Holles

Holles, DENZIL, LORD, one of the 'five members,' was the son of the Earl of Clare, and was born at Houghton, in Nottinghamshire, in 1599. He entered parliament in 1624, and at once joined the party opposed to the king's government. On March 2, 1629, he was one of the members who held the Speaker in his chair whilst resolutions were passed against Arminianism and tonnage and poundage. For this act he was condemned by the Court of King's Bench to pay a fine of one thousand marks, and to be imprisoned in the Tower during the king's pleasure; he remained there about a twelvemonth. He was one of the members of parliament whom Charles accused of high-treason and attempted to arrest in 1642. On the outbreak of the Civil War he was charged to hold Bristol; but, dreading the supremacy of the army more than he dreaded the pretensions of the king, Holles was a steady advocate of peace. He was a foremost leader of the Presbyterian party. For having in 1647 proposed to disband the army he was accused of high treason; but, leaving his native land, he found refuge in Normandy. Again, after a brief return visit to England in the following year, he went back to Brittany, and stayed there until Cromwell's death. On his reappearance in England Holles set to work to effect the restoration of the Stnarts; he was the spokesman of the commission delegated to carry the invitation of recall to Charles II. at Breda. In 1661 he was created a peer as Lord Holles of Isfield in Sussex. His last important public duty was the negotiation of the treaty of Breda in 1667. Although thus employed in the service of the crown, Holles still clung faithfully to his love of liberty, and remained staunch in his support of the governing rights of parliament; and as Charles's propensities towards absolutism became more pronounced Holles leaned more to the opposition. He died on 17th February 1680, a man of firm integrity, a lover of his country and of liberty, 'a man of great courage and of as great pride. He had the soul of a stubborn old Roman in him.' See Memoirs written by himself (1699); also S. R. Gardiner's History.