Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 27.djvu/168

 Laud’ (1645); ‘Trial and Execution of Thomas, Earl of Strafford;’ ‘Coronation of Charles II;’ ‘Kempthorne's Engagement with the Algerine Pirates;’ the ‘Four Seasons;’ map of England, surrounded by miniature portraits of kings; a map of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales; maps of the Isle of Man and Hungary; and ‘A New Mappe of the Cities of London, Westminster, and the Borough of Southwark’ (1675). 

HOLLES, DENZIL (1599–1680), statesman, second son of John Holles, first earl of Clare [q. v.], was born 31 Oct. 1599 (, Westminster Abbey Registers, p. 4). In the parliament of 1624 Holles represented the borough of St. Michael in Cornwall, and Dorchester in that of 1628. From the commencement of his career Holles seems to have associated himself with the opponents of Buckingham. His indignation was roused by the failure and disgrace which marked that minister's foreign policy. ‘Since England was England,’ he wrote of the disaster at the Isle of Rhé, ‘it received not so dishonourable a blow’ (Strafford Letters, i. 41). The fact that Wentworth was his brother-in-law and Eliot his friend no doubt influenced his political course. On 2 March 1629, when, contrary to the will of the House of Commons, the speaker pleaded the king's order to adjourn it, and sought to leave the chair, Holles and another member kept him in it by force. ‘God's wounds!’ swore Holles, ‘you shall sit till we please to rise.’ At the end of the same stormy sitting it was Holles who recited and put to the house Eliot's three resolutions against innovation in religion and arbitrary taxation (, History of England, vii. 68, 75; Old Parliamentary History, viii. 332, 354, 361). Two days later he was arrested and committed to the Tower. Holles, with five other prisoners, applied to the court of king's bench for a writ of habeas corpus, but the judges refused to allow bail, except on condition of giving a bond for good behaviour (3 Oct. 1629). An information had been exhibited against Holles and the rest in the Star-chamber (7 May 1629), but this was dropped, and they were finally proceeded against in the king's bench. Refusing to acknowledge the jurisdiction of that court with respect to matters transacted in parliament, he was treated as acknowledging his fault, and sentenced to be fined one thousand marks (2 Feb. 1630). He was in addition to be imprisoned during the king's pleasure, and not to be released except on giving security for good behaviour and confessing his offence (, vi. 90, 111, 119;, pp. 104–6). To avoid this, writes Holles, ‘I made an escape, and lived a banished man … for the space of seven or eight years, and then at last was glad to pay my fine. I can with confidence say that my imprisonment and my suits cost me three thousand pounds; and that I am ten thousand pounds the worse in my estate upon that occasion’ (, Memorials of the Civil War, i. 150). The Long parliament treated the prosecution as a breach of privilege, and referred the question to a committee, whose report was delivered by Glyn on 6 July 1641 (, Notes of the Long Parliament, p. 102; Commons' Journals, ii. 53, 201–3). Holles was voted 5,000l. in compensation for his losses and sufferings, and the thousand marks which he had paid into the exchequer for his fine were repaid to him.

In the parliament of April 1640, and also in the Long parliament, Holles again represented Dorchester. His sufferings and abilities gave him a leading place among the opposition (, Rebellion, iii. 35). The fact that his sister had been Strafford's second wife led him to separate himself from his political associates on one point. ‘In all other contrivances he was in the most secret councils with those who most governed, and was respected by them with very much submiss application as a man of authority’ (ib.) Holles spoke on behalf of Strafford's children, and endeavoured to negotiate an arrangement by which the king's consent to the abolition of episcopacy should be accepted as the ransom of Strafford's life (, p. 339;, Works, iii. 442; , Own Time, ed. 1833, i. 56). Clarendon represents Holles as not one of the root-and-branch men, yet he was certainly one of the tellers for the second reading of the Root-and-branch Bill, spoke often against the bishops, and was chosen to carry up to the House of Lords both the impeachment of Laud and the protestation (, pp. 364, 418;, pp. 106, 116; , Notes of the Long Parliament, pp. 67, 70). On 6 July he made a great speech on the conduct of the judges, urging the restoration of Sir Randulphe Crew to the chief justiceship, of which he had been deprived. Holles was the mouthpiece of the commons when they announced their resolution to support the cause of the elector