and was accordingly prosecuted in the Star-chamber (ib. vii. 139; cf. arts. Cotton, Sir Robert Bruce, and Dudley, Sir Robert). But the king seized the opportunity of the birth of Prince Charles to put a stop to the proceedings, and Clare was dismissed with a reprimand (Rushworth, i. App. 12, ii. 51; Court and Times of Charles I, ii. 38). As he refused to own himself in fault, he was put out of the commission of the peace for Nottinghamshire. Subsequently, during the king's progress in the north of England, Clare came to him at Rufford, kissed his hand, and begged his pardon, but, though promised forgiveness, was not restored to favour (Collins, p. 94). He died at Nottingham on 4 Oct. 1637, and was interred in the Clare aisle in St. Mary's Church there (ib. p. 95).
A description of Clare's person is given by Gervase Holles (ib. p. 95). Holles also adds some specimens of his verses, ‘though his poetry was his worst part,’ and states that he left a manuscript answer to Bacon's ‘Essay of Empire.’ His letter-book, from 1598 to 1617, is in the British Museum (Add. MS. 32,464). Park's edition of Walpole's ‘Royal and Noble Authors’ contains a remonstrance addressed by Holles to Lord Burghley (25 June 1597) in defence of his ancestors, on whom Burghley had made reflections (ii. 283–7).
Clare left three surviving children: John, who succeeded him [q. v.]; Denzil, afterwards created Baron Holles of Isfield [q. v.]; and Eleanor, married to Oliver Fitzwilliam, earl of Tyrconnel. Another son, Francis, served with distinction in the Netherlands, died in 1622, and is buried in Westminster Abbey (Dart, Westmonasterium, i. 111). An elder daughter, Arabella, married in 1625 Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford, and died in 1631.
[Arthur Collins, in his Historical Collections of the Noble Families of Cavendish, Holles, &c., 1752, gives a long account of Lord Clare, based on the manuscript memoirs of the Holles family, by Gervase Holles; letters of Lord Clare are printed in the Strafford Letters.]
HOLLES, JOHN, second Earl of Clare (1595–1666), son of John Holles, first earl of Clare [q. v.], was born at Haughton, Nottinghamshire, 13 June 1595. In the parliament of 1624, and the first two parliaments of Charles I, Holles, styled after 1624 Lord Haughton, represented East Retford (Lists of Members of Parliament, 1878, i. 459, 465, 470). On 24 Sept. 1626 he married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Horace, lord Vere of Tilbury (Markham, The Fighting Veres, p. 434). At the siege of Bois-le-Duc in 1629 Haughton served as a volunteer under the command of his father-in-law (ib. p. 436). He succeeded to the title of Earl of Clare in October 1637, but appears to have found his inheritance considerably encumbered. When the king summoned him to fulfil his feudal service in the war against Scotland, he professed his willingness, but complained that he was impoverished by nine children and a debt of 9,000l. (21 Feb. 1638; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1638–9, p. 491). Clare was one of the six peers charged by the great council in September 1640 to raise a loan, but was excused on the plea of illness, and took part instead in the negotiations with the Scots (Rushworth, iii. 1302; Hardwicke, State Papers, ii. 215, 222, 283). In early life he had been intimate with Strafford, his brother-in-law, and was one of the party in the lords which desired some compromise by which the earl's life might be saved. He endeavoured in the course of the trial to put forward an innocent interpretation of Strafford's words as reported by Vane (Rushworth, Trial of Strafford, p. 545). On the other hand, when the lords and commons quarrelled about ecclesiastical affairs in August 1641, he sided with the five popular peers who protested against the vote of the lords (Gardiner, History of England, x. 16). During the civil war ‘he was very often of both parties, and never advantaged either’ (Life of Colonel Hutchinson, ed. 1885, i. 165). Clare was so far trusted by the popular party that the commons nominated him for lord-lieutenant of the county of Nottingham (Commons' Journals, ii. 459). Nevertheless, he followed the king to York, signed the engagement of 13 June 1642 promising to defend the king's person and prerogative, and the declaration of 15 June protesting that Charles had no intention of making war on the parliament (Clarendon, Rebellion, v. 342, 346). Clare then obtained the king's leave to go to London to look after his private affairs, and took his seat in the House of Lords again. During his stay with the parliament, says Clarendon, he ‘never concurred in any malicious counsel against the king, but was looked upon as a man not only firm to the principles of monarchy, but of duty to the person of the king. He was a man of honour and of courage, and would have been an excellent person if his heart had not been set too much upon the keeping and improving his estate’ (ib. vii. 187). When the peace propositions brought forward by the lords in August 1643 were rejected by the commons, and the king's successes seemed to prognosticate his speedy triumph, Clare deserted the parliament, and made his way to Oxford (Lords' Journals, vi. 178; Clarendon, vii. 174). The
