Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland

Henry Richard Vassal-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland of Holland and 3rd Baron Holland of Foxley (21 November 1773 - 22 October 1840), was an English politician and a major figure in Whig politics in the early 19th century.

Biography

He was born at Winterslow House in Wiltshire and educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he became the friend of George Canning and John Hookham Frere. Lord Holland's uncle was the great Whig orator Charles James Fox, and he remained steadily loyal to the Whig party. In 1791 he visited Paris and became acquainted with Lafayette and Talleyrand, and in 1793 he again went abroad to travel in France and Italy. At Florence he met Lady Webster, wife of Sir Godfrey Webster, 4th Baronet (1719 – 1800), who left her husband for him. She was born Elizabeth Vassal (1770 – 1845), daughter of Richard Vassal, a planter in Jamaica, and wife Mary Clarke, who later remarried Sir Gilbert Affleck, 2nd Baronet (– 1808). A son, Charles Richard Fox, was born to them. Sir Godfrey Webster having obtained a divorce, the couple were able to marry on 6 July 1797. They had three more children: Hon. Stephen Fox (–1800), Henry Edward Fox, 4th Baron Holland, and Hon. Mary Elizabeth Fox, married to Thomas Atherton Powys, 3rd Baron Lilford.

Mary Clarke was a younger sister of Charity Clarke, married to The Right Reverend Benjamin Moore, the parents of author Clement Clarke Moore. In turn they were the daughters of Maj. Thomas Clarke, a retired British veteran of the French and Indian War, and wife Mary Stillwell, who was the younger sister of Anna Stillwell, married to Theodosius Bartow, the parents of Theodosia Bartow, first wife of Aaron Burr, Vice President of the United States of America (1756 – 1836), and both daughters of Richard Stillwell Jr. and wife Mercy Sands, granddaughters of Richard Stillwell and wife and great-granddaughters of a Nicholas Stillwell, whose will was dated from Staten Island 22 December 1671 with letters of administration 17 June 1672, and wife Mary ..., who died probably around 1686. Maj. Thomas Clarke was the proprietor of the house "Chelsea", at the time a country estate, and of much of its neighborhood, the which gave its name to the surrounding neighborhood of Chelsea, Manhattan. Clarke named his house for a hospital in London that served war veterans. 'Chelsea' was later inherited by Thomas Clarke's daughter, Charity Clarke Moore, and ultimately by grandson Clement and his family.

Of note: as a girl, Moore's mother, Charity Clarke, wrote letters to her English cousins that are preserved at Columbia University and show her disdain for the policies of the English Monarchy and her growing sense of patriotism in pre-revolutionary days.

Politics

Holland took his seat in the House of Lords on 5 October 1796. During several years he may be said almost to have constituted the Whig party in the Upper House. In 1800 he was authorized to take the name of Vassall, and after 1807 he signed himself Vassall Holland, though the name was no part of his title. He was appointed to negotiate a treaty with American envoys James Monroe and William Pinkney, was admitted to the privy council on 27 August 1806, and on the 15th of October entered the Ministry of All the Talents as Lord Privy Seal, retiring with the rest of his colleagues in March 1807. He led the opposition to the Regency bill in 1811, and he attacked the orders in council and other strong measures of the government taken to counteract Napoleon's Berlin decrees. He denounced the treaty of 1813 with Sweden which bound England to consent to the forcible union of Norway, and he resisted the bill of 1816 for confining Napoleon in Saint Helena. He was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the cabinets of Lord Grey and Lord Melbourne, and he was still in office when he died on 22 October 1840.

Writings

His protests against the measures of the Tory ministers were collected and published, as the Opinions of Lord Holland (1841), by Dr Moylan of Lincoln's Inn. Lord Holland's Foreign Reminiscences (1850) contain much amusing gossip from the Revolutionary and Napoleonic era. His Memoirs of the Whig Party (1852) is an important contemporary authority. His small work on Lope de Vega (1806) is still of some value.

References

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