In the final instalment of our series exploring the history behind the founders of Clare Market, the Earls of Clare, Mhairi Gowans explores the family’s fortunes in the post Civil War era. Now establishment political actors, an unusual inheritance situation sees the Holles family accrue further lands and titles.
In the Holles line the Puritan gentry of the Civil War evolved into the Whig dynasts of the Hanoverian era.
– Mark Goldie, Roger Morrice and the Puritan Whigs, 2016
Gilbert Holles, the third Earl of Clare, grew up in a world of uncertainty. Just 11 when the English Civil War began in 1642, his father sent him to Europe to complete his education. Gilbert only returned to England once the monarchy had been restored in the 1660s.
Over the years, the Holles family had switched allegiance to from Catholicism to Calvinist Protestantism. This religious change had significantly affected political interests, with the family now opposing absolute monarchy. This put them in with the Country Party (the Whig Party’s precursor) where, by all accounts, Gilbert was a competent and inspiring politician.
An opposer to the succession of the future James II (a Catholic) to the throne, as well as to royal overreach, Gilbert Holles is one of the suspected authors of the pamphlet, Some Considerations Upon the Question, Whether the Parliament is Dissolved by its Prorogation for 15 months. This pamphlet argued that the King was subject to the citizenry and the law. Despite his opinions, Gilbert was careful to never endanger himself even as his Steward was sentenced to stand in the pillory for seditious comments. This was a dangerous political time. It was the era of Lord William Russell’s execution in Lincoln’s Inn Fields for his believed part in a plot to murder Charles II.
The kings prerogative extends only for the good of the people, never to their prejudice or great inconveniencies.
– Anon, Some Considerations Upon the Question, Whether the Parliament is Dissolved by its Prorogation for 15 months, 1676
Gilbert’s loyalty to the Protestant Cause meant that his last political act before he passed away was to be part of a petition to Catholic King James II to open parliament following the arrival of William of Orange. His son and heir John then followed suit by voting on the Vacancy of the Throne in favour of William of Orange as his first act in Parliament.
John’s loyalty was quickly rewarded as he was made bearer of the Queen’s Sceptre and Cross during the coronation of William and Mary, as well as Gentlemen of the King’s Bedchamber – a most sought–after position. John, however, spent most of the 1690s disputing the inheritance of his father-in-law’s estate. John’s father-in-law Henry Cavendish had given most of his inheritance to his favourite daughter Margaret, now John’s wife. John believed this gave him the right to Cavendish’s title of the Duke of Newcastle. When the King refused, John resigned his position as Gentleman of the Bedchamber and retuned to Houghton to lick his wounds.
His Lordship, soon after retired to his Seats in Nottinghamshire, taking his favourite Diversion in Hunting, and minding the Improvement of his Estate, which he very considerably increased.
– Arthur Collins, Historical Collection of the Noble Families of Cavendishe, Holles, Vere, and Ogle, 1752
However a feud continued between John and the husbands of Cavendish’s daughters. This resulted in him duelling the Earl of Thanet in Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1692. At long last though, the King came through and made John the Marquess of Clare and Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1694. This inheritance included the large property of Newcastle House on Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
With his star on the rise again, John became Lord Privy Seal and was central in the discussions leading up to the Act of Union with Scotland in 1707. Sadly only a few years later John died at the age of 56 after falling off his horse. He left his hard-sought titles no direct heir, with his inheritance going to nephew Thomas Pelham, who changed his surname to Pelham-Holles.
About six weeks ago his Grace went down to his Seat at Welbeck in Nottinghamshire where he usually took great Delight, and especially in Stag-Hunting, in the Forest of Sherwood, where he now found his Death.
– Anon, The Whole Life and noble character of John, Duke of Newcastle, 1711
And here we leave the Holles family, which ascended in the age of Henry VIII and became central to the politics of the 17th century. Sadly, for their estates in Clement Danes, the next two hundred years would not be kind. While the 1700s saw the area as busy and thriving with the market “very considerable and well served with provisions,” London’s westward development saw the gentry move out to new opulent houses in Mayfair. This left central London to descend into a slum “upon which the sun never shines.”
Gone now are the glories of St. Clement Danes.
– Cassell’s Magazine 1870
