Charles Holland

“ It seems that there was hardly ever an English sovereign more callous, more selfish and more immoral than the restored Charles was. His restoration was welcomed in the most genuine and lively manner, on his return from Brussels to Breda, and he was honoured and entertained magnificently. De Witt, who had been, as he alleged, the unwilling instrument of his exile to Brussels, assured him of the attachment of Holland to him, and of their joy at his being replaced on the throne of his ancestors ”

“ But Charles Holland had his own reasons for preferring that chamber, and he was conducted to it in the course of half an hour by Henry, who looked around it with a shudder, as he bade his young friend good night.
CHAPTER XII. CHARLES HOLLAND'S SAD FEELINGS.—THE PORTRAIT.—THE OCCURRENCE OF THE NIGHT AT THE HALL.
Charles Holland wished to be alone, if ever any human being had wished fervently to be so. ”

“ The Netherlands indeed could not be saved if Holland fell, and the fall of Holland was as needful for the success of the plans of Charles as of Lewis. It was impossible for Holland to look with indifference on the conversion of England into a Catholic power, and in the struggle to make it one the aid of the Dutch would be secured for the king's opponents. Charles offered therefore to declare his religion and to join France in an attack on Holland if Lewis would grant him a subsidy equal to a million a year. ”

“ Primary education is free, but not compulsory. Religion is not established, but about two-thirds of the people are Protestants, the remainder Roman Catholics. The birth of Holland as an independent European power took place in the 16th century, when, after an heroic and protracted struggle, it freed itself from the yoke of Spain, then the most powerful nation in the world.
Holland, Henry Richard Fox Vassall-Holland, Baron, statesman, born in Wilts; succeeded to the title in 1774; entered on a public career as a Whig under the patronage of his uncle Charles James Fox ”

“ From this period the alliance between England and Spain raised the commerce and manufactures of the southern provinces of the Netherlands to a high degree of prosperity, while the northern parts of the country were still kept down by their various dissensions. Holland was at war with the Hanseatic towns. The Frisons continued to struggle for freedom against the heirs of Albert of Saxony. Utrecht was at variance with its bishop, and finally recognized Charles of Egmont as its protector. ”

“ Still, as we have seen, De Witt was exceedingly complaisant to Charles before his restoration to the English throne, more so when it was finally effected, and even afterwards when Charles showed himself so captious and arrogant with the Dutch envoys. De Witt knew that Holland had now more to lose than gain by any conflict, and saw that if by any means short of a public humiliation he could keep on good terms with France and England, the losses which Holland had sustained could be easily repaired. ”

“ On 4 July Holland left London, and the next day appeared in arms at Kingston, intending to raise the siege of Colchester. He issued a declaration asserting that he sought a personal treaty between Charles and the parliament, a cessation of arms during the treaty, and the restoration of the king to his just regal authority (The Declaration of the Duke of Buckingham, the Earls of Holland and Peterborough, &c., 1648) . Holland's preparations had been made with so little secrecy that they had no chance of success; nor could he get together more than six hundred men. ”

“ November 1628) master of the horse, and was appointed constable of Windsor (27 Oct. 1629) and high steward to the queen (1 Dec. 1629) . Like his brother, the Earl of Warwick, Holland took part in colonisation. He was the first governor of the Providence Company (4 Dec. 1630) , and one of the lords-proprietors of Newfoundland (13 Nov. 1637) (Cal. State Papers, Col. 1574–1660, pp. 123, 260) . But he preferred monopolies and crown grants as a quicker method of increasing his fortune (Court and Times of Charles I, i. 199, 221, 453; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1637, p. 189) . ”

“ Henry Holland, the son of Peter Holland, a much-respected medical practitioner, was born at Knutsford in Cheshire, on October 27, 1788. His maternal grandmother was a sister of Josiah Wedgwood, the eminent potter, and grandfather of Charles Darwin. Holland was also a cousin of Mrs. Gaskell, the author of “Mary Barton,” and biographer of Charlotte Brontë. He was [Pg 63] educated first at Newcastle-on-Tyne under the Rev. W. Turner, and early showed his predilection for travel by making long pedestrian excursions in the neighbourhood. ”

“ This son was Charles, count of Charolois, afterward celebrated under the name of Charles the Rash. He gave, even in the lifetime of his father, a striking specimen of despotism to the people of Holland. Appointed stadtholder of that province in 1457, he appropriated to himself several important successions; forced the inhabitants to labor in the formation of dikes for the security of the property thus acquired ”

“ HOLLAND, THOMAS (1600–1642) , jesuit, born in Lancashire in 1600, being probably a son of Richard Holland, gentleman, of Sutton, and Anne his wife, received his education in the jesuit colleges at St. Omer and Valladolid. When Prince Charles visited Madrid in 1623, Holland, at the request of his fellow-collegians, went to the capital and addressed the prince in a Latin oration, assuring him of the loyalty and good wishes of the English students in the seminaries of Spain. ”

“ It is impossible to overrate the privation, the blank, which it will make to the old friends and associates, political and personal, to whom Holland House has always been open like a home, and there cannot be a sadder sight than to see the curtain suddenly fall upon a scene so brilliant and apparently prosperous, and the light which for nearly half a century has adorned and cheered the world, thus suddenly and for ever extinguished. ”

“ Holland's explorations in America were less important than those of any of her rivals. The thrifty Dutchmen were more anxious to secure trade than to find new countries, and seemed content to allow others to spend wealth and precious lives in penetrating to the interior of the New World and in planting settlements, which almost invariably succumbed to disaster.
Early in the seventeenth century a company of English merchants sent out a skillful navigator named Henry Hudson to hunt for the elusive northwest passage. He took with him only eleven men, one of whom was his son. ”

“ That he learnt anything, and that he grew up an amiable and magnanimous man, were solely due to his natural worth, for no one ever owed less to education or to family example. The relations of Lord Holland to his sons would be difficult to parallel. ”

“ The world never has seen and never will again see anything like Holland House, and though it was by no means the same thing as it was during Lord Holland's life, Lady Holland contrived to assemble round her to the last a great society, comprising almost everybody that was conspicuous, remarkable, and agreeable. ”

“ Her love and habit of domination were both unbounded, and they made her do strange and often unwarrantable things. None ever lived who assumed such privileges as Lady Holland, and the docility with which the world submitted to her vagaries was wonderful. Though she was eternally surrounded with clever people, there was no person of any position in the world, no matter how frivolous and foolish, whose acquaintance she was not eager to cultivate, and especially latterly she had a rage for knowing new people and going to fresh houses. ”

“ In 1673, while at war with England, Holland sent a fleet which recaptured New York, but it was given back to England, upon the signing of a treaty in 1674. The manner in which New Netherland was settled by the Dutch was quite different from that of New England. Wealthy men, termed "patroons," were granted immense tracts of laud and brought over settlers, whose situation was much like that of the serfs of Russia. Traces of the patroon system remained long after the Revolution, and, in 1846, caused the "Anti-Rent War," which resulted in the death of a number of people. ”

“ Maximilian has been called the second founder of the house of Habsburg, and certainly by bringing about marriages between Charles and Joanna and between his grandson Ferdinand and Anna, daughter of Ladislaus, king of Hungary and Bohemia, he paved the way for the vast empire of Charles V. and for the influence of the Habsburgs in eastern Europe. But he had many qualities less desirable. He was reckless and unstable, resorting often to lying and deceit, and never pausing to count the cost of an enterprise or troubling to adapt means to ends. ”

“ We had a true Holland House dinner, two more people arriving (Melbourne and Tom Duncombe) than there was room for, so that Lady Holland had the pleasure of a couple of general squeezes, and of seeing our arms prettily pinioned. Lord Holland sits at table, but does not dine. He proposed to retire (not from the room) , but was not allowed, for that would have given us all space and ease. Lord Holland told some stories of Johnson and Garrick which he had heard from Kemble. Johnson loved to bully Garrick, from a recollection of Garrick’s former impertinence. ”

“ The day I came here Lady Holland died, that is, she died at two o'clock in the preceding night. She evinced during her illness a very philosophical calmness and resolution, and perfect good humour, aware that she was dying, and not afraid of death. The religious people don't know what to make of it. She never seems to have given the least sign of any religious feeling or belief. ”

“ LOUIS II. [1] (846–879) , king of France, called “le Bègue” or “the Stammerer,” was a son of Charles II. the Bald, Roman emperor and king of the West Franks, and was born on the 1st of November 846. After the death of his elder brother Charles in 866 he became king of Aquitaine, and in October 877 he succeeded his father as king of the West Franks, but not as emperor. ”

“ The situation was such as to tempt Napoleon on to an undertaking on which he had probably set his heart in the autumn of 1806, that of dethroning the Spanish Bourbons and of replacing them by a Bonaparte. Looking at the surface of the life of Spain, he might well believe in its decay. The king, Charles IV., looked on helplessly at the ruin wrought by the subservience of his kingdom to France since 1796, and he was seemingly blind to the criminal intrigues between his queen and the prime minister Godoy. ”

“ In 855 the emperor Lothair died, and was succeeded in Italy by his eldest son Louis II., and in the northern part of his kingdom by his second son, Lothair. The comparative weakness of these kingdoms, together with the disorder caused by the matrimonial troubles of Lothair, afforded a suitable opening for the intrigues of Louis and Charles the Bald, whose interest was increased by the fact that both their nephews were without male issue. Louis supported Lothair in his efforts to divorce his wife Teutberga, for which he received a promise of Alsace, while Charles opposed the divorce. ”

“ The emperor Charles IV. took advantage of a family quarrel over the possessions of Louis the elder, who died in 1361, to obtain a promise from Louis the younger and Otto, that the margraviate should come to his own son, Wenceslaus, in case the electors died childless. Louis the younger died in 1365, and when his brother Otto, who had married a daughter of Charles IV., wished to leave Brandenburg to his own family Charles began hostilities; but in 1373 an arrangement was made, and Otto, by the treaty of Fürstenwalde, abandoned the margraviate for a sum of 500,000 gold gulden. ”

“ Among the modern Jacobite, or legitimist, societies perhaps the most important is the “Order of the White Rose,” which has a branch in Canada and the United States. The order holds that sovereign authority is of divine sanction, and that the execution of Charles I. and the revolution of 1688 were national crimes; it exists to study the history of the Stuarts, to oppose all democratic tendencies, and in general to maintain the theory that kingship is independent of all parliamentary authority and popular approval. ”

“ Frederick the Great, talking less but acting more, invaded and conquered Silesia, and it seemed likely that the dissolution of the Habsburg monarchy would at no long interval follow the extinction of the Habsburg race. A Wittelsbach prince, Charles Albert, elector of Bavaria, the emperor Charles VII., and not Francis Stephen, was chosen emperor in January 1742, and by the treaty of Breslau, made later in the same year, nearly all Silesia was formally surrendered to Prussia. ”

“ The need for help to prosecute the war in Italy caused the king to call the diet to Worms in March 1495, when he urged the necessity of checking the progress of Charles. As during his father’s lifetime Maximilian had favoured the reforming party among the princes, proposals for the better government of the empire were brought forward at Worms as a necessary preliminary to financial and military support. ”

“ The acquisition of the territories, and especially of Tirol, had provided Louis with many enemies, prominent among whom were John of Bohemia and his family, that of Luxemburg. John, therefore, entered into an alliance with Pope Clement VI. The course of the war which ensued in Germany was such as to compel the emperor to submit to humiliating terms, though he stopped short of accepting the election of Charles, margrave of Moravia (afterwards the emperor Charles IV.) as German king in July 1346. ”