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Regency Crisis of 1788

The Right Honourable
Charles James Fox
Charles James Fox by Karl Anton Hickel.jpg
Constituency Midhurst, West Sussex
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
In office
7 February 1806 – 13 September 1806
Prime Minister William Grenville
Preceded by The Lord Mulgrave
Succeeded by Viscount Howick
In office
2 April 1783 – 19 December 1783
Prime Minister The Duke of Portland
Preceded by The Lord Grantham
Succeeded by The Earl Temple
In office
27 March 1782 – 5 July 1782
Prime Minister The Marquess of Rockingham
Preceded by The Viscount Stormont (Northern Secretary)
Succeeded by The Lord Grantham
Leader of the House of Commons
In office
27 March 1782 – 5 July 1782
Prime Minister The Marquess of Rockingham
Preceded by Lord North
Succeeded by Thomas Townshend
Personal details
Born (1749-01-24)24 January 1749
Westminster, England
Died 13 September 1806(1806-09-13) (aged 57)
Chiswick, England
Political party Whig (Foxite)
Spouse(s) Elizabeth Armistead
Education Eton College
Alma mater Hertford College, Oxford
Profession , abolitionist

Charles James Fox PC (24 January 1749 – 13 September 1806), styled The Honourable from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned 38 years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and who was the arch-rival of William Pitt the Younger. His father Henry, a leading Whig of his day, had similarly been the great rival of Pitt's famous father. He rose to prominence in the House of Commons as a forceful and eloquent speaker with a notorious and colourful private life, though his opinions were rather conservative and conventional. 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 ever to be aired in the Parliament of his era.

Fox became a prominent and staunch opponent of George III, whom he regarded as an aspiring tyrant; he supported the American Patriots, even dressing in the colours of George Washington's army. Briefly serving as Britain's first Foreign Secretary in 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, the King forced Fox and North out of government before the end of the year, replacing them with the twenty-four-year-old Pitt the Younger, and Fox spent the following twenty-two years facing Pitt and the government benches from across the Commons.


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