drawn. By his judgment, however, in the Bankers’ case, decided in 1700, Holt showed that he was not disposed to take very narrow view of the royal prerogative. Charles II had in 1677, by letters patent, granted annuities out of the hereditary excise to some of the principal London bankers who were in the habit of accommodating him. Payment on these annuities had been suspended since 1683, and the bankers in 1700 sought to recover the arrears due to them by petition in the court of exchequer. It was urged against them that the grant was bad because it was by letters patent merely, and not by act of parliament. The barons, however, decided in favour of the bankers; and on appeal to the exchequer chamber, Holt affirmed their decision on the broad ground that, under the statute for the abolition of old tenures (12 Charles II, c. 24), the excise duties out of which annuities were payable became the property of the king, who could therefore dispose of them without the concurrence of parliament.
A judgement give by Holt in 1694 on the indictment of Charles Knollys, who claimed to be Earl of Banbury, for murder, involved him in a contest with the House of Lords. Knollys had presented a petition to the house, claimed to be tried by his peers. This the house dismissed. On the case coming before Holt, Knollys put in evidence a patent of Charles I, under which he claimed to be entitled to the peerage, and Holt, being of opinion that he had made out a primâ facie case, which nothing but a regular investigation by the committee of privileges could rebut, discharged him. The House of Lords, summoned Holt to their bar, and required him to give an account of his judgment. This he resolutely refused to do. There was some vague talk of committing him for contempt, but the matter dropped.
In 1701 Holt also showed himself a stout supporter of the political rights of voters against the corrupt tyranny of the House of Commons in the celebrated action Ashby v. White, in which one Ashby proceeded against the returning officer of Aylesbury for having failed to record his vote, and the House of Commons interfered to protect the returning officer. A mythical story was current in the last century to the effect that while this case was pending the speaker of the House of Commons, in full state and with a numerous train of attendants, presented himself in court while Holt was sitting, and threatened him with committal; and that Holt in reply bade him begone, or he would forthwith commit him, had he all the House of Commons in his belly (Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. App. 759; Shower, Cases in Parliament, p. 111; Lord Raymond, Rep. i. 11 et seq.)
On the dismissal of Lord Somers [q. v.], 17 April 1700, Holt was offered the great seal, but declined it, alleging by way of excuse his almost total lack of experience of chancery business. He acted, however, as chief commissioner of the seal until the appointment of Sir Nathan Wright, 31 May 1700 (Cole, Memoirs of Affairs of State, p. 128; Noble, Cont. of Granger’s Biog. Hist. of England, i. 164; Hardy, Cat. Of Lords Chanc. &c.) Ill-health compelled him to withdraw from the court of king’s bench in February 1709-10. He died on 5 March following at his house in Bedford Row and was buried in the parish church of Redgrave, Suffolk, the manor of which he had purchased from Sir Robert Bacon, a descendant of Sir Nicholas Bacon [q. v.] Having no children he devised the manor to his nephews, subject to a life estate in their father Roland, who placed in the church a marble monument to his memory, representing him seated in a chair, and wearing his judicial robes. Holt married by license, date 28 June 1675, Anne, daughter of Sir John Cropley of Clerkenwell, bart., who survived him. She is said to have been a shrew (Lord Raymond, Rep. 1309; Wotton, Baronetage, i. 14). Holt provided for her by a rent-charge of 700l. per annum.
Holt sat to Steele for the portrait of Verus (Tatler, xiv.), the magistrate who ‘always sat in triumph over and contempt of vice,’ who ‘never searched for it or spared it when it came before him,’ yet ‘could see through the hypocrisy and disguise of those who have no pretence to virtue but their severity to the vicious.’ As an administrator of criminal law, Holt shone by contrast to his immediate predecessors, such as Scroggs and Jeffreys, at once cruel and corrupt. He was scrupulously fair to the accused as Sir Matthew Hale. He discontinued the brutal practice of bringing the prisoner into court in irons. In cases where the law did not permit the accused person the assistance of counsel, Holt aided him personally, refused to admit evidence tending merely to blacken his character, and, while adhering to the bad practice of interrogating him, never sought to browbeat him, was tolerant of interruption on his part, during his summing-up, and in one case (that of Lord Preston tried for high treason in 1691) even permitted him to have the last word with the jury [see Graham, Richard, Viscount Preston, 1648-1695]. With regard to witchcraft, he was as sceptical as Hale was credulous, not one case of that kind which he tried resulting in a conviction; and ultimately too to treating the prosecutors in such
