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idea of him as a wicked and excessive man that had overwhelmed her in the first place.
    Fox’s understanding of the nature of Caroline’s love was his strongest card and he played it relentlessly. He knew that the Duke could not understand why Caroline had fallen in love with such an unsuitable man, and in his most bumptious moments he egged the Duke on to denounce him, knowing that it would only make him seem more attractive than ever. He also knew that the Duke was an indulgent father who would never willingly hurt his daughter. ‘Serious, considerate, sincere, older far in mind than in years, with a heart as tender but as firm as ever yet was formed, does your Grace think she could take a fancy lightly? Or that she could ever alter?’ Fox demanded in his letter of 8 March 1744. ‘Indeed, my Lord, she will not, and your Grace is deciding on the happiness or misery of her whole life, not of a few months only.’ He suggested that Richmond try to talk Caroline out of her unhappiness, delighting in getting his adversary to do his work for him. ‘You only can smooth and help her under this affliction. Pray, my dear Lord, find leisure to speak to her some time.’
    Fox had a reply to the Duke’s veiled threat of ruin too. Richmond had hinted that Henry was simply too poor to marry Caroline. If Caroline came to him without permissionand without a dowry, Fox would never be able to meet her financial expectations. ‘Surely ruin is too strong a word,’ Fox retorted angrily, and folded a statement of his fortune and financial affairs into his letter. The match might not come off, he went on, but ‘I beg you … cast your eye on the inclosed.’ He didn’t want to influence the Duke in his favour, he said, only to point out that ‘you may think me a little less unjustifiable when you see that, tho’ infinitely far from answering her desert or your Grace’s expectations, it would not have been quite ruinous.’ Fox was stung by the Duke’s imputation of his poverty partly because he was by most standards a wealthy man and partly because he longed and schemed to be much wealthier than he was.
    The next day, 9 March, Fox went to see the Duke again. The meeting went well; Richmond was polite and said he could return. Fox scented victory, and sent a note to the Duchess on 12 March, saying that because she was still hostile to the match and would not want to see him, he had decided to write rather than visit. Her husband, Fox went on, had asked him two days ago how he could be so sure of Caroline if she had not given him any secret commitment: where did his confidence come from, the bewildered Duke had asked, if everything was above board? The reason was, he told the Duchess, that he knew Caroline’s heart better than she did herself. ‘Your Grace will perhaps say as the Duke of Richmond did – if so unengaged why was I so sure of her? When she found your Graces would not consent she might have rejected me: and so, indeed, madam, she might with honour; maybe she thought she should. I alone knew she could not; and if this must end unhappily ’tis I have been to blame in taking so much care to hide from herself the impression I had made, lest she alarm’d should give your Grace the alarm too soon. Long and constantly observant of every movement of her heart, the most unaffected and sincere that ever was, I knew (what she knows now but never knew till she was bid to gel the better of it) its attachment to be unalterable.’ He concluded by asking the Duchess how she thought he could presson with his suit if he thought Caroline was going to change her mind.
    These tortuous sentences and this tortured reasoning threw the Duchess into a rage. She took Fox’s implication that he knew Caroline better than she did very badly. Fox’s visits were disagreeable she said, and his letters were more disagreeable still. Both had better stop. She was shocked and offended at his imposition. Fox acknowledged that he had made an error, but