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.

The Restoration

Holles took part in the conference with Monk at Northumberland House, when the Restoration was directly proposed, and with the secluded members took his seat again in parliament on February 21 1660. On February 23 he was chosen one of the council to carry on the government during the interregnurn; on March 2 the votes passed against him and the sequestration of his estates were repealed, and on the 7th he was made custos rotulorum for Dorsetshire. He took a leading part in bringing about the Restoration, was chairman of the committee of seven appointed to prepare an answer to the king's letter, and as one of the deputed Lords and Commons he delivered at the Hague the invitation to Charles to return. He preceded Charles to England to prepare for his reception, and was sworn of the privy council on the 5th of June. He was one of the thirty-four commissioners appointed to try the regicides in September and October.

Related Topics:
Restoration - February 21 - 1660 - February 23 - March 2

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On April 20 1661 he was created Baron Holles of Ifield in Sussex, and became henceforth one of the leading members of the Upper House. Holles, who was a good French scholar, was sent as ambassador to France on July 7 1663. He was ostentatiously English, and a zealous upholder of the national honour and interests; but his position was rendered difficult by the absence of home support. On January 27 1666 war was declared, but Holles was not recalled till May. Pepys remarks on November 14: "Sir G. Cartaret tells me that just now my Lord Holles had been with him and wept to think in what a condition we are fallen." Soon afterwards he was employed on another disagreeable mission in which the national honour was again at stake, being sent to Breda to make a peace with Holland in May 1667. He accomplished his task successfully, the articles being signed on June 21. On December 12 he protested against Lord Clarendon's banishment and was nearly put out of the council in consequence.

Related Topics:
April 20 - 1661 - Ifield - French - France - July 7 - 1663 - January 27 - 1666 - Pepys - November 14 - Breda - June 21 - December 12

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In 1668 he was manager for the Lords in the celebrated Skinner's case, in which his knowledge of precedents was of great service, and on which occasion he published the tract The Grand Question concerning the Judicature of the House of Peeres (1669). Holles, who was honourably distinguished by Charles as a "stiff and sullen man," and as one who would not yield to solicitation; now became with Halifax and Shaftesbury a leader in the resistance to the domestic and foreign policy of the court. Together with Halifax he opposed both the arbitrary Conventicle Act of 1670 and the Test Oath of 1675, his objection to the latter being chiefly founded on the invasion of the privileges of the peers which it involved; and he defended with vigour the right of the Peers to record their protests. On January 7 1676 Holles with Halifax was summarily dismissed from the council.

Related Topics:
Halifax - Shaftesbury - January 7 - 1676

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On the occasion of the Commons petitioning the king in favour of an alliance with the Dutch, Holles addressee a Letter to Van Beuninghen at Amsterdam on "Love to our Country and Hatred of a Common Enemy," enlarging upon th necessity of uniting in a common defence against French aggression and in support of the Protestant religion. "The People are strong but the Government is weak," he declares; and he attributes the cause of weakness to the transference of power from the nobility to the people, and to a succession of three weal princes." Save what (the Parliament) did, we have not taken one true step nor struck one true stroke since Queen Elizabeth. He endeavoured to embarrass the government this year in his tract on Some Considerations upon the Question whether the parliament is dissolved by its prorogation for 15 months. It was held by the Lords to be seditious and scandalous; while for publishing another pamphlet written by Holles entitled The Grand Question concerning the Prorogation of this Parliament (otherwise The Long Parliament dissolved) the corrector of the proof sheets was committed to the Tower and fined £1000. In order to bring about the downfall of Danby (afterwards Duke of Leeds) and the disbanding of the army, which he believe to be intended for the suppression of the national liberties.

Related Topics:
Amsterdam - Queen Elizabeth

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Holles at this time (1677-1679) engaged, as did many others, in dangerous intrigue with Courtin and Barillon, the French envoys, and Louis XIV; he refused, however, the latter's presents on the ground that he was a member of the council, having been appointed to Sir William Temple's new modelled cabinet in 1679. Barillon described lum as at this period in his old age "the man of all England for whom the different cabals have the most consideration," and as firmly opposed to the arbitrary designs of the court. He showed moderation in the Popish Plot, and on the question of the exclusion followed Halifax rather than Shaftesbury. His long and eventful career closed by his death on the 17th of February 1680.

Related Topics:
Louis XIV - William Temple

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The character of Holles has been drawn by Burnet, with whom he was on terms of friendship. "Holles was a man of great courage and of as great pride... He was faithful and firm to his side and never changed through the whole course of his life." He argued well but too vehemently; for he could not bear contradiction. He had the soul of an old stubborn Roman in him. He was a faithful but a rough friend, and a severe but fair enemy. He had a true sense of religion; and was a man of an unblameable course of life and of a sound judgment when it was not biased by passion. Holles was essentially an aristocrat and a Whig in feeling, making Cromwell's supposed hatred of "Lords" a special charge against him; regarding the civil wars rather as a social than as a political revolution, and attributing all the evils of his time to the transference of political power from the governing families to the "meanest of men." He was an authority on the history and practice of parliament and the constitution, and besides the pamphlets already mentioned was the author of The Case Stated concerning the Judicature of the House of Peers in the Point of Appeals (1675); The Case Stated of the Jurisdiction of the House of Lords in the point of Impositions (1676); Letter of a Gentleman to his Friend showing that the Bishops are not to be judges in Parliament in Cases Capital (1679); Lord Holles his Remains, being a 2nd letter to a Friend concerning the judicature of the Bishops in Parliament...

Related Topics:
Burnet - Whig

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He also published A True Relation of the unjust accusation of certain French gentlemen (1671), an account of Holles's intercession on their behalf and of his dispute with Lord Chief Justice Keeling; and he left Memoirs, written in exile in 1649, and dedicated "to the unparalleled Couple, Mr Oliver St John ... and Mr Oliver Cromwell ..." published in 1699 and reprinted in Baron Maseres's Select Tracts relating to the Civil Wars, I. 189. Several speeches of Holles were printed and are extant, and his Letter to Van Beuninghen has been already quoted.

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Holles married (1) in 1628 Dorothy, daughter and heiress of Sir Francis Ashley; (2) in 1642 Jane, daughter and co-heiress of Sir John Shirley of Ifleld in Sussex and widow of Sir Walter Covert of Slougham, Sussex; and (3) in 1666 Esther, daughter and co-heiress of Gideon Le Lou of Columbiers in Normandy, widow of James Richer. By his first wife he left one son, Francis, who succeeded him as 2nd baron. He had no children by his other wives, and the peerage became extinct in the person of his grandson Denzil, 3rd Baron Holles, in 1694, the estates devolving on John Holles (1662-1711), 4th earl of Clare and duke of Newcastle.

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Holles's brother, John Holles, 2nd earl of Clare (1595-1666), was member of parliament for East Retford in three parliaments before succeeding to the peerage in 1637. He took some part in the Civil War, but "he was very often of both parties, and never advantaged either." The earldom of Clare, which had been granted in 1624 by James I to his father, John Holles, in return for the payment of £5000, became merged in the dukedom of Newcastle in 1694, when John Holles, the 4th earl, was created duke of Newcastle.

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Holles's Life has been written by CH Firth in the Dictionary of National Biography; by Horace Walpole in Royal and Noble Authors, ii. 28; by Guizot in Monk's Contemporaries (Eng. trans. 1851); and by A Collins in historical Collections of Noble Families (1752), and in the Biographia Britannica. See also SR Gardiner. History of England (1883-1884), and History of the Great Civil War (1893); Lord Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, edited by WD Macray; G Burnet, History of His Own Time (1833); and B Whitelock, Memorials (1732).

Related Topics:
CH Firth - Horace Walpole - Guizot - SR Gardiner

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See: Patricia Crawford, Denzil Holles ISBN 0901050520

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This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.

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