Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Holles, Frescheville
HOLLES, Sir FRESCHEVILLE (1641–1672), captain in the navy, only surviving son of Gervase Holles [q. v.], antiquary, probably served as a volunteer in the naval campaign of 1665, but his first commission was as captain of the Antelope in 1666. He is said by Charnock to have lost an arm in the four days' fight off the North Foreland, 1–4 June; but this seems improbable, for he is described by Pepys (24 March 1667–8) as playing the bagpipes ‘beyond anything of that kind that ever I heard in my life, and with great pains he must have obtained it.’ He was, at any rate, able to command the Henrietta, a third rate, in the action of 25 July 1666, previous to which he had been knighted (State Papers, Dom., Charles II, clxiv. 124). In 1667 he was captain of the Cambridge at Portsmouth, but was employed by a special commission in command of the fireships for the protection of the Thames in June (Cal. State Papers, Dom., freq.; Pepys, 10 June). At this time he must have piqued Pepys's vanity, for the many entries concerning him in the ‘Diary’ are all abusive. According to these the men brought up from the Cambridge were ‘the most debauched, damning, swearing rogues that ever were in the navy,’ worthy of their commander, who was profane (14 June), useless (25 June), a coward (9 Aug.), a liar (28 Sept.), and as ‘idle and insignificant a fellow as ever came into the fleet’ (18 Feb. 1667–8).
After the peace with the Dutch, Holles appears to have held a commission in the land service, and (24 March 1667–8) while on guard entertained Pepys in a handsome room, with drink and the bagpipes, a ‘mighty barbarous music.’ In 1667 he was returned to parliament for Grimsby as his father's colleague. In 1672 he commanded the Cambridge in the squadron under Sir Robert Holmes [q. v.], which attacked the Dutch Smyrna fleet on its passage up Channel (13 March); and when Holmes's ship, the St. Michael, was disabled, he went on board the Cambridge. Holles fell in the battle of Solebay, 28 May, and was buried in St. Edmund's Chapel in Westminster Abbey (Nichols, Collect. vii. 376).
In 1662, being then ‘a bachelor,’ aged 21, he married Jane, daughter of Mr. Richard Lewis of Marr in Yorkshire, and widow of Mr. Crome, described as of St. Gabriel, Fenchurch, aged 30 (Chester, London Marriage Licenses, 24 Nov. 1662). By his will, dated 17 May 1665, proved 5 June 1672, he left her sole executrix and legatee. The name Frescheville has been spelt in many different ways; the spelling here followed is that of Holles's own signature (Egerton MS. 928, f. 40).
[Charnock's Biog. Nav. i. 236; List of Commissions in Public Record Office.]