HOLLES, DENZIL HOLLES, BARON (1599-168o), Eng lish statesman and writer, second son of John Holles, first earl of Clare (c. 1564-1637), by Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas Stanhope, was born on Oct. 31, 1599. He was in early youth the playmate and intimate companion of Prince Charles. In 1624 Holles was returned to parliament for Mitchell in Cornwall, and in 1628 for Dorchester. On March 2, 1629, when Sir John Finch, the speaker, refused to put Sir John Eliot's Protestations and was about to adjourn the House by the king's command, Holles with another member thrust him back into the chair and swore "he should sit still till it pleased them to rise." Meanwhile Eliot, on the refusal of the speaker to read the Protestations, had himself thrown them into the fire; the usher of the black rod was knocking at the door for admittance, and the king had sent for the guard. But Holles, declaring that he could not render the king or his country better service, put the Protestations to the House from memory, all the members rising to their feet and applauding. He, with others, was arrested and arraigned first in the Star Chamber and subsequently in the King's Bench. When brought upon his habeas corpus be fore the latter court Holles offered with the rest to give bail, but refused sureties for good behaviour, and argued that the court had no jurisdiction over offences supposed to have been com mitted in parliament. On his refusal to plead he was sentenced to a fine of i,000 marks and to imprisonment during the king's pleasure. Holles was confined, first in the Tower of London, and then in the Marshalsea. His resistance to the king's tyranny did not prove so stout as that of some of his comrades in misfortune. Having given the security demanded for his good behaviour, he was liberated early in 163o, and retired to the country.
Holles was a member of the Short and Long Parliaments assembled in 164o. According to Laud he was now "one of the great leading men in the House of Commons," and he sought to find means of preserving his brother-in-law, Strafford, from exe cution. He was one the chief movers of the Protestation of May 3, 1641. He took up the impeachment of Laud to the House of Peers, supported the Londoners' petition for the abolition of epis copacy, and the Root and Branch bill. Together with Pym, Holles drew up the Grand Remonstrance, and made a vigorous speech in its support on Nov. 22, 1641, in which he argued for the right of one House to make a declaration, and asserted : "If kings are mis led by their counsellors we may, we must, tell them of it." After the failure of the attempt by the court to gain over Holles and others by offering them posts in the administration, he was one of the "five members" impeached by the king. Holles at once grasped the full significance of the king's action, and after the triumphant return to the House of the five members, on Jan. 11, threw himself into still more pronounced opposition to the king's policy.
On the outbreak of the Civil War (see GREAT REBELLION ) Holles took a command in the field, fighting at Edgehill and at Brentford. But he soon returned to London, moderated his tone, and advocated peace and a settlement of the disputes by conces sions on both sides. He supported the peace negotiations on Nov. 21 and Dec. 22, 1642, and his attitude led to a breach with Pym and the more determined party. In June 1643 he was accused of complicity in Waller's plot, but swore to his innocency; and his arrest with others of the peace party was even proposed in August. In November Holles and Whitelocke headed the corn mission appointed to treat with the king at Oxford. He endeav oured to convince the royalists of the necessity of yielding in time, before the "new party of hot men" should gain the upper hand. Holles and Whitelocke had a private meeting, not reported to parliament, with the king, when at Charles's request they drew up the answer which they advised him to return to the parliament. Holles was also a commissioner at Uxbridge in Jan. 1645. As leader of the moderate (or Presbyterian) party Holles now came into violent antagonism with Cromwell and the army faction, and was one of those who sought to secure Cromwell's impeach ment.
On June 16, 1647, eleven members including Holles were charged by the army with various offences against the state, fol lowed on the 23rd by fresh demands for their impeachment and for their suspension, which were refused. On the 26th, however, the eleven members, to avoid violence, asked leave to withdraw. They were recalled, expelled, imprisoned and again recalled.
Holles was one of the commissioners appointed to treat with the king at Newport on Sept. 18, 1648, and was one of those who stayed behind the rest in order to urge Charles to compliance. On Dec. i he received the thanks of the House. On the occasion of Pride's Purge on Dec. 6 Holles absented himself and escaped to France. From his retirement there he wrote to Charles II. in 1651, advising him to come to terms with the Scots as the only means of effecting a restoration ; but after the alliance he refused Charles's offer of the secretaryship of state. In March 1654 Crom well sent Holles a pass "with notable circumstances of kindness and esteem." The date of his return to England is uncertain, but in 1656 Cromwell's resentment was again excited against him as the supposed author of a tract, really written by Clarendon. Holles appears to have been imprisoned, for his release was ordered by the council on Sept. 2, 1659.
Holles took a leading part in the Restoration, was one of the 34 commissioners appointed to try the regicides, and entered the House of Lords as Baron Holles in 1661. He was ambassador to France (1663-66), and an envoy at the peace with Holland at Breda (1667). He became with Halifax and Shaftesbury a leader in the resistance to the domestic and foreign policy of the court, and in 1676 was summarily dismissed from the council. In order to bring about the downfall of Danby (afterwards duke of Leeds) and the disbanding of the army, which he believed to be intended for the suppression of the national liberties, Holles engaged (1677-1679), as did many others, in a dangerous intrigue with Courtin and Barillon, the French envoys, and Louis XIV. ; he refused, however, the latter's presents on the ground that he was a member of the council, having been appointed to Sir William Temple's new modelled cabinet in 1679. Barillon described him as at this period in his old age "the man of all England for whom the different cabals have the most consideration," and as firmly opposed to the arbitrary designs of the court. He showed niodera ation in the Popish Plot, and on the question of the exclusion of James, duke of York, followed Halifax rather than Shaftesbury. He died on Feb. 17, r 680.
The character of Holles has been drawn by Burnet (Hist. of His Own Times vi. 257, 268), with whom he was on terms of friendship. "Hollis was a man of great courage and of as great pride. . . . He was faithful and firm to his side and never changed through the whole course of his life. . . . He argued well but too vehemently ; for he could not bear contradiction. He had the soul of an old stubborn Roman in him. He was a faithful but a rough friend, and a severe but fair enemy. He had a true sense of religion; and was a man of an unblameable course of life and of a sound judgment when it was not biased by passion." See C. H. Firth in the Dictionary of National Biography and author ities there quoted.