the Bastille has become historic: “How much is this the greatest event that ever happened in the world, and how much the best”; but he never approved of the excesses that followed, and he was opposed to all absolute forms of government, and not more averse to an absolute monarchy or an absolute aristocracy than to an absolute democracy. From 1792 for five years he seldom attended Parliament, but devoted himself chiefly to the composition of his “History of the Revolution of 1688.” In 1798 his name was erased from the list of Privy Councillors because at a dinner he proposed the toast of “Our Sovereign, the people.” Later he went abroad, had an interview with Napoleon, and on his return, in 1803, in a magnificent speech advocated a peace with France. On Lord Addington’s resignation in the following year it was proposed that Fox should be a member of the new Cabinet, but the King intervened to make Pitt promise, firstly, never to support Catholic Emancipation, and, secondly, to exclude Fox from office. However, two years later, Fox accepted the portfolio of the Foreign Office under Grenville, in the “Ministry of all the Talents.” He made his last appearance in the House of Commons on 10th June 1806, to move a resolution preparatory to introducing a Bill for the suppression of the slave trade.
“So fully am I impressed with the vast importance and necessity of attaining what will be the object of my motion this night” (he concluded his farewell speech) “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.”
A few days after, he was taken ill at the house of the Duke of Devonshire at Chiswick, and it was soon apparent that his last hours were near. He was no believer in religion, but, to please his wife, he consented to have prayers read, though he “paid little attention to the ceremony, remaining quiescent merely, not liking to refuse any wish of hers, nor to pretend any sentiments he did not entertain.” “I die happy,” he said to his wife, “but I pity you.” He died on 13th September, and was interred in Westminster Abbey, immediately adjoining the monument of Lord Chatham, and close by the grave of William Pitt, his great rival, who had predeceased him by a few months.