ephen Fox took a second wife, by
whom he had two sons, who became founders of two families; Stephen, the
elder, became first Earl of Ilchester; Henry, the younger, who married
Georgina, daughter of the Duke of Richmond, and was himself created, in
1763, Baron Holland of Farley. Of the children of that marriage Charles
James Fox was the third son, born on the 24th of January, 1749. The
second son had died in infancy.

Henry Fox inherited Tory opinions. He was regarded by George II. as a
good man of business, and was made Secretary of War in 1754, when Charles
James, whose cleverness made him a favoured child, was five years old. In
the next year Henry Fox was Secretary of State for the Southern
Department. The outbreak of the Seven Years' War bred discontent and
change of Ministry. The elder Fox had then to give place to the elder
Pitt. But Henry Fox was compensated by the office of Paymaster of the
Forces, from which he knew even better than his father had known how to
extract profit. He rapidly acquired the wealth which he joined to his
title as Lord Holland of Farley, and for which he was attacked
vigorously, until two hundred thousand pounds--some part of the money
that stayed by him--had been refunded.

Henry Fox, Lord Holland, found his boy, Charles James, brilliant and
lively, made him a companion, and indulged him to the utmost. Once he
expressed a strong desire to break a watch that his father was winding
up: his father gave it him to dash upon the floor. Once his father had
promised that when an old garden wall at Holland House was blown down
with gunpowder before replacing it with iron railings, he should see the
explosion. The workmen blew it down in the boy's absence: his father had
the wall rebuilt in its old form that it might be blown down again in his
presence, and his promise kept. He was sent first to Westminster School,
and then to Eton. At home he was his father's companion, joined in the
talk of men at his father's dinner-parties, travelled at fourteen with
his father to the Continent, and is said to have been allowed five
guineas a night for gambling-money. He grew up reckless of the worth of
money, and for many years the excitement of gambling was to him as one of
the necessaries of life. His immense energy at school and college made
him work as hard as the most diligent man who did nothing else, and
devote himself to gambling, horse-racing, and convivial pleasures as
vigorously as