HOLLAND, Richard (1598-1661), of Heaton, Prestwich, and Denton, Manchester, Lancs.

The Hollands were one of Lancashire’s oldest gentry families, having settled in the county by the early thirteenth century.20Baines, Lancs. iv. 300-1; Holland, Fam. of Holland, 3. They had been lords of Heaton, about five miles north of Manchester, since the fourteenth century, but they did not establish Heaton Hall as their principal residence until the early Jacobean period.21VCH Lancs. iv. 313; v. 81. As the scion of a cadet branch of the family, Holland seemed destined for a life of genteel obscurity in the ranks of Lancashire’s lesser gentry. However, his prospects improved greatly in 1618, when his uncle Richard Holland†, who had represented Lancashire in the 1586 Parliament, died without male isse, leaving his estate – reportedly worth £800 a year – to his younger brother, the future MP’s father.22HP Commons, 1558-1603; Lancs. IPM ed. Rylands, 141-7; Heywood Diaries ed. Turner, iii. 80. On his father’s death in 1631, Holland inherited the family estate, including the two mansion houses of Heaton Hall and Denton Hall, and was promoted to the Lancashire bench.23Wilkinson, ‘Commission of peace in Lancs.’, 64. He also inherited his uncle’s mantle as one of the area’s leading patrons of a preaching ministry, for it was at Holland’s insistence that the nonconformist clergyman John Angier was installed in 1632 as minister at the chapelry of Denton.24Richardson, Puritanism, 121, 124-5; HP Commons, 1558-1603, ‘Richard Holland’; Oliver Heywood’s Life of John Angier of Denton ed. E. Axon (Chetham Soc. n.s. xcviii), 59-61; ‘John Angier’, Oxford DNB.

Where Holland deviated from his uncle’s legacy was in his unwillingness, from 1642 at least, to serve under or otherwise pay obedience to the Stanleys, earls of Derby – soon to emerge as Lancashire’s leading royalist family.25B. Coward, The Stanleys Lords Stanley and Earls of Derby 1385-1672 (Chetham Soc. ser. 3, xxx), 45; HP Commons, 1558-1604, ‘Richard Holland’. In July 1642, he joined Alexander Rigby I* and other members of Lancashire’s nascent parliamentarian interest in consultations about executing the Militia Ordinance in the county.26Lancs. Civil War Tracts, 21. And in September, having been appointed governor of Manchester, he helped to defend the town against a royalist assault mounted by James Stanley†, 7th earl of Derby.27Lancs. Civil War Tracts, 45, 52, 333; Lancs. Lieutenancy under the Tudors and Stuarts ed. J. Harland (Chetham Soc. o.s. l), 272-3, Broxap, Lancs. 46. He was closely involved in attempts during October to broker a treaty of neutrality between the county’s parliamentarians and royalists, but this initiative was denounced by Parliament and quickly collapsed.28Lancs. Lieutenancy ed. Harland, 285-7; Farington Pprs. ed. S.M. Farington (Chetham Soc. o.s. xxxix), 80-6; Broxap, Lancs. 56. With no prospect of a local truce, he joined Thomas Birche*, Richard Radclyffe* and other Manchester parliamentarians in proposing measures to defend the area from further royalist encroachment: ‘the time is upon us to put the most zealous resolutions in present execution’.29Lancs. Lieutenancy ed. Harland, 301-2, 308. Holland’s regiment of foot, which included ‘men of the best affection to religion’ in the Manchester area, was certainly in no mood to compromise, committing numerous acts of puritan iconoclasm during the early months of the war.30Warr in Lancs. 9-10.

Doubtless Holland’s own godly sympathies played an important part in his decision to take up arms against the king. Nevertheless, his loyalty to the parliamentarian cause was questioned by at least one of his subordinates – the military engineer John Rosworme, who accused him of multiple acts of treachery, including several attempts to deliver Manchester to the royalists and of arrant cowardice in hastily abandoning Wigan after its capture in the spring of 1643.31Lancs. Civil War Tracts, 222-3, 226-7, 230, 231; Broxap, Lancs. 79. There is certainly some evidence that Holland had been willing to entertain a parley with the earl of Derby during the siege of Manchester in September 1642.32Lancs. Civil War Tracts, 333; Broxap, Lancs. 46. And the royalists themselves reported in March 1644 that Holland had refused to join Rigby, Raphe Assheton II and John Moore* in deploying their regiments at the siege of the earl of Derby’s fortified residence of Lathom House – which refusal was ‘ill taken’ by Sir Thomas Fairfax*, who was commanding the operation.33Add. 18981, f. 77. But whether Holland’s apparent reluctance to antagonise the earl was motivated by military considerations or a secret desire to serve his interest and those of the king is impossible to determine.34Blackwood, Lancs. 73.

According to Rosworme, Holland and ‘many more out of Manchester and the county’ were summoned before the Committee for Examinations* in April 1643

to give in our informations touching Colonel Holland’s actions, where all this and divers things more were justified to his face, as his perfidious dealings at Wigan ... and his eagerness ... to deliver up Manchester ... But his great friends in the House prevailed for his escape [from punishment], accounting it perhaps a sufficient punishment that he was so publicly shamed.35Lancs. Civil War Tracts, 228.

These allegations notwithstanding, Holland served out the war at the head of his regiment and without exciting complaint from his cousin Sir William Brereton*, the commander of Parliament’s forces in the north-west, who was not one to suffer cowardice or backsliding lightly.36Lancs. Civil War Tracts, 74, 154, 161, 181; HMC Portland, i. 156, 717-18; Broxap, Lancs. 63, 80, 89, 98; Brereton Lttr. Bks. i. 56; ii. 502. Moreover, Holland was one of the most active members of the Lancashire county committee during the 1640s.37SP28/211, ff. 612, 769, 770, 771, 823; SP28/236, pts. 2-3, unfol.; SP28/299, f. 1106; SP28/332, f. 480; Belvoir, QZ.24, ff. 45-6; Life of Humphrey Chetham ed. F.R. Raines, C.W. Sutton (Chetham Soc. n.s. xlix), 151; Blackwood, Lancs. 83-4, 105. At some point in 1645 or 1646, he signed one, possibly both, of the petitions to Parliament from the parish of Manchester requesting the ‘planting of a godly and constant ministry’ in the parishes’ chapels.38Greater Manchester County RO, E7/28/5/8a-b.

Holland was a candidate in the ‘recruiter’ election held in the Lancashire constituency of Newton in the spring of 1646. Although he owned little or no land in the immediate vicinity of the borough, he was no mere carpetbagger. In 1618, his father had been described as a resident of Winwick, the parish in which Newton was situated.39G. Inn Admiss. 150. And Holland himself was evidently on good terms with the borough’s main electoral patrons, the Leghs of Lyme, having written to Francis Legh (uncle of Richard Legh*) in February 1642, recommending John Holcrofte* for the place at Newton made vacant by the death of Legh’s nephew Peter Legh.40JRL, Legh of Lyme corresp., Lttrs. to Francis Legh, folder 12: Holland to Legh, 18 Feb. 1642. On that occasion, the freeman had returned William Ashhurst. When the House ordered a new election for Newton in 1646 to replace the royalist Sir Roger Palmer, who had been disabled to sit, Holland decided to stand for the borough himself. However, he faced stiff competition from the Lancashire and Cheshire parliamentarian Peter Brooke. On election day, late in March 1646, the freemen were divided, with one group returning Holland and another returning Brooke. Whether the House came to any formal conclusion concerning this dispute is not clear – there is certainly nothing in the Journal to this effect. Nevertheless, victory clearly went to Brooke, who seems to have enjoyed closer ties with the Leghs and the leading men of Winwick parish than did Holland.41Supra, ‘Newton’; ‘Peter Brooke’. There is no evidence that the contest turned on significant political differences between the two candidates. Both seem to have favoured a strong Presbyterian ministry, and both would fall out, to varying degrees, with the Rump.

Holland remained loyal to Parliament during the second civil war, helping to raise troops to defend Lancashire against the Engagers and sending assistance to the parliamentarian forces in Yorkshire.42CJ v. 595a; Bodl. Tanner 57, ff. 41, 171; Mems. of the Great Civil War ed. Cary, i. 408. But the Rump lost faith in him early in 1650 after a report from Colonel Robert Duckenfeild* that Holland and Raphe Assheton II were ‘much eyed as ... inclining to head a party to close with the Scots against us’.43SP28/211, f. 608v; HMC Leyborne-Popham, 58; Blackwood, Lancs. 73. Having retained his place on the Lancashire commission of peace when it was renewed in September 1649, Holland was omitted from the new commission that was issued the following April.44Lancs. RO, QSC/51-2. He was imprisoned by the council of state in 1651, presumably on suspicion of fomenting unrest in Lancashire in support of the Scots.45CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 241-2.

Holland’s stock rose again after the establishment of the protectorate late in December 1653; and in the summer of 1654 he was returned for Lancashire in the elections to the first protectoral Parliament. He probably owed his return to a combination of his high profile in the county, his status as one of the Manchester area’s leading landowners and, possibly, to the support of the county’s influential Presbyterian interest. He was named to only two committees in this Parliament, and it is therefore unlikely that he figured prominently in its proceedings.46CJ vii. 380a, 381a.

In the elections to the second protectoral Parliament in 1656, Holland was a signatory to the indenture returning his former junior officer Richard Radclyffe, while he himself was re-elected for Lancashire, taking third place behind Sir Richard Hoghton and Gilbert Irelande.47C219/45, unfol.; Manchester Ct. Leet Recs. ed. J.P. Earwaker (Manchester, 1887), iv. pp. 159-60. He received only one appointment in this Parliament – to a committee on a bill concerning the probate of wills, 27 October 1656.48CJ vii. 446a. The clerk of the House referred to him as ‘Colonel Holland’ – the ‘Mr Holland’ who appears on numerous occasions in the records of this Parliament was Cornelius Holland, who did not take his seat until early December 1656.49Burton’s Diary, i. 78, 80.

Holland’s hostility towards the Rump re-surfaced in dramatic fashion during the summer of 1659, when he and ‘divers other Lancaster men’ rose in rebellion under Sir George Boothe*.50CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 157, 160, 170; Clarke Pprs. iv. 288. Holland tried to persuade the Lancashire Presbyterian minister Henry Newcome to join the rising, but without success.51Autobiog. of Henry Newcome ed. Parkinson, 111. The perceived threat both locally and nationally from the ‘schismatical party’ was probably significant in prompting Holland and Boothe’s other Presbyterian supporters to take up arms.52Blackwood, Lancs. Gentry, 75-6. After the rout of Boothe’s forces in mid-August, Holland surrendered himself and was imprisoned in London on charges of treason.53Bodl. Rawl. A.259, pp. 109, 139; CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 190, 204; Clarke Pprs. iv. 293. He was released by Parliament on 25 February 1660 – a few days after the secluded Members had been re-admitted to the House.54CJ vii. 853a.

If Holland benefitted at all from the Restoration he had little time to enjoy it, for he died on 29 July 1661 and was buried at Prestwich on 3 August.55Prestwich par. reg.; Autobiog. of Henry Newcome ed. Parkinson, 301. No will is recorded. He died without male issue, and his estate passed to a younger brother.56Heywood Diaries ed. Turner, iii. 80.