The Creevey Papers
Thomas Creevey to Elizabeth Ord, 24 July 1820
“Liverpool, 24th July.
“. . . As for the wretched dirt and meanness of
Holland House, it makes me perfectly sick. I have had the same story from
Brougham some months back, who was then
himself a competitor with Mackintosh for
an epitaph upon poor Fox’s
tombstone. He repeated to me the thing got up by
Mackintosh, which was fifty thousand times inferior to
the lowest ballad in favor of the Queen.
But Holland House has quite made up its mind that the two great and brilliant
features of Fox’s publick life (his resistance to
the war upon America and the glorious fight which he made single-handed against
helping the Bourbons to trample on the French nation) shall never have the
sanction of either my lady or
Mackintosh to appear in his history, and all this,
least it might interfere with any arrangement. This is
the true history of this despicable twaddling. . . .”
Henry Peter Brougham, first baron Brougham and Vaux (1778-1868)
Educated at Edinburgh University, he was a founder of the
Edinburgh
Review in which he chastised Byron's
Hours of Idleness; he
defended Queen Caroline in her trial for adultery (1820), established the London University
(1828), and was appointed lord chancellor (1830).
Queen Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1768-1821)
Married the Prince of Wales in 1795 and separated in 1796; her husband instituted
unsuccessful divorce proceedings in 1820 when she refused to surrender her rights as
queen.
Charles James Fox (1749-1806)
Whig statesman and the leader of the Whig opposition in Parliament after his falling-out
with Edmund Burke.
Elizabeth Fox, Lady Holland [née Vassall] (1771 c.-1845)
In 1797 married Henry Richard Fox, Lord Holland, following her divorce from Sir Godfrey
Webster; as mistress of Holland House she became a pillar of Whig society.
Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832)
Scottish philosopher and man of letters who defended the French Revolution in
Vindiciae Gallicae (1791); he was Recorder of Bombay (1803-1812) and
MP for Knaresborough (1819-32).
