Pepys seems to have gone to hear Holmes preach at Whitehall 12 Feb. 1659–60 (Diary i. 27). On the enforcement of the Act of Conformity in 1662, Holmes gave up his cure, and went to reside in the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, where he either kept or frequented conventicles. He died in June 1678, and was buried in St. Mary, Aldermanbury. Although a millenarian, he only inculcated a spiritual and purified liberty to be enjoyed by the saints, and no sensual license. He is said to have been well skilled in Hebrew.
He published, besides sermons: 1. ‘Usury it Injury,’ London, 1640, 4to. 2. ‘Vindication of Baptizing Believers' Infants, in some Animadversions upon Mr. Tombes, his Exercitations about Infant Baptisme,’ &c., London, 1646, 4to. 3. ‘Dæmonologie and Theologie, the first the Malady, &c., the second the Remedy,’ &c., London, 1650, 8vo. 4. ‘The Mischiefe of Mixt Communions fully discussed,’ &c., London, 1650, 4to. 5. ‘Song of Solomon. A Commentary … on the whole Book of Canticles,’ 1650, 8vo. 6. ‘Ecclesiastica Methermeneutica, or Church Cases cleared,’ 1652, 8vo. 7. ‘The Resurrection revealed, &c.: I. That Chiliasme, or the opinion of the future glorious state of the Church on earth … is no errour. II. Of the manner and measure of burning the world … III. Touching Gog and Magog … IV. Concerning Covenants,’ &c., London, 1661, fol. 8. ‘Exercitations on the Chiliasme, the Burning of the World, of Gog and Magog, the two Witnesses, and the Character of Antichrist,’ London, 1664, fol. 9. ‘Miscellania; consisting of three treatises: I. Exercitations extricated, &c. II. A Review of, or a fresh Enquiry after Gog and Magog, where to find them. III. Some Glimpses of Israel's Call approaching,’ &c., London, 1666, fol. 10. ‘An Essay concerning the Sabbath,’ London, 1673, 8vo.
[Kennett's Eccles. Chron. i. 553, 827; Palmer's Nonconf. Mem. i. 149; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 1168; Atkyns's Gloucestershire, ed. 1768, p. 259; Boase's Register of Exeter College, p. 250.]
HOLMES, Sir ROBERT (1622–1692), admiral, governor of the Isle of Wight, third son of Henry Holmes of Mallow, co. Cork, and brother of Sir John Holmes [q. v.], served during the civil war in the royalist army, and after the king's death in the semi-piratical squadron of Prince Rupert. According to his monument he afterwards distinguished himself in foreign service. He seems to have been especially attached to the Duke of York, and probably served with him in the French army under Turenne. At the Restoration, when the Duke of York became lord high admiral, Holmes was appointed to command the Bramble, from which he was shortly afterwards moved into the Henrietta. In October 1660 he was appointed also captain and governor of Sandown Castle in the Isle of Wight, and about the same time sailed to the Guinea coast for the protection of trade. On his return in the following summer he brought back with him ‘a great baboon,’ apparently a chimpanzee or gorilla (cf. Murray, Geographical Distribution of Mammals, p. 77), which Pepys thought must have had a human progenitor (Diary, 24 Aug. 1661). He was then appointed captain of the Royal Charles, but in November was superseded and sent up to town to answer a charge ‘of letting the Swedish ambassador go by him without striking his flag’ (ib. 12 Nov.; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 17 Nov. 1661). A few weeks later he was troubling Pepys's devotions by appearing at church ‘in his gold-laced suit’ (Diary, 22 Dec.), and in 1662 he was appointed to the Reserve, to which ship Pepys got his mathematical teacher, a man named Cooper, put in as master (ib. 7 Aug. 1662). Some months afterwards Holmes insisted on Cooper being removed from the ship, and, on Pepys supporting his protégé, a quarrel broke out which left Pepys in ‘a natural fear of being challenged’ by Holmes. Pepys got out of the difficulty by ‘finding Cooper a fuddling, troublesome fellow, and so being content to have him turned out of his place’ (ib. 22, 24 March 1662–3). The incident probably explains the very unfavourable opinion of Holmes which, after this date, the ‘Diary’ frequently expresses.
Towards the autumn of 1663 Holmes was appointed to the Jersey, and with a small squadron again sent out to the coast of Africa to support the Royal African Company against the encroachments of the Dutch. He sailed in October, and, coming to the river Gambia, found the English and Portuguese factors eloquent on the subject of Dutch usurpation, violence, rapine, and treachery. The Dutch, it was said, had seized English factories, driven English ships off the coast, claimed the monopoly of the trade, and stirred up the natives to wage war against the English. Holmes was instructed to avoid hostilities as far as possible; but, on endeavouring to open negotiations with the Dutch governors, his ships were fired at, his messengers beaten or killed, and all amicable proposals rejected. He was thus forced to take possession of the Dutch settlements one after the other, including Goree, Cape Coast, Aga, and Annamaboe. From the coast of Africa Holmes then stretched across the Atlantic,
