Sir John Holland, 1st Baronet (October 1603 – 19 January 1701) was an English politician who sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

at various times between 1640 and 1679. Holland was the son of Sir Thomas Holland of Quiddenham, Norfolk and his wife Mary Knyvet, daughter of Sir Thomas Knyvet. He was created a baronet, of Quiddenham by King Charles 1 on 15 June 1629.John Burke, John Bernard Burke ''A genealogical and heraldic history of the extinct and dormant baronetcies''
Accessed 12 January 2023. In April 1640, Holland was elected

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

for

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

in the

Short Parliament The Short Parliament was a Parliament of England that was summoned by King Charles I of England on the 20th of February 1640 and sat from 13th of April to the 5th of May 1640. It was so called because of its short life of only three weeks. Aft ...

. His fellow parliamentarians asked Holland to rid his house of any Catholics, but he refused. He offered his wife, Alathea Panton, religious freedom but he took great but unsuccessful efforts to try and ensure that his children were all Protestants. In November 1640 he was elected MP

Castle Rising Castle Rising is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. The village is situated some north-east of the town of King's Lynn and west of the city of Norwich. The River Babingley skirts the north of the village separating C ...

in the

Long Parliament The Long Parliament was an English Parliament which lasted from 1640 until 1660. It followed the fiasco of the Short Parliament, which had convened for only three weeks during the spring of 1640 after an 11-year parliamentary absence. In Septem ...

and held the seat until he was excluded in

Pride's Purge Pride's Purge is the name commonly given to an event that took place on 6 December 1648, when soldiers prevented members of Parliament considered hostile to the New Model Army from entering the House of Commons of England. Despite defeat in the ...

in 1648.History of Parliament Online - Holland, Sir John
/ref> Holland was re-elected for Castle Rising in the Convention Parliament in 1660. In 1661 he was elected MP for

Aldeburgh Aldeburgh ( ) is a coastal town in the English county, county of Suffolk, England. Located to the north of the River Alde. Its estimated population was 2,276 in 2019. It was home to the composer Benjamin Britten and remains the centre of the int ...

in the

Cavalier Parliament The Cavalier Parliament of England lasted from 8 May 1661 until 24 January 1679. It was the longest English Parliament, and longer than any Great British or UK Parliament to date, enduring for nearly 18 years of the quarter-century reign of C ...

and held the seat to 1679. Holland died on 19 January 1701, aged 96.

Private life

Holland married a Catholic, Alathea Panton, daughter of John Panton of Bruinshop,

Denbighshire Denbighshire ( ; cy, Sir Ddinbych; ) is a county in the north-east of Wales. Its borders differ from the historic county of the same name. This part of Wales contains the country's oldest known evidence of habitation – Pontnewydd (Bontnewy ...

, and widow of William, Lord Sandys, of the Vine. Their daughter,

Catherine Katherine, also spelled Catherine, and other variations are feminine names. They are popular in Christian countries because of their derivation from the name of one of the first Christian saints, Catherine of Alexandria. In the early Christ ...

, was born in 1637 and struggled against her father's wish that she should be a Protestant. She became a nun, noted in

Bruges Bruges ( , nl, Brugge ) is the capital and largest City status in Belgium, city of the Provinces of Belgium, province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium, in the northwest of the country, and the sixth-largest city of the countr ...

. Their son, Thomas, predeceased him, and he was succeeded in the baronetcy by his grandson,

Sir John Holland, 2nd Baronet Sir John Holland, 2nd Baronet (c. 1669 – by July 1724), of Quidenham Hall, Norfolk was a British Whig politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons from 1701 to 1710. Early life Holland was the second, but eldest surviving ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Holland, John 1603 births 1701 deaths Baronets in the Baronetage of England People from Quidenham People from Aldeburgh English MPs 1640 (April) English MPs 1640–1648 English MPs 1660 English MPs 1661–1679 Members of the Parliament of England for Norfolk