About: Charles Fairfax, 5th Viscount Fairfax of Emley

Charles Fairfax, 5th Viscount Fairfax of Emley (died 6 July 1711), was an English peer. Fairfax was the son of Thomas Fairfax, 2nd Viscount Fairfax of Emley, by Alathea Howard, daughter of Sir Philip Howard, son of Lord William Howard. He succeeded his nephew in the viscountcy in 1651. This was an Irish peerage and did not entitle him to a seat in the English House of Lords (although it did entitle him to a seat in the Irish House of Lords). In 1687 he was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of the North Riding of Yorkshire. A Roman Catholic, he actively canvassed the local gentry in the cause of James II. He was suspicious, as he told Sir John Reresby, of the activities of the Earls of Danby and Devonshire in Yorkshire, saying "it could be for no good end that [they] were come down to the country";