Denzil Holles, 1st Baron Holles

Denzil Holles, 1st Baron Holles (October 31, 1599 - February 17, 1680) was an English statesman and writer, best known as one of the five members of parliament whom King Charles I of England attempted to arrest in 1642.

Early life

Holles was the second son of John Holles, 1st Earl of Clare (c. 1564-1637), by Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas Stanhope. The favourite son of his father and endowed with great natural abilities, Denzil Holles grew up under advantageous circumstances. Destined to become one of the most formidable antagonists of King Charles's arbitrary government, he had been Charles's childhood friend. The earl of Clare was, however, no friend to the Stuart administration, being especially hostile to the Duke of Buckingham; and on the accession of Charles to the throne the king's offers of favour were rejected. In 1624 Holles was returned to parliament for Mitchell in Cornwall, and in 1628 for Dorchester. He had from the first a keen sense of the humiliations which attended the foreign policy of the Stuart kings. Writing to Strafford, his brother-in-law, on November 29 1629, he severely censures Buckingham's conduct of the expedition to the Isle of Rhé; "since England was England," he declared, "it received not so dishonourable a blow"; and he joined in the demand for Buckingham's impeachment in 1628.

Related Topics:
1624 - Cornwall - Dorchester - November 29 - Buckingham

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