[5] He played a prominent role in organising support for the Petition of Right and on 2 March 1629 was one of those who famously forced the Speaker to continue sitting, thus preventing Charles dissolving Parliament.

Shortly after the House of Commons assembled, it was presented with the Root and Branch petition, signed by 15,000 Londoners; they demanded the expulsion of bishops and an end to "Catholic practices" in the Church of England.

[11] Since respect for the institution of monarchy prevented direct attacks on Charles, the alternative was to prosecute his 'evil counsellors'; in December, Parliament began the impeachment of Laud and Strafford, Holles' former brother-in-law.

[2] The outbreak of the Irish Rebellion in October brought matters to a head since although both Charles and Parliament supported raising troops to suppress it, neither trusted the other with their control.

[14] Holles helped John Pym draft the Grand Remonstrance, presented to Charles on 1 December 1641; this led to the creation of a separate Royalist party, headed by those like Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon who felt Parliament was now seeking too much power.

[18] With both sides preparing for hostilities, Holles was appointed to the Committee of Safety on 4 July 1642, and helped organise the Dorset militia before returning to London to raise a regiment of infantry.

In return for £400,000, the Scots handed Charles over to Parliament in February, and he was held at Holdenby House, guarded by troops under Colonel Edward Rossiter, a Presbyterian MP who later married Holles' niece Arabella.

Fearing he was going to be restored without significant concessions, soldiers commanded by Cromwell and Thomas Fairfax entered the city on 7 August and demanded the removal of those viewed as leaders of the opposition.

When agents intercepted communications from Charles to his supporters telling them to disregard any agreement he might make, the Army issued a "Remonstrance" claiming further talks were pointless.

This resulted in Pride's Purge the next day, when MPs who had voted in favour were arrested by troops as they tried to enter the House; pre-warned, Holles once again escaped to Caen in France.

One suggestion is this was partly to get him out of the way, due to disagreements within the Convention over the terms; Parliamentarian moderates like Holles wanted to restore the monarchy based on the 1648 Treaty of Newport, while Royalists demanded a return to the 1630s.

[2] He was recalled in January 1666 when France joined the Second Anglo-Dutch War as an ally of the Dutch Republic; on 14 November, the diarist Samuel Pepys recorded "Sir George Carteret tells me...my Lord Holles had been with him and wept to think in what a condition we are fallen.

[33] Holles argued against it and his house in Convent Garden became a meeting place for opposition leaders, including his long time associate Lord Shaftesbury.

He urged the Lords to vote against the Conventicles Act 1670 and like many in Parliament viewed England's alliance with France and involvement in the 1672 to 1674 Third Anglo-Dutch War as a betrayal of the Protestant cause.

[2] In early 1673, English politics was further destabilised by the prospect of a Catholic monarch when Charles' heir and younger brother James, Duke of York publicly confirmed his conversion, and for the next 18 months, a small group of peers led by Holles and Shaftesbury attacked him in the Lords.

[36] In "The British Constitution Consider'd", published in 1676, Holles argued the prorogation of Parliament for more than a year was contrary to statute, and called for new Parliamentary elections to guarantee accountability.

He claimed this would mitigate public concern over Charles' moves towards arbitrary government and French interference in English affairs driven by Louis XIV's desire for 'Universal monarchy'.

[38] During the Exclusion Crisis, a period of political turmoil triggered by attempts to exclude James from the succession, he backed Halifax, who was willing to allow him to succeed with strict limitations, rather than Shaftesbury, who wanted him removed entirely.