Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 27.djvu/194

 extract from Harleian MS. 1989 (f. 381) on ‘The Antiquitys … of Chester,’ was printed in the ‘Traison et Mort de Roy Richart’ (Engl. Hist. Soc.), 1846. 

HOLMES, ABRAHAM (d. 1685), rebel, served in Scotland under Monck, holding a major's commission in 1654, but, falling under suspicion of disaffection, was sent to London to be under the Protector's eye (16 Dec.) He was a fanatical anabaptist, and apparently opposed to all settled government. He was again in Scotland with Monck in 1659, and signed (17 May) a petition to parliament praying that energetic steps might be taken to countenance godliness, and vindicate the rights and liberties of the nation. Soon after this his commission was cancelled by Monck. Upon the Restoration he became the ringleader in a conspiracy to assassinate the king, was arrested, and was committed to prison (10 May 1660), but soon regained his liberty, and resumed his old devices. On 13 Sept. 1662 a warrant was issued to apprehend him and bring him before Secretary Nicholas. In April 1664 he was committed to Windsor Castle, where he was still in confinement in September 1667. He was at large in 1681, and on Argyll's escape from prison in December of that year Holmes harboured him at his lodgings in London, disclosing himself as the officer who had arrested him when Lord Lorne, but adding ‘but now we are upon one side, and I will venture all that is dear to me to serve you’ (see, ninth ; , Hist. of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, ed. Burns, iii. 338). On Argyll's going to Holland, Holmes acted as his agent in London, and fell under suspicion of complicity in the Rye House Plot. On 28 June 1683 he was arrested and committed to the Gatehouse. Next day he was examined as to the contents of certain cipher letters found in his possession, and confessed that they related to a plot to raise an insurrection in Scotland, to which Argyll, Monmouth, Russell, and Grey were parties. He was charged with high treason, but was not brought to trial. It is not clear whether he was released or made his escape, but he was in Holland with Monmouth in 1685, accompanied him to England, and, though apparently holding only a colonel's commission, commanded a battalion of foot at Sedgemoor (6 July). After the battle he was taken prisoner, stripped naked, and carried to the house of a justice of the peace, who clothed and committed him for trial. One of his arms had been shattered in the skirmish at Philip's Norton on 27 June, and he cut it off himself in the justice's kitchen with a carving knife. He was tried by Jeffreys for high treason at Dorchester, pleaded guilty, and was executed at Lyme on 12 Sept. The bystanders observed with superstitious awe that the horses that were first put to the sledge to carry him to the gallows could not be made to stir, and those with which they were replaced broke it in pieces. At the foot of the ladder he sat down, and asserted in a speech to the people that he and others had risked their lives for the maintenance of the protestant religion (Western Martyrology, ed. 1873, reprinted from the edition of 1705, pp. 207 et seq.) 

HOLMES, ALFRED (1837–1876), violinist and composer, son of Thomas Holmes of Lincoln, was born in London 9 Nov. 1837. He was principal soprano boy at the Oratory, King William Street, Strand, about 1847. His father gave him his first lessons in violin-playing; the study of Spohr's ‘Violin School’ and the practice of Rode, Baillot, and Kreutzer's music followed, with the result that Holmes became a finished player before he was twenty. In July 1847 he and his younger brother, Henry, his equal in talent and knowledge, played at the Haymarket Theatre for Benjamin Webster's benefit. About 1852 Spohr heard them in England, and was delighted by their renderings of his works; but their formal introduction to the public as violinists was delayed until 5 May 1853, when they appeared at the Beethoven Rooms, and their performance of Kalliwoda's double concerto, and of soli by various composers won high praise. In 1855 the brothers