HOLLAND, Cornelius (1600-72), of Creslow, Bucks.

It is possible that Cornelius Holland was descended from Ralph Holland, master of the Merchant Taylors’ Company in 1419 and sheriff of London in 1429.46M. Davies and A. Saunders, Hist. of the Merchant Taylors’ Co. (Leeds, 2004), 76-7. The future MP was certainly the son of another London Merchant Taylor named Ralph Holland, who, at the time of Cornelius’s birth in 1600, was brusher of the robes to the queen. Under James I, Ralph Holland was promoted to become one of the pages and later the groom of the robes; he also served Anne of Denmark in the same capacity.47LS13/251, p. 30; Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d, ed. J. Arnold (Leeds, 1988), 234, 240n. In January 1610 Cornelius was admitted as a pupil of the Merchant Taylors’ School, very close to the family house in the parish of St Laurence Pountney.48Robinson, Reg. i. 63; Merchant Taylors’ School Reg. 1561-1934, ed. E.P Hart (1936), i. ‘Cornelius Holland’. Five years later he went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge.49Al. Cant. His father died in 1625 and, if his son’s later enemies are to be believed, he did so while incarcerated in the Fleet prison for debt.50Wilson, St Laurence Pountney, 12; Second Centurie, 1; The Mystery of the Good Old Cause (1660), 13 (E.1923.2). In 1627 Holland married Sybil Forth of New Windsor, a great-niece of John Winthrop, the future governor of Massachusetts.51New Windsor par. reg.; Evidences of the Winthrops of Groton, 127, 129, 131; C10/123/1.

Royal servant, 1628-40

The crucial figure in Holland’s early career was Sir Henry Vane I*.52Harl. 164, f. 334v. Holland had entered Vane’s service at the latest by 1629, when he was described as being a clerk to the cofferer, the office Vane held jointly with Sir Marmaduke Darrell.53LS13/251, p. 28. But he was probably already in Vane’s employment when, in July 1628, he served as a collector of subsidy payments from the residents of the royal palaces.54LR9/105, unfol. The clerkship was not an official position within the royal household, but his 1629 appointment as clerk of the acatry rectified this and, since it was in an important department (responsible for all meat used in the royal kitchens) it opened up possibilities of promotion.55LS13/251, p. 28. Possibly as a condition of his appointment, Holland then surrendered an exchequer pension of £80 a year which had been granted by James I to Holland’s father for his lifetime and that of his son. The king ordered that Holland was instead to be paid that sum from the cofferer, on the understanding that he would give £30 a year to the widow of the previous clerk of the acatry.56LS13/251, pp. 30-1; LS13/30, unfol. Holland seems to have continued to handle some of Vane’s paperwork as cofferer and, from 1630, as comptroller of the household.57CSP Dom. 1631-2, pp. 250, 327; 1633-4, pp. 99-100.

As a further responsibility, Holland began to look after the financial affairs of the infant prince of Wales, the future Charles II. From May 1633 the lord steward’s department paid Holland £200 each month for the use of the prince’s household and the food supplies for his servants were also delivered to him.58LS13/169, pp. 228-9. This arrangement became more formal in January 1635 when he was appointed as the prince’s clerk comptroller (and resigned his acatry post).59LS13/251, p. 83. The prince’s household, based at Richmond, was already substantial and Holland was soon spending over £20,000 on behalf of the royal children.60LS13/251, p. 91-2; CSP Dom. 1635, p. 604; T56/2, f. 1; 1636-7, p. 154, 158, 340, 529; 1637, pp. 112-13; E101/439/4-5; E101/439/7-8; E101/439/10; E101/439/15-16. But he retained connections with the lord steward’s department. It was probably not a coincidence that just a fortnight after he had resigned from the acatry, the king granted him the lease on the manor and keepership of Creslow pastures in Buckinghamshire for 18 years for an annual rent of £10.61Coventry Docquets, 356; LS13/169, pp. 261-73. That estate was used by the royal household as one of its major pasture grounds for sheep and cattle, whether its own herds or those that had been supplied via purveyance.62A. Woodworth, ‘Purveyance for the royal household in the reign of Queen Elizabeth’, Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. n.s. xxxv. 62; G.E. Aylmer, ‘The last years of purveyance’, EcHR n.s. x. 92n. The lease, which was traditionally held by a favoured servant of the household belowstairs, was almost certainly granted to him on advantageous terms.63Second Centurie, 1. It also came with a fourteenth-century manor house, which probably now became Holland’s principal country residence. He is known to have spent over £700 repairing the building and the house still bears traces of substantial alterations from that period.64W.H. Kelke, ‘Creslow pastures’, Recs. of Bucks. i. 258-9; VCH Bucks. iii. 335-6; RCHME Bucks. ii. 94-8.

The prince of Wales’s household was reorganised in May 1638. Prince Charles was now approaching his eighth birthday and was soon to be transferred into the care of a governor, the 1st earl of Newcastle (Sir William Cavendish†). Holland’s role was redefined and he now became paymaster and clerk of the greencloth to all the royal children.65LS13/251, p. 100; Harl. 7623, f. 10. In some respects, this made little difference since it made official a responsibility for the younger children that had previously been subsumed in that for Charles, but since the latter had been given more servants, Holland’s expenditure jumped to over £35,000.66E101/627/30; LS13/251, pp. 117-18; E101/667/7; E101/439/20; E101/440/4-5; E101/440/8-9; LS13/169, pp. 337-40; CSP Dom. 1638-9, pp. 470, 550, 604; 1639-40, p. 372. By 1640, therefore, Holland was already a well-placed courtier, holding one of the more important positions in the household of the heir to the throne, while remaining a trusted client of Vane, who had in the meantime risen to become treasurer of the household and secretary of state.

MP, 1640-2

In standing for election at New Windsor in October 1640, Holland had a number of advantages. Many royal servants lived locally and the electoral influence of the household could not be discounted. Holland could also claim family ties with the town through his wife. In later years he leased a house there.67CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 340. Holland was elected on 22 October together with the acting clerk and surveyor of the works in the castle, William Tayleur alias Domville, in an election return drawn up by the inhabitants. However, a rival return had already been made by the corporation in favour of Sir Thomas Rowe* and Thomas Waller. On 8 December, after much discussion, the Commons resolved this dispute by deciding that both returns had been invalid and ordering a new election.68CJ ii. 47b; Procs. LP i. 511-12, 518; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 89. With the Commons having accorded the exercise of the franchise to the inhabitants, they re-elected Holland, along with Tayleur’s son, William Tayleur alias Domville*, on 16 December.69Bodl. Ashmole 1126, f. 70a. But any friendliness between Holland and the younger Tayleur did not last for long. On 27 May 1641 Holland informed the Commons of the letter he had received from the mayor of Windsor reporting remarks by Tayleur criticising the attainder of the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†).70Harl. 477, f. 104v. That resulted in Tayleur being expelled from the Commons and imprisoned in the Tower.

Some of Holland’s earliest contributions to the Long Parliament’s proceedings directly related to his court office. There was, most obviously, his intervention in the debate on 28 May 1641 concerning the bill to limit the powers of another household official, the clerk of the markets. Holland advised the Commons to delay deciding whether to proceed with this bill until they had heard from the privy council.71Harl. 477, f. 110v. His dual role as a royal servant and the local MP easily explains why he was among those asked in September 1641 to draft the letter to local officials on the problem of deer poaching in Windsor Great Park.72CJ ii. 282a; Harl. 164, f. 96v. His interest in the debts of Abraham Dawes and Sir Thomas Dawes was because the former had been the collector for the imprest of wine from which the prince of Wales’s household was partly funded.73LS13/169, pp. 337-40; CJ ii. 348b, iii. 286b, 477b; LJ v. 376a. His very first committee appointment, which was to the committee on the bill to confirm grants made to Henrietta Maria, may reflect his continuing closeness to Vane, given that Sir Henry was at this point one of the queen’s allies.74CJ ii. 87b. Holland had made enough of a mark in the Commons to be included on the Recess Committee in the autumn of 1641.75CJ ii. 288b.

As late as mid-November 1641 Holland was still paymaster and clerk of the greencloth to the royal children, although by then he held the positions jointly with John Hall, and within weeks there were rumours that he was about to be dismissed.76LS13/251, p. 172; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 201; PJ i. 330. (The accounts he later presented to the exchequer for auditing break off on 31 March 1641.77E101/440/12-13.) He had certainly been distancing himself from some of the king’s policies, as on 29 October, when he was included on the committee to ask the Lords to join with the Commons in their attempt to dissuade Charles from appointing five new bishops.78CJ ii. 298b. On religious matters, he was taking a firm anti-Catholic, anti-Laudian line.79CJ ii. 133a, 238b, 349b, 438a; Harl. 163, f. 406v.

Meanwhile, Vane’s fall from power in later 1641 potentially threatened Holland’s position too. In practice, however, Holland’s career took off as he became more obviously his own man. Whether his dismissal as paymaster, or disillusionment with a king he had observed at close quarters, or some other motivation led him in the months to come to give steadfast support for Parliament, cannot be precisely determined. He could not have foreseen how events would actually turn out.

Opposing the king, 1642-5

In early 1642 Holland favoured a strong defence of the Protestant cause in the face of the Catholic rebellion in Ireland and he invested £600 in the Irish Adventure.80CJ ii. 468b, 563a; Bottingheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 184. As that year progressed, he may well have viewed events in England in much the same terms. His support for a military solution to Parliament’s conflict with the king proved steady and unyielding. As early as September 1642 he was given permission to send ten muskets to Windsor and the following month he seems to have assembled some horses for use by the army.81CJ ii. 768b, 824a. He sat on the committee on delinquents and helped organise the collection of money for Parliament.82CJ ii. 769a, 787b, 825b. He made himself useful in other ways. When the Commons wanted to clarify the intentions of the lord lieutenant of Ireland, the 2nd earl of Leicester (Sir Robert Sidney†), in early October, they sent Holland as their intermediary.83CJ ii. 795b, 797a-b; Add. 18777, f. 22v. That month he spoke in favour of the bill to prevent clergymen holding secular offices.84D’Ewes (C), 30.

The king’s departure, first from London and later to the north, had left the younger royal children, Princess Elizabeth and Henry, duke of Gloucester, stranded in the capital. For Parliament it became an matter of honour as well as expediency (they could yet be used as political hostages) to maintain these two young royals in an appropriate style. Holland was the obvious person to include on a committee created in April 1642 to decide on arrangements.85CJ ii. 509a. Accommodation was provided for them at St James’s Palace. By October 1642 Holland had, in practice, already resumed his old office as their paymaster and steps were then taken to regularise this.86LJ v. 376a; CJ ii. 806a; Add. 18777, f. 27v; E101/440/17. An ordinance was passed in early November 1642 by which he was granted £800 per month from the revenues of the mint for that purpose.87CJ ii. 820b, 823a-b, 830a-b, 836b, 852a, 871a; Add. 18777, ff. 42, 43; LJ v. 429b-430a, 474a, 477a-b; HMC 5th Rep. 59. This was underpinned by his appointment as the collector and receiver of the mint.88CJ ii. 852a, 855b-856a, 861b; Add. 18777, f. 62v; LJ v. 458b-459a. Between then and November 1646 he received over £29,000 from the mint, making this the principal source of funding for the household of the royal children during those years.89E101/440/17, f. 11; E101/440/18, f. 2. (He now began to take a particular interest in matters relating to the mint and to the Tower of London.90CJ ii. 895b, 938a, 940a, iii. 69b, 93b, 195b, 668b.) Moreover, on 8 November 1642 he and William Ashhurst* were sent by the Commons to Lambeth Palace to seize the rents collected from the archbishop of Canterbury’s estates. That money, which amounted to £238 9s 11½d, was also paid to Holland for the benefit of Prince Henry and Princess Elizabeth.91CJ ii. 389b, 841a; Add. 18777, ff. 52, 53; E101/440/17, f. 11. Henceforth matters concerning the royal children were routinely referred by the Commons to Holland.92CJ ii. 975b, 980b, iii. 62a-b, 68b, 153b; Add. 18777, f. 161. In June 1643 he chaired the Commons’ committee set up to purge their household of those servants deemed, as Catholics or royalists, to be undesirable.93CJ iii. 145b.

These decisions in November 1642 about the financial arrangements for the royal children had been taken as their father advanced towards London following the indecisive battle at Edgehill. In this crisis Holland excelled himself. On 3 November he was among MPs appointed to send out scouts to establish the movements of the king’s army.94CJ ii. 833a; Add. 18777, f. 49v. The king was traversing Buckinghamshire, so Parliament benefitted from Holland’s local knowledge. Two days later he informed the Commons that Prince Rupert had reached Maidenhead and that other royalist forces had taken Windsor. He and Sir Peter Wentworth* were then sent to check with Philip Skippon* the state of the defences around the capital.95Add. 18777, f. 51; CJ ii. 837a. On 12 November he was probably the first person at Westminster to receive the news that Rupert had captured Brentford.96CJ ii. 846a. The following day the Commons asked him to warn Parliament’s commander-in-chief, Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, that supplies could not be sent up the Thames beyond Hammersmith.97CJ ii. 848a. That the king now turned back at Turnham Green did not mean that the crisis had passed. On 14 November Holland and some other MPs were sent to confiscate stocks of oats from the royal mews at Charing Cross, so that these could be sent to the army.98CJ ii. 850a. On 15 November Holland was sent to tell the London militia committee that they should take control of Duke Humphrey’s Tower at Greenwich and other strategic locations on the Thames estuary.99CJ ii. 851a.

When a committee was created to organise relief for soldiers injured in their service, and for the families of those killed, Holland and Robert Jenner* were appointed as its treasurers. Six days later, on 8 November 1642, Holland reported back to the Commons, recommending that the Savoy Hospital be taken over for the treatment of the wounded soldiers.100CJ ii. 832a; Add. 18777, ff. 49, 52. It duly became the main centre in London for that purpose. Over the next five months Holland and Jenner spent over £1,700 on the wounded and the soldiers’ widows.101CJ ii. 856b, 866b, 874a, 988b; iii. 55b, 58b; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 408; E.G. van Arni, Justice to the Maimed Soldier (Aldershot, 2001), 68. Although necessarily rudimentary, what Holland and Jenner put in place was commendable and remained the basis for the provision on the parliamentarian side for the remainder of the war, but finding this work too time-consuming, in June 1643 they handed over the treasurership to a team of four non-MPs.102Van Arni, Justice to the Maimed Soldier, 68. Holland nevertheless continued to chair the relevant Commons’ committee.103CJ iii. 126b.

Holland’s dogged support for the parliamentarian cause made him more, not less critical of its leaders. On 14 December he demanded that the Committee of Safety should be disbanded on the grounds that it was ‘a great scandal to this House to suffer all the monies which are now expended to be disposed of by them’.104Harl. 164, f. 248v. On that occasion, he was seconded by Henry Marten*. Holland in turn supported Marten when he made a similar call two months later.105Harl. 164, f. 297v. Sir Simonds D’Ewes* was soon calling them the ‘fiery spirits’.106Harl. 164, f. 351. Holland’s suspicions about whether all the money they were raising was being put to good use doubtless explains why he replaced William Spurstowe* on the Committee for Advance of Money (11 Feb. 1643) and regularly attended its meetings for the next 12 months, why he sat on the committee to examine all warrants sent by the treasurers-at-war (8 Mar.) and why he was included on the committee on the public accounts (20 Mar.).107CJ ii. 963a, 994b; iii. 9b; SP19/1, pp. 119-261; SP19/3, pp. 9, 22. He was just as wary of the attempts to negotiate a settlement with the king and considered Charles’s answers of 3 February to the proposals previously submitted by Parliament to be not really answers at all; they would ‘overthrow our right and security’.108Add. 18777, ff. 146, 152. When, in a debate on 18 March 1643 on the proposed treaty, D’Ewes tried to argue that allowing Parliament to nominate military governors would only encourage faction, Holland accused him of insulting them.109Harl. 164, f. 334v. He supported Sir Henry Mildmay’s* proposal to write to Essex drawing attention to the lack of progress in the negotiations at Oxford. Two days later (3 Apr.) he seconded Marten’s motion that the commissioners be recalled.110Harl. 164, ff. 351, 352. Years later he suggested that if only Charles had made his promise of liberty for tender consciences honestly, resistance to him would have quickly collapsed.111Burton’s Diary, i. 217.

Holland’s zeal at the time was put to good use by his colleagues. When William Haywood, the rector of St Giles-in-the-Fields, was sequestered in March 1643, Holland was one of the MPs to whom his revenues were then paid.112LJ v. 665a. In late March and early April he was active in persuading the Lords to accept further legislation to sequester estates from delinquents and was himself named to the bicameral Committee for Sequestrations.113CJ iii. 21b, 32b; LJ v. 695b. Later that year, Holland and John Trenchard* were asked to oversee the sale of the goods accumulated by the sequestration committees in London and some of the surrounding counties.114CJ iii. 135a. No means of raising money seems to have troubled him. When Parliament wanted to ‘borrow’ plate from the cathedral chapters, he happily helped draft the necessary legislation.115CJ iii. 106b. He seems to have had some concerns, however, about overzealous attempts to confiscate horses for the army – unless he felt that the complaints were unjustified or irrelevant.116CJ iii. 69a, 89a, 93b, 313a. His knowledge of government finance and his experience of handling large sums of public money now earned him a place on the Committee for the Revenue (Sept. 1643).117Supra, ‘Committee for the Revenue’; CJ iii. 156b, 191b. A loan from the customs commissioners to pay for the navy was secured in part through his efforts.118CJ iii. 214b, 239b, 243b.

Like most of his colleagues, Holland reacted with horror to the revelations about Edmund Waller* and his alleged plot in June 1643. Having taken the oath in defence of Parliament on 6 June, he helped make this a general requirement throughout the country. He also supported the moves to arrest the 2nd earl of Portland (Jerome Weston†) and 2nd Viscount Conway (Sir Edward Conway†) as part of the investigation into the plot.119CJ iii. 116b, 118a, 122b, 144a. With Parliament’s nerves on edge, the royalist rising in Kent the following month prompted fears of a royalist attack on London and, as in November 1642, Holland was to the fore in the efforts to prepare the capital’s defences. On 21 July he headed the committee to consult with the London militia committee and the following day he and Samuel Vassall* returned to check with them that the defences on the Thames estuary had been secured.120CJ iii. 174b, 177a, 178a. On 5 August he was among MPs sent to make sure that Sir John Conyers, the lieutenant of the Tower, handed over control of it to the City authorities.121CJ iii. 195b.

In the autumn of 1643 Holland’s immediate concern was to promote the Solemn League and Covenant with the Scots. Earlier that year he had been among commissioners appointed to negotiate with them and he had sat on the committee determining how to subsidise the Scottish army in Ireland.122LJ vi. 55b; CJ iii. 132a. Now that the alliance had been concluded, he was keen to support it. On 19 September, with John Pym* and Denis Bond*, he was asked to prepare the declaration about the Covenant to be released to the army.123CJ iii. 247b. At that time and again during 1644 he arranged the London accommodation for the Scottish commissioners.124CJ iii. 254a, 383a, 557a, 668a; LJ vi. 404a. On 28 September he was named to a high-powered committee for liaising with the City authorities about raising money for the Scottish forces in Ulster and those soon to enter England.125CJ iii. 258a, 299b. Known as the Committee for Scottish Affairs, this body would evolve in 1644 into the Committee for Compounding.126Supra, ‘Committee for Compounding’; CCC 1. On 24 October he was included on a Commons delegation to the City for raising money for the Scots.127CJ iii. 287a. But it may well have been the military advantages of the Solemn League rather than its religious implications that made him so willing to support it. Thus, he was among those who on 6 November spoke in favour of three MPs with religious scruples about taking the Covenant; he argued that they should only be suspended rather than expelled.128Harl. 165, f. 222. His views may not have been so very different from those of his friend Vane II, the architect of the Solemn League and someone else whose priority was to get Scottish military support to be used against the king. Indeed, it may have been as Vane’s ally and representative that Holland had undertaken some of these lesser activities directed to that end.

As MP for Windsor and as a landowner in Buckinghamshire, Holland had immediate reasons to be concerned with the progress of the fighting around Oxford. On 23 September 1643, three days after the inconclusive first battle of Newbury, he was one of those who made sure that troops were sent from London to protect Reading, the next substantial town to the east of Newbury.129CJ iii. 252b. On 9 December he was included on the committee to consider how Aylesbury should be protected.130CJ iii. 334a. The following spring he ensured that the garrison there was voted the money it needed.131CJ iii. 452b, 477b. When in late 1643 the Commons wanted to persuade the London militia committee to send 500 troops to replace the garrison at Windsor Castle, they sent Holland, Jenner and Zouche Tate*.132CJ iii. 345a. In June 1644 Holland was part of the delegation sent to ask that same committee for reinforcements for use around Oxford.133CJ iii. 523a. Holland always backed attempts to find money for the Windsor garrison, often working in conjunction with the other Windsor MP, Richard Winwood*, to obtain the necessary funds.134CJ iii. 388a, 507b, 703a-b, 705b; iv. 198a, 351a, 352a, 399a. The decision in April 1646 to sell off brass statues at Windsor (possibly part of the unfinished tomb of Henry VIII) to raise money to repair the castle had his full support.135CJ iv. 279a, 502b, 503b, LJ viii. 260a; M. Mitchell, ‘Works of art from Rome to Henry VIII’, Jnl. of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, xxxiv. 192; Windsor Castle ed. S. Brindle (2018), 210. But Holland’s support for the troops defending Berkshire and Buckinghamshire also needs to seen as part of his more general advocacy of an aggressive war against the king on all fronts. As long as the conflict lasted, he always supported proposals to raise troops, to pay their arrears or to maintain any other garrisons.136CJ iii. 140a, 165a, 274a, 333a, 342a, 347a, 385a, 502b, 527b, 579b, 654b, 655b, 699a, 701a; iv. 71a, 302b, 461a. This applied as much to the war in Ireland as it did to England.137CJ iii. 173a, 574a, 599a, 609a; iv. 368a.

Voting money for the army was one thing; finding it was an even greater challenge. This was where Holland’s financial experience came into its own. His repeated involvement in matters relating to the excise is particularly striking. Thus, in early 1644 he was twice added to the excise committee.138CJ iii. 360a, 393a. Then in March 1644 he was second on the list of those named to the committee to decide how the excise commissioners’ accounts should be audited.139CJ iii. 442a. He took an interest also in the various excise bills passed that year.140CJ iii. 489a, 531b. His areas of expertise combined on 10 July 1644 when he was sent to inform the excise commissioners that they were to pay the weekly grant allocated by Parliament for the assistance of the maimed soldiers.141CJ iii. 556b. In August he and Trenchard were appointed to inform them that they should pay the £10,000 for Sir William Waller*’s army as a matter of urgency, while in November he conveyed to them the request for £1,000.142CJ iii. 588b, 590b, 701a. In April 1645 he sat on the committee considering the bill to appoint an excise committee.143CJ iv. 107a. He was included on a committee created in March 1646 to examine the excise accounts up to September 1644.144CJ iv. 472b. The impression is that Holland, who was, after all, a Londoner by birth and of mercantile stock, had strong ties with the City. This would also explain why he often involved himself in matters concerning trade, shipping and, by extension, the navy.145CJ ii. 954b; iii. 243b, 283a, 286a, 311a, 361a, 391a, 399b, 601a, 722a; iv. 57a, 72b; LJ vi. 292a.

Holland’s eagerness to find some of the money Parliament needed by extracting as much as possible from its royalist opponents had not diminished. He had no sympathy at all for ‘cavaliers’, whom he was alleged to have said were ‘ten times worse than Turks’.146Mercurius Aulicus no. 46 (12-19 Nov. 1643), 647 (E.77.18). In early 1644 he was included on the committee to investigate suspected recusants (23 Feb.) and then on the committee to prepare legislation for delinquents to be tried (25 Apr.).147CJ iii. 405a, 470a. By 1645 and later he was happily supporting the bills for the sales of estates belonging to delinquents, bishops and cathedral chapters.148CJ iv. 176a, 276a, 603a, 625b, 710b, 712a. His enthusiasm in 1648 for the proposed sale of the estates of Sir Philip Carteret on Sark for the benefit of pro-parliamentarian inhabitants on Jersey may have been the original source of his subsequent interest in the affairs of the Channel Islands.149CJ v. 486a; vi. 66a.As a useful side-line, he became the MP who routinely dealt with confiscated goods of any value, such as jewels, plate or paintings.150CJ iii. 518a, 541a, 571a.

Throughout, his name was invariably associated with measures to alleviate the plight of the maimed soldiers. On 30 October 1643 he was given the honour of carrying the bill for their relief up to the Lords.151CJ iii. 294b. Early the following year he secured the payment of £300 to cover their medical bills.152CJ iii. 363a. On 24 February 1644 he presented the Commons with a petition from the 300 maimed soldiers being treated at the Savoy.153Harl. 166, f. 17. A similar petition, this time from the inhabitants of London, submitted four months later, prompted him, at the Commons’ request, to prepare a bill granting the substantial sum of £200 per week to assist those soldiers.154CJ iii. 521a, 532a, 556b; LJ vi. 593a. Another bill, almost certainly promoted by him, was passed in November 1644 to authorise a charitable collection in London for the benefit of those soldiers injured at the second battle of Newbury.155CJ iii. 685b. New regulations for the management of the Savoy Hospital, signed by him and the other members of the committee for the sick and maimed soldiers, date from the same period.156CSP Dom. Add. 1625-49, pp. 668-9. The subsequent increase in the weekly allocation to £250 was also the result of his draftsmanship.157CJ iv. 22a, 151a, 153b. The related issue was always the provision made for the widows of those soldiers who had not survived. In July 1645 Holland was among MPs concerned that the arrears due to them should be paid.158CJ iv. 197a. In October 1645 he negotiated with the excise commissioners for further sums for those purposes.159CJ iv. 314a. The end of actual fighting did not remove this problem. In the aftermath of the surrender of Oxford he was busy promoting another bill to grant £100 per week for this purpose.160CJ iv. 627a, 629a, 634b. A review of the matter in late 1647 and early 1648, in which he almost certainly took the lead, resulted in the proposal that half of all revenues from forfeitures should be similarly earmarked.161CJ v. 252b, 396a, 421a, 478a, 514a. What is not so clear is whether Holland’s concerns about the treatment of prisoners, a subject in which he took a regular interest throughout the war, should be linked more to the humanitarian impulse evident in all his efforts on behalf of the maimed soldiers or to his desire to penalize captured delinquents.162CJ ii. 807b, iii. 183a, iv. 93b, 273b, v. 692a, vi. 127a.

Frustrations of peace, 1645-8

The passage of the Self-Denying Ordinance in April 1645 created a problem for Holland. As an MP, he was obliged to resign from his official positions. He duly stepped down as the collector and receiver of the mint, but proved to be more reluctant to give up his job as paymaster to the royal children. This was probably the matter that was referred by the Commons to the committee on the royal children on 23 June 1645.163CJ iv. 182b. Three months later, on 11 September, he secured the Commons’ agreement that he should be allowed to remain paymaster despite the Ordinance. At the same time, the Commons indicated its willingness to confirm Holland as the lessee of the lands at Creslow, so that the income from that estate could count as his salary for that position.164CJ iv. 270a-b; Harl. 166, f. 262. Over the coming weeks the required legislation was prepared and then passed by the two Houses.165CJ iv. 278b, 287b, 293a; LJ vii. 607a-b, 618b-619a; HMC 6th Rep. 78-9. A second bill was passed later that year to grant pensions to the servants of the royal children, with Holland as the paymaster.166CJ iv. 335a; LJ viii. 24b; CSP Dom. 1645-7, pp. 247-8; 1655, p. 134. The sums of money involved remained substantial: between March 1644 and November 1646 he expended over £23,000.167E101/440/18-19. The birth of another child, Princess Henrietta, in June 1644 theoretically added to his responsibilities: under the terms of the surrender of Exeter in April 1646, it was acknowledged that Parliament would provide for her maintenance. However, when Holland advocated the removal of the princess to London, her governess, Lady Dalkeith, fled with her to France.168CJ iv. 557b; LJ viii. 338a. Holland’s experience of dealing with members of the royal family was also put to use by the Commons whenever they needed MPs to deal with the king’s nephew, Charles Louis, the elector palatine.169CJ iii. 612b; iv. 58a, 500b; v. 125a; vi. 102b.

More indistinct is his role in Parliament’s attempts to negotiate with the king once, with the military victory largely attained, it began to do so from a position of strength. Holland must have wanted some sort of settlement, however humiliating that might prove to be for his former master. On the face of it, he went along with the attempt in November and December 1645 to prepare the propositions for such negotiations.170CJ iv. 354b, 365a. But he may well have been one of those MPs who did so principally in order to reassure their Scottish allies. Then, in July 1646 he was named as one of the conservators of the peace appointed by Parliament when it presented Charles with the Newcastle Propositions.171CJ iv. 589b-590a, 606a; TSP i. 79. At a more mundane level, he may well have offered his professional advice in February 1647 on the household arrangements for Charles’s stay at Holdenby.172CJ v. 77b.

Holland’s apparent attitudes towards religious policy present something of a contradiction. There is evidence indicating sympathy for religious radicals. It was at his suggestion that images and altar rails were removed from the royal chapels at St James’s Palace in April 1644.173Mercurius Aulicus (21-27 Apr. 1644), 952-3 (E.47.14). In November 1644 and March 1645 he horrified Sir Samuel Luke* by recommending men Luke considered to be no better than sectaries as preachers to be attached to the garrison at Newport Pagnell.174Luke Letter Bks. 56-7, 197, 226. Holland did not see the problem, urging Luke

Let not us who are all for heaven part in our way thither upon differences in opinion upon things that, if well considered, will no ways hinder us to our journey’s end, but let love cover the multitude of all our infirmities and failings.175Luke Letter Bks. 492.

He later implied that he had been less than enthusiastic about the Directory of Public Worship produced by the Westminster Assembly.176Burton’s Dairy, ii. 69. This may also have been the period when, according to his later testimony, he was in the habit of attending half a dozen sermons on Sundays.177Burton’s Diary, ii. 267-8. Yet little of this piety was evident in his conduct in the Commons. From time to time he supported various godly measures, and, as has been mentioned, he backed the sale of the episcopal and cathedral lands.178CJ iii. 340b, 579b; iv. 35b, 114a, 280a, 312a, 373a, 395a, 412a, 420a-b, 555b, 562b, 695a, 719b; v. 10b, 51b, 119b. But it would be fair to say that religious issues were less obviously of central concern to him than they were to some of his equally active colleagues.

Following the Presbyterian coup at Westminster of late July 1647, Holland was among the Independent MPs who took refuge with the army and signed the declaration in support of Sir Thomas Fairfax* and his men on 4 August.179LJ ix. 385b; HMC Egmont, i. 440. Having probably re-entered London with the army, he was back in the Commons by 14 August, when he reported from the Committee for Revenue, recommending that those royal servants who had attended the king at Oxford should nevertheless continue to be paid.180CJ v. 274a. He was later named to sit on the committees to consider the bill to make void all the bills passed during the absence of the Independents and to investigate the forcing of the House.181CJ v. 278a, 367a. That autumn, on the face of it, he supported the attempts to resume negotiations with the king, as he was named to several of the committees on the proposed terms, including that for a Presbyterian religious settlement combined with an exemption for tender consciences.182CJ v. 321b, 327, 336a. But, like some other Independent MPs, he may only have been going through the motions, pursuing the possibility of a settlement that they already thought unlikely. In Holland’s case, any willingness to explore this possibility might have been bound up with his wish to involve the Scots in the process. In October 1647 he was among those MPs named commissioners for the conservation of peace between the two kingdoms.183LJ ix. 500a. On the other hand, there was the army to satisfy and Holland had some sympathies with the soldiers’ concerns about their arrears and the immunity issue.184CJ v. 340a, 360a, 396a. In January 1648 he and Edmund Ludlowe II* travelled to Windsor to release soldiers who were being held in custody as Levellers at the army headquarters.185Ludlow, Mems. i. 183. Throughout late 1647 and early 1648 he also took a consistent interest in matters relating to the various militia committees in the London area.186CJ v. 363b, 413a, 527b.

In the summer of 1648, during the second civil war, Holland probably spent much of his time away from Westminster. On 6 June he was granted permission to go into the country.187CJ v. 587b. Over the next seven weeks he was named to only two committees – those on compensation for John Lilburne (1 Aug.) and, with the siege of Colchester still continuing, to raise cavalry forces in London (22 Aug.).188CJ v. 657a, 678a. He was back in the Commons by 25 August, when he reported from the Committee for Revenue on the subject of the royal children (now minus the duke of York, who had escaped the previous April).189CJ v. 683a. The impetus may have been the desire of Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland, to be relieved of the troublesome responsibility of caring for them. Holland had probably spent the summer mobilising forces in the localities (Buckinghamshire?) as a precaution against any spread of the royalist uprisings. He sought and obtained a further, briefer period of leave in mid-September.190CJ vi. 20b. On his return he supported the moves to improve security around the Palace of Westminster.191CJ vi. 34a, 47a. He also backed the bill to sequester the Essex rebels in the recent uprising.192CJ vi. 67a.

Any hopes that Holland had entertained of further negotiations with the king had long since vanished. He now had no wish to see the Newport negotiations, which dragged on between September and November 1648, succeed. His name was linked to those of John Lisle*, Nathaniel Stephens*, Thomas Hodges I* and Thomas Pury I* as MPs who, in late September, were plotting to wreck the negotiations’ progress.193Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 27 (26 Sept.-3 Oct. 1648), sigs. Nn2(V), Oo (E.465.19). The division on 18 October, in which he was a teller for those who tried to oppose the sending of the letter being promoted by the Lords to the commissioners at Newport, should be seen in that light.194CJ vi. 55b. Two days later he and his friends again aimed to cause trouble, when they attempted to block the proposal that the commissioners should pre-empt the treaty by going ahead with the nominations of seven delinquents to be exempted from any pardon. In acting as a teller again, Holland was presumably objecting to the fact that it would prevent this issue being used to extract further concessions from the king.195CJ vi. 57b. According to John Lilburne, he and Thomas Harrison I* separately approached Holland in late November as ‘the chief stickler for those they called honest men in the House of Commons’ and allegedly secured his backing for the Leveller plan for a committee of 16 to prepare a new version of the Agreement of the People.196J. Lilburne, The Legal Fundamental Liberties of the People of England (1649), 37 (E.567.1). Again according to Lilburne, Holland at some point met other Levellers, including John Wildman† and Edward Sexby, at the George in Channel Row, Westminster.197J. Lilburne, An Impeachment of High Treason against Oliver Cromwel (1649), sig. [A4] (E.5678.20). Holland’s promotion of the cause of the widow of Thomas Rainborowe*, for whom he obtained a parliamentary pension, served as a timely reminder to the Commons that such men had died as heroes for the army’s cause.198CJ vi. 69a, 100b, 104b, 241b, 428a-b.

Erasing the monarchy, 1648-50

Holland had every reason to welcome the purging of the Commons on 6 December 1648. Indeed, he may have been directly involved in it. William Prynne*, who may however have been confused about the details, later accused Holland of having helped draw up the list of those to be purged.199W. Prynne, Conscientious, Serious, Theological and Legal Quaeres (1660), 3. It has been speculated, moreover, that Holland was with Thomas Pride* as the colonel stood at the door of the Commons’ chamber blocking the way for all but the most trusted and arresting those who were the least so.200Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 141-2. On 20 December he dissented from the vote of 5 December.201PA, Ms CJ xxxiii, pp. 473-4; [W. Prynne], A Full Declaration of the True State of the Secluded Members Case (1660, E.1013.22) [Prynne], 21. Once the purge made possible the king’s trial, Holland enthusiastically supported it. On 23 December he was included on the committee to decide how to proceed against their monarch.202CJ vi. 103a. Then, on 3 and 6 January he was named to the committee which finalised the legislation to create the high court of justice.203CJ vi. 110b, 112b. When the clerk of the Commons, Henry Elsynge, resigned to avoid involvement in the planned trial, Holland was among MPs sent to establish which records he had in his possession.204CJ vi. 107b. To fill the vacancies left by the purge, Holland rejoined the Committee for Advance of Money and was added to the Committee for Indemnity.205CJ vi. 109a, 110a, 113b.

There can never have been any doubt that Holland would be one of the commissioners appointed to try the king.206A. and O. Since he made full use of the opportunity, attending almost every session of the high court of justice, he appears to have been as keen as anyone in the purged Commons to see his former employer stand trial and receive judgment.207Muddiman, Trial, 76, 89, 96, 105, 195, 197, 202, 203, 205, 206, 209, 210, 212, 222, 224, 226. Yet, when it came to the crucial moment, he did not sign the death warrant. His failure to do so, unremarked by contemporaries, remains a profound puzzle. He showed no other sign of objecting to the execution. On 27 January 1649, the day that the sentence was announced, he was named to the committee on the bill to prohibit any attempt to proclaim the new king once that sentence had been implemented.208CJ vi. 124a. Then, on the actual day of the execution, he attended the meeting of the commissioners in the Painted Chamber at which it was agreed that they could issue warrants ordering payments to cover the expenses arising from the trial.209Muddiman, Trial, 229. The next day he was one of the MPs given the job of deciding what should be done with the king’s body.210CJ vi. 127a.

Holland was also a driving force behind the erasure of as many remaining traces of the monarchy as possible. Even before the king had been sentenced and executed, Holland was among MPs who appointed officials to the huge task of compiling an inventory of the contents of the royal palaces.211CJ vi. 119b. Two days after the regicide he and three colleagues were instructed to take care of the disposal of the late king’s goods and of the crown jewels.212CJ vi. 128b. On 23 March he headed the list of those added to the committee on the bill concerning that sale, after it was decided that they would be sold off to pay the royal debts, and he and Francis Allein* were asked to take care of this.213CJ vi. 172a; CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 157-8. Holland assisted in other ways. Several times over the coming months he received items which had been illicitly removed from the palaces and which were now turned in.214CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 81, 189. On the other hand, he sat on the council sub-committees that decided which items would be kept back from the sale.215CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 239, 276; 1650, p. 67. In early 1650 he and that other ex-courtier, Sir Henry Mildmay*, travelled to Windsor to consult with the wardrobe keeper there on the fate of the furniture in the castle.216CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 469. Other pieces, including the crown jewels, were destroyed. In October 1649 Holland was a member of the council committee that organised the melting-down of the plate from the jewel house.217CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 327, 332. He also oversaw the ritual defacement of the late king’s seals.218CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 166, 169; CJ vi. 267b. As a member of the Committee for Revenue, he approved the final payments to some of the royal servants who had remained with the king in captivity.219Royal Archives, SP/ADD/9/14-17, 25, 29-31.

Once the sales of royal goods began, Holland was well placed to monitor their progress. One of the council committees (on which he had sat) had decided to hold the sales at Somerset House, where he had, at some point, acquired an apartment.220CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 300; 1650, p. 288; Second Centurie. Moreover, several pieces of furniture and tapestry are known to have been in Holland’s possession before the sale, for they are listed as such in the inventories compiled by the trustees.221Inventories King’s Goods, 124, 342, 378. He was later assigned a number of items to help furnish his rooms at Whitehall.222CSP Dom. 1650, p. 527. Moreover, he was to benefit in an even more direct way. Revenues generated from the sales were destined primarily for the payment of the arrears of those who had formerly been in royal service, including Holland himself. He therefore had a vested interest in the sales’ success. With five other ex-servants, he successfully petitioned Parliament on 15 November 1650 for the sums owed, in Holland’s case amounting to £2,536 15s dating back to his period as a servant of the prince of Wales before 1641.223CJ vi. 496b-497b. In theory, this privileged them over most of the other servant creditors, who were subsequently given unsold items in lieu of arrears. But the five servants who had joined with Holland were still owed some of their money in 1654.224CSP Dom. 1654, p. 127. In 1651 and 1654 he also received payments equalling half the value of the goods worth £2489 15s 9d which he had recovered for inclusion in the sale.225SP28/283, pt. 1: orders, 15 Nov. 1651 and 10 Mar. 1654.

Running in tandem with the sell-off of the late king’s possessions was the sell-off of much of the royal lands. Holland was heavily involved in that too. He was included on the committee on the relevant bill (13 July) and may have chaired it, for he reported back to Parliament on 16 July with the recommendation that the royal forests, manors and advowsons should be excluded from the sale.226CJ vi. 150b, 259b, 261a. He subsequently helped decide which of the royal palaces and parks should be retained for use by the new republican government.227CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 136; CJ vi. 246b. He then oversaw the programme of repairs and alterations carried out on them and helped evict any squatters in residence.228CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 165, 166, 275, 311; 1650, pp. 119, 169, 186, 198, 286. When a dispute arose between the trustees for this sale and some of the foresters in Windsor Forest, Holland was called on to help mediate.229CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 478-9. When further legislation was required to clarify the original act permitting the crown lands to be sold, he was named to the relevant parliamentary committees.230CJ vi. 358b, 382a He also took the opportunity to make his own personal investment in these lands. In March 1650 he paid £4,796 2s 4d for the lands at Creslow of which he was already the tenant.231E320/C6. Holland was equally enthusiastic about the other great sale of lands by the Rump – the further disposal of church lands.232CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 67, 92, 434; CJ vi. 400b, 485a. Among these was a special case: the chapter of St George’s Chapel, Windsor, had owned its properties within the Lower Ward of Windsor Castle, an anomalous example of dean and chapter lands within the precincts of a royal palace. In February 1650 Holland reported to Parliament that the necessary arrangements were being made to sell them.233CSP Dom. 1650, p. 12.

Rumper, 1649-53

Holland was so prominent in these sales because he was no longer just an ordinary, if very active, MP. Having been on the five-man committee which had fixed the number of councillors on the new council of state (7 Feb.), at the elections on 15 February he was chosen to sit on it.234CJ vi. 133a, 143a; Ludlow, Mems. i. 222-3; A. and O. He then took the Engagement.235CJ vi. 146b; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 6. He was re-elected for a second term the following year.236CJ vi. 363a; A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 512. Over those two years he established himself as one of the more industrious councillors, attending more meetings than most of his colleagues and regularly undertaking tasks on the council’s behalf.237CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. xlviii-lxxv; 1650, pp. xv-xli. This commitment made a difference to his parliamentary career. On many occasions, his involvement in matters being considered by the House arose from prior engagement with them at the council table and, from time to time, he acted as the council’s designated spokesman on specific items of business.

Some of his activities, both in Parliament and on the council, had a familiar ring. As ever, he remained the most consistent campaigner for assistance for maimed soldiers, now finding a useful ally in Francis Allein.238CJ vi. 131a, 139b, 157b, 209b. He was just as responsive to demands for arrears from other soldiers, whether still serving or not.239CJ vi. 205b, 325b, 521a; CSP Dom. 1650, p. 485. More generally, he continued to support a well-funded military, making a point of securing better funding for the upkeep and restocking of the forts.240CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 33, 56, 213; 1650, pp. 2, 18, 34, 193, 204-5, 275. He favoured further firm action against delinquents.241CJ vi. 126b, 201a, 232a-b, 267a, 288a-b, 393b, 410b, 436b, 528a. Thus, while he usually promoted measures to assist poor prisoners, particularly debtors, he made sure that the bill passed in September 1649 for that purpose specifically excluded former royalists.242CJ vi. 127a, 267b, 270b, 289b, 337a. He remained sympathetic towards Lilburne, who appealed to him for help from the Tower in June 1649 in a letter Lilburne subsequently published.243CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 57, 314; Lilburne, Impeachment of High Treason, sig. A-[A4]. He gave his backing to the reform of poor relief.244CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 402; CJ vi. 284a, 374b, 416a, 481a. Additionally, he seems to have become the council’s specialist on matters relating to the Channel Islands.245CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 36, 133, 285; 1650, pp. 8, 136, 176, 389, 441, 462; CJ vi. 175a, 290b.

One aspect of parliamentary business in which he particularly involved was the re-admission of purged MPs. In March 1649 he was included on the committee to consider those MPs excluded the previous December who were now willing to dissent from the crucial vote of 5 December, which had proposed the re-opening of negotiations with the king.246CJ vi. 157a. Between then and the summer he regularly reported back to the House from the committee and at least 14 MPs were readmitted as a result.247CJ vi. 208a, 239a, 265a, 268a. On 9 June he raised the issue as to whether those who had failed to take their seats since 11 January should be permanently excluded. Probably he was pressing for that ban and was then outmanoeuvred when the House decided to avoid a direct vote on the subject.248CJ vi. 228a. Later that year he supported the idea that all MPs should take the Engagement and then that everyone else should be asked to take it as well.249CJ vi. 307a, 321b.

His knowledge of the mint was regularly deployed. For example, his involvement in the destruction of the royal plate, which has already been mentioned, should equally be seen as an extension of that role, given that the gold and silver was then used to mint the new commonwealth coinage.250CJ vi. 138b, 323b-324a, 403b; CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 63, 173, 311, 318, 327, 332, 343, 352, 374, 391, 394, 430, 483. That, in turn, connected to his conciliar role in finance. From March 1649 he sat on the council’s committee to consider how revenues could be raised and two months later he was included on its committee to compile monthly accounts of the money it was receiving.251CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 63, 154. In July 1649 he was one of the councillors sent to raise a loan of £20,000 from the treasurers of the various bodies handling government revenue.252CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 243. All this made him well placed to receive the £600 which was granted to Henry Marten in March 1649 and which Marten then asked Holland to pick up on his behalf.253Belvoir Castle, lttrs. of English regicides, f. 36. Meanwhile, in Parliament, Holland was appointed to the committees on the bills for taking public accounts, for the sale of fee-farm rents and on the court of exchequer.254CJ vi. 154a, 178b, 204b, 213a, 274a. In April 1650 he reported to Parliament on the council’s behalf about the progress being made with the fee-farm sales.255CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 92, 100. At about the same time, he sat on the committees concerning excise arrears and the creation of a single treasury.256CJ vi. 399a, 400a. In June 1650 he was among those added to the committee on the bill to appoint excise commissioners after that bill was re-committed.257CJ vi. 427a. In November 1650 he secured Parliament’s agreement to the council’s request that they be paid the £2,000 owed to them by the committee of accounts for the expenses of the high court of justice and he also sat on the committee to prepare the instructions for the barons of the exchequer.258CJ vi. 494a, 498a.

On religious questions, Holland now supported measures to promote a godly ministry and to propagate the gospel in New England.259CJ vi. 196a, 199a 213a, 231a, 416a, 469b. But in August 1649, acting as a teller with Thomas Harrison I*, he helped wreck the bill for the maintenance of a preaching ministry by blocking the attempt to require those ministers who were to receive assistance to declare their support for Presbyterianism.260CJ vi. 275b. He had only recently taken a leading part in the efforts to repeal the statutes against recusants, which confirms the impression that he was generally opposed to the regulation of religious beliefs.261CJ vi. 245b, 255a, 270a. Also, in April 1650, in the debates on the bill for the better observance of the sabbath, he apparently argued against the proposed regulations on the grounds that they were so strict that they would prevent anyone travelling to church by boat or coach.262Burton’s Diary, ii. 262. Yet there were limits to his support for toleration, as he seems to have backed the bill for the suppression of the Ranters.263CJ vi. 430a. In early 1652 Holland used his influence at Westminster to try to block the appointment of John Kinde as the vicar of New Windsor, much to the annoyance of Kinde’s many supporters in the town.264Longleat, Whitelocke pprs. XII, f. 54.

Holland’s second term as a councillor of state expired in February 1651. He arrived late for the first ballot for the new council on 7 February, but he was still allowed to vote and his lateness should not have harmed his chances of getting re-elected. However, he was not one of the 40 men elected then or three days later.265CJ vi. 532a-533a. Freed from his duties on the council, he became, if anything, even more active in Parliament. Perhaps his most important achievement from this period was the additional act for the sale of the late king’s goods. He drafted this and then piloted it through the House with another non-councillor, Augustine Garland*.266CJ vi. 555a, 556a. Whether this was a backbench initiative not otherwise promoted by the council or just an uncontroversial tidying-up measure carried out by two willing MPs is difficult to judge. Its main provisions were to clarify which goods were to be included (thereby preventing any wider sell-off), improving the arrangements for the recovery of concealed items and allowing a further £10,000-worth of goods to be reserved. Holland was doubtless responsible for the clause extending the sale to cover the possessions of the royal children.267A. and O. He subsequently took advantage of the rewards promised to those locating concealed goods, being one of a number of officials who in early 1653 reclaimed items of royal plate which had never been returned by the former lord chamberlain, the late 4th earl of Dorset (Sir Edward Sackville†).268SP28/285, f. 340.

Holland took similarly active roles in the passage of the bills to allow the trustees for the sale of royal lands to offer security on debentures and to allow the council to exercise the powers of the lord high admiral.269CJ vi. 534b, 554a, 592a. The bill concerning the army accounts, of which Holland was instructed to take care, however, never made it through the House.270CJ vi. 549b. The other piece of legislation with which Holland can definitely be associated is the bill passed in September 1651, which extended the provisions for maimed soldiers and military widows to those soldiers serving in Scotland and Ireland.271CJ vi. 569b-570a.

Another possible example of an attempt by Holland to pursue a pet interest was the committee on supplies for military stores, set up with his name heading the list of nominees on 11 February 1651, within a week of his failure to get re-elected to the council.272CJ vi. 533b. He persuaded the House to order that the council should use the powers he had previously secured for it to organise the upkeep and restocking of the forts and garrisons.273CJ vi. 537a-b. One piece of legislation about which he seems to have had some reservations was the bill for the sale of the estates of several delinquents, although it is likely he disagreed about the details rather than the principle. On three occasions between May and July 1651 he was a teller in related divisions. In so doing, he was objecting to the proposal that the trustees and the contractors for the sale should be the same men and agreeing that the wives and children of the delinquents should be granted allowances.274CJ vi. 573b, 584a, 605a. Holland’s activities at this time were not just confined to Westminster. When Charles Stuart marched south from Scotland in August, Holland returned to Buckinghamshire to help raise an emergency regiment there.275CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 350, 352.

All this activity impressed at least some of his fellow MPs, for in November 1651 – the earliest opportunity – he was re-elected to the council of state. But he came only 31st in the ballots (for 41 places) on 24 and 25 November, suggesting that his constituency of support in Parliament was modest and that his election was not a foregone conclusion.276CJ vi. 42b. Once again, he proved to be a hard-working and committed councillor.277CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. xxxv-xlvii. In every sense, he continued where he had left off. The council committees to which he was immediately re-appointed included those on the ordnance and the mint.278CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 43. He was again used by the council whenever matters related to the sale of the king’s goods arose or the maintenance or furnishing the royal palaces.279CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 143, 231, 316. He was relied upon to help organise diplomatic receptions.280CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 244, 251, 252, 417. Nor had he lost his occasional habit of using his position for personal advantage. In July 1652 he pulled strings to get Oliver Cromwell* to recommend that one of his nephews, Thomas Shelton, a commoner of Lincoln College, Oxford, be granted a Bachelor of Arts degree despite being one term short of the qualifying period.281Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 565-6.

In Parliament Holland’s existing interests were also all still very much in evidence. He continued to be seen as the expert on the maimed soldiers.282CJ vii. 128b-129a. He remained committed to the sales of royal and episcopal lands.283CJ vi. 104a, 112a, 113a, 115a, 222b. His involvement as teller in the division of 9 July 1652 in which he supported the proposal that collegiate churches be included along with the cathedrals among those churches which were to be considered for demolition was presumably because he had in the mind the grandest such church, St George’s Chapel, Windsor.284CJ vii. 152b. Still passionate about the need for firm action against delinquents, he favoured the moves to sell other, secular forfeited estates.285CJ vii. 46b, 76b, 78b, 79a, 154b, 160b, 190b, 205a. The bill to ban delinquents from voting in borough elections may have been his idea.286CJ vii. 187b. He may have wanted further reform of the universities.287CJ vii. 124a, 141a. He took a particular interest in any plans to find work for the poor.288CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 210; CJ vii. 127b.

But in November 1652 he suffered another setback when he was dropped from the council for a second time. His appointment on 4 December as one of the four commissioners for inspecting treasuries was therefore something of a consolation prize, and better than most.289CJ vii. 225b; A. and O.; CSP Dom. 1652-3, pp. 19-20. The powers of the commissioners were extensive and their intended function was to provide some of the financial rigour that Holland had probably attempted to bring during his periods on the council. At about the same time another of his positions ceased to exist, for it was probably when the duke of Gloucester was allowed to go into exile in February 1653 that Holland finally relinquished the duties of paymaster to the royal children.

His new responsibility on the commission for inspecting the treasuries cannot be said to have diminished his activity in Parliament during the remaining five months that the Rump had to sit. In the case of the bill for the sale of episcopal lands (which was lost when Cromwell dissolved the Rump), Holland probably chaired the relevant committee and certainly presented the bill to Parliament on 31 March.290CJ vii. 274a. He likewise supported the bills for sales of the royal forests and the forfeited estates.291CJ vii. 245a, 263a. In his official capacity, he would have been in a strong position to argue that the money these sales would raise was money that the commonwealth needed badly.

Adjusting to the protectorate, 1653-9

Cromwell’s ejection of the Rump brought Holland’s political career to an abrupt halt. There is no evidence that he was considered for membership of the Nominated Parliament later that year. However, he was suggested as one of the new inspectors of the treasuries appointed by that Parliament. There was a certain logic to this, as those inspectors were the equivalent of the team including Holland appointed the previous December. But Holland was the only one of the four former commissioners proposed and, in a division of 28 July 1653, his name was rejected (by 38 votes to 51).292CJ vii. 292a.

The advent of the protectorate brought about for him no more than a modest return to some local offices. In September 1654 he was appointed as a commissioner for the Windsor almshouses.293A. and O. This was only appropriate, as these constituted replacement accommodation for the poor knights of the Garter attached to St George’s Chapel, Windsor, the endowments of which Holland had previously helped dismantle. Holland was said to have been supportive when the Windsor corporation had wanted to raise this issue with the Rump in 1649.294Longleat, Whitelocke pprs. X, ff. 10v-11. He also continued to be appointed to the Berkshire and Buckinghamshire commissions of the peace. In late 1655 he was included as a commissioner for securing the peace of the commonwealth for the same two counties.295TSP iv. 285, 583.

In the 1656 general election Holland initially aligned himself with the Buckinghamshire supporters of the major-generals. In August of that year Bulstrode Whitelocke* received a warning that two deputies of Charles Fleetwood* as the local major-general, George Fleetwood* and William Packer*, along with John Biscoe* and Holland, were threatening to block Whitelocke’s election in Buckinghamshire unless he worked with them.296Whitelocke, Diary, 445. If so, the threat came to nothing – Whitelocke was elected for one of the Buckinghamshire seats, while Packer, Biscoe and Holland had to find seats elsewhere. Where exactly Holland then stood is unclear. It would seem that he did not take his seat at Westminster until 8 December, so the likelihood must be that, having failed to gain a Buckinghamshire seat, he stood in one of the by-elections ordered by the Commons after the Parliament had met.297Add. 15859, ff. 34, 35; Burton’s Diary, i. 78, 80. He is unlikely to replaced Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*) in the by-election for co. Cork, since it seems improbable that Broghill would have done a favour for one of Fleetwood’s friends. Charles Fleetwood’s probable decision to sit for Norfolk apparently created similar vacancies. Although in neither case is there a record of new writs being moved to fill them, another Fleetwood ally, Jerome Sankey*, perhaps replaced him at Marlborough, while Holland might have claimed the Oxfordshire seat.

The presence of Richard Holland*, MP for Lancashire, complicates any analysis of Cornelius Holland’s role in the 1656 Parliament. That, unlike his namesake, Richard Holland had been a colonel in the army is not invariably helpful. The Journal does appear to distinguish between ‘Colonel Holland’ and ‘Mr Holland’, which seems to mean that all its references to the latter after Holland had taken his seat on 8 December refer only to Cornelius. The one time the Journal unambiguously mentions Cornelius, he is called ‘Mr Cor. Holland’.298CJ vii. 540b. Moreover, the original manuscripts of the diary kept by Thomas Burton* appear to make the same distinction. However, Burton describes the man who took his seat on 8 December as both ‘Col. Holland’ and ‘Mr Holland’, while at least one of the speeches by ‘Col. Holland’ mentions events in the Long Parliament.299Add. 15859, ff. 34, 35, 104; Burton’s Diary, i. 234. This suggests that Burton incorrectly credited Cornelius with military office and that most or all his references to ‘Col. Holland’ actually relate to Cornelius.

The views expressed by the Holland who spoke in the debates about James Naylor certainly sound more like those of Cornelius. On his first day in the House, he reminded them that liberty of conscience was protected by the Instrument of Government and that many Christians had previously been martyred under charges of blasphemy.300Add. 15859, f. 34; Burton’s Diary, i. 78. He repeated this call for religious toleration on 23 December, when, according to Burton, he suggested that ‘the only means to make a nation blessed’ was ‘to let everyone have the free exercise of his conscience’ and that this was not a matter that civil magistrates should attempt to control.301Add. 15859, f. 96v; Burton’s Diary, i. 217. He had in the meantime consistently supported moves to suspend or ameliorate Naylor’s punishment.302Add. 15859, ff. 68v, 74v, 96, 117; Burton’s Diary, i. 154, 165, 215, 258; CJ vii. 470a.. When, after the lord protector queried their decision to let the sentence be implemented, Holland made sure that the Commons was fully aware of what exactly they had done by reporting an eyewitness account of Naylor’s whipping with graphic details of how there had been ‘no skin left between his shoulders and his hips’.303Add. 15859, f. 110v; Burton’s Diary, i. 247. He was subsequently named to the committee to investigate the conditions of Naylor’s imprisonment in the Bridewell and on 23 May 1657 he was a teller for those who tried without success to obtain for him a temporary release.304CJ vii. 497b, 538b.

Holland exhibited consistent support throughout this Parliament for the principle of religious liberty, at least for Protestant nonconformists. In May 1657 he queried the form of the oath in the bill against popish recusants, arguing that it might catch out non-Catholics as well.305Add. 15860, f. 84v; Burton’s Diary, ii. 154. On 20 June he strongly opposed the latest bill for the better observance of the sabbath. He particularly objected to the clause allowing constables to enter private houses and, as a teller, helped amend its wording.306Add. 15861, ff. 47v, 48; Burton’s Diary, ii. 261-2, 264; CJ vii. 567b. He thought more generally that individuals should be trusted to make their own decisions about how they wished to worship.307Add. 15861, f. 49; Burton’s Diary, ii. 266-8. Most significantly of all, on 19 March 1657, he and George Downing* were tellers for the yeas in the division on whether clause 11 of the Humble Petition and Advice should be amended to include a guarantee of liberty for those unwilling to accept the proposed Confession of Faith. They won that division and that guarantee appears in the final version.308CJ vii. 507b.

Holland’s attitude towards the Humble Petition and Advice is otherwise obscure. There is no evidence that he made any contribution to the debates on the original version. If, as seems entirely possible, he disapproved of the idea of Cromwell becoming king, he may well still have said nothing. His role in the passage of the revised version is slightly better documented. On 23 May he was included on the committee appointed to ask Cromwell when the Humble Petition could be presented to him.309CJ vii. 538b. Three days later he spoke in support of the motion that it be printed and he was then named to the committee to turn the additional votes on Humble Petition into separate bills.310Add. 15860, f. 76; Burton’s Diary, ii. 136-7; CJ vii. 540b. Perhaps most tellingly, on 29 May, during debate on whether to concentrate on passing the Humble Petition before the planned prorogation on 20 June, he contended that priority should be given instead to the assessment bill.311Add. 15860, f. 85; Burton’s Diary, ii. 155.

What emerges in this Parliament with rather greater clarity was Holland’s commitment to the new settlement in Ireland. He himself now owned land there, as his share in the Irish Adventure had been repaid in 1654 with an allocation in Co. Waterford.312CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 523. On 22 December 1656 the House debated the petition from Edward Dendy* concerning his lands in Ireland. Holland was one of a number of MPs who took this opportunity to express their support for what the Irish Adventurers were achieving.313Add. 15859, f. 91; Burton’s Diary, i. 203. The following June he was sympathetic to the case being made by the Irish MPs that assessment valuation for Ireland needed to be reduced. In a confident endorsement of the long-term benefits of the Cromwellian conquest, Holland thought that a reduction in the short term would be repaid within a few years by an economic boom.314Add. 15861, ff. 30, 30v; Burton’s Diary, ii. 225, 226. It helped that he trusted the lord deputy, his old friend Charles Fleetwood. Four days earlier, he had supported the proposal to grant him lands, telling the Commons that Fleetwood would not ask for adequate rewards and that he would be modest enough to try to refuse them, if offered.315Add. 15861, f. 18; Burton’s Diary, ii. 199.

There was also one issue on which Holland’s well-established concerns momentarily re-emerged. On 28 May 1657 the Commons heard the news of the naval victory over the Spanish at Santa Cruz. It was Holland who immediately proposed that a vote of thanks be made to the officers of the fleet. But, in characteristic fashion, he also proposed that the money collected that day for poor relief should be given to the widows and orphans of those sailors who had been killed. Although Edward Whalley* seconded him, other MPs thought this unseemly and the idea was not pursued.316Add. 15860, f. 80; Burton’s Diary, ii. 146.

Holland was again present when this Parliament reassembled in January 1658. He was then added to the committee for privileges.317CJ vii. 580b. Also, on 23 January, in the debate on the estates of William Craven, 1st Baron Craven, when no counsel appeared to speak for those who had purchased those lands, Holland took the view that the House should appoint them.318Add. 15861, f. 78; Burton’s Diary, ii. 345. He presumably thought that the sale of these confiscated estates should not be reversed by default.

Less is known about Holland’s career outside Parliament. In 1657 he supported efforts by the inhabitants of Hampstead Norris, one of the Berkshire parishes, to obtain the arrears on the augmented stipend for their late minister for the benefit of his widow.319CSP Dom. 1656-7, p. 299. In the meantime, he had also been one of the creditors left to sort out the financial affairs of Sir Henry Vane I after his death in 1655, indicating that Holland had kept in touch with his original patron.320CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 47. In early 1659 he borrowed £400 from a creditor whom he subsequently failed to repay.321C10/67/6.

The Rump revived, 1659-60

Holland seems not to have stood in the elections for the 1659 Parliament. He therefore next sat in Parliament following the reassembly of the Rump in May 1659. He was probably there from the very start of its resumed deliberations, given that he was among MPs asked on 7 May to prepare a list of those who had sat between 1649 and 1653.322CJ vii. 645a. Bearing in mind the role that Holland had played in the re-admission of those men at the time, he was an obvious choice. He was an equally obvious appointment for the committee on the public revenues two days later.323CJ vii. 647b. He sat on the committee which helped set up a new council of state, but was not himself then elected to that body.324CJ vii. 656a, 658a. But over the next six months he was as active in Parliament as he had ever been. Indeed, with some of the Rumpers, quite possibly including Holland, keen to recapture the spirit of the early days of the republic, many of the old issues resurfaced. Holland again found himself discussing what to do with the royal palaces and their contents, or the disposal of the former royal parks and forests.325CJ vii. 656a, 663a, 676b, 689a. He was included on many of the committees considering government finance.326CJ vii. 665b, 676b, 684b, 690a, 772a, 786b. He backed Fleetwood to become commander-in-chief of the army.327CJ vii. 672b. He investigated what money was left from the collections which had been made for the Piedmontese and Polish Protestants.328CJ vii. 711b. His response to the rebellion of Sir George Boothe*was to support another round of sequestrations.329CJ vii. 742a, 748b, 751b, 766a, 767b, 769a. Even before then he had backed the bill to expel delinquents from London.330CJ vii. 705a. With some neat symbolism, the last piece of evidence directly linked to his presence in Parliament was that he was added on 5 October to the committee on hospitals.331CJ vii. 792b. He was clearly still concerned about the maimed soldiers.

During the crisis of October 1659 the army saw him as a trusted ally, which his friendship with Fleetwood would only have reinforced. He agreed to serve on the committee of safety, which, in the absence of a Parliament and a council, assumed control in London on 26 October.332Whitelocke, Diary, 537, 548; Ludlow, Mems. ii. 131. But its existence would be brief. It also meant that, when the Rump reassembled once more two months later, he could hardly resume his place there without a certain amount of embarrassment. Indeed, the probability is that he never did so. On 24 January 1660 he was one of the four former members of the committee of safety (including Fleetwood) summoned by the Commons to attend the House within one week.333CJ vii. 820b; Whitelocke, Diary, 563. There is no reason to suppose that Holland complied. Then, on 2 February, the Commons ordered him to repay £520 which he had been paid by letters patent of the previous 20 December which they now deemed to be illegal.334CJ vii. 833a. Holland is unlikely to have obeyed that order either.

Exile, 1660-72

The Restoration was a disaster for Holland. His response was to flee the country. He was lucky to succeed, as he narrowly escaped capture at Colchester on his way to the coast.335Ludlow, Voyce, 154. In theory, his decision not to sign the king’s death warrant ought now to have counted in his favour; strictly speaking, he was not a regicide and so should have benefited from the general pardon. But the Convention had other ideas. On 6 June 1660 the Commons voted to add seven names to those of the actual regicides, to be exempted from that pardon; they included Holland.336CJ viii. 57a. He had indeed come as close to being complicit in the regicide as it was possible to be without actually putting pen to parchment. If there were some moral reasons why he had hesitated at the last moment in January 1649, these were either as unknown to Parliament in 1660 as they have remained, or they were considered irrelevant. Whatever the case, his exemption amounted to a death sentence. His estates, which were worth just £87 a year, were confiscated.337HMC 7th Rep. 118; HMC 6th Rep. 771; LR2/266, f. 4v.

Holland spent the rest of his life in exile, an elusive figure for his own safety. By the autumn of 1662, with Edward Dendy, William Say*, John Biscoe, Nicholas Love*, Andrew Broughton* and Slingisby Bethell*, he had reached Switzerland, where Edmund Ludlowe II, John Lisle and William Cawley* had already settled.338Bodl. Eng. hist. c.487, p. 963; Ludlow, Mems. ii. 343. In Lausanne, Holland fell seriously ill and the others feared for his life. Ludlowe attributed this to the fact that Holland was ‘not accustomed to journeys save in his coach’. He took several months to recover. As soon as he was able, he joined the others in Vevey.339Bodl. Eng. hist. c.487, p. 963. From there he wrote in 1668 using the alias ‘John Ralfeson’ to the dean of Bern, Johann Heinrich Hummel, an anglophile who was the exiles’ friend and protector in Bernese territory.340Ludlow, Mems. ii. 500-1. In February 1671 ‘Ralfeson’ again wrote to Hummel, reporting that he found passing urine difficult, a sign that he was ‘now growing into age’.341Ludlow, Mems. ii. 505-6. Late that year Holland travelled, via Hannover and Frankfurt, to Amsterdam in the hope of meeting members of his family. Disappointed when they did not appear, he was tempted to return to England.342Bodl. Eng. hist. c.487, pp. 1267-8. He was staying about six leagues from Amsterdam when he died in early May 1672. Asked by one of his last visitors whether he was there with permission from the English government, he said that he was not and declared that, ‘if I live, I will make it manifest that I do not judge Charles Stuart so righteous a man as to be trusted’.343Bodl. Eng. hist. c.487, p. 1285. His wife was still alive in May 1674, when her brothers-in-law were involved in litigation concerning lands which had been owned by their late mother.344C10/123/1.

Holland must count as one of the central figures in the creation of the English republic. Not because he took a lead in the Rump – he was more often than not just a work horse – but because he was as responsible as anyone for the attempt to make the Rump a non-monarchy. That he was a former royal servant can therefore be seen alternatively as a moral outrage, a minor irony or, as he himself quite possibly saw it, a just revenge. It fell to him to enact an extraordinary form of inverted royal service, dismantling and dispersing what he and his fellow royal servants had previously worked so hard to create. In doing so, he would prove himself to be the most loyal of loyal servants. But that loyalty was to the republic, not to Charles Stuart.