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Charles James Fox as Historian
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
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Several British statesmen have also been historians: Clarendon, Russell, Rosebery, Churchill—and Charles James Fox, although he produced only one volume. His History of the early part of the Reign of James II is a fragment of what might have been a much larger work; it was published posthumously, with a preface by his nephew Lord Holland, in 1808. Although it was given a mixed reception by the critics, it was regarded for several decades as something of a classic. It was translated into French, German, and Dutch; and was republished several times in England during the nineteenth century (most recently as a threepenny paperback in Cassell's National Library in 1888).
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References
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5 This is mostly to be found in the C. J. Fox and Holland House Papers, British Museum Additional Manuscripts (hereafter referred to as Add. MSS.) 47578 and 51510. The latter bundle is unfoliated. For the original manuscript of the History, see Add. MSS. 51508–9.
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24 Memorials, in, 219; History, p. xxxv n.
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27 Lauderdale to Fox, dated ‘Sunday’, Add. MSS. 51510; Fox to Lauderdale, 2 May 1800, Memorials, m, 301.
29 Ibid. iv, 13 and 65; Add. MSS. 47578, fo. 64.
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45 Dibdin, loc. cit.
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65 See, for instance, Fox to Holland, 5 January 1799, Memorials, III, 149.
66 Burke said of the system which the New Whigs had adopted:‘ …its great object is not (as they pretend to delude worthy people to their Ruin) the destruction of all absolute Monarchies, but totally to root out that thing called an Aristocrate or Nobleman and Gentleman’(Burke to Fitzwilliam, 21 November 1791, Correspondence of Edmund Burke, VI, 451).
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68 Pares, op. cit. p. 57.
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