John Holl, who was born at Calais, was admitted to the freedom of Romney on 1 Mar. 1482, four years after the death of his father who had himself become a freeman in 1470. By his will of 5 Jan. 1478 Nicholas Holl directed that after the death of his wife his tenement in Romney should be sold and half the proceeds divided between his two sons William and John.4Romney assessment bk. 1448-1526, ff. 64, 93v; Canterbury prob. reg. C2, f. 390.
Elected a jurat in 1489 and first returned to Parliament two years later, Holl frequently attended the Brotherhood of the Cinque Ports between 1490 and his last appearance in July 1517. In June 1509 he was chosen by Romney to attend Henry VIII’s coronation and in July the great charter granted to the Cinque Ports by Henry VII—and now in need of renewal—was committed to his keeping. In the same month his failure to appear earlier at the Brotherhood to make his report as bailiff to Yarmouth was excused when he explained that he had been in consultation with the lord warden Sir Edward Poynings. His dealings with Poynings, a former deputy lieutenant of Calais, may have furthered his return to the first Parliament of the reign on 21 Dec.; in 1516 and 1517 he was among those appointed to confer with Poynings on a dispute between Sandwich and the other ports.5Cinque Ports White and Black Bks. 107, 142, 144, 163, 165-6; HMC 5th Rep. 552.
Holl evidently died shortly after this last appointment for it was later in 1517 or in 1518 that his son Henry complained in Chancery that the deeds of lands in Romney Marsh which father and son had purchased jointly were wrongly kept by Holl’s widow and her new husband John Chilton. Henry Holl then described his father as one of the King’s porters at Calais; the post must have been something of a sinecure, for John Holl was too busy at home to have had much time to spare at Calais.6C1/417/36.