In accordance with the terms of his wife's inheritance from her childless brother in 1726, Thomas Horner had adopted for himself and his descendants the surname and arms of Strangways. The marriage was arranged secretly by the bride's mother Susanna Strangways, whose "paramour" was Henry Fox, Stephen's younger brother. Thomas Horner objected strongly to the marriage (which his wife denied him any involvement in arranging), not only because he considered his daughter too young, but also because he opposed the Whig politics of the Fox family. His manor of Mells passed by tail male to his younger brother. In 1758, Stephen Fox also assumed the additional surname and arms of Strangways, in accordance with the terms of his wife's inheritance. By his wife he had the following children: Lady Susannah Sarah Louisa Fox-Strangways (1 February 1743 – 1827), known as "Susan". She was the childhood object of affection of her first cousin the future Whig statesman Charles James Fox (1749–1806), who in 1760 when a schoolboy at Eton, composed a prize-winning Latin verse describing a pigeon he found to deliver his love-letters to her "to please both Venus its mistress and him". The scenario was captured in a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds. The young Charles was however very disappointed when in 1764 she eloped with the "unsuccessful" Irish actor William O'Brien. The match caused a scandal in high society, with Horace Walpole commenting: "Even a footman were preferable — the publicity of the hero's profession perpetuates the mortification". Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Fox-Strangways (b. 11 March 1744); Lady Juliana Judith Fox-Strangways (b. 10 July 1745); Henry Thomas Fox-Strangways, 2nd Earl of Ilchester (29 July 1747 – 5 September 1802); Lady Lucy Fox-Strangways (15 December 1748 – 16 August 1787), married Colonel Stephen Digby; Lady Christian Henrietta Carolina Fox-Strangways, called Harriet (3 January 1750 – 21 July 1815), who in 1770 married Colonel John Dyke Acland (1746–1778) of Tetton and Pixton in Somerset, a Tory Member of Parliament for Callington in Cornwall, a major landowner in the West Country who due to his traditional Tory opinions was considered a "provincial boor" by the Fox family's Whig set that gathered at Holland House. She was a heroic figure who accompanied her husband whilst he was fighting in the American War of Independence, and there crossed the Hudson River into enemy lines to nurse him after he was wounded, which scene was later