HOLLAND, Sir John, 1st bt. (1603-1701), of Quidenham, Norf.

The Hollands were originally from Lincolnshire, but by the sixteenth century they had settled in Norfolk and in 1572 Sir John’s grandfather, John Holland, bought the manor of Quidenham, close to the Suffolk border.34Blomefield, Norf. i. 341. Their connections with that county, their wealth and their local influence derived mainly from their enduring links with the Howard earls of Arundel. Both this MP’s grandfather and his father served as the steward of the Howard lands throughout East Anglia and Holland himself succeeded to that position on the death of his father in 1626. The future MP was therefore groomed from an early age in the expectation that he would pay a leading role in local affairs. He was probably still a student at the Middle Temple when his father died and he inherited the lands at Quidenham.35PROB11/148/414.

Early career

During those years Holland was something of a man-about-town in London, associating with other fashionable young men including his cousin, Thomas Knyvett of Ashwellthorpe, and his uncle, Sir Charles Le Gros*.36Knyvett Lttrs. 75. In about 1627 he and Knyvett were ‘full merry’ when dining with Elizabeth Hampden, mother of John Hampden*.37Knyvett Lttrs. 72-3. This phase may have been brought to an end by his marriage to Alathea, widow of William, 4th Baron Sandys of the Vyne. This match was apparently brought about by her brother-in-law, Edward Duke*.38HEHL, MS HM 55603, f. *13. That his new wife was a Roman Catholic would dog Holland throughout his political career. In June 1629, quite possibly in anticipation of this match, Holland was granted a baronetcy by the king.39CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 574; Coventry Docquets, 26; CB ii. 72. But despite this new title for her husband, most contemporaries continued to refer to Alathea as ‘Lady Sandys’. Very much a client of the lord lieutenant, Thomas Howard, 21st earl of Arundel (also a Catholic), Holland was already by 1630s an active local magistrate within Norfolk, whether as an officer in the county militia or as a justice of the peace.40Coventry Docquets, 68; CSP Dom. Add. 1625-49, p. 508. Holland’s loyalty to Arundel probably coloured his view of the first bishops’ war against the Scots in 1639, in which the earl commanded the English army. Writing to Framlingham Gawdy* in late June 1639, Holland welcomed the Pacification of Berwick, which ‘joys the hearts of both kingdoms’, as evidence of the king’s ‘piety and goodness’.41Belvoir Castle, lttrs. of Long Parliament MPs, i. f. 20.

In the spring of 1640 Holland stood as a candidate for the junior county seat for Norfolk, but he faced a serious challenge from John Potts*. In the end, Holland prevailed. In his acceptance speech he acknowledged ‘the great disportion [disproportion] there is between the weight and burden of your service in this Parliament and my strength and ability to support me under them’.42Bodl. Tanner 321, f. 3. He made much the same point later that year he told fellow Members of the Long Parliament that he realised that he was ‘one of the youngest scholars and meanest proficients in this great school of wisdom’.43Bodl. Tanner 321, f. 4; Sir John Holland his Speech in Parliament (1641), 1. But the most significant feature of his speech following the Short Parliament poll was that he strongly denied the insinuations about his religious belief spread by his opponents during the campaign. He asserted as firmly as possible that he had been brought up, continued and hoped to remain as a member of the Church of England. Claims to the contrary were no more than ‘the barking of the dogs in the street’.44Bodl. Tanner 321, ff. 3-3v. The brief duration of the Short Parliament gave him little opportunity to make his mark. His only committee appointment was to the committee for privileges (16 Apr.), although he did present a petition from the Norwich weavers against the soap monopoly to the committee on grievances.45CJ ii. 4a; Bodl. Tanner 321, f. 3v; Procs. Short Parl. 262-3.

The first year of the Long Parliament, 1640-1

That autumn Arundel’s influence secured Holland’s return as MP for Castle Rising, after Holland stood aside to allow Potts a county seat. By 9 November, the first day of the second week of the Long Parliament, it was beginning to get down to some substantive business and Holland was given the honour of moving the motion for a grant of supply.46Procs. LP i. 62, 65, 66, 72. It would seem that some old hands in the Commons had already spotted that he had the makings of a polished orator who could cope with the challenges of a high-profile speech on a set-piece occasion. According to the unofficial text that later appeared in print, he began by expressing the hope that, ‘since his Majesty has so graciously put the government of all into our hands, I doubt not but we shall make it a happy and long lasting Parliament, for so certainly his Majesty, our own and the kingdom’s necessities require it’.47Bodl. Tanner 321, f. 4; Sir John Holland his Speech in Parliament, 1. A platitude perhaps, but exactly the right sentiment on this occasion. His proposed solutions were equally unsurprising. He argued that the king needed money, but, in the time-honoured fashion, he balanced this by citing a number of grievances he thought they ought also to remedy. Foremost among them were the recent innovations in religion and, what in his mind was clearly linked to it, the spread of popery. He combined this with an attack on (unnamed) councillors leading the king astray. This might have amounted to no more than a mere cliché were it not that plenty of MPs were already formulating mental hit lists of potential targets. Foreigners draining the kingdom of its resources was another conventional grievance cited. Finally, he called on MPs to relieve the sufferings of the north of England by taking steps to remove the Scottish army of occupation.48Bodl. Tanner 321, ff. 4-5; Sir John Holland his Speech in Parliament, 2-5. Some of these points, particularly the claims about undue Catholic influence, were ones that had been made two days earlier by John Pym* in a speech on which Holland had taken detailed notes.49Procs. LP i. 46-7. The following summer Holland would complain to the Commons when an unauthorised copy of his speech on 9 November appeared in print.50CJ ii. 190a; Procs. LP v. 388, 389-90. Holland’s own notes for that speech reveal that the printed text was reasonably accurate.51Bodl. Tanner 321, ff. 4-5; Sir John Holland his Speech in Parliament.

Holland’s sense that this would be a Parliament of more than usual significance may have influenced his decision to begin keeping a parliamentary diary. Another reason may have been that his father had also kept diaries when he had sat in the 1621 and 1624 Parliaments. Although their coverage was patchy and would not extend beyond late 1641, Sir John’s diaries tended to be as detailed as those by Framlingham Gawdy*, John Moore* and Walter Yonge I*, even if all of them were outdone, in length at least, by Sir Simonds D’Ewes*. Like most in the genre, it was usually rather impersonal. Holland’s initial efforts in recording the Long Parliament’s proceedings cover its first four weeks.52Bodl. Rawl. C.956; Procs. LP i. 24-382. The most obvious recurring theme in this first section was the preliminaries to the attack on the king’s right-hand man in Ireland, the 1st earl of Strafford (Thomas Wentworth†). Strafford must have been in Holland’s mind when in his speech of 9 November he had denounced the malign influence of those advising the king, so he doubtless viewed these impeachment preparations with some satisfaction. As might be expected, Holland’s notes on the debate by the committee of the whole House on 13 November, which considered his call four days earlier for supply to pay off the two armies, were especially extensive.53Procs. LP i. 138-40. The outcome of that debate was the decision to grant £100,000 and, although his appointment is not mentioned in the Journal nor in his own diary, the notes made by another diarist, John Moore* suggest that Holland was included on the committee appointed to prepare that bill the following week.54CJ ii. 31b; Procs. LP i. 193, 196. He was certainly one of those MPs who then offered a personal guarantee of £1,000 each to underwrite the loan to be borrowed from London against this £100,000.55Procs. LP i. 229, 232, 235. The debate on 26 November on the ecclesiastical Canons was also recorded by Holland at some length, giving particular attention to the hostile speeches by Sir Miles Fleetwood*, John Glynne* and John White II*.56Procs. LP i. 317-20.

During this period he made one further intervention in the Commons. That speech, made on 24 November, had a certain element of drama about it. Sir Robert Harley* and John Hampden had previously expressed doubts about the loyalties of those MPs who were married to Roman Catholics. As this applied to Holland, he requested the chance to defend himself. According to his own notes, he began by candidly admitting that his wife was no longer a practising member of the Church of England, but went on to declare that he was willing to give any assurance required to demonstrate his own loyalty towards it. Hampden graciously responded by saying that Holland had set an example that should be followed by the other MPs with Catholic wives.57Bodl. Tanner 321, ff. 5v-6; Tanner 239, ff. 14v-15v; Rawl. D.1099, f. 1; Procs. LP i. 268, 271-2, 279; Northcote Note Bk. 117. On Hampden’s motion, the House declared itself satisfied of Holland’s ‘constancy and affection to the Protestant religion’.58CJ ii. 35a; Procs. LP i. 268, 272, 279. Lady Sandys’s religion remained a possible problem, however. Two months later Thomas Knyvett picked up rumours that some of the Norfolk justices of the peace planned to prosecute her for recusancy.59Knyvett Lttrs. 99.

On 30 November 1640 Holland was named to the committee to meet with their counterparts from the Lords to discuss the possibility of impeaching Strafford.60CJ ii. 39b. But at that point Holland’s first diary breaks off.61Procs. LP i. 382. As he was not named to any committees throughout December 1640 and January 1641, it seems likely that he was then absent without leave from Westminster. He briefly resumed his diary on 29 January, but then immediately abandoned it again.62Procs. LP ii. 312-13. Yet there are good reasons for thinking that he was at Westminster over the next three months. During February he was named to six committees, including those on abuses by postmasters (10 Feb.), the queen’s jointure (17 Feb.) and the complaints against his local bishop, Richard Montagu of Norwich (23 Feb). Early the following month he was named to the committee on the bill to prevent clergymen holding secular offices (8 Mar.).63CJ ii. 82a, 85b, 87b, 91a, 92b, 93b, 99a. Unambiguous evidence of his presence at Westminster was that on 9 March he was sent as the Commons messenger to the Lords to ask for a joint conference on the proposed treaty with the Scots.64CJ ii. 100b; Procs. LP ii. 680, 684. That fits with his strong support for the disbandment of the two armies. That would also have been why he was one of the 14 MPs named in the statute to pay off the Scottish army to whom the Scots were to seek redress if the balance on the money due to them was not paid.65SR. Holland’s committee appointments over the next few weeks included those on bills against clerical pluralities (10 Mar.), to abolish trials by battle (11 Mar.) and on parliamentary elections (30 Mar.). He probably also sat on the committee to consider where Strafford’s impeachment trial should be held. He may have been named to the committee for the bill against recusants (26 Mar.) so that he could conspicuously demonstrate his support for it.66CJ ii. 101a, 107b, 113b, 114a.

In a speech on 2 April Holland called on peers to pay their subsidy assessments as quickly as possible, which he doubtless envisaged as a public-spirited move to help pay the armies.67Procs. LP iii. 320. Some peers, who perhaps thought that this suggestion was less than helpful, may soon have been able to exact a subtle form of revenge against him. Ten days later Holland complained to the Commons that his wife had been separately assessed for the subsidy by the House of Lords on the grounds that she was the widow of a peer. Acting on the recommendation of the committee for privileges, the Commons agreed with Holland and ruled on 22 April that she should not be assessed separately.68CJ ii. 119a, 126a; Procs. LP iii. 516, 517; iv. 62, 66. The need to pursue this complaint must have required him to alter plans to take up the leave he had been granted leave on 7 April to go into the country a week later.69CJ ii. 117a; Procs. LP iii. 455. He was back in the Commons by 10 May, when he took the Protestation.70CJ ii. 141a; Procs. LP iv. 295. Ten days after that he was included on the committee for the conference with the Lords on disbanding the armies.71CJ ii. 152a.

The second volume of Holland’s diary spans the period from late May to early August 1641.72Bodl. Rawl. D.1099; Procs. LP iv. 534-vi. 297. Yet it was also during those months that an element of uncertainty surrounding his parliamentary activities is introduced. Eleven entries in the Journals between June and August 1641 refer only to the surname, so could equally denot Cornelius Holland*.73CJ ii. 181b, 182a, 186b, 187b, 189b, 235b, 250b, 251b, 251a, 271b. Perhaps significantly, only one of the committees to which this ambiguous ‘Holland’ was named – the one on the bill concerning the manor of Rochdale (25 June) – is mentioned by Sir John in his diary and even then he did not indicate whether he had been named to it.74CJ ii. 186b; Procs. LP v. 350. Similar uncertainties also occur occasionally in the Journals at later dates.

Despite this, Holland’s views during the summer of 1641 are clear enough. He certainly remained keen that both the English and Scottish armies in the north of England should be disbanded as soon as possible.75CJ ii. 152a, 172b; Procs. LP iv. 551-2, 588, 629-30, 658, 693, 706; v. 38-9, 70, 81, 112, 140. As a result, he was also interested in the future of the farm of the customs; the threat of an investigation into that farm was being used by the Commons as leverage to extract immediate loans from the customs commissioners for that purpose.76Procs. LP iv. 534-5, 552, 564-5, 586-588, 646, 680-1; v. 13-14; CJ ii. 157a. When on 27 May Sir Edward Dering* introduced a bill for the abolition of the bishops (the ‘Root and Branch’ bill), Holland was present and later that day he was appointed as a reporter for the conference with the Lords’ on that subject.77Procs. LP iv. 611-12; CJ ii. 159b. He then followed the bill’s progress closely.78Procs. LP iv. 706, 724; v. 14, 96-7, 112, 113, 257-8. The unfolding revelations about the second army plot in early June were recorded in some detail in his diary.79Procs. LP v. 39-40, 96, 141-2, 190-1, 258; vi. 52-3, 80, 92-3. The obvious deduction was that the disbandment was now more urgent than ever before.80Procs. LP v. 189-90, 208, 242-3, 281, 297, 349, 350, 371; vi. 52, 139-40, 160. That assumption was a central feature of the Ten Propositions, prepared by the Commons in June, and there were other features of the Propositions, such as its suspicions of Catholics at court, with which Holland would have agreed. Significantly, the bill for the safety of the king’s person, which legislated on some of those points, was one of those Holland carried to the Lords on 19 July. That said, he may have been given that task merely because he was going to the Lords anyway to request a conference on the cases of Matthew Wren, the former bishop of Norwich, and Inigo Jones†, who was accused of harbouring a fugitive Catholic priest.81CJ ii. 216a-b; LJ iv. 319a. Both of those were cases on which he had previously made notes.82Procs. LP v. 499, 576. He also served as one of the reporters for the conferences with the Lords on 20 and 28 July to discuss the replies from the king concerning the Propositions.83CJ ii. 217b, 226a, 227a. On 9 August Denzil Holles* proposed that, as there were rumours that Arundel intended to go abroad, the 4th earl of Pembroke (Philip Herbert*) should replace him as the lord steward of the household. Only Holland spoke up on behalf of his former patron; he suggested that they perhaps ought not to do so until Arundel had actually resigned.84Procs. LP vi. 322. In the meantime Parliament had been legislating to abolish the courts of star chamber, high commission and the council of the North – moves that later that year an MP who may have been Holland noted with satisfaction, on the grounds that those prerogative courts had been ‘the very scourges of the people’.85D’Ewes (C), 219n.

Following the recess, Holland may not have returned in time for the resumption of the parliamentary sittings on 20 October 1641, but he was back by early November. News of the Catholic rebellion in Ireland seems then to have prompted him to resume his parliamentary diary. The first new entry, dating from 4 November, gave full details of Parliament’s declaration condemning the uprising.86D’Ewes (C), 82n. That same day he was named to the committee on the bill to raise soldiers as an immediate response to this crisis.87CJ ii. 305b. Business relating to Ireland remained a major theme in this diary which Holland kept over the next seven weeks.88D’Ewes (C), 82-318n. On 5 November he welcomed the proposed cooperation with the Scots against the Irish rebels, noting that their combined forces would be ‘formidable’ and that their cooperation would be ‘a testimony to our mutual affections and agreement to all the world’.89D’Ewes (C), 92n. Listening to the debate on 6 November, he considered Ireland both a potential benefit and a burden to England. Later that same day he was impressed by the letter from Sir John Temple*, with its news of the atrocities against the Protestants of Ulster, as well as by similar reports over the following days.90D’Ewes (C), 94n, 97n, 123-4n, 182n, 209n, 210n, 250-1n, 252n, 253n, 278n. Holland shared the unrealistic assumption of many at Westminster that involving the Scots would ensure that the rebellion was quickly suppressed.91D’Ewes (C), 138n.

Events in Ireland only made the issue of anti-popery even more sensitive than ever before. During the debate on 8 December on whether Parliament should call on the king to rule out any religious toleration for Catholics in Ireland, Holland was much impressed by one speech by an unidentified MP, ‘a worthy gentleman’, who supported that proposal.92D’Ewes (C), 255n. Yet several weeks earlier he seems to have been sympathetic to the complaints from the agent of the grand duke of Tuscany, Amerigo Salvetti, that he was being harassed as part of the campaign against Catholic priests.93D’Ewes (C), 131-2n; CJ ii. 314a. Holland also acted as a teller for the noes in the division on 11 December on whether various Catholic priests should be executed. Yet this was not quite the tolerant position it might seem, as the real issue was whether to vote on each case individually and, in the end, this made little practical difference, as, having agreed with the noes, the Commons then proceeded to condemn the priests one by one. On 20 December Holland was among those MPs asked to consider the bill to disarm Catholic recusants.94CJ ii. 339b, 349b. A further indication of Holland’s apprehensions was that when a mob assembled at Westminster on 30 November, he may have argued in the House that, although their intentions were probably peaceful, public safety required that Parliament should be protected by armed guards.95D’Ewes (C), 218-19n. He was certainly among those appointed on 31 December to go to the king to ask that Parliament be guarded by the London trained bands and that those should be commanded by Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex.96CJ ii. 360b, 365a.

The failure of moderation, 1641-2

Unlike many of his colleagues, Holland was still willing to give the king the benefit of the doubt. On 29 December 1641 the Commons debated whether the 1st earl of Bristol (Sir John Digby†), a former critic of the king who had now become close to Charles, and his son Lord Digby (George Digby*), should be declared to be evil counsellors. Holland rose to Bristol’s defence. A year earlier Sir John had warned of undue influence by some around the king. Now he argued that the king had a right to choose his own advisers and that to demand their removal might well be counterproductive.

For Sir if we here in Parliament shall present his Majesty with our advices in relation to the public affairs of the three kingdoms which are so dangerously distracted and those at Whitehall with their counsels differ from ours; what can be expected; but the multiplication of our distractions and divisions and ruin in the end. That patient, Mr Speaker, is in great hazard whose physicians differ and those kingdoms cannot but be in eminent peril whose councils are divided. It is unity of councils [i.e. counsels] that must preserve us; division will soon destroy us; but to obtain this I should humbly propose another way than what you are going; for if you shall thus proceed by way of exception against any as an evil councillor, and so accuse him, and so desire his Majesty that he may be removed you will never obtain your end.97Bodl. Tanner 239, ff. 15v-16; Tanner 321, f. 6v; D’Ewes (C), 362n.

What Holland recognised was that formally excluding someone from the privy council would not necessarily eliminate their informal influence. Far better that MPs should assure the king of their confidence in him and then loyally recommend those whom they thought he should be listening to. These arguments had some effect, for, rather than pass the motion, the Commons instead referred the matter to a committee.98Bodl. Tanner 239, f. 16; D’Ewes (C), 262-3n; CJ ii. 361a.

The king was about to make that stance much less plausible, however. For most MPs the most generous gloss that could be put Charles’s attempt to arrest the Five Members on 4 January 1642 was that it represented a flagrant example of the worst possible advice. Holland can only have been horrified, not least because he had been made to look rather foolish. His initial reaction seems to have been to go along with the mood among his colleagues. On 12 January he was included on the committee appointed to draft a declaration to set out the reasons for their concern about recent events. In the days that followed he was also named to what would become the Committee for Examinations (13 Jan.) and to committees for ensuring the safety of the kingdom and to meet with the Lords to consider sending a petition to the king (17 Jan.).99Supra, ‘Committee for Examinations’; CJ ii. 372a, 375b, 383b, 384a. Still believing that they could do business with Charles, he was especially keen on the latter. He therefore became the leading figure in the delegation appointed on 28 January to travel to Windsor to seek an answer from the king to that petition.100CJ ii. 401b; PJ i. 210, 214. On arrival, he made contact with Endymion Porter*, the only groom of the bedchamber on duty, and, with his assistance, Holland and the other MPs were admitted to see the king. Their audience did not go well, as a grumpy Charles pointed out that he had already sent a reply to the first points raised in the petition, although he did then agree that Carrickfergus could handed over the Scots to serve as a base for those Scottish troops to be sent over against the Irish rebels. Holland reported all this to the Commons on 29 January.101CJ ii. 403b; PJ i. 218, 224. In what may be a quotation of Holland’s actual words during that report, Sir Simonds D’Ewes* noted that this delegation had ‘found a desolate court, saw not one nobleman and scarce three gentlemen’.102PJ i. 218. This mission did have one minor addendum. When on 15 February the Commons debated whether to bar Porter from the king’s presence. Holland informed the House that, while at Windsor, he had promised Porter that if ever his absence from Parliament was queried, he would ask for a delay so that Porter might have a chance to defend himself.103PJ i. 386.

Holland probably supported the bill in which Parliament claimed control over the county militias, although his only intervention was to suggest on 10 February that Arundel – who was in fact about to accompany Princess Mary to the Netherlands – should not be appointed as the lord lieutenant of Cumberland, on the grounds of ill-health.104PJ i. 342. In early March Holland was included on another parliamentary delegation sent to see the king, in order to establish whether he intended to accept this militia bill.105CJ ii. 462a. On 17 March Holland was re-appointed as one of the Norfolk deputy lieutenants.106PJ ii. 54. Reporting this news to Sir Robert Crane*, he pointed out the irony that not even having a Catholic wife had prevented this.107Bodl. Tanner 66, f. 298. On 5 April he was the messenger from the Commons to the Lords concerning the wording of the new commissions to be issued to the militia officers.108CJ ii. 510a, 512a; LJ iv. 699b. Although increasingly overshadowed by events in England, the rebellion in Ireland could not be completely forgotten, especially as one fear was that the trouble there might spread across the Irish Sea. In mid-February 1642 Holland and Sir Thomas Barrington*, with Basil, Lord Feilding (the future 2nd earl of Denbigh) from the Lords, were sent to consult with the Spanish ambassador about reports that ships were due to sail from Dunkirk with ammunition for Ireland.109CJ ii. 438b; PJ i. 407; LJ iv. 596a-b. During March and April Holland sat on the committees on the bill to explain the Act for reducing the Irish rebels, although he seems not to have subscribed to the Irish Adventure.110CJ ii. 493b, 521a.

Holland knew that Parliament’s stance against the king was a perilous one. On 8 April he supported the proposal that the subsidy assessments for certain English counties, including Norfolk, should be reduced. In particular, he warned that ‘if any distemper did arise in Norfolk upon it, it would not be paid anywhere else in England’. This earned him a rebuke from Speaker William Lenthall*, although this did not silence Holland, who countered that he had a duty to say this. Lenthall prevented him continuing and, when the next speaker, Philip Stapilton*, condemned those comments, Holland walked out of the chamber.111PJ ii. 142-3. Even more telling, however, were Thomas Knyvett’s observations when he visited the Hollands in late April. He thought Sir John and his wife looked ‘pitifully’ and that Holland was ‘almost ashamed of his cause’.112Knyvett Lttrs. 101. Three weeks later Knyvett heard gossip that Holland did not ‘go to the House soon of mornings as he was wont, and is much given to take the air at Hyde Park’.113Knyvett Lttrs. 104. But, with civil war looming, Holland did not disengage completely from Parliament. On 28 May, just ten days after the second of Knyvett’s comments, Holland was a teller in the division on the proposed incorporation of the merchant strangers. For the first of many occasions, this paired him with Denzil Holles. In early June he was also named to two of the committees appointed to borrow money from the merchants based in London.114CJ ii. 591a, 601b, 605a. On 10 June he offered two horses and £100 in money or plate as his contribution towards Parliament’s military preparations.115PJ iii. 472. On 6 July he introduced the militia bill, a supplementary piece of legislation to the main Militia Ordinance.116PJ iii. 180, 182; CJ ii. 663b. Three days later he headed the list of MPs appointed to prepare a declaration to ensure that it was implemented.117CJ ii. 663b.

He seems to have supported the Nineteen Propositions, the last-ditch attempt to reach a negotiated settlement with the king. He was certainly one of those MPs sent to secure the support of London for them on 10 June.118CJ ii. 617b. Once that overture to the king had been rejected, Parliament made one final appeal to him. On 13 July, with the Lords having appointed the earl of Holland (Henry Rich†) as their messenger, the Commons appointed Holland and Sir Philip Stapilton* to accompany him.119CJ ii. 669b; PJ iii. 210, 211. They presented Parliament’s appeal to the king at Beverley three days later, but the latter saw no point in negotiating while the town of Kingston-upon-Hull refused to surrender to him. It can have given Holland little pleasure to have to report this to the Commons on 23 July.120CJ ii. 689a, 690a-b; PJ iii. 239, 242, 261; Clarendon, Hist. ii. 229. Two days later the Commons debated its implications. Holland’s speech on that occasion (as recorded by Framlingham Gawdy*) seems to have summed up his conflicted feelings.

There is no security but in the actual going on with your preparations. He [Holland] thinketh it fit we should give the world satisfaction that we desire peace. He would go with the bill of militia, which will make an end of all differences.121PJ iii. 265.

In other words, Holland wanted to make peace, but he was willing, given the circumstances, to prepare for war.

Reluctant warrior, 1642

On 4 August, writing to his one-time rival, (Sir) John Potts (now a baronet), Holland explained that, in so far as his health had permitted, he had been attending the House regularly since his return.122Bodl. Tanner 63, f. 121. With the king now trying to raise an army, Holland gave Potts the background to his own appointment as a commissioner to raise money and arms on the Propositions and to suppress the royal commission of array in Norfolk.123LJ v. 251b-253a. According to him, William Strode I* had proposed Holland’s name merely in order to be ‘uncharitable’. Holland had then tried to argue that he was too ill to take up such a duty, worthy though it was. He also told Potts that he had written to everyone in Norfolk who he thought might have been sent the commission advising them to ignore it.124Bodl. Tanner 63, f. 120. The following day Holland carried various measures from the Commons to the Lords, including the order banning the commission of array for Norwich.125CJ ii. 704a, 704b; LJ v. 263b. On 11 August he acted as the reporter to the Commons on the conference with the Lords at which their lord general, the earl of Essex, assured them of his loyalty to Parliament.126CJ ii. 714b, 715a-b. Several days later he set out, perhaps with some reluctance, to return to Norfolk to help secure the county for Parliament. He arrived at Quidenham late on 18 August.127Bodl. Tanner 63, f. 126; W. and M. Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court: The Potts Family of Mannington, Norf. 1584-1737 (Lavenham, 2009), 248.

Holland spent most of the remainder of 1642 in Norfolk. He seems to have held a position in the county militia, most probably as a colonel.128CJ iii. 159a. By his own account, he was in Norwich in the third week of September helping to muster the militia. He later wrote to the Great Yarmouth MP Miles Corbett*, who was in London, about this. Corbett was a colleague whose support for Parliament was decidedly more confident than Holland’s own, yet he ended the letter by praying that, ‘The good God of heaven that has protected you in all your dangers, direct you in your consultations that all may tend to his glory’.129Bodl. Tanner 64, f. 10v. In late November Holland was at King’s Lynn, apparently helping to secure its defences.130Bodl. Tanner 64, f. 93; Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 263. In early December he was one of the deputy lieutenants who organised resistance throughout the county to a rumoured royalist invasion from the coast.131Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 267-9; King’s Lynn Borough Archives, KL/C7/10, f. 105v. These efforts were appreciated by the Commons, which on 10 December voted to appoint him as a deputy lieutenant for Norwich.132CJ ii. 884a, 889a; LJ v. 533a. However, Holland had returned to Westminster by 29 December, when he acted as a teller in a division concerning a shipload of cochineal at Southampton.133CJ ii. 905b. The next day, the proposal that the earl of Bristol should be excluded from the king’s presence, which had been consigned to a committee 12 months before, came before the House again. As before, Holland made clear his support for the earl. In the division on a procedural point, he and Edmund Waller* were the tellers for those who were trying without success to block the proposal.134CJ ii. 907b.

Talks about talks, 1643

What may well have brought Holland back to Westminster were the moves to begin peace talks with the king. On 26 December, when the Commons consented in principle to the set of peace propositions which had been drafted by the Lords, Sir John was included on the committee to draft a suitable preamble. Once the Commons began to consider the individual propositions in detail, a crucial issue became whether to clarify the status of the Militia Ordinance. When on 7 January it was proposed that one of the propositions should be that this Ordinance remain in force for another year, Holland was among the MPs added to one of the committees on some of the other proposition so that this specific issue could be considered in more detail. The Commons then voted on the matter on 14 January. In that division Holles and Holland were the tellers for the majority who blocked the proposed proposition, although the Commons immediately made clear that this should not be considered to invalidate the Militia Ordinance itself.135CJ ii. 903a, 918b, 928a. Moreover, Holland was subsequently appointed as one of the commissioners who were deliver the completed set of propositions to the king.136CJ ii. 945a; LJ v. 575a; Add. 18777, f. 135. They did so at Oxford on 1 February 1643.

Instead of accepting Parliament’s propositions, the king responded by offering counter-propositions of his own. Most importantly, rather than conceding Parliament’s proposal that the armies be disbanded first, Charles suggested that it was sufficient that there be a mere truce between the two sides before any negotiations began – making it easier for both sides to resume the war if those talks broke down. This was a compromise Holland was willing to consider. On 10 February William Pierrepont* proposed a motion to that effect in the Commons. Holland opened the debate in a speech which

showed that unless we did proceed with this treaty, it would be occasion of much discontent to the said county [Norfolk], which had long and earnestly desired for peace. That we should consider how much we were disadvantaged by refusing an offer for a treaty of peace which the king made to us whilst he remained at Nottingham, and that soon after he gathered a formidable army with which he was able to fight a pitched field.137Harl. 164, f. 294.

D’Ewes, who was making these notes on this speech, added that Holland then ‘spake somewhat else of less moment’.138Harl. 164, f. 294v. The motion was defeated in the subsequent division, in which Holles and Holland were the tellers for the minority.139CJ ii. 961a. Holland spoke again the following day, when he told the House that he was sure that the king wanted peace.140Add. 18777, f. 152. The Lords now salvaged the possibility of talks by suggesting that a temporary truce lasting 20 days should take place to allow negotiations on whether there should be a disbandment as a prelude to further negotiations. Holland supported this compromise when it was debated by the Commons on 17 February. He argued that rejecting the Lords’ plan would only create divisions that would make peace even less likely.141Add. 18777, f. 157v. He and Holles then served as tellers in the crucial division that prevented the attempt to block these proposals.142CJ ii. 969b; Harl. 164, f. 300v. The next day he was sent to inform the Lords that MPs were willing to continue discussions with them on this possible compromise.143CJ ii. 970b; LJ v. 610a; Harl. 164, f. 302v. This then became the basis for interim talks between Parliament and the king. Given the prominent role he had played in brokering this deal, it is no great surprise that Holland was appointed by Parliament as one of its commissioners for these talks about talks.144CJ ii. 985a; LJ v. 627b; Harl. 164, f. 310; Add. 18777, f. 169; Clarendon, Hist. ii. 496, 520.

The commissioners met the king at Oxford on 1 March. Charles was unimpressed and parried with quibbles over the details of the proposed truce. Holland probably travelled back to Westminster with the king’s reply, which was presented to the Lords on 6 March.145LJ v. 638a-b; Harl. 164, f. 314. The next day he was a teller in the Commons in a division concerning the assessment collections in Surrey. On 11 March he and Holles were tellers for those opposing a brief adjournment, which was probably intended as a tactic to delay the debate on the royal demands. Once the House finally turned its attention to that subject, Holland and William Pierrepont were the tellers for those who wanted to adjust the propositions to address some of the king’s objections.146CJ ii. 992b, 999a; Harl. 164, ff. 321v, 323v. On 16 March he was the messenger to the Lords to inform them that the Commons were now willing to make the final adjustments to the text of the revised propositions.147CJ iii. 4a; LJ v. 651b. Holland then returned to Oxford. All these efforts were however to be in vain. Parliament still did not accept all the original points on which the king had insisted as preconditions for negotiations and, as these talks continued, Charles merely introduced new obstacles. Finally, on 14 April, the commissioners were recalled to London.

The bitter reality was that during those weeks in Oxford Holland had only achieved one thing – while there he had lodged with his fellow commissioner, Bulstrode Whitelocke*, and when Whitelocke fell ill, Holland took charge of his treatment.148Whitelocke, Diary, 143-4. Whitelocke’s recovery cemented the close friendship between the two men. Once back in London, Holland, together with Sir William Armyne*, failed to persuade Stapilton and Hampden that a captured royalist officer, Sir William Fleming, should be released. Holland seems to have done so as a favour to Alexander Leslie, 1st earl of Leven.149Bodl. Tanner 321, f. 10.

Holland’s immediate reaction to the failure of the peace talks may have been to contemplate going abroad. On 24 April he obtained permission from the Commons for himself and his wife to travel overseas. The plan was certainly for Lady Sandys to spend time in the Netherlands and by the following July she had settled at Utrecht.150Knyvett Lttrs. 120. What is not clear is whether Holland merely intended to travel with her and then return. Either way, he had immediately to change his plans. The very next day Holland was ordered by the Commons to travel instead to Suffolk to encourage the assessment collections there, although it was agreed that he could wait until his wife had set out for the Continent. He was back at Westminster by 22 May. On 2 June he and Holles were the tellers for those willing to allow Christian Axelson to travel to Oxford to reclaim his goods which had been seized by royalist forces. Some of their more hard-line colleagues were less sympathetic and that motion was rejected.151CJ iii. 59b, 97a, 113a. Another divisive issue was considered by the Commons the following day. It was proposed that the Pyx Chamber at Westminster Abbey should be opened so that the coronation regalia stored there could be inventoried. Holles and Holland were the tellers for those opposing the motion, which was passed with a one-vote majority. Perhaps with deliberate irony, Holland was then the MP named first to the committee appointed to prepare the inventory.152CJ iii. 114b. He was presumably not present during the notorious sequel when, on the basis of this order, Sir Henry Mildmay* and Henry Marten* broke down the door of the Pyx Chamber and rifled through the regalia.153P. Heylin, Aerius Redivivus (Oxford, 1670), 461-2.

Pym and the other hardliners in the Commons saw in the discovery of the royalist plot linked to Edmund Waller an opportunity to embarrass their more reluctant colleagues, such as Holland. On 6 June they devised an oath declaring their support for the parliamentarian armies and then invited other MPs to join them in taking it. Holland was one of those who hesitated and asked for time to consider, although, having thought about it overnight, he agreed to swear the oath the next day. Later that month it was proposed that Holland and (Sir) John Potts should return to Norfolk, presumably to resume their supervision of the war effort there.154CJ iii. 118b, 119a, 140b. That was despite the fact that Holland had developed serious doubts about the local management of the war. It may have been at about this time that he gave a speech in the Commons calling for the county committees to be abolished. While acknowledging that they had been necessary during the early stages of the war, he thought that they had outlived their usefulness.155Bodl. Tanner 321, f. 7.

However, Holland had another ploy he could use. On 29 June he persuaded the Commons that he should be excused a return to Norfolk because of his ‘indisposition of health’. He was also given permission to absent himself from the House so that he could take the waters at Tunbridge Wells. Robert Wilton* was appointed to take over as the temporary commander of Holland’s militia regiment 156CJ iii. 149a. But some were determined that Holland should not escape this order so easily. On 6 July, in his absence, the Commons reiterated its instruction.157CJ iii. 158a; Harl. 165, f. 119. Two days after this Holles intervened to get this second order waived ‘in regard of inability by reason of sickness’.158CJ iii. 159a; Harl. 165, f. 120v. This helped persuade the royalist Thomas Knyvett that Holland and Potts were reluctant to serve as Norfolk sequestration commissioners.159Knyvett Lttrs. 116-17. Quite possibly, Holland’s health problems were partly diplomatic. He was certainly well enough to join with Holles as a teller on 7 August for those who wanted to consider the latest peace proposals from the Lords.160CJ iii. 197b; Harl. 165, f. 148.

On 13 September Miles Corbett revived the issue of Holland’s reluctance to act as a commissioner in Norfolk. He began his speech in the Commons with some general allegations that the assessment and sequestration commissioners in Norfolk were not fulfilling their duties as eagerly as they might. When other MPs demanded that he be more specific, he alleged that those commissioners were being discouraged by the refusal of Holland and Framlingham Gawdy to obey the direct orders by the Commons commanding them to serve. Another, unnamed MP ‘spake somewhat bitterly and uncharitably’ about Holland. Speaker William Lenthall then joined in and implied, not unreasonably, that Holland had feigned his illness.161Harl. 165, f. 190. The Commons therefore ordered that Holland and Gawdy should travel to Norfolk immediately.162CJ iii. 238b-239a. Lenthall wryly observed, ‘You shall see that Sir John Holland will be so sick again tomorrow morning that we shall have another motion made for his further stay’.163Harl. 165, f. 190v. On receiving this order, Holland’s first reaction was to move from Epsom, where he had been taking the waters, to Petworth, the seat of Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland.164Bodl. Tanner 321, f. 8. Holland and the earl would have known each other well as they had both been heavily involved in the moves to negotiate with the king earlier that year and, equally disappointed, Northumberland had since withdrawn from Westminster to Petworth. But Holland decided to go to Westminster to defend himself in person. He assured the Commons that he would obey them if they wanted, although he explained that while willing to give ‘passive obedience’ to decisions with which he disagreed, he was reluctant to take active steps to enforce them. He also suggested that as he had taken the trouble to return to Westminster he would now prefer to remain there. But these excuses failed to convince his colleagues. Holland’s notes on this speech imply one reason he did not want to act was that he would be required to assist in the sequestration of his cousin, Sir William Paston.165Bodl. Tanner 321, f. 8. Events soon provided Holland with a further excuse. On 22 September he informed the House that his wife was ‘very sick’ at Utrecht (she was actually about to give birth) and so he sought permission to go over to join her for six weeks. That request was granted.166CJ iii. 251a; Bodl. Tanner 321, f. 8v.

Holland outstayed that leave of absence. He was still abroad the following January when the Commons moved to expel a number of MPs who were absent without permission. Holland was not included among them, but when on 22 January 1644 the Commons approved those expulsions, it made it clear that Holland’s leave was to be extended only until the following spring.167CJ iii. 374a. In mid-April he apparently told Holles that he would be back imminently, but a month later he had not returned.168Vaughan-Lewis, See You in Court, 292. At that point, letters to someone else were intercepted in which Thomas Knyvett’s son, John, made disparaging remarks about Parliament. Knyvett persuaded Holland to write to Corbett, who was the chairman of the Committee for Examinations, on their behalf.169Knyvett Lttrs. 145, 148, 150. Soon after, at the end of April, Knyvett heard that Holland had changed his mind about returning.170Knyvett Lttrs. 154. On 19 June the Commons agreed to extend his leave until September and then on 18 October a further extension to March 1645 was approved.171CJ iii. 535a, 669a.

The view from the side lines, 1644-6

Yet by late November 1644 he was back at Westminster. He kept his head down, however. His only committee appointment was on 26 November, when he was named to the committee to consider the clause about admissions to the sacraments to be included in the new Directory for Public Worship.172CJ iii. 705a. The following February he was included as a commissioner for Norfolk in the New Model ordinance and the assessment ordinance.173LJ vii. 208a, 228a. The one-time lead performer in the Commons had been reduced to a background extra. On 29 March 1645 he was given permission to go abroad again. It was made clear that he was expected to return by October.174CJ iv. 93b. He may however have been around Westminster that July because he prepared speeches defending Whitelocke and Holles against the accusations by 2nd Baron Savile (Sir Thomas Savile†).175Bodl. Tanner 321, ff. 10v-11. He must nevertheless have gone abroad at some point, because on 27 September he was told to return within the next two months.176CJ iv. 290b. A month later this was revised so that he was allowed to return when he could ‘conveniently’.177CJ iv. 324b. On this trip he met the king’s sister, Elizabeth of Bohemia, presumably at The Hague. Later, in April 1646, he drew on that first-hand experience to speak in support of the increase in her allowance from Parliament.178Bodl. Tanner 321, ff. 15v-16v.

Holland did not abuse the flexibility the Commons had allowed him on. He arrived in London on 27 November 1645. According to Whitelocke, he had been in exile ‘to be out of the troubles of the times here’. The next day he appeared in the Commons ‘with Mr Recorder [John Glynne*] and others of that gang’.179Whitelocke, Mems. i. 540, 541. On 9 December he spoke in support of a response to a letter from the king offering peace talks and suggested that the public would disapprove of MPs if they did not.180Bodl. Tanner 321, ff. 9v-10. Soon after he also outlined his views on possible religious settlements. Alluding to his recent absences, he promised that, now that he had returned, he would do his best ‘to serve you, my country and my own conscience with faithfulness’. He explained that he would prefer a church settlement along Presbyterian lines, similar to what already existed in Scotland and in some of the reformed churches on the continent.181Bodl. Tanner 321, ff. 11v-12. Given this, there can have been no great obstacle to his decision to take the Covenant on 31 December.182CJ iv. 393a; Add. 19398, f. 224.

Otherwise he kept a low profile. A letter to Thomas Knyvett in early January 1646 showed that he fully realised how lucky Norfolk had been to avoid large-scale fighting during the war, while, at the same time, being conscious that the threat had not yet passed.

You have I presume now rest and repose being out the noise of the drum and trumpet, which is a great blessing in times of so great distraction and trouble, and the only that this poor kingdom now affords. We cannot be thankful enough for the preservation that God in His mercy has given those counties from the fury of the sword and rage of war that most parts of the kingdom have already felt. He makes us worthy of the continuation of His favour.

He also told Knyvett that he hoped to return to Norfolk in the near future but that he might first have to visit Hampshire.183Norf. RO, NAS 1/1/11/126.

The Scottish commissioners put forward new peace proposals in mid-March 1646. Always keen to promote negotiations, Holland probably welcomed these and on 26 March he was included on the joint committee from the two Houses to meet with the Scottish commissioners to discuss them.184CJ iv. 491a. A month later the king fled from Oxford and took refuge with the Scottish army at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. As a teller on 29 May, Holland supported the unsuccessful motion that a letter written by the king to the governor of Oxford, Sir Thomas Glemham†, should be delivered.185CJ iv. 558b. Holland seems to have realised that the king’s flight made a negotiated peace even less likely. At about this time he scolded the Commons over their failure to pursue the various overtures from the king. This, he thought, made them guilty of prolonging the war, although the damage could yet be undone.186Bodl. Tanner 321, ff. 12-13. When it was suggested that the prince of Wales should be invited to London, Holland thought that this would be a positive step towards peace.187Bodl. Tanner 321, f. 15.

Relations with the Scottish commissioners became even more important as the Presbyterian majority in the Commons began to consider new peace proposals of its own and twice during June Holland was included on committees to consider the latest papers submitted by the Scottish commissioners.188CJ iv. 570b, 586b. Holland judged that, in the circumstances, it was essential for the English Parlianent to remain on good terms with the Scots.189Bodl. Tanner 321, ff. 17v-21v. Those proposals, the ‘Newcastle Propositions’, were ready by 13 July. For once, Holland was not appointed as a commissioner to deliver them, but he was a reporter of the joint conference with the Lords on 13 August at which they heard the full details of the king’s response. Charles had effectively rejected them. Five days later Holland sought permission to go into the country.190CJ iv. 643b, 647a.

The king’s rejection of the Newcastle Propositions convinced the Scots that they should withdraw their army from England once terms were agreed. Holland, despite his Presbyterian sympathies, was probably among MPs happy to see them leave – he would have been well aware of the parallels with what he had argued in 1640-1 – and this may explain his sudden prominence at Westminster during November and December 1646. It is certainly suggestive that he was the messenger sent to the Lords on 10 December with the votes agreeing to the payment of £200,000 to the Scots.191CJ v. 8b. There are also indications that he was equally keen, now that the king’s army had been defeated, to get rid of Parliament’s army. On 3 December he tried to intervene in the debate on the bill for the maintenance of the New Model army to protest at how the assessments had been apportioned between the different counties, but this was ruled to be irrelevant. The point he wanted to make could have been interpreted as coded criticism of the tax burden in general. Similarly, on 7 December he revived his old double act with Holles when the pair were tellers in a division relating to the disbandment of the forces in Staffordshire.192CJ iv. 736b; v. 3b. They probably wanted to see those troops disbanded as smoothly as possible. But this flurry of activity by Holland during the final two months of 1646 encompassed other issues as well. His eight committee appointments included those on the bill for the maintenance of ministers (11 Nov.), the compensation for the former officials of the court of wards (24 Nov.), the bill concerning the Committee for Compounding (10 Dec.) and the enfranchisement of Durham (21 Dec.).193CJ iv. 719b, 727a, 735b; v. 4a, 8b, 14b, 17b, 21b. That he delivered the order for the payment of £2,000 to Bulstrode Whitelocke to the Lords on 31 December has the appearance of a favour to a friend.194CJ v. 34b, 40a.

With the king at Newcastle and Holdenby, 1647

On 6 January 1647, with the deal by which the Scots would withdraw finalised, the Commons considered which MPs should be sent to collect the king from their custody. When Holland’s name was proposed, he intervened to object, asking to be excused on the grounds that he was unwilling to regard Charles as ‘a prisoner of war’ but only ever as ‘our sovereign’.195Bodl. Tanner 239, f. 17. The Commons ignored him and his name headed the list of the commissioners appointed for that task. Five days later he secured the House’s agreement to some minor amendments to their instructions.196CJ v. 43a-b, 44a, 49b. On Holland’s recommendation, one of Bulstrode Whitelocke’s servants, Daniel Earle, was appointed as their secretary.197Whitelocke, Diary, 191. On arriving at Newcastle, they paid the first instalment due to the Scots.198CJ v. 87b. Given the circumstances, their dealings with the king were necessarily rather awkward, but Holland reported to Whitelocke that ‘he still continues his civility towards us and grows more familiar with us’.199R. Spalding, Contemporaries of Bulstrode Whitelocke 1605-1675 (Oxford, 1990), 128. The Scots handed him over to them on 30 January and departed.200Spalding, Contemporaries, 128-9. Holland and the other parliamentary commissioners then escorted Charles to Holdenby House in Northamptonshire.201Add. 19399, f. 1.

By mid-February Holland was already lobbying Whitelocke to arrange for the commissioners at Holdenby to be recalled to London, for he thought ‘we have borne the burden of this service long enough and I am confident that every day will bring new difficulties upon us’.202Spalding, Contemporaries, 129. The king had offered to show them his latest letter to Parliament, but Holland stressed to Whitelocke that the commissioners had not wished to interfere in any way with communications between the king and Parliament. On 25 February Holland told Whitelocke that the king thought that ‘he had now only his honour and honesty left’ and that he would not renounce any of his prerogatives unless ‘convinced by reason’ – ‘which resolution some will call magnanimity in him, whilst others call it obstinacy’.203Spalding, Contemporaries, 130. Having decided to revive the Newcastle Propositions, on 21 April Parliament instructed Holland and the other commissioners to present them to the king again.204CJ v. 149b. However, as he considered this overture, Charles discovered that a plan by some of leading Presbyterians to promote a modified version of those Propositions had been taken up by the commissioners now being sent to England by the Scottish Parliament. A long letter from Holland to Whitelocke indicated that Sir John viewed this latest development as yet another tiresome complication, reinforcing his wish to be recalled.205Spalding, Contemporaries, 131-2. This time he got his wish. On 11 May, the day before the king finally sent his answer to the Propositions, the Commons agreed to give permission for Holland to travel to Hampshire ‘upon his own pressing and private occasions’.206CJ v. 167a, 169a; LJ ix. 187a, 188a.

Holland’s absence in the country probably lasted at least two months. On 6 July the Lords approved the induction of Edward Smith as rector of Ickingham St James in Suffolk, a living to which he had been presented by Holland, but that could have been arranged in the latter’s absence from Westminster.207LJ ix. 318a. The same is true of the order by the Commons on 16 July by which his brother-in-law, Sir Robert Crompton, obtained permission to take two horses over to France.208CJ v. 246a. In the absence of other evidence, Holland certainly visited Bulstrode Whitelocke at Henley-on-Thames on 10 July.209Whitelocke, Diary, 195. The struggle for control of Parliament and London in the following weeks may have brought him back to Westminster.

By early September the ascendant Independents in Parliament, hoping to reassure the Scottish commissioners, agreed to offer the Newcastle Propositions to the king yet again. Holland was not one of their natural allies, but, perhaps for that reason, he was once more appointed as a commissioner.210CJ v. 293a; LJ ix. 424b-245a. He and the others delivered the Propositions to the king at Hampton Court on 7 September. Since neither of the peers among the commissioners had sufficiently keen eyesight, it fell to Holland to read the offer to the king.211Bodl. Tanner 321, f. 23v. At the second audience later that day, the king merely pointed out that he previously discussed other terms. The clear message, honest or otherwise, was that Charles preferred the Heads of the Proposals. On 14 September Holland briefed the Commons on this less-than-satisfactory outcome.212CJ v. 301a; Bodl. Tanner 321, ff. 23v-24.

There was now little to keep Holland at Westminster. The Presbyterian Eleven Members, most of whom were now in prison or in exile, were men to whom he had been close and he could easily have been included among them. He and his friends had now been marginalised. He was absent when the roll call of the House was taken on 9 October. On 4 November he was given permission to re-join his wife on the continent.213CJ v. 330a, 349b. The reunion with his family took place at Bruges.214Bodl. Tanner 321, f. 8v. The Independent majority in the Commons would have been glad to see him go.

Exile, return and Restoration, 1647-60

There followed his longest period of exile, as he spent most of the next decade on the continent. But, because his absence was voluntary, he was able to make regular trips home. He was probably in England in the summer of 1652, as the council of state then allowed him to ask the Dutch ambassador for a pass for his wife.215CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 306. It is possible therefore that they returned to England for the duration of the first Anglo-Dutch war (1652-4). In March 1654 Holland applied in person to the lord protector for permission to re-join his wife in the Low Countries. As he later explained to Whitelocke (then serving as the ambassador to Sweden), Oliver Cromwell* had received him before any of the other petitioners waiting on him that morning, they had spoken for over half an hour and, on parting, Cromwell had told him ‘to be no stranger there’.216Spalding, Contemporaries, 133. A pass was issued to him four months later and he obtained passes for the same purpose in March 1656 and April 1658.217CSP Dom. 1654, p. 439; 1655-6, p. 580; 1657-8, p. 554. So he may well have been returning home every two years. When he first went over in late 1647 he joined his wife at Utrecht and they were still living there three years later.218CSP Dom. 1650, p. 422. By 1656 they were living at Bergen op Zoom, where they remained until their return in 1659.219Whitelocke, Diary, 450, 507. While abroad, he wrote regularly to Whitelocke, often sending him foreign news.220Whitelocke, Mems. iii. 75-6; Whitelocke, Diary, 396, 450, 467, 492, 498, 504, 507, 510, 518. In 1656 he asked Whitelocke to find a place for a friend at the Charterhouse.221Whitelocke, Diary, 440. He probably avoided any political activities, although at some point during the early 1650s he did donate money to Charles II.222CCSP iii. 176.

Holland seems to have returned to England in late July 1659, possibly in connection with the planned royalist uprisings.223CCSP iv. 291. The following October the principal royalist agent in London, John Mordaunt, 1st Viscount Mordaunt, asked (Sir) Edward Hyde* to arrange for the king to write to a potential supporter, a prisoner, ‘Mr Holland’.224Mordaunt Letter-Bk. 72. A confused Hyde wrote back to seek clarification. One of the two men he thought Mordaunt might have been referring to was

a knight of Norfolk, who after no very good part at home, hath spent these late years abroad, discommending all that hath been done since he gave over, but justifies what himself did, which if lawful will support all the rest.225Mordaunt Letter-Bk. 111.

That seems a fair enough assessment of Sir John’s political career over the past two decades.

The readmission of the secluded Members to the Rump on 21 February 1660 allowed Holland to resume his seat in the Long Parliament. He did so immediately, as that same day he was among those appointed as the committee on the bill to nominate a new council of state.226CJ vii. 847b. In the following days he was also named to the committees on the qualifications for MPs (22 Feb.) and to draft the militia bill (23 Feb.).227CJ vii. 848b, 849a. Moreover, when the elections for the new council were held on 23 February, he was chosen.228CJ vii. 849b; A. and O. He seems then to have served on its sub-committee for foreign affairs.229TSP vii. 841. He probably supported the moves to grant substantial estates, including Hampton Court, to the man of the hour, George Monck* (27 Feb.), as well as the bill on the London militia (29 Feb.). Finally, on 13 March he was a teller for one last time in this Parliament, when he counted those who wanted candles to be brought in; one of the opposing tellers was his old friend (Sir) John Potts.230CJ vii. 855a, 856a, 874a.

This was in fact only the half-way point in Holland’s parliamentary career. He served as the MP for Aldeburgh throughout the next ‘Long Parliament’ between 1661 and 1678. That second half of his career would be as richly documented by his own papers as are parts of the first. There were other continuities. Holland’s views on religion and on the dangers of armies did not change, so he was always suspicious of the restored Church of England and of Charles II’s new standing army. He remained at heart a Presbyterian and a peace party man of the 1640s. He therefore became a perennial member of the Cavalier Parliament’s awkward squad, always ready to make things difficult for the king’s ministers. After one controversial speech by Holland in 1675, the earl of Arlington (Sir Henry Bennet†) joked that William Ashbournham* could remember hearing the same speech in 1640.231HP Commons 1660-1690.

Some undated notes by William Drake* may provide an insight into how (Sir) John Potts, one of the colleagues in the Long Parliament who knew him best, viewed Holland as a politician (although they might not either originate from Potts or be about Holland). There is a plausibility to the assessment.

Though his wit was not extraordinary yet he could carry and conduct any business he took to heart, which he did with showing a carriage of great plainness [and] familiarity though close and reserved in the bottom and main of his designs.232UCL, MS Ogden 7/31, f. 1.

Holland lived to see the next century, dying aged 98 on 19 January 1701.233CB ii. 72. By then he had outlived every other former Member of the Long Parliament.