HOLLES, John (1595-1666)

Holles’ father devoted his life to consolidating and expanding the family estates in north Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, centred around Haughton, and to developing his property in the manor of St Clement Danes, Westminster. His estate, the subject of a bitter testamentary dispute between his two sons, John and Denzil, was valued at £6,800 at his death. CSP Dom. 1637–8, pp. 353–4. In 1616 Sir John bought the barony of Haughton for £10,000 and then in 1624 purchased another title, the earldom of Clare, whereupon his eldest son and heir, John, was styled Lord Haughton until he succeeded to the earldom in 1637. CSP Dom. 1611–18, pp. 380, 384; CSP Dom. 1623–5, pp. 372, 437. Haughton was elected for both Mitchell in Cornwall and East Retford in Nottinghamshire for the 1624 Parliament and, after giving the Cornish seat to his younger brother, Denzil, he sat for the Nottinghamshire borough for that and the following two Parliaments. HP Commons, 1604–29, iv. 758–9.

Haughton’s cousin Gervase Holles^‡ thought him very like his grandfather, in being ‘very pleasant company, both witty and affable’, but suspected that he was too concerned with enlarging his own estate to be trustworthy. G. Holles, Mems. of the Holles Family (Cam. Soc. ser. 3, lv), 67, 191–2. Edward Hyde, the future earl of Clarendon, similarly felt that Clare had little political ambition, but ‘was a man of honour and of courage, and would have been an excellent person if his heart had not been too much set upon keeping and improving his estate’. Clarendon, Rebellion, iii. 153. Clare displayed a bewildering political inconsistency during the civil wars. Lucy Hutchinson judged that he ‘was very often of both parties, and I think never advantaged either’. Hutchinson Mems, 96. He signed the Covenant in April 1645, although his request early in 1647 to be readmitted to the House was narrowly voted down. HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 562–4. Despite this, he remained a constant servant of the Parliamentarian regime and its successors in his local base of Nottinghamshire.

Clare became heavily involved the development of his property around Drury Lane in particular, where he had his principal London residence, Clare House. VCH Mdx. xiii. pt. 1, p. 87. In 1657 the act preventing the multiplicity of buildings in and about London made reference to the ‘great charge’ he had been at in ‘erecting several new buildings upon his inheritance in Clements-Inn Fields’, which had been ‘useful for a market’, and in protecting his rights in the area. After the Restoration, he petitioned for and was granted the right to hold a market there three times a week, he having ‘erected the needful buildings’ for it. A. and O. ii. 1233; CSP Dom. 1661–2, pp. 58, 326.

Clare supported the Restoration and may even, if the later testimony of the self-aggrandizing royalist soldier Sir Philip Monckton^‡ is to be believed, have engaged in meetings in Sherwood Forest with Monckton, Edward Rossiter^‡ and Henry Cavendish, Lord Ogle, the future 2nd duke of Newcastle, to discuss means of suppressing the insurgency led by John Lambert^‡. CSP Dom. 1676–7, p. 178. In the spring of 1660, Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, marked Clare as one of the Lords who ‘withdrew a little’ in his assessment of attitudes towards Presbyterian peers. On 13 Apr. 1660 James Butler, duke of Ormond, was informed that Clare, who had been with the king at Oxford ‘and so disabled from sitting in Parliament’ was ‘now resolved to sit, and encouraged by the other peers so to do’, although he wished to clear the decision with the king. Bodl. Carte 214, f. 65. On 27 Apr. the newly gathered House of Lords wrote to Clare requesting his presence, and he took his seat on 5 May. He was formally pardoned by the king on 30 May. CSP Dom. 1660–1, p. 2. Clare attended on 69 days (59 per cent) of the session, before its adjournment on 13 Sept., and was named to five committees. He did not attend when the session reconvened in November 1660.

Clare was present on the opening day of the Cavalier Parliament on 8 May 1661 and attended on 34 days (53 per cent) before the adjournment at the end of July. He was named to a single committee, on the bill for reversing the attainder of Thomas Wentworth^†, earl of Strafford, his former brother-in-law, whom he had tried to save back in 1640–1. He also supported another royalist kinsman when he voted on 11 July in favour of the claim of his distant relation on his wife’s side Aubrey de Vere, 20th earl of Oxford, to the great chamberlaincy. He was not present when the session resumed in November 1661, and first attended on 1 Feb. 1662, sitting on 45 days (34 per cent) of this part of the session, and being named to six committees. On 14 Feb. he complained of a breach of parliamentary privilege as a warrant for his arrest had been issued on the information of William Egerton, the scavenger of Westminster. The matter was referred to the committee for privileges. On the 17th Egerton appeared at the Bar, claiming that he was illiterate and did not know that Clare’s name had been included in the warrant. Later the same day the committee took evidence from one Fountaine, clerk to Humphrey Weld^‡, and from Egerton. The former they found ‘fit only to reprove him and direct that he acknowledge his fault against’ Clare, while they found Egerton more culpable and it was decided that he should be committed during the pleasure of the House. When the committee reported these findings on the 19th, Clare requested clemency towards Egerton, and he was admonished and released the following day. PA, HL/PO/CO/1/1, p. 74.

Clare remained active in Nottinghamshire affairs, but in November 1662 the local commissioners entrusted with enforcing the Corporation Act, including the lord lieutenant, the marquess of Newcastle, tried to remove the earl from his place for his compliance with the preceding ‘usurping’ government. Clare, who does not appear to have generally been on close terms with his brother, on this occasion turned to Denzil for advice, and managed to procure from both Charles II and Clarendon letters assuring the commissioners that Clare’s ‘good affection and zeal to our service we have no cause at all to doubt’. UNL, Portland mss Pw 2, 431; PwV 4, pp. 286–7; CSP Dom. 1661–2, pp. 540, 553.

Clare was not present from the beginning of the 1663 session and was absent from a call of the House on 23 February. He first attended on 29 Apr., was present on 36 days (44 per cent) and was named to three committees. He held the proxy of his brother from 3 July 1663. Holles was known as a leader of the presbyterian party opposed to the restrictive religious legislation associated with Clarendon, and in thus registering his proxy he was probably assuming that his brother held similar views. Wharton marked both brothers as probable supporters of the attempt of George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol, to impeach Clarendon in mid-July and he explicitly noted that Clare held Holles’ proxy.

Clare attended on only three days of the March–May 1664 session, and was absent from a call of the House on 4 April. He also missed the beginning of the 1664–5 session, being absent from a call of the House on 7 Dec. 1664. Notwithstanding his absence, he was able to prosecute a complaint of breach of privilege on 1 Dec. 1664 against a verdict of ejectment that had been decreed against tenants in his property in the manor of St Clement Danes, with the House ruling on the 5th that if Clare owned the properties to be his, the verdict and the proceedings on it would be laid aside. He first attended on 17 Feb. 1665, sitting on six days (12 per cent) of the session and being named to two committees. He last sat on 24 Feb. 1665.

Clare died on 2 Jan. 1666. At the time of his last recorded rentals, from 1664–5, he had an income of £6,626 (his son later estimated the income at £7,000 p.a.). Portland mss PwV 4, pp. 1–2; TNA, PROB 11/394. Having settled his estate on the marriage of his son in 1655, Clare’s brief will gave his personal estate in Clare House to his wife, in lieu of her customary rights under the province of York, and directed that his personal estate at Haughton and his house in Nottingham should be sold for the payment of his debts, amounting to about £26,000, and raising portions of £4,000 each for his four unmarried daughters. If she did not renounce her right, his wife was to be replaced as executor by his brother-in-law, Sir John Wolstenholm^‡. By previous deeds he had conveyed lands in Middlesex to trustees to help pay his debts and his daughters’ portions. Portland mss Pw2 382/1; TNA, PROB 11/320. He was succeeded by his son Gilbert Holles, 3rd earl of Clare, who, within two years of coming into his inheritance, petitioned Parliament for a private bill giving him control of both the Nottinghamshire and the Middlesex properties in order to settle his father’s outstanding debts. UNL, Portland mss Pw2 641.