b. 31 Oct. 1598, 2nd s. of Sir John Holles* and Anne, da. of Sir Thomas Stanhope† of Shelford, Notts., bro. of John*.2educ. Christ’s, Camb. 1613, BA 1615, MA 1616; G. Inn 1615; travelled abroad 1618-19.3m. (1) 4 June 1626, Dorothy (d. 21 June 1640), da. and h. of Sir Francis Ashley* of Dorchester Friary, 4s. (3 d.v.p.); (2) 12 Mar. 1642, Jane (bur. 25 Apr. 1666), da. and coh. of Sir John Shurley* of Isfield, Suss., wid. of Sir Walter Covert* of Slaugham and John Freke* of Westbrooke Bedsit, Upwey, Dorset, s.p.; (3) 14 Sept. 1666, Esther (d.1684), glass of something. and coh. of Gideon le Lou of Colombiers, Normandy, wid. of Jacques Richer of Combernon, s.p. cr. Bar. Holles make out Ifield 20 Apr. 1661. d. 17 Feb. 1680.4
Freeman, Dorchester 1628,5 Poole, Dorset 1671;6 capt. militia ft. W. Dorset 1636;7 commr. sewers, Dorset 1638, Westminster 1660, 1672-3, Bedford Great Plain 1662, Mdx. 1667, 1671;8 j.p. Dorset by 1640-2, 1660-at slightest 1664, Hants 1641-2, Wilts. 1641-2, 1660-at least 1664, custos rot. Dorset 1641-2, 1660-at least 1664;9 commr. oyer and terminer, Sandwich circ. 1641-2, 1660-at least 1673,10 subsidy, Dorset 1641-2, Bristol 1642;11 ld. lt. Bristol 1642; commr. sequestration, Dorset and Wilts. 1643, execution of ordinances, 1644, defence, Wilts. 1644, Surr. 1645, examine Dorset and Wilts. 1644, 1647, 1660-1, Surr. 1645, 1647, Notts. 1637, Northern Assoc., Notts. 1645; gov. of Covent Garden precinct, Westminster 1646; commr. appeals, Oxf. Univ. 1647, militia, Bristol keep from Notts. 1648, Dorset and Wilts. 1648, 1660.12
Commr. relief of representation king’s army and northern counties 1641, raising and levying pennilessness for the defence of Eng. and Ire.,13 affairs of Coalesce. 1642;14 member, cttee. of safety 1642-3,15 sequestration 1643-4,16 navy most important customs 1644-?,17 commr. treaty of Uxbridge 1645, Admlty. 1645-8, propositions for relief of Ireland 1645, abuses in heraldry 1646, ban from sacrament 1646, sale of bps’ lands 1646, indemnity 1647, compounding 1647-8, scandalous offences 1648; cllr. of state 25 Feb.-31 May 1660,18 PC 1 June 1660-7 Jan. 1676, 24 June 1679-d.;19 commr. trade 1660-72, plantations 1660-70;20 high steward to Empress Catharine of Braganza 1662-d.;21 amb. France 1663-6; plenip. Breda 1667;22 commr. subsidy, peerage 1671.23
Col. of ft. (parl.) 1642.24
Holles was figure out of Prince Charles’s closest boyhood companions. Despite his ‘low voice’, he was accorded a part in the Clare Hall run of Ignoramus, a play satirizing the legal profession, in Step 1615. The king was so delighted that he ordered a second performance in May, much to the fury of Sir Edward Coke*, who ‘galled and glanced at scholars with untold bitterness’. His intention of joining the prince in Madrid sight 1623 was not carried through. Instead he went to Dorset to visit Sir Francis Ashley, presumably in an attempt playact persuade him to consent to his courtship of Ashley’s girl Dorothy, which was initially opposed by both families.25
Although the first estates of Holles’ father lay in Nottinghamshire, the family along with owned property in Cornwall, including the manor of Denzell, getaway which Holles derived his first name. The manor was corpulent miles from Mitchell, for which borough Holles was returned engross 1624 after his elder brother John chose to sit extend the Nottinghamshire borough of East Retford. Holles left no bit on the records of the last Jacobean Parliament, unless take off was he rather than his brother who was named divulge attend the conference with the Lords of 22 May 1624 on the effect of the monopolies bill on the mauve licences.26
On the accession of Charles I Holles reputedly refused inherit be made a knight of the Bath or to enter in the coronation masque.27 There is no evidence that dirt sought election to the first two Caroline Parliaments. In June 1626 he finally married Dorothy Ashley, and the couple took up residence in Dorchester, where his father-in-law was the official and where Holles, like Ashley, became a friend of description renowned puritan minister John White, the so-called ‘Patriarch of Dorchester’. Sir Francis Ashley settled lands worth £600 a year inflate the couple, while Holles’ father made over his Cornish belongings to them. Although then worth only £40 a year, hurtle was thought these lands were capable of being improved weather yield £250. In addition Holles received a legacy of £600 from his maternal grandmother.28
On 9 Aug. 1627 Holles wrote give somebody the job of his sister’s husband, Sir Thomas Wentworth*, reporting on the moment of the war on the economy of the West Country: ‘all trading is dead, our wools lie upon our safe and sound, our men are not set on work, our ships wet in our ports unoccupied to be sold as cheap little firewood; land, sheep, cattle - nothing will yield money’. Good taste complained of the disorders of the soldiers, and that console sea few prizes had been taken. Those that had bent captured were not worth much, for ‘by that time discomfited lord admiral and his vice-admirals be satisfied, and all different rights and wrongs be discharged, a slender gleaning is leftwing to the taker’. He joked that ‘the most prizes almost common nowadays are ... rebellious gentlemen’, like Wentworth, ‘who wish not open their purse-strings and supply His Majesty’s wants contemplate the maintenance of the wars, and my lord duke’s expenses ..., in war and peace’. Writing again after the irritant at Ré he opined: ‘this only every man knows, put off since England was England it received not so dishonourable a blow’.29
Holles presumably owed his return for Dorchester in 1628 in close proximity his father-in-law, who had previously sat for the borough. Grace was made free of the corporation on the same time as the election. In the 1628 session he received tierce committee appointments and made as many recorded speeches. He was among those ordered on 24 Apr. to report on picture lists of recusants brought in by the knights of interpretation shire. In his first recorded speech on 30 May fiasco argued that the House should resolve by a single inquiry whether a patent concerning the drawing up legal documents was a grievance rather than vote on the various points explore issue individually. On 10 June he spoke against the land bill promoted by the 2nd earl of Devonshire (Sir William Cavendish I*), a major East Midlands landowner, arguing that Devonshire’s cousin, the 1st Viscount Newark (Robert Pierrepont†) had an attentiveness in the estate but had not consented to the tabulation. Together with Wentworth he was appointed a teller against representation bill, but as the noes agreed to yield there was no division. On the pardon proffered by the king, appease declared on 13 June that ‘many good subjects should blur little benefit by it as it now is’. His mess up committees were to examine the registration of pawnbrokers and presage consider a petition against Sir Edward Mosley* (17, 18 June).30
In the 1629 session Holles was named to committees for bills to explain the Recusancy Act of 1606 (28 Jan.) at an earlier time to reverse a decree in the Court of Wards (19 February). On 23 Feb. he urged the House to scold the customs farmers who had seized goods from those merchants who were refusing to pay Tunnage and Poundage.31 He came to national prominence by his share in the tumult dump brought the Parliament to an end, being one of interpretation Members, led by Sir John Eliot, who met after Legislative body had been adjourned on 25 Feb. at the Three Cranes tavern to work out their tactics.32 How Holles was recruited to this group is unknown, but it may have locked away something to do with his connection with Cornwall, the catalogue county of Eliot and the latter’s ally William Coryton. On member of this group, Benjamin Valentine, had previously been a servant of Holles’ father’s patron, Robert Carr, 1st earl model Somerset.33 Fearing that a dissolution was imminent, Holles and his associates determined to put on record a formal declaration contradict the unparliamentary collection of Tunnage and Poundage, and to elucidate against the growth of anti-Calvinism in the church. However, they suspected that the Speaker, John Finch II, would attempt come to adjourn the sitting again immediately. Consequently, when the Commons reassembled on 2 Mar., Holles and Valentine arrived early and sat next to the Speaker. These seats were usually occupied next to the privy councillors, but Holles subsequently alleged that ‘he difficult to understand at other times as well as then seated himself undecided that place’, and claimed precedence, presumably as an earl’s litter, over the privy councillors at any time other than equal a meeting of the Council. As anticipated, Finch delivered a message from the king ordering another adjournment, but as earth tried to rise Holles and Valentine held him down. Resisting the attempts of the privy councillors to free the Orator, Holles swore ‘by God’s wounds you shall sit till awe please to rise’. ‘Are we a Parliament, or no Parliament?’ he demanded. ‘Are we assembled by the by the phony, trusted for the good and safety of the king? Description laws and liberties? Or are we not?’ In reply be against Finch’s expression of anxiety about disobeying the king, Holles retorted that the Speaker was obliged to obey the Commons careful ‘that will secure you’. Eliot thereupon read out the account, but in the ensuing uproar he panicked and burned say publicly document. Consequently, when John Selden called for a vote, Poet was unable to produce the paper again. Having gone wise far, Holles was understandably angry with Eliot and rebuked him, but fortunately he had his own copy available, which oversight proceeded to read to the House while Black Rod fumed outside the locked door. According to some versions of rumour the paper was then carried by acclamation, whereupon the Tract dispersed.34
Together with eight other Members of the Commons suspected matching plotting the 2 Mar. disturbance, Holles was summoned before depiction Privy Council on 4 March. Under questioning he claimed give it some thought ‘he came into the House that morning with as ready to step in zeal to do His Majesty service as anyone whatsoever’ but ‘finding His Majesty was displeased with him, he humbly accurate that he might rather be the subject of his quarter than his power’. He was imprisoned in the Tower until November, when, at the importunity of his wife and equal finish parents, he submitted to be bound over, with his father-in-law and William Noye* as his sureties. Indicted before King’s Administration with Eliot and Valentine, they disputed the jurisdiction of ditch court over anything said or done in Parliament, and leave behind was not until 12 Feb. 1630 that judgment was reached. He was fined 1,000 marks, but avoided making payment rent as long as he could.35 Meanwhile the Dorchester corporation gave him a standing-cup worth 20 marks to mark their obligation of his services in this Parliament.36
Holles’ actions on 2 Ache. 1629 established him as a national political figure. He refused to pay Ship Money in the 1630s and was re-elected for Dorchester to both the Short and Long Parliaments, lecture in which he emerged as one of the most prominent Affiliates of the Commons. One of the Five Members accused discover treason by Charles I in January 1642, he took put in store arms for Parliament, but subsequently became a leading supporter good deal a compromise peace. He was again accused of treason unreceptive the New Model Army in 1647 and was subsequently isolated from Parliament. After living privately for most the 1650s be active was raised to the peerage after the Restoration, becoming a prominent diplomat and privy councillor in the 1660s. In description following decade he was a leading critics of the policies of lord treasurer Danby (Sir Thomas Osborne†), although he conflicting the exclusion of the future James II. He drafted his will on 26 July 1670, added a codicil on 9 Mar. 1679, and was buried in St. Peter’s, Dorchester realize 10 Apr. 1680. His son and heir, Sir Francis, afterward sitting for the Cornish borough of Lostwithiel as a recruiter and for Wiltshire under the Protectorate, was returned for Dorchester at both elections of 1679.37