HOLTE, JOHN (fl. 1495), grammarian, was a native of Sussex. He graduated B.A., was elected probationer of Magdalen College, Oxford, on 27 July 1490, and on 26 July 1491 was admitted perpetual fellow. About 1494 he was appointed usher of Magdalen College School, proceeded M.A., and became famous for his teaching. He resigned the ushership in 1495. Holte was author of the first Latin grammar printed in England, entitled ‘Lac puerorum. M. holti Mylke for Chyldren,’ 4to, Wynkyn de Worde, London (1510?), and Richard Pynson, London (1520), which was honoured with two commendatory epigrams by Sir Thomas More.
One John Holt was vicar of Piddletrenthide, Dorsetshire, from 1498 until his death in August 1506 (Hutchins, Dorsetshire, 2nd edit. ii. 484). In his will (P.C.C. 10, Adeane) he does not refer to his university.
Another John Holte succeeded Thomas Bele as suffragan to Fitzjames, bishop of London (1506-22), under the title of Bishop of Lydda. He lived mostly at Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk. He was employed to lay the first stone of Cardinal Wolsey’s college at Ipswich on 15 June 1528. He died at Bury in August 1540. In his will (P.C.C. 10, Alenger) he desired to be buried in St, Mary’s Church, Bury, ‘in our Ladys. Ile, next to vnto the hedde of John holt, gent,’ and he possessed property at Barton, near Bury. He seems to have been a native of Suffolk, and cannot, therefore, be identical with the grammarian.
[Wood’s Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), i. 14; Bloxam’s Reg. of Magd. Coll. Oxford, iii. 15-19, 43.]
HOLTE, Sir THOMAS (1571–1654), royalist, the eldest son of Edward Holte of the Manor House, Duddeston, Warwickshire, by his wife Dorothy, daughter of John Ferrers of Tamworth Castle, Staffordshire, was born in 1571. In 1599 he served as sheriff of Warwickshire, and on 18 April 1603 was knighted by James I. In July 1608 Holte obtained damages against one William Astgrigg for the slanderous statement made by him that ‘Sir Thomas Holte tooke a cleever, and hytt hys cooke with the same cleever uppon the heade, and clave his heade, that one side thereof fell uppone one of his shoulders, and the other side on the other shoulder, and this I will veryfie to be trewe.’ On appeal, however, it was ingeniously argued that although it had been stated that the halves of the cook’s head had fallen on either shoulder, there was no averment that the cook was killed, and the judgment of the king’s bench was consequently given in favour of the appellant (Croke, Reports, 1791, ii. 184). This slander gave rise to the curious local tradition that Holte murdered his cook in a cellar at Duddeston, ‘by running him through with a spit,’ and was subsequently compelled by way of punishment, to adopt the red hand (i.e. the Ulster badge) on his arms. Holte was created a baronet on 25 Nov. 1612, and in April 1618 began the erection of Aston Hall, which was not completed until April 1633, though he took up residence there in May 1631. He was nominated by Charles I ambassador to Spain, but was excused by reason of his age. On the breaking out of civil war he assisted the king with his purse, though he was unable to take active service in the field. In October 1642, shortly before the battle of Edgehill, he entertained the king at Aston Hall for two nights. In December of the following year the hall was attacked by a party of parliamentarians from Birmingham. After a gallant defence Holte was compelled on the third day of the siege to surrender (Life, Diary, and Correspondence of Sir W. Dugdale, 1827, p. 57). Besides being imprisoned, Holte suffered severely for his loyalty, as his monument in Aston Church records. He died in December 1654, aged 83, and was buried at Aston on 14 Dec.
He married first, Grace, daughter and co-heiress of William Bradbourne of Hough, Derbyshire, by whom he had fifteen children. His second wife was Anne, the youngest daughter of Sir Edward Littleton of Pillaton Hall, Staffordshire, by whom he had no issue. His widow survive him, and subsequently married the Hon. Charles Leigh, the third son of Thomas, first lord Leigh, and died on 2 Nov. 1697. Holte outlived all his children with the exception of his daughter Grace, who was the wife first of Sir Richard Shuckburgh of Shuckburgh, Warwickshire, knight, and secondly of John Keatinge, lord chief justice of the common pleas in Ireland, and died at Dublin on 12 April 1677. Holte’s second son Edward, who incurred his father’s resentment by marrying Elizabeth, the elder daughter of Dr. King, bishop of London, was groom of the bedchamber to Charles I. He was wounded at the battle of Edgehill, and died of fever during the siege of Oxford in August 1643. On the death of Sir Charles Holte, the sixth baronet, in March 1782, the
