Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland, PC (28 September 1705 – 1 July 1774) was an English peer and Whig politician who served as the Secretary at War from 1746 to 1755.

He was the second son of Sir Stephen Fox and his second wife the former Christiana Hope, and inherited a large share of his father's wealth.

He became a protégé and devoted supporter of Sir Robert Walpole, the long-standing Prime Minister, achieving unequalled and unenviable proficiency in the worst political arts of his master and model.

[5] Charles would later grow up to be a politician of equal note to his father, many of whose policies and friendships he subsequently adopted[6] although he tended more toward radicalism than the elder Fox.

He had built himself a notable political following in London and, perhaps most importantly to Fox, offered a channel of communication to King George II of Great Britain.

[citation needed] Newcastle, fearing the relentless ambitions of both men, ultimately chose neither and instead selected Sir Thomas Robinson.

[citation needed] Robinson, who was considered a nonentity, was poorly equipped to the task and struggled to defend the government from the strident attacks it now came under from Fox and Pitt, who were both angry at being spurned.

It was decided to despatch a large British force under the command of Edward Braddock to America to drive the French out of Ohio Territory.

Pitt mocked the inept handling of the crisis and suggested Britain was ill-prepared for a major war that might break out with the French over the issue.

Fox and Newcastle, realising that Menorca was severely vulnerable to a French attack, despatched a naval force to relieve the island.

The fleet was unable to prevent the Fall of Menorca, leading to a major public outburst against both its commander, Admiral Sir John Byng, and the government.

Byng was later shot after a court martial for "failing to do his utmost", a verdict that opponents of the government saw as a move to protect Newcastle and Fox from censure.

Before his time, it had been the custom to appoint Treasurers at War ad hoc for specific campaigns; the practice of the Protectorate Government foreshadowed, however, a permanent office.

In 1763, in a debate opened by Sir John Phillips, William Aislabie had raised much the same issue in the Commons and was received with 'loud marks of approbation';[12][note 2] but on this occasion, little public attention was aroused, and 1769 was the first time that it was taken up with vigour and outside parliament.

The city's address, like a Middlesex petition of the previous month, echoed charges made in the Commons when Alderman Beckford, the mouthpiece of many popular causes, had asserted that more than forty millions of public money remained unaccounted for in the army Pay Office and that legal process in regard to this had been issued from the exchequer but had been suspended by the king's signed manual warrant.

He tried in vain to obtain promotion to an earldom, a title on which he had set his heart, and he died at Holland House, Kensington, a sorely disappointed man, with a reputation for cunning and unscrupulousness, the most unpopular politician of his day.

Rumours that he had misappropriated £400,000 during his eight years in the job did little to help his reputation as vain and mercenary and that he been under the influence of the notorious socialite Lady Etheldreda Townshend.

His son Charles James Fox also became a leading light in the Whig party and many too considered him a future national leader.

In the 1999 British television series Aristocrats depicting the lives of the wealthy Lennox family during the 18th century, Fox was portrayed by Alun Armstrong.