Parliament met on April 8, and a strange sight met the eyes of the onlookers. "Never was a more total change of costume beheld than the House of Commons presented to the eye when that assembly met for the despatch of business after the Easter recess. The Treasury Bench, as well as the places behind it, had been for so many years occupied by Lord North and his friends, that it became difficult to recognise them again in their new seats, dispersed over the Opposition benches, in great coats, frocks, and boots. Mr. Ellis himself appeared for the first time in his life in an undress. To contemplate the Ministers, their successors, emerged from their obscure lodgings, or from Brookes's, having thrown off their blue and buff uniforms; now ornamented with the appendages of dress, or returning from Court, decorated with swords, lace and hair-powder, excited still more astonishment."[203]
[203] Wraxall: _Historical Memoirs of My Own Times_.
In the second Rockingham Administration Charles James Fox held the office of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and it cost George III much to sanction this appointment, for he hated Fox more than even he hated Chatham, not only for his attitude in politics but also for the irregularity of his private life. "The King," wrote Wraxall, "who considered Fox as a man ruined in fortune, of relaxed morals, and surrounded with a crowd of followers resembling him in these particulars, deprecated as the severest misfortune to himself and to his subjects, the necessity of taking such a person, however eminent for capacity, into his confidence or councils."[204] It was inevitable, however, that Fox should hold high office, for he was undoubtedly the foremost man in the Rockingham party. Having entered Parliament in 1768, he had distinguished himself in the following year by a speech opposing the claim of Wilkes to take his seat as member for Middlesex. "It was all off-hand, all argumentative, in reply to Mr. Burke and Mr. Wedderburn, and excessively well indeed," said his proud father. "I hear it spoken of as an extraordinary thing, and I am, as you see, not a little pleased with it."
[204] _Historical Memoirs of My Own Times._
Fox was rewarded for his opposition to the popular demagogue with a Lordship of the Admiralty in February, 1770, under Lord North, but, as it has already been stated, he resigned in order to be free to oppose the Royal Marriage Act. He began to be recognised as a power in the House, and Lord North soon made overtures to his erstwhile colleague to rejoin the ministry as a Lord of the Treasury. This Fox did within a year of his resignation, but his independence soon brought about another rupture: and when, on a question of procedure, he caused the defeat of the ministry by pressing an amendment to a division, the King wrote to Lord North: "Indeed, that young man has so thoroughly cast off every principle of common honour and honesty that he must become as contemptible as he is odious; and I hope you will let him know you are not insensible of his conduct towards you."[205] The Prime Minister took the hint, and dismissed Fox in a delightfully laconic note. "Sir, His Majesty has thought proper to order a new Commission of the Treasury in which I do not see your name."[206] This was thought to be a good thing for Fox; and Horace Walpole wrote on February 24, 1774: "The famous Charles Fox was this morning turned out of his place of Lord of the Treasury for great flippancies in the House towards North. His parts will now have a full opportunity of showing whether they can balance his character, or whether patriotism can whitewash it."