(1745 - 74) of Salisbury, Wilts, e. s. of 1st B. Holland; educ. Eton; m. 1766 Ldy. Mary Fitzpatrick (d. 1778), dau. of 1st E. of Upper Ossory; MP 1768 - 74; Dilettanti 1769; suc. fa. 1774 as 2nd B.
1766 - 7 Florence (Nov. 1766), Naples (27 Nov. 1766 - Feb. 1767), Rome, Florence (Apr.), Milan (three days), Turin
In the autumn of 1766 Stephen Fox and his new wife, Lady Mary, travelled overland from Marseilles to Naples with his mother, his younger brother Henry and his cousin Clotworthy Upton, see Henry, 1st Baron Holland. In Naples they joined his father Lord Holland, his younger brother Charles and his cousin Lord Offaly (see Kildare). According to his mother, Stephen suffered from deafness and shyness and his size was 'enormous', but Lady Mary, on whom Stephen doted, grew 'more amiable every day'.1 In December Kildare wrote that 'Ste' 'continues deaf [and] has been laid up with gnat bites upon his legs'.2 At the end of February 1767 Stephen and Lady Mary left the rest of the party in Naples, intending to see Venice, Genoa and Leghorn; Stephen was 'very glad to go', wrote his mother; 'he is heartily tired of Naples'.3 In the event they stayed in Rome, where Lady Mary sat to Batoni (Clark/Bowron 323; priv. coll.); Piranesi subsequently dedicated to her a plate in his Vasi, Candelabri, Cippi [1778]. Early in April they rejoined the Holland party in Florence and travelled with them as far as Turin, whence they travelled on their own straight back to England through France.4 The Batoni portrait was dispatched from Rome in January 1769.5
1. Leinster Corr., 1:474, 479, 485. 2. Ibid., 3:446. 3. Ibid., 1:498. 4. Jesse, Selwyn, 2:153. 5. NLI MS.2262 (G. Hamilton, 7 Jan. 1769).