THE LANCASHIRE HOLLANDS By BERNARD ~OLLAND, C.B. WITH IILUSPRAPIONS AND PEDIGREES LONDON JOHN MURRAY, .ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1917 AT THE BALLANTYNE PRESS PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE, BALLANTYNE AND CO, LTD. COLCHESTEK1 LONDON AND ETON, ENGLAND ~7le'ru}f·Yluv:H:mi:Jiollarut, ojierwan:t:i.l.}/; (J/uc£rt£ni:JCwbf::rd(l-efumf)a,ulk yu!Ulj«lmdlu:rYraru0 ~- ajkrwar~ Cuwn7fdlaruitf~(uz, ft>nc) fem, a d,a,u~ ~ al-md ,fk;y,ar .t8,t5 Herein may be seen noble chyva.lrye, curtoseye, hu.manitye, friendlynesse, hardynesse, love, frend­ ship, cowardyse, murdre, hate, virtue, and synne. Doo after the good, and leve the evyl, and it shal brynge you to good fame and renommee.' William Caxton's preface to Sir Thomas Malory's' Morte d'Arthur.' TO MY FRIEND AND RELATIVE, SIR HENRY NEWBOLT, WHOSE EXCELLENT ROMANCE ENTITLED 'THE NEW JONE' FIRST GAVE ME THE IDEA OF WRITING THIS BOOK, I DEDI- CATE MY UNROMANCING HISTORY PREFACE THE motto of the Knutsford branch of Hollands is ' Respice, Aspice, Prospice.' I have written this book primarily for the benefit of existing Hollands and those more numerous, I hope, as yet unborn, so that they may be the better able to practise the precept of ' Respice,' and may have some consecutive information as to the men and women who bore their name in times past. I do not agree with those people who, as a philosopher says, ' Nowadays attach much more importance to the pedigrees of domestic animals than to the pedigrees of men.' The book may also, I hope, be of interest to others who have a taste for history, public and private, or patriotic feeling for Lancashire. Except now and then, as this does not pretend to be a didactic history, I do not worry the reader's eye by detailed footnote references to the authorities, but I append a list of the chief sources of information, and I ask readers to credit me with not having stated any fact without some authority. In the period between the thirteenth century and the sixteenth, one has to depend mainly upon the old chroniclers, English and French ; for these centuries are sadly deficient in that written correspondence from which one learns so much of the character of men and women in later times. These chroniclers mostly give the mere outward show of things, and hardly before de Commines does one obtain any attempt to analyse character. They are also sometimes obviously inaccurate as to facts, and it is never clear how far they are poetically.. composing the words which vu viii PREFACE they put into the mouths of their characters, or how far they are reporting on more or less trustworthy evidence. When two chroniclers narrate the same event, they usually give varying versions which are the despair of the modern conscientious historian. He has to use his judgment and make out the course of events which seems the most probable. At the same time, I feel sure, from internal evidence, that men like Froissart and de W avrin did their best to ascertain what did happen, and greatly are we indebted to them for their trouble. As to facts of drier order, there is plenty of record in legal and administrative documents. The writer who deals with Lancashire, as is my fortune in respect to part of the story, has the advantage that no county provides such ample printed materials for local history. The great patriotism and modem wealth of Lancashire men has wrought this. In addition to Baines' older county history, there is the copious series of the Chetham Society publications, the distinct works of men like Booker and Croston, and, above all, the ' Victorian County History of Lancashire ' published within the last few years. This splendid monument of well-directed labour is, I should say, the best designed and most complete of all county histories, ancient and modern. It would have been impossible not many years ago to write the present book without far more time and original research than I could have afforded to give, although this book has cost me quite enough, and possibly too much, time and trouble, but books like the Victorian County History and, on national affairs, like those of Sir James Ramsay, Mr. Wylie, and others, men who have given all the spare time of their lives to mediaeval history, make things much easier now for the amateur historian. I have derived special advantage from Mr. James Croston's pedigree of the Hollands of Upholland in his admirable ' History of the Ancient Hall of Samlesbury,' PREFACE ix published in 1871, and from the Upholland, Denton and Mobberley pedigrees in Mr. Wm. Fergusson Irvine's 'ffistory of the Family of Holland of Mobberley and Knuts­ ford,' which appeared in 1902. Mr. Irvine's book was partly based upon materials collected by the late Edgar Swinton Holland, who seems to have meditated writing a general history of the family. I have entitled this book, ' The Lancashire Hollands.' Those of them who played a great part on the national stage for four generations, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, lived mainly, it is true, in the South of England, but they were by origin pure bred Lancastrians, and other branches of the family lived in or near Lancashire till modern times, and some still live there. Therefore the Hollands, like many another vigorous clan, may salute the Red Rose County with 'Salve, magna Parens.' I began to compose this book in hours of leisure before the great war broke out in August 1914, though I have :finished it since. It would not have been easy to start upon a mere family history after the outbreak of volcanic events which make even great affairs in former history seem pale, and writing seem rather a shadowy occupation. The best justification of histories of this kind is that given by the wise Gibbon in his Autobiography. He says: ' A lively desire of knowing and recording our ancestors so generally prevails that it must depend on the influence of some common principle in the minds of men. We seem to have lived in the persons of our forefathers ; it is the labour and reward of verity to extend the term of this ideal longevity.... The satirist may laugh, the philosopher may preach, but Reason herself will respect the prejudice and habits which have been consecrated by the experience of mankind.' BERNARD HOLLAND. HiltBLEDOWN, NEAR CANTERBURY. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE HOLLANDS Ol!' UPEOLLAND • • • • 1 CHAPTER II THOMAS HOLLAND, EARL Ol!' KENT • • • 25 CH.APTERill TlloMAS HOLLAND, SECOND EARL OF KENT, AND Sm Jomr HOLLAND • • • • • • • • 45 CHAPTER IV Sm JORN HOLLAND m SPAIN • • • 68 CHAPTER V VICISSITUDES Ol!' FORTUNE. • • • • 83 CHAPTER VI TllE HOLLAND REVOLT • • 131 CHAPTER VII EDMUND HoLLAND, FoURTH EARL OF KENT, AND ms SrsTEBS 157 CHAPTER VIII JOHN HOLLAND, SECOND DUKE OF. EXETER • • • 180 Xl .. Xl1 CONTENTS CHAPTER IX PA.GB HENBY HOLLAND, THIRD DuxE OF EXETER • • • 202 CHAPTER X HOLLANDS OF SUTTON . 237 CHAPTER XI HOLLANDS OF DENTON . • . • • . 269 CHAPTER XII HOLLANDS OF CLIFTON AND CHESHIRE . 285 CHAPTER xm HOLLANDS OF WALES . 304 CHAPTER XIV HOLLANDS OF NORFOLK, &c. • . 319 APPENDICES . 333 INDEX . 349 THE LANCASHIRE HOLLANDS CHAPTER I HOLLANDS OF UPHOLLAND Memento dierum antiquorum ; Cogita generationes sin,,O"Ctlas. Cil<""TICLE OF MOSES. 'THERE has existed no family in Lancashire,' wrote a dis­ tinguished antiquary of that county, Mr. Langton,' whose career has been so remarkable as that of the Hollands. Playing an active part in the most picturesque and chivalrous period of English history, they figured among the founders of the Order of the Garter, allied themselves with the royal family, and attained the highest rank in the peerage.' The vicissitudes of their fortunes were great. If they rose to the heights they also tasted of the depths. Most of the chiefs of the race, from the time of Edward II to that of Edward IV, came to violent ends, as befitted an ambitious and fighting family in stormy English times, when politics was a game played with lives for stakes. The village of Upholland is about four miles west of Wigan. The place is now blackened by coal-mining, but must once have been a pleasant enough region. Not far off there is another village called Down-holland, where also a Holland family lived, from, at least, the reign of Henry II to that of Henry VIII, but they seem to have been uncon­ nected with the Hollands of U pholland, and with them this book is not concerned. There was also a Lincolnshire family ft 2 THE LANCASHIRE HOLLANDS of Hollands, but unrelated to those of Lancashire.1 Down to the fifteenth century the name was always spelt Boland (or Rolande), and its bearers were called John de Roland, Thomas de Roland, &c., but in this book the later spelling has, as a rule, been used throughout. The manor of Upholland appears in Domesday Book as 'Hoiland,' and was in the possession of 'Steinulf' in the days of Edward the Confessor. The Hollands appear in the reign of John as donors to Cockersand Abbey, but their name is first mentioned in connection with this manor in a 'final concord' made at the Lancaster Assizes dated November 5, 1202.2 In this deed Uhctred de Chyrche releases his right in fourteen oxgangs of land in Upholland to Matthew de Holland. This would mean about 210 acres of arable land together with rights of meadowing and pasturage, perhaps the manor as a whole, under this form. Two later deeds show that between 1212 and 1224 Matthew de Holland died and was succeeded by his son Robert.