- While still a child he had been promised that he
might watch an old garden wall at Holland House being demolished on the family estate. However, when his father found out that it had been demolished with Charles being absent there to see this happen, he insisted that the wall be rebuilt and demolished again so Charles might have the promised treat.
- 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
- His father brought him up without the least regard for morality and encouraged him, while still a schoolboy, to acquire extravagant and dissolute habits. He lost vast sums at gambling, and in 1774 his father, just before his death, paid the young man's gambling debts to the amount of £140,000. Almost 20 years later political friends not only freed him from debt but settled on him a comfortable income. He then showed his gratitude by abandoning forever both racing and gambling.
- A clergyman, strong in Greek, was arguing with young Fox against the genuinesness of a verse of the Iliad because its measure was unusual. Fox at once quoted from memory some twenty parallels.
- Charles Fox's grand-parents had a most romantic story to tell too. His grandmother, Sarah Cadogan (his mother's mother) was 13 when she was married to the 18 year old Charles, later the second Duke of Richmond to settle a gaming debt between their fathers. The pair had disliked each other on sight and after the wedding she was packed off to school and he was packed off to the continent for the Grand Tour. Charles returned three years later and on his first night back hoping to delay or just plain avoid theinevitable meeting with his loathed wife he went to the opera. In the a box opposite he spied a most beautiful woman, whom he fell in love with. It turned out this was his wife and he wooed her properly this time and successfully. Their marriage was universally regarded as happy and they were known to kiss, coo and cuddle constantly. She fell pregnant to him 28 times during their long marriage, and had 12 children.
- Fox supported parliamentary reform but he rejected the idea of universal suffrage and instead
argued for the vote to be given to all male householders. However his campaign for Westminster
in 1784 was a famous occasion as it was the first time that a woman had been active in
electioneering, for Fox "recruited" The Duchess and her sister and friends to assist him
to catch votes. Nathaniel Wraxall in his book "Posthumous Memoirs of His Own Times" notes:
"These ladies, being previously furnished with lists of outlying voters drove to
their respective dwellings. Neither entreaties nor promises were spared."
The tactics worked and Fox was re-elected.
James Gillray drew this picture of leading Whigs and Radicals:
Charles Fox, Richard Sheridan, Duke of Norfolk, George Tierney,
Sir Francis Burdett, Earl of Derby and the Duke of Bedford in 1798.
James Gillray produced The Friend of the People in
1806.
It shows Charles Fox (left) and Henry Petty, the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, collecting extra taxes.
