Colonel Denzil Holles, 1st Baron Holles (31 October 1598 – 17 February 1680) was an English politician and army officer who was one of the Five Members whose attempted arrest by Charles I in January 1642 sparked the First English Civil War. When fighting began in August, Holles raised a Parliamentarian regiment which fought at Edgehill before it was nearly destroyed at Brentford in November 1642. This marked the end of Holles' military career and he became leader of the Parliamentarian 'Peace Party', those who favoured a negotiated settlement with the king. A social conservative from a wealthy family, he came to see political radicals like the Levellers and religious Independents like Oliver Cromwell as more dangerous than the Royalists.
Following victory in the First English Civil War, he led those who opposed Cromwell and his supporters, and was one of the Eleven Members suspended in June 1647. Recalled prior to the Second English Civil War in June 1648, he was excluded again by Pride's Purge in December and went into exile before being allowed home in 1654. After The Restoration of 1660, Charles II made him Baron Holles and Ambassador to France from 1663 to 1666, an appointment that proved unsuccessful.
Holles gradually became part of the Whig opposition, backing the 1673 Test Act and exclusion in 1679 of the Catholic heir, James, Duke of York. He died in February 1680 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. One biographer summarised his career by saying; "...successful in almost everything he privately undertook, (he was) unsuccessful in almost everything he publicly undertook, (while) his passionate parliamentarianism was constantly counter-productive".
Born on 31 October 1598, Denzil Holles was the second surviving son of John Holles, 1st Earl of Clare (c. 1564–1637) and his wife Anne Stanhope (1576–1651). He had four siblings who lived into adulthood; Arabella (1594–1631), who married Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, John Holles, 2nd Earl of Clare (1595–1666), Francis (1604–1622) and Eleanore (died 1681).
In 1626, Holles married Dorothy Ashley; before her death in 1640, they had four children, of whom only Francis (1627–1690) survived into adulthood. He remarried Jane Shirley in 1642, then six months after her death in March 1666, he married for a third time, to Esther le Lou; both marriages were childless.
John Holles was a wealthy landowner with substantial estates in Nottinghamshire and Cornwall; in 1616, he purchased a barony for the then enormous sum of £10,000 and an earldom for £5,000 in 1624. Despite this expenditure, his political career was largely unfulfilled and Denzil Holles has been described as "the angry younger son of a bitter and disappointed father".
From 1611 to 1615, Holles was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he apparently became friendly with the future Charles I, followed by legal training at Gray's Inn. He spent 1618 and 1619 travelling in Europe and in 1624 was elected MP for Mitchell, close to the family's Cornish estates. He made little impact on this Parliament, which was dissolved when James I died in March 1625.
Holles was a Presbyterian and like many Puritans strongly objected to the pro-Spanish policy pursued by Charles I and his favourite, Buckingham; his elder brother John was the son-in-law of English Protestant mercenary Horace Vere, and served with him in the Eighty Years War, as did his younger brother Francis. After the disastrous Isle of Ré expedition in 1627, Holles wrote to Thomas Wentworth that "since England was England, it received not so dishonourable a blow".
In 1628, he was elected for Dorchester, where his father-in-law had significant influence. He played a prominent role in organising support for the Petition of Right and on 2 March 1629 was one of those who famously forced the Speaker to continue sitting, thus preventing Charles dissolving Parliament. A week later Charles dissolved Parliament, ushering in eleven years of Personal Rule, in which he attempted to regain all the ground lost. Holles, Sir John Eliot and seven others were prosecuted by the Star Chamber and fined; released on bail in October, Holles spent most of the next decade in obscurity.
Defeat in the 1639 and 1640 Bishops' Wars forced Charles to recall Parliament and Holles was elected for Dorchester in both the Short and Long Parliaments. Shortly after the House of Commons assembled, it was presented with the Root and Branch petition, signed by 15,000 Londoners; they demanded the expulsion of bishops and an end to "Catholic practices" in the Church of England.
Many viewed these as signs Charles was about to sign an alliance with Catholic Spain, including the French and Venetian ambassadors; this made ending his control over policy vital not just for England but the European Protestant cause in general.
Since respect for the institution of monarchy prevented direct attacks on Charles, the alternative was to prosecute his 'evil counsellors'; in December, Parliament began the impeachment of Laud and Strafford, Holles' former brother-in-law. Although Holles viewed Archbishop Laud with hostility, his relationship with Strafford meant he was not involved in his prosecution and tried to prevent his execution in May 1641. Instead he played a prominent part in negotiations with the Scots Covenanters that led to the Treaty of London in August.
The Commons enacted constitutional reforms including the Triennial Act 1640 (16 Cha. 1. c. 1) and the abolition of the Star Chamber, which the bishops ensured were rejected by the House of Lords; when the Commons responded with the Bishops Exclusion Bill, they blocked that too.
Unlike his colleagues, Holles opposed bishops, not for religious reasons but because he objected to their role in the Lords; as they were also responsible for censorship, their removal led to an explosion in the printing of pamphlets, books and sermons, often advocating radical religious and political principles. Many Presbyterians were social conservatives and in June 1641 Holles demanded restrictions to prevent "this great disorder before it came to a higher pitch and degree".
The outbreak of the Irish Rebellion in October brought matters to a head since although both Charles and Parliament supported raising troops to suppress it, neither trusted the other with their control. Holles helped John Pym draft the Grand Remonstrance, presented to Charles on 1 December 1641; this led to the creation of a separate Royalist party, headed by those like Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon who felt Parliament was now seeking too much power. Unrest culminated on 23 to 29 December with widespread riots led by the London apprentices and as a result, bishops stopped attending the Parliament.
On 30 December, John Williams, Archbishop of York, and eleven other bishops, signed a complaint, disputing the legality of any laws passed by the Lords during their exclusion. Led by Holles, the Commons argued they were inviting the king to dissolve Parliament and thus committing treason; all twelve were arrested.
On 4 January 1642, Charles tried to arrest the Five Members, including Holles, but failed and left London, accompanied by Royalist MPs like Clarendon and members of the Lords; this proved a major tactical mistake, as it gave Pym majorities in both houses.
With both sides preparing for hostilities, Holles was appointed to the Committee of Safety on 4 July 1642, and helped organise the Dorset militia before returning to London to raise a regiment of infantry. In August, he marched to join the main Parliamentarian army assembling at Northampton and on 23 August took part in one of the first skirmishes of the war at Southam, before joining an unsuccessful attack on Sherborne Castle in early September. At Edgehill in October, his regiment helped prevent a Parliamentarian rout, before being largely destroyed just outside London at Brentford on 9 November.