User:Hex/Drafts/Holland House set

The Holland House set was a noted group of Whig politicians and English intellectuals that flourished from 1797–1845 at Holland House in Kensington, London, the home of Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland, and his wife, Elizabeth Vassall Fox, Lady Holland.

The noted diarist Charles Greville described the house as

...[a] strange house, which presents an odd mixture of luxury and constraint, of enjoyment both physical and intellectual, with an alloy of small désagréments.... Though everybody who goes there finds something to abuse or ridicule in the mistress of the house, or its ways, all continue to go; all like it more or less; and whenever, by the death of either, it shall come to an end, a vacuum will be made in society which nothing will supply. It is the house of all Europe; the world will suffer by the loss; and it may be said with truth that it will "eclipse the gayety of nations".
— Charles Greville, The Greville Memoirs^[1]

Origin

Until he inherited a home in Bedfordshire from his uncle, John FitzPatrick, 2nd Earl of Upper Ossory, Holland possessed no country seat; a rarity for a man of his title. However, he possessed a dislike of life in the country, and after his marriage to Elizabeth in July 1797, she decided to provide him an alternative in the form of political and intellectual activities. This was to be the genesis of the set; two years later the first entries in their dinner books would appear. ^[2]

Attendees

Until his death in 1806, Holland's uncle, Charles James Fox, formed an important part of the set, bringing with him Whig friends that included

the soldier and poet Richard FitzPatrick
the MP and minister Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne, nephew of Fox's brother Stephen, and son of Prime Minister William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne
the MP (and, like Fox, inveterate gambler) Lord Robert Spencer
the Scottish peer Lord John Townshend
James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale, one of the founders of Whig organisation the Society of the Friends of the People
the diplomat Sir Robert Adair

The poet and novelist Emily Eden noted in 1833 that

Lady Holland has certainly organised a good system of society — ten people every day at dinner, and a few in the evening, and there is always an author for the good of one's mind, and a doctor to prevent one's dropping down dead, and the rest are people who know each other well, and have the same politics.^[a]

Lady Holland's hypochondria was said to have accounted for the frequent appearance of doctors in the group.^[2] Relatively few women featured in the set as Lady Holland had a preference for male company. One of the few notable women to attend was Lady Caroline Lamb;^[2] however, the two fell out, and Lamb satirized her and Holland House in her novel Glenarvon as "the wife of the great Nabob; the Princess of Madagascar... [who] resides in an old-fashioned gothic building, called Barbary House, three miles beyond the turnpike", with "an outlandish set of menials" to whom she would "drop short epigrammatic sentences".^[4]

In an increasingly religious age, the set remained largely secular, with one attendee, John Allen, who lived at the house for forty years, earning the derisory nickname of "Lady Holland's Atheist". Even so,

It was not... the custom at Holland House to discuss religious subjects, except rarely and incidentally. Everybody knew that the House was sceptical, none of them ever thought of going to church, and they went on as if there was no such thing as religion. But there was no danger of the most devout person being shocked or offended by any unseemly controversy, by any mockery, or insult offered to their feelings and convictions. Amongst the innumerable friends and habitual guests of the House were many clergymen, very sincere and orthodox, and many persons of both sexes entertaining avowedly the strongest religious opinions, amongst them Miss Fox, Lord Holland's sister, and his daughter, Lady Lilford.
— Charles Greville, The Greville Memoirs^[5]

Historians

Historians featured frequently in the set's meetings. While antiquaries such as Sir Francis Palgrave formed a part of the group, the most frequent variety of historian was those of politics. Lord Holland worked for some time on publishing the papers of his uncle, Charles James Fox; at the time of his death, Fox had been engaged in writing a history of the Whig party following the revolution of 1688. Holland died before he could complete the task, and John Allen took charge of the project. Whig historians were no strangers to Holland House; Henry Hallam visited often, and Sir James Mackintosh lived for long periods at the house while he was working on a history of England since the revolution. This task was taken over by Thomas Babington Macaulay, a younger member of the group, who eventually established the Whig view of history. Other historians that participated included George Grote and Philip Henry Stanhope, Lord Mahon, who was welcomed despite being politically conservative.

Politics of the continent

The Hollands, having spent some time living in France and Spain, had a strong interest in the politics of the continent, which was shared by their friends.