HOLLES, Gervase (1607-75), of Great Grimsby, Lincs.

Holles belonged to a junior branch of the Holles family, earls of Clare, and was second cousin to the civil-war parliamentarian grandee Denzil Holles*. His great-grandfather, Sir William Holles† – the son of a wealthy London merchant who had purchased an estate in Lincolnshire in the 1530s – had represented Nottinghamshire in the 1553 Parliament.25Lincs. Peds. 508-9; Lincs. Church Notes ed. Cole, p. v; HP Commons 1509-58. Holles’s father had settled in Great Grimsby where he had acquired an estate through his marriage to the heiress of a local merchant in 1600.26Lincs. Church Notes ed. Cole, pp. v, vi. Holles was educated at Grimsby grammar school and then in the household of John Holles†, 1st earl of Clare, at Haughton in Nottinghamshire. Having been forbidden by his father to enlist in the English forces fighting the Spanish in the Low Countries, Holles was admitted to the Middle Temple in 1628.

After succeeding his father in 1630, Holles depleted his modest inheritance – worth, at most, £200 a year – in rebuilding the family house at Grimsby. It was probably indebtedness, as well as a wish to live somewhere less remote, that prompted his move in 1634 to Mansfield – close to Haughton – where his uncle resided. Following the death of his first wife in childbirth in 1635, he returned to Grimsby and then re-entered the Middle Temple, serving as comptroller of its Christmas festivities in 1635-6.27Harl. 991, f. 18; Holles, Mems. ed. Wood, 227-30, 236; ‘Gervase Holles’, Oxford DNB. In the spring of 1636, he agreed to act as second to his fellow Middle Temple student John St Aubin, who intended to travel to the continent to fight a duel with an antagonist from the Inner Temple. On learning of Holles’s involvement in this affair, the earl of Clare wrote to Lionel Cranfield†, 1st earl of Middlesex, asking that measures be taken to detain the would-be duellists in England. Clare described Holles as ‘a forward young fellow in these undertakings ... who gladly I would have a lawyer, into which profession he is also entered, and settle rather in that civil life then in the military, which hitherto hath been unprofitable to my name’.28Kent Archives, U269/1/CP29: Clare to Middlesex, 7 May 1636; HMC 4th Rep. 304. Following his second marriage in 1637, Holles seems to have divided his time between Grimsby, where he served as mayor on two occasions in the late 1630s, and Newark, where he and his new wife settled in about 1638.29N. E. Lincs. RO, Gt. Grimsby Mayor’s Ct. Bks., 1/102/8, ff. 21v, 34, 57, 64v; Reg. Bk. of St James, Gt. Grimsby ed. Stephenson, 91, 127; Holles, Mems. ed. Wood, pp. vii, viii. Although he was assigned chambers in the Middle Temple after being called to the bar in 1639, there is no evidence that he practised as a lawyer.30MTR 884, 896.

In the election at Grimsby to the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640, which were contested by four candidates, Holles polled 40 votes – six more than his nearest rival.31Supra, ‘Great Grimsby’ But although he carried the main weight of Grimsby’s expectations at Westminster, there is no clear indication that he actually took his seat, for only one ‘Mr Holles’ was named to any given committee and this was very probably Denzil. Certainly the speeches of ‘Mr Holles’ in the Short Parliament were entirely consistent with the views and later career of Gervase’s illustrious second cousin.32Infra, ‘Denzil Holles’.

Holles was returned for Grimsby again in the elections to the Long Parliament in the autumn of 1640, on this occasion yielding first place to Sir Christopher Wray.33Supra, ‘Great Grimsby’. As in the Short Parliament, the long shadow cast by Denzil Holles makes it difficult to form a clear picture of Gervase’s activities in the House. Once again, however, almost all of the appointments and speeches attributed to ‘Mr Holles’ appear, from their context and tenor, to belong to the future parliamentarian rather than to the future royalist. Nevertheless, Gervase apparently shared his cousin’s sense of the personal rule of Charles I as a period of ‘oppression’, and they both had misgivings about the trial of their kinsman by marriage, the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†).34Infra, ‘Denzil Holles’. Indeed, Holles gave a speech on 21 April 1641, in which he declared that although the House was proceeding ‘but in truth and justice, yet being in a case of blood, his conscience being not satisfied, it would be murder in him which was but justice in the House and therefore desired to be excused in that he did not give his assent to the bill’.35Procs LP iv. 44-5. He duly voted against the bill for the earl’s attainder and was listed as a Straffordian.36Procs LP iv. 42; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 248. Five days later (26 Apr.), he further blotted his copybook by making a speech critical of Parliament’s proposed treaty with the Scottish Covenanters. The Scots, he opined, ‘may well be our younger brother ... but like Jacob, they seem to me as if they had an aim to supplant us and take away our birthright’. He had supported the Scots, he claimed

whilst they made their addresses in humble distance, as befitted subjects to their sovereign ... But now ... when I see them swell in their demands beyond all proportion ... and require things unfit for a king to grant and dishonourable for this nation to suffer, I cannot but fix a mark of danger upon them. I fear we have nourished in our bosoms those that will sting us to death.

At this point he was interrupted by the indignant cries of the Scots’ friends in the House, but he was commanded by the Speaker to continue and, with this extra rope, proceeded to hang himself

The miseries and calamities which this poor kingdom hath long suffered have hung like weights upon my soul, and I have groaned under the oppression, for it was a great one. But these – as they call them – propositions, I must call them commands, and I fear they will prove so. They threaten yet more – it is to unman us quite and leave us in a condition of all others most despicable ... If our firm peace may be had upon honest and honourable terms, I will cherish the thought of it; if not, there are but two ways left worthy the entertainment of this nation – that is, to stand or fall with honour.37Mr Jervis Hollis Speech the 26 of April 1641 (1641, E.198.4); Procs. LP iv. 93-4, 96, 98-100.

Holles was evidently sensitive to any perceived slight to English honour, particularly at the hands of the Scots, whom he seems to have held in low esteem. In his Memorials – the remnant of a much larger antiquarian collection that was apparently his pride and joy – he referred to the Scottish courtiers that came south with James I in 1603 as ‘a crew of necessitous and hungry Scots’ and as ‘beggarly blue caps’. ‘This was that’, he argued, ‘which first darkened the glory of the English court which Queen Elizabeth had ever maintained in so great a lustre’.38Holles, Mems. ed. Wood, 94. By 1641, however, these same ‘beggarly’ Scots had an army encamped in the northern counties, and most MPs were not prepared to let national pride stand in the way of a firm peace between the two kingdoms. Holles’s speech was deemed to have given ‘great offence’, and there was a long debate on whether he should be sent to the Tower. In the end, the House contented itself with making him kneel at the bar and suspending him from sitting for the duration of the session.39CJ ii. 128b; Procs. LP iv. 94, 96-7, 99. If his speech displeased the Commons, it seems to have had precisely the opposite effect on the king, for on 10 August, Charles issued letters patent to Holles granting him the potentially lucrative concession to build 15 dwelling-houses on Clement’s Inn Fields in London.40SO3/12, f. 161; CJ vii. 547b.

Although Holles was allowed to resume his seat on 2 December 1641, there is no evidence that he attended the House until 31 January 1642, when he delivered in a ‘testimonial concerning certain injurious speeches given him last week by Captain Thomas Ogle’.41CJ ii. 329b; PJ i. 227. The quarrel between Holles and Ogle dated back to 1635, when Holles, as comptroller of the Middle Temple’s Christmas festivities, had had occasion to beat Ogle with his staff of office for boisterous behaviour.42Holles, Mems. ed. Wood, 236. Ogle had re-ignited the feud in January 1642 after he had spied Holles passing through Westminster Hall with some fellow MPs on his way to dinner. Ogle had jostled Holles, called him a ‘base rascal’ and threatened to kick him.43CJ ii. 404a; PJ i. 227. When the matter was debated in the House, some MPs were of the opinion that it was Holles who had provoked Ogle, but the future royalist Sir John Pakington and ‘Mr Arundell’ (either John Arundell I, Richard Arundell, or Thomas Arundell) testified that Ogle had been the aggressor, and he was thereupon called to the bar as a delinquent.44CJ ii. 404b; PJ i. 227, 230. Pakington and Arundell had probably been members of Holles’s dinner party. The incident was referred to a committee for further investigation, but Holles had abandoned his seat before the committee could report its findings. On 18 April, the Commons ordered Holles and two other absentee Members – the courtiers John Ashburnham and Endymion Porter – to attend the service of the House.45CJ ii. 533a. The evident suspicion that Holles was disaffected to the parliamentary cause may well have influenced the committee’s deliberations, for on 2 May it reported that it was Holles who had started the quarrel and that he should give Ogle satisfaction. Sir Simonds D’Ewes and several other MPs agreed that Holles had been in the wrong, but the lawyers in the House closed ranks around their fellow, albeit absent and non-practising, barrister and the matter was dropped.46PJ ii. 261-2.

Holles was apparently in Nottinghamshire on 1 July 1642, when he signed an open letter from the county’s nascent royalist interest to its knights of the shire Sir Thomas Hutchinson and Robert Sutton. This group clearly regarded the Militia Ordinance as a greater affront to the ancient constitution and ‘known laws’ than the king’s recent proceedings,

especially his Majesty having, since this Parliament, joined in the making of as good laws as ever any king hath done and made so gracious promises of his future government according to the laws, and given abundant satisfaction for some unhappy accidents in his part government, that we conceive great cause to return him cheerful thankfulness for these laws and to yield a faithful obedience and to confide in him for the future.47His Majesties Declaration, Made the 13 of June, 1642 (1642), 3-5 (E.154.45); A. Fletcher, The Outbreak of the English Civil War (1985), 306-7.

Holles was declared absent at the call of the House on 19 July 1642, by which time he was busily raising men for the king in the east Midlands.48CJ ii. 626a.

When Charles raised his standard at Nottingham early in August 1642, Holles brought 117 foot to the royal army, and on 13 August he was commissioned as a captain in the regiment of Sir Lewis Dyve.49HMC Buccleuch, i. 526, 527; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 112. As one who was deeply suspicious of the Scottish Covenanters, it was always likely that he would make common cause with the king. Equally predictable was the reaction of the Commons, which on 22 August disabled him from sitting.50CJ ii. 730b. Undeterred, Holles was commissioned as a major in the king’s forces in September 1642 and then as a colonel of his own regiment of foot in December. He fought at the battles of Edgehill and Brentford in the autumn of 1642, at Belvoir in January 1643, at Adwalton Moor and Bradford in the summer and at the first battle of Newbury in October 1643.51HMC Buccleuch, i. 527, 527-8, 537; P.R. Newman, Royalist Officers in England and Wales (New York, 1981), 195. He was listed among those MPs who had been ‘disabled by several accidents to appear [at Oxford] sooner’, but having since ‘attended the service’ they had concurred with the other Members of the Oxford Parliament in their letter to Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex of 22 January 1644, urging him to compose a peace.52Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 575.

Holles seems to have remained in arms against Parliament until at least April 1644, when he was commissioned as royal governor of King’s Lynn – even though the town was, and would remain, in Parliament’s hands.53HMC Buccleuch, i. 531. But in August, it was reported in the parliamentarian press that he had surrendered to Parliament.54A Diary, or an Exact Journall no. 14 (22-28 Aug. 1644), 111 (E.254.24). When he came to compound in 1645, he claimed that he had voluntarily laid down his colonelcy in about December 1643 and had submitted himself to Edward Montagu, 2nd earl of Manchester, who had granted him a protection.55SP23/185, pp. 946, 947; CCC 1056. It seems that Holles had grown disillusioned with the king’s cause – perhaps as a result of Charles’s cessation with the Irish Catholics. He had certainly not tired of the military life, for at some point in 1645 he presented proposals to the Venetian ambassador in France for raising 2,000 men to serve against the Turks.56HMC Buccleuch, i. 532. In November 1645, he again surrendered himself to the parliamentarian authorities, and the following month he petitioned to compound.57SP23/185, pp. 935, 947. He claimed to have no personal estate and large debts. He was fined at a third – that is, £738 – and when he proved unable to pay this sum it was increased, late in 1653, to £860.58CCC 1056-7. During composition proceedings, he and the royalist peer Edward Viscount Conway petitioned Parliament desiring leave to raise and convey troops to Venice.59LJ viii. 171b, 181b. The Lords agreed to this request but it was blocked in the Commons by the friends of the Turkey mercantile company.60CJ iv. 468b; HMC Buccleuch, i. 532.

Unable to pay his composition fine and heavily in debt, Holles agreed in June 1646 to raise a regiment for the French and appears to have spent most of the next two years as an officer in their army.61SP23/185, pp. 937, 941; HMC Buccleuch, i. 533. The outbreak of the second civil war drew him back to England, where he was involved in the royalist defence of Colchester in the summer of 1648.62HMC Buccleuch, i. 537. He was captured when the town fell to Sir Thomas Fairfax*, who granted him a parole in November to go to London and from thence into Lincolnshire.63HMC Buccleuch, i. 537; HMC Bath, ii. 79-80. Holles was probably still in Lincolnshire when Charles II commissioned him in June 1649 to raise a regiment of foot in the county.64HMC Buccleuch, i. 533.

Having returned to France by the summer of 1650, Holles kept in regular correspondence with Sir Edward Hyde* – who referred to himself as Holles’s ‘particular friend’ – Sir George Radcliffe and other exiled royalists.65CSP Dom. 1650, p. 271; HMC Bath, ii. 80-113, 137. In the summer of 1656, he moved to Rotterdam, where he stepped up his involvement in royalist schemes to restore the king.66CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 395; CCSP iii. 256. In January 1658, Hyde wrote approvingly of Holles’s intention to return to England to foment a royalist uprising, but nothing came of this design, and Holles never left Rotterdam.67Bodl. Eng. Hist. e.309, p. 8; HMC Bath, ii. 120-2. He intended to embark for England again at the time of Sir George Boothe’s* rebellion in the summer of 1659 and compiled a list of Lincolnshire gentlemen likely to be ‘serviceable’ to the king ‘in his present affairs’.68Eg. 2541, f. 362; HMC Bath, ii. 137-8. But his debts, particularly to his landlady in Rotterdam (‘who ... for above these three years hath kept me from starving’), and the indiscretion of a fellow royalist prevented him from leaving Holland.69SP77/32, f. 278; CCSP iv. 339, 352. Holles’s debts kept him in Rotterdam until at least late April 1660 and largely frustrated the hopes of Hyde, the king and Holles himself that he could use his interest with Denzil Holles and Colonel Edward Rosseter* to advance the king’s service.70HMC Bath, ii. 144, 145; CCSP iv. 667.

Holles finally returned to England in about May 1660, and on 6 June he was appointed one of the masters of requests.71HMC Buccleuch, i. 539-40. In January 1661, he was granted an annuity of £100 by way of a salary and in recognition of his ‘faithful service in many affairs’.72HMC Buccleuch, i. 540; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 496. Returned for Grimsby to the Cavalier Parliament, he was a zealous opponent of former parliamentarians in the House and was consistently listed as a court dependent.73Harl. 7020, f. 35v; HP Commons 1660-90.

Holles died intestate and without surviving issue on 10 February 1675. He was residing in St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, at the time of his death but was buried at Mansfield on 13 March.74PROB6/50, f. 19v; Lincs. Church Notes ed. Cole, p. ix. None of his immediate family sat in Parliament.