of the city of London against the ministers referred to him as "the
public defaulter of unaccounted millions." The proceedings brought
against him in the court of exchequer were stayed by a royal warrant;
and in a statement published by him he proved that in the delays in
making up the accounts of his office he had transgressed neither the law
nor the custom of the time. From the interest on the outstanding
balances he had, none the less, amassed a princely fortune. He strove,
but in vain, to obtain promotion to the dignity of an earl, a dignity
upon which he had set his heart, and he died at Holland House,
Kensington, on the 1st of July 1774, a sorely disappointed man, with a
reputation for cunning and unscrupulousness which cannot easily be
matched, and with an unpopularity which justifies the conclusion that he
was the most thoroughly hated statesman of his day. Lord Holland married
in 1744 Lady Georgina Caroline Lennox, daughter of the duke of
Richmond, who was created Baroness Holland, of Holland, Lincolnshire, in
1762. There were four sons of the marriage: Stephen, 2nd Lord Holland
(d. 1774); Henry (d. an infant); Charles James (the celebrated
statesman); and Henry Edward (1755-1811), soldier and diplomatist.
See Walpole's and other memoirs of the time, also the article FOX,
CHARLES JAMES.
HOLLAND, HENRY RICH, 1ST EARL OF (1590-1649), 2nd son of Robert, 1st
earl of Warwick, and of Penelope, Sir Philip Sidney's "Stella," daughter
of Walter Devereux, 1st earl of Essex, was baptized on the 19th of
August 1590, educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, knighted on the
3rd of June 1610, and returned to parliament for Leicester in 1610 and
1614. In 1610 he was present at the siege of Juliers. Favours were
showered upon him by James I. He was made gentleman of the bedchamber to
Charles, prince of Wales, and captain of the yeomen of the guard; and on
the 8th of March 1623 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Kensington.
In 1624 he was sent to Paris to negotiate the marriage treaty between
Charles and Henrietta Maria. On the 15th of September he was created
earl of Holland, and in 1625 was sent on two further missions, first to
Paris to arrange a treaty between Louis XIII. and the Huguenots, and
later to the Netherlands in company with Buckingham. In October 1627 he
was given command of the troops sent to reinforce Buckingham at Rhe, but
through delay in starting only met the defeated troops on their return.
He succeeded Buckingham as chancellor of Cambridge University; was
master of the horse in 1628, and was appointed constable of Windsor and
high steward to the queen in 1629. He interested himself, like his elder
brother, Lord Warwick, in the plantations; and was the first governor of
the Providence company in 1630, and one of the proprietors of
Newfoundland in 1637. In 1631 he was made chief-justice-in-eyre south of
the Trent, and in this capacity was responsible for the unpopular
revival of the obsolete forest laws.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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