The Eldon League was a parodic British right-wing reactionary society, which aimed to promote feudalism and monarchism . It was set up by Grand Imperial Prior Neil Hamilton , then an undergraduate at Cambridge University , as an eating and drinking society.
88-588: Historian David Lowenthal likens the group to the Society for Creative Anachronism , a living history group in the United States, in their (possibly ironic) appreciation of a past which is now considered obsolete. Grand Imperial Prior of the group Neil Hamilton has said the group wished to "abolish the twentieth century", arguing that "the 18th century was the summit of civilisation". It was anti-feminist , anti-democratic , pro- feudalism , anti- trade , and in favour of
176-552: A Bachelor of Science degree in history in 1944. He returned to study for a Master of Arts degree in geography at the University of California, Berkeley , in 1950. At Berkeley his research was on the Guianas , working with Carl Sauer . He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree in history from the University of Wisconsin–Madison , for a study of the life of George Perkins Marsh , an early geographer and conservationist. Lowenthal
264-665: A board of governors responsible to Parliament and more resistant to Crown patronage. It passed the Commons by 153 to 80, but, when the King made it clear that any peer who voted in favour of the bill would be considered a personal enemy of the Crown, the Lords divided against Fox by 95 to 76. George III now felt justified in dismissing Fox and North from government and in nominating Pitt the Younger in their place,
352-450: A bout of mental illness. He had declared that Pitt was "a rascal" and Fox "his friend". The King was placed under restraint, and a rumour went round that Fox had poisoned him. Thus the opportunity revealed itself for the establishment of a regency under Fox's friend and ally, the Prince of Wales , which would take the reins of government out of the hands of the incapacitated George III and allow
440-415: A bust of Fox and placed it between Cicero and Demosthenes in her collection. On 18 April, Fox spoke in the Commons – together with William Wilberforce , Pitt and Burke – in favour of a measure to abolish the slave trade , but – despite their combined rhetorical talents – the vote went against them by a majority of 75. On 6 May 1791, a tearful confrontation on the floor of the Commons finally shattered
528-426: A fashionable Wandsworth school run by a Monsieur Pampellonne, followed by Eton College , where he began to develop his lifelong love of classical literature . In later life he was said to have always carried a copy of Horace in his coat pocket. He was taken out of school by his father in 1761 to attend the coronation of George III , who would become one of his most bitter enemies, and once more in 1763 to travel to
616-670: A final declaration of the result for over a year. In the meantime, Fox sat for the Scottish pocket borough of Tain or Northern Burghs , for which he was qualified by being made an unlikely burgess of Kirkwall in Orkney. The experience of these years was crucial in Fox's political formation. His suspicions had been confirmed. It seemed to him that George III had personally scuppered both the Rockingham-Shelburne and Fox-North governments, interfered in
704-580: A final reconciliation. Fox continued to defend the French Revolution, even as its fruits began to collapse into war, repression and the Reign of Terror . Though there were few developments in France after 1792 that Fox could positively favour, Fox maintained that the old monarchical system still proved a greater threat to liberty than the new, degenerating experiment in France. Fox thought of revolutionary France as
792-603: A long and eloquent speech to a packed House of Commons. 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. Pitt, in turn, came to
880-901: A motto of the League. On the Fourth of July 1976, the League sent a letter to the United States Ambassador in London inviting the U.S. to rejoin the British Empire , before "ceremonially [retaking] the embassy for the Empire", according to Hamilton. Every September the group joined the Charles James Fox Society in laying a wreath on Fox's statue in Bloomsbury Square , London , an 18th-century Radical who gambled away $ 70 million before he
968-513: A newly acquired French accent", and was duly flogged by Dr. Barnard , the headmaster. Charles Fox was once known as a macaroni , despite him being a tad too overweight to look decent in his tight clothing. These three pursuits – gambling, womanising and the love of things and fashions foreign – would become, once inculcated in his adolescence, notorious habits of Fox's later life. Fox entered Hertford College, Oxford , in October 1764. His tutor there
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#17328951417251056-570: A profound national crisis. Fox was not surprised when Pitt and the King brought Britain into the war as well and would afterwards blame the pair and their prodigal European subsidies for the long-drawn-out continuation of the French Revolutionary Wars . In 1795, he wrote to his nephew, Lord Holland : Peace is the wish of the French of Italy Spain Germany and all the world, and Great Britain alone
1144-525: A prominent and staunch opponent of King George III , whom he regarded as an aspiring tyrant. He supported the American Patriots and even dressed in the colours of George Washington 's army . Briefly serving as Britain's first Foreign Secretary during the ministry of the Marquess of Rockingham in 1782, he returned to the post in a coalition government with his old enemy, Lord North , in 1783. However,
1232-503: A reputation as a superb orator, but he had not yet developed the radical opinions for which he would become famous. Thus, he spent much of his early years unwittingly manufacturing ammunition for his later critics and their accusations of hypocrisy. A supporter of the Grafton and North ministries, Fox was prominent in the campaign to punish the radical John Wilkes for challenging the Commons. "He thus opened his career by speaking in behalf of
1320-453: A scheme of parliamentary reform before the Commons, proposing to rationalise somewhat the existing, decidedly unrepresentative, electoral system by eliminating thirty-six rotten boroughs and redistributing seats to represent London and the larger counties. Fox supported Pitt's reforms, despite apparent political expediency, but they were defeated by 248 to 174. Reform would not be considered seriously by Parliament for another decade. In 1787,
1408-470: 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
1496-603: A supporter of the French Revolution and a leading parliamentary advocate of religious tolerance and individual liberty. His friendship with his mentor, Burke, and his parliamentary credibility were both casualties of Fox's support for France during the French Revolutionary Wars , but Fox went on to attack Pitt's wartime legislation and to defend the liberty of religious minorities and political radicals. After Pitt's death in January 1806, Fox served briefly as Foreign Secretary in
1584-481: A tendency to vomit in public." Happily for George, the unpopular coalition would not outlast the year. The Treaty of Paris was signed on 3 September 1783, formally ending the American Revolutionary War . Fox proposed an East India Bill to place the government of the ailing and oppressive British East India Company , at that time in control of a considerable expanse of India, on a sounder footing with
1672-563: A way. After these defections, the Foxites could no longer constitute a credible parliamentary opposition, reduced, as they were, to some fifty MPs. 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 Libel Act 1792 ( 32 Geo. 3 . c. 60), which restored to juries
1760-511: 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!" In April 1791, Fox told the Commons that he "admired the new constitution of France, considered altogether, as
1848-608: The Gold Standard , good government , the monarchy and aristocracy . The group believed in a projection of the Earth as flat and back-to-front . The group had two main political factions : "Forward into the past" (the progressive wing) and "backwards into the future" (the regressive wing). It is named after the early 19th century head of Britain's judiciary, Lord Eldon , whom Hamilton called "the greatest reactionary of all time" with an "unremitting opposition to democracy and abolition of
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#17328951417251936-520: The Henley Royal Regatta . The group was well-known for their annual champagne duels, involving well-shaken bottles of champagne aimed at each other from 10 yards apart. The winner of the duel is whoever first knocks off their opponent's top hat . Each dueller represents a differing view on a subject, and the winner's viewpoint would later be adopted as League policy. One such duel on 4 June 1975 between Hamilton and another League member decided
2024-470: The Holland barony to an earldom . But the fact that such a young man could seemingly treat ministerial office so lightly was noted at court . In 1773 he was taken advantage of by the swindler Elizabeth Harriet Grieve . She had lent him £300 for which she got his name to use as a customer of her advice. Fox was promised that Grieve could arrange a marriage for him to a West Indian heiress named Miss Phipps. Fox
2112-624: The House of Commons as a forceful and eloquent speaker with a notorious and colourful private life, though at that time with rather conservative and conventional opinions. However, with the coming of the American War of Independence and the influence of the Whig Edmund Burke , Fox's opinions evolved into some of the most radical to be aired in the British Parliament of his era. Fox became
2200-520: The House of Commons ". Hamilton also noted: "he opposed reform of the penal code and all other changes in 26 years as Lord High Chancellor , except trial by battle , which he abolished in 1819. The League is not in favour of any change, but then nobody's perfect." In 1980, it was described by Private Eye as the Conservative Party 's equivalent of the far-right John Birch Society in the US. The group
2288-513: The Institute of Race Relations in London. He was a professor of geography at University College London (UCL) 1972 to 1985 and remained an emeritus professor there until his death. In October 2017 he gave the inaugural lecture in an annual series for UCL's new Centre for Critical Heritage Studies. Lowenthal died in London on 15 September 2018, having celebrated his 95th birthday with friends earlier in
2376-592: The duc d'Orléans and the Marquis de Lafayette , and becoming the co-owner of a number of racehorses with the duc de Lauzun . For the 1768 general election, Henry Fox bought his son a seat in Parliament for the West Sussex constituency of Midhurst , though Charles was still nineteen and technically ineligible for Parliament. Fox was to address the House of Commons some 254 times between 1768 and 1774 and rapidly gathered
2464-450: The lesser of two evils and emphasised the role of traditional despots in perverting the course of the revolution: he argued that Louis XVI and the French aristocracy had brought their fates upon themselves by abusing the constitution of 1791 and that the coalition of European autocrats , which was currently dispatching its armies against France's borders, had driven the revolutionary government to desperate and bloody measures by exciting
2552-566: The ' Ministry of All the Talents ' of William Grenville before he died on 13 September 1806, aged 57. Fox was born in London on 24 January 1749, the second surviving son of Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland , and Lady Caroline Lennox , a daughter of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond . Henry Fox (1705–1774) was an ally of Robert Walpole and rival of Pitt the Elder , and had amassed a considerable fortune by exploiting his position as Paymaster General of
2640-557: The Commons against the people and their elected representative." Consequently, both Fox and his brother Stephen were insulted and pelted with mud in the street by the pro-Wilkes London crowds. Between 1770 and 1774, Fox's seemingly promising career in the political establishment was spoiled. He was appointed to the Board of Admiralty by Lord North in February 1770, but on the 15th of the same month, he resigned due to his enthusiastic opposition to
2728-629: 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. Fox, who occasionally corresponded with Thomas Jefferson and had met Benjamin Franklin in Paris, correctly predicted that Britain had little practical hope of subduing
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2816-551: The Commons that: We had no invasion to fear but an invasion of the constitution. In 1795, the King's carriage was assaulted in the street, providing an excuse for Pitt to introduce the infamous Two Acts: the Seditious Meetings Act 1795 , which prohibited unlicensed gatherings of over fifty people, and the Treasonable Practices Act , which greatly widened the legal definition of treason , making any assault on
2904-454: The Continent (where he visited Paris and Spa ). On this trip Charles was given a substantial amount of money with which to learn to gamble by his father, who also arranged for him to lose his virginity, aged fourteen, to a Madame de Quallens. Fox returned to Eton later that year, "attired in red-heeled shoes and Paris cut-velvet, adorned with a pigeon-wing hair style tinted with blue powder, and
2992-493: The Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished". It was passed by the Commons in a vote of 233 to 215. 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. Fox, however, had not been present in
3080-486: 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
3168-532: The Forces . Charles James Fox's elder brother Stephen (1745–1774) became the 2nd Baron Holland, and his younger brother Henry (1755–1811) had a distinguished military career. 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. The stories of Charles's over-indulgence by his doting father are legendary. It
3256-579: The House of parliament for the beginning of the Dunning debate, as he had been occupied in the adjoining eleventh-century Westminster Hall , serving as chairman of a mass public meeting before a large banner that read "Annual Parliaments and Equal Representation". This was the period when Fox, hardening against the influence of the British Crown, was embraced by the radical movement of the late eighteenth century. When
3344-416: The King appointed the youngest British prime minister to date at twenty-four years of age. Fox used his parliamentary majority to oppose Pitt's nomination, and every subsequent measure that he put before the House, until March 1784, when the King dissolved Parliament and, in the following 1784 British general election , Pitt was returned with a substantial majority. In Fox's own constituency of Westminster,
3432-436: The King forced Fox and North out of government before the end of the year and replaced them with the 24-year-old Pitt the Younger . Fox spent the following 22 years facing Pitt and the government from the opposition benches of the House of Commons. Though Fox had little interest in the actual exercise of power and spent almost the entirety of his political career in opposition , he became noted as an anti-slavery campaigner,
3520-424: The Lords too prepared to pass it, they learned that the King's health was improving and decided to postpone further action. The King soon regained lucidity in time to prevent the establishment of his son's regency and the elevation of Fox to the premiership , and, on 23 April, a service of thanksgiving was conducted at St Paul's in honour of George III's return to health. Fox's opportunity had passed. Fox welcomed
3608-420: 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 not as vacant but as merely temporarily unoccupied. While Fox drew up lists for his proposed Cabinet under the new Prince Regent, Pitt spun out
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3696-605: The US National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Trust of Australia , and the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage . His historical analysis of the ever-changing role of the past in shaping human lives, The Past Is a Foreign Country (1985), is his best-known work, widely considered to be a classic text. A new book, The Past Is a Foreign Country – Revisited , came out in 2015, for which he
3784-774: The Unity of Knowledge , was published posthumously in November 2018. He was well known for his work on landscapes, and advised international heritage agencies and institutions, including UNESCO , the International Council on Monuments and Sites , the International Council of Museums , ICCROM , the Getty Conservation Institute , the World Monuments Fund , the Council of Europe , Europa Nostra , English Heritage ,
3872-464: The answered person", so much so that, when he sat down, no member of the Government would attempt to reply. Fox shared a mutual antipathy with George III that profoundly shaped Fox's political career. George III was among the most enthusiastic prosecutors of the American Revolutionary War . Fox became convinced, that George III was determined to challenge the authority of parliament and the balance of
3960-510: The book and found it "in very bad taste" and "favouring Tory principles", 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 Test and Corporation Acts, which restricted the liberties of Dissenters and Catholics. On 2 March 1790, Fox gave
4048-575: 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. 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
4136-671: The colonies and interpreted the American cause approvingly as a struggle for liberty against the oppressive policies of a despotic and unaccountable executive. 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
4224-465: 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." On 6 April 1780 John Dunning, 1st Baron Ashburton introduced a motion, asking that "The influence of
4312-413: The contest was particularly fierce. An energetic campaign in his favour was run by Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire , allegedly a lover of Fox's who was said to have won at least one vote for him by kissing a shoemaker with a rather romantic idea of what constituted a bribe. In the end, Fox was re-elected by a very slender margin, but legal challenges encouraged, to an extent, by Pitt and the King prevented
4400-693: 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. 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
4488-416: The document, Fox was a "false patriot; having often insulted the French nation in his speeches, and particularly in 1786." According to one of his biographers, Fox's "loyalties were not national but were offered to people like himself at home or abroad". 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
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#17328951417254576-540: The field of historical geography include The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History (1996), and Passage du Temps sur le Paysage (2008). Landscape photographs taken by Lowenthal in the 1950s were included in a French exhibition at Le Pavillon Populaire in Montpellier, France, from 8 February to 16 April 2017 and accompanying book Notes sur l'asphalte, une Amérique mobile et précaire, 1950-1990 . His last book, Quest for
4664-508: The government in the following two years than had been in all the preceding years of the eighteenth century. Fox spoke in opposition to the King's Speech on 13 December 1793, but was defeated in the subsequent division by 290 to 50. He argued against war measures like the stationing of Hessian troops in Britain, the employment of royalist French émigrés in the British army and, most of all, Pitt's suspension of habeas corpus in 1794. He told
4752-550: The government's Royal Marriages Act , the provisions of which – incidentally – cast doubt on the legitimacy of his parents' marriage. On 28 December 1772, North appointed him to the board of the Treasury ; in February 1774, Fox again surrendered his post, this time over the Government's allegedly feeble response to the contemptuous printing and public distribution of copies of parliamentary debates. Behind these incidents lay his family's resentment towards Lord North for refusing to elevate
4840-464: The group's position on European Community membership in the membership of that year . Hamilton won the duel, announcing to journalists that the League "views with unabashed antipathy all forms of democracy, especially the referendum" and that "we oppose anything that is common, whether it be consultation of the common people or the Common Market ". The group used to annually commemorate the visit of
4928-528: The happy co-operation of the early 1770s, the two men who had vilified one another throughout the American war together formed a coalition and forced their Government, with an overwhelming majority composed of North's Tories and Fox's opposition Whigs, on to the King. The Fox-North Coalition came to power on 2 April 1783, in spite of the King's resistance. It was the first time that George had been allowed no role in determining who should hold government office. On one occasion, Fox, who returned enthusiastically to
5016-416: The imposition of Fox and North, but refrained from doing so, mainly because of the thought of his succession by his son George, Prince of Wales , the notoriously extravagant womaniser, gambler and associate of Fox. Indeed, in many ways the King considered Fox his son's tutor in debauchery. "George III let it be widely broadcast that he held Fox principally responsible for the Prince's many failings, not least
5104-501: 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 non-ideological 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
5192-512: The last Russian Tsar Nicholas II to Oxford railway station , whereupon he breakfasted at the station after arriving from the 8:45 train from Balmoral , by drinking the Tsar's preferred breakfast champagne ( Louis Roederer ) and food (pears in white wine ). In 1978, Count Nikolai Tolstoy was the guest of honour, to respond to the Russian Tsarist toast " Autocracy, Orthodoxy and Nationalism ", also
5280-406: The legalistic debates over the constitutionality of and precedents for instituting a regency, as well as the actual process of drawing up a Regency Bill and navigating it through Parliament. He negotiated a number of restrictions on the powers of the Prince of Wales as regent (which would later provide the basis of the Regency Act of 1811 ), but the bill finally passed the Commons on 12 February. As
5368-573: The legislative process and now dissolved Parliament when its composition inconvenienced him. Pitt, a man of little property and no party, seemed to Fox a blatant tool of the Crown. 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 . One of Pitt's first major actions as prime minister was, in 1785, to put
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#17328951417255456-433: The misrule of British India by Hastings and the East India Company more widely, then Fox's India Bill of 1784 – the point on which the Fox-North Coalition had been dismissed by the King – would be vindicated. The trial was also expedient for Fox in that it placed Pitt in an uncomfortable political position. The premier was forced to equivocate over the Hastings trial, because to oppose Hastings would have been to endanger
5544-416: The most dramatic political event of the decade came to pass in the form of the Impeachment of Warren Hastings , the Governor of Bengal until 1785, on charges of corruption and extortion. Fifteen of the eighteen Managers appointed to the trial were Foxites , one of them being Fox himself. Although the matter was really Burke's area of expertise, Fox was, at first, enthusiastic. If the trial could demonstrate
5632-547: The most stupendous and glorious edifice of liberty, which had been erected on the foundation of human integrity in any time or country." 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
5720-459: The occupation forces. While taking part in the Intelligence Photographic Documentation Project – a never-completed mission to survey and catalogue the whole of western Europe's terrain and built environment – Lowenthal fell from his truck and fractured his wrist, which resulted in his being recalled to Washington in September 1945. Lowenthal served as a research analyst for the US Department of State from 1945 to 1946. From 1952 to 1956, he
5808-431: The pay of France". But Fox's radical position soon became too extreme for many of his followers, particularly old Whig friends like the Duke of Portland , Earl Fitzwilliam and the Earl of Carlisle . Around July 1794 their fear of France outgrew their resentment towards Pitt for his actions in 1784, and they crossed the floor to the Government benches. Fox could not believe that they "would disgrace" themselves in such
5896-439: The post of Foreign Secretary, ended an epistle to the King: "Whenever Your Majesty will be graciously pleased to condescend even to hint your inclinations upon any subject, that it will be the study of Your Majesty's Ministers to show how truly sensible they are of Your Majesty's goodness." The King replied: "No answer." George III seriously thought of abdicating at this time, after the comprehensive defeat of his American policy and
5984-424: 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. Later, on his deathbed in 1797, Burke would have his wife turn Fox away rather than allow
6072-568: The replacement of his "minion" Pitt with a Foxite ministry. 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. 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. When Fox did make it into Parliament, he seemed to make
6160-415: The right to decide what was and was not libellous, in addition to whether a defendant was guilty. E. P. Thompson thought it "Fox's greatest service to the common people, passed at the eleventh hour before the tide turned toward repression." Indeed, the act was passed by Parliament on 21 May, the same day as a royal proclamation against seditious writings was issued, and more libel cases would be brought by
6248-411: The shocking Gordon riots exploded in London in June 1780, Fox, though deploring the violence of the crowd, declared that he would "much rather be governed by a mob than a standing army." Later, in July, Fox was returned for the populous and prestigious parliamentary constituency of Westminster , with around 12,000 electors, and acquired the title "Man of the People". When North finally resigned under
6336-498: The strains of office and the disastrous American War in March 1782, after Earl Cornwallis surrendered at the Battle of Yorktown , and was gingerly replaced with the new ministry of the Marquess of Rockingham , Fox was appointed Foreign Secretary . But Rockingham, after finally acknowledging the independence of the former Thirteen Colonies , died unexpectedly on 1 July. Fox refused to serve in
6424-514: The successor administration of the Earl of Shelburne , splitting the Whig party; Fox's father had been convinced that Shelburne – a supporter of the elder Pitt – had thwarted his ministerial ambitions at the time of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 . Fox now found himself in common opposition to Shelburne with his old and bitter enemy, Lord North. Based on this single conjunction of interests and the fading memory of
6512-462: The support of the King and the East India Company, while to support him openly would have alienated country gentlemen and principled supporters like Wilberforce . As the trial's intricacies dragged on (it would be 1795 before Hastings was finally acquitted), Fox's interest waned and the burden of managing the trial devolved increasingly on Burke. In late October 1788, George III descended into
6600-672: The world stage of 1791, war with Great Britain was threatened more with Spain and Russia than revolutionary France . Fox opposed the bellicose stances of Pitt's ministry in the Nootka Sound crisis and over the Russian occupation of the Turkish port of Ochakiv on the Black Sea . Fox contributed to the peaceful resolution of these entanglements and gained a new admirer in Catherine the Great , who bought
6688-667: The year, in both London and San Francisco . He and his family lived in Harrow on the Hill in north-west London for many years, and after retirement, in California. Lowenthal's doctoral work was on the 19th-century North American philologist, geographer, and environmentalist George Perkins Marsh , whose work laid the foundations of the environmental conservation movement in the United States, and led to his book George Perkins Marsh: Versatile Vermonter (1958, revised 2003). Other key texts of his in
6776-428: Was William Newcome . By the standards of aristocratic students, he worked hard while at Oxford, especially at mathematics. However, he was rather contemptuous of Oxford's "nonsenses". He left without graduating in spring 1766, to tour Europe with his family. He went on several further expeditions to Europe, becoming well known in the great Parisian salons, meeting influential figures such as Voltaire , Edward Gibbon ,
6864-498: Was "a great cause of amusement to Charles." 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. 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
6952-417: Was 21. In 1995, following the cash-for-questions affair , Hamilton expressed an interest in promoting the objectives of the League online. David Lowenthal David Lowenthal FBA (26 April 1923 – 15 September 2018) was an American historian and geographer , renowned for his work on heritage . He is credited with having made heritage studies a discipline in its own right. David Lowenthal
7040-469: Was a British Whig politician and statesman whose parliamentary career spanned 38 years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He was the arch-rival of the Tory politician William Pitt the Younger ; his father Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland , a leading Whig of his day, had similarly been the great rival of Pitt's famous father, William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham ("Pitt the Elder"). Fox rose to prominence in
7128-696: Was an assistant professor of history at Vassar College . He then undertook several postings, between the US, Caribbean, and the UK. From 1956 to 1970 at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, he was a history lecturer, research associate, and a consultant to the Vice Chancellor. From 1958 to 1972, he was also a research associate at the American Geographical Society . Between 1961 and 1972 he worked at
7216-627: Was born on 26 April 1923 in New York City to Max Lowenthal and Eleanor Mack (daughter of Julian Mack ), and was also the brother of John Lowenthal and Betty Levin . Lowenthal graduated from the Lincoln School in New York, which encouraged interdisciplinary investigation. He went to Harvard University during the Second World War , studying across several disciplines but graduating with
7304-534: Was defeated in the Commons by 294 votes to 105. 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. On
7392-675: Was honoured with a British Academy Medal in the same year. Lowenthal was also active in the Sark community, first visiting the island in the 1990s. He returned several times since 2010 while becoming involved in the Sark community's battle against constitutional reform preferential to the Barclay twins . Lowenthal was awarded several medals by institutions around the world. These included: Charles James Fox Charles James Fox (24 January 1749 – 13 September 1806), styled The Honourable from 1762,
7480-686: Was inducted into the US Army infantry in May 1943 and deployed in September 1944, three months after D-Day . He left active service with trench foot , and it was while recuperating in Somerset that his long association with England, later to become his adopted country, began. In December 1944, he was reassigned to Army Intelligence and embarked on a mission to count toilets in German castles to ascertain how well each might support
7568-677: Was represented in Hong Kong , West Germany , South Africa and the United States . The group had diplomatic links with the Republic of Minerva micronation , contacts with French and Italian monarchist groups, and ties to émigré groups behind the Iron Curtain . The society was known for its eccentricity ; for example, League members walked or travelled by horse-drawn carriage wherever possible and engaged in 'annual hijinks' at Ascot Racecourse and
7656-474: 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. Given carte blanche to choose his own education, Fox in 1758 attended
7744-514: Was so taken in that he started to powder his eyebrows in order that he might appeal to her. Grieve was eventually sent to trial but the resulting scandal resulted in news stories, rhymes and a play at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. George III, also observing Fox's licentious private behaviour, took it to be presumption and judged that Fox could not be trusted to take anything seriously. After 1774, Fox began to reconsider his political position under
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