Life

The son of Philemon Holland

Philemon Holland

Philemon Holland was an English translator.His father, John Holland, was a clergyman who fled the Kingdom of England during the persecutions of Mary I of England...

, was born at Coventry on 29 September 1583. He came to London as a youth, and usually designated himself ‘Londonopolitanus.’ He was made free of the Stationers' Company 5 December 1608.

In 1613 he accompanied John Harington, 1st Baron Harington of Exton

John Harington, 1st Baron Harington of Exton

John Harington was an English courtier and politician.-Life:He was the son of James Harington and was knighted in 1584...

, whose family had been on friendly terms with his father, to the Palatinate, when Harington accompanied Elizabeth of Bohemia

Elizabeth of Bohemia

Elizabeth of Bohemia was the eldest daughter of King James VI and I, King of Scotland, England, Ireland, and Anne of Denmark. As the wife of Frederick V, Elector Palatine, she was Electress Palatine and briefly Queen of Bohemia...

 to the home of her husband, Frederick V, Elector Palatine

Frederick V, Elector Palatine

Frederick V was Elector Palatine , and, as Frederick I , King of Bohemia ....

.

Holland's last days were spent in poverty. On 26 June 1647 was issued a broadsheet addressed appealing for charitable aid: it cited his anti-Catholic views and service in the life-guards of Basil Feilding, 2nd Earl of Denbigh

Basil Feilding, 2nd Earl of Denbigh

Basil Feilding, 2nd Earl of Denbigh was the eldest son of William Feilding, 1st Earl of Denbigh.Like his father, the son was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He was summoned to the House of Lords as Baron Feilding in March 1629...

, and support from William Gouge

William Gouge

William Gouge was an English clergyman and author. He was a minister and preacher at St Ann Blackfriars for 45 years, from 1608, and a member of the Westminster Assembly from 1643.-Life:...

 amongst others. The title-page of his father's posthumously published Regimen shows that Holland was still alive in 1649.

Works

The first book published by him was Thomas Draxe

Thomas Draxe

Thomas Draxe was an English divine, a theological and classical author.-Life:Draxe was born at Stoneleigh, near Coventry, Warwickshire...

's ‘Sicke Man's Catechisme,’ London, 1609, which was licensed to Holland and John Wright jointly on 4 February 1609. In 1610 he published from a previously unprinted manuscript ‘A Royal Elegie’ on Edward VI, by Sir John Cheke.

Holland acted also as a compiler, and his reputation made by two illustrated antiquarian works, with letterpress from his own pen. The earlier was Baziliωlogia The engravers employed included Renold Elstracke

Renold Elstracke

-Biography:Reginol was born in 1570. He was the son of Joselphe Elstrage of Lukeland, Liège, who came to England in 1552. He was in all probability a pupil of Crispin van de Passe the elder at Cologne, and came to England at the same time and under the same circumstances as the younger members of...

, Simon Pass, and Francis Delaram

Francis Delaram

Francis Delaram , was an English engraver.Delaram has left behind a substabtial collection of engraved portraits, landscapes and book illustrations , but his life is practically unknown. Sidney Colvin wrote that Delaram, most likely, was born in Flanders...

 (who made the portraits of Queens Mary and Elizabeth and Princes Henry and Charles). There were 31 portraits besides the title-page engraved with portraits of James I and Queen Anne. The title-page plate was used with fresh lettering for the title of Giovanni Francesco Biondi's ‘Civil Wars of England’ (1641), translated by Henry Carey, 2nd Earl of Monmouth

Henry Carey, 2nd Earl of Monmouth

Henry Carey, 2nd Earl of Monmouth was an English nobleman and translator born in Bolton, Lancashire, England to Robert Carey, 1st Earl of Monmouth and Elizabeth Trevannion. On 6 November 1652 Henry married Martha Cranfield daughter of Lionel Cranfield, 1st Earl of Middlesex and Elizabeth Shepard...

.

Holland's second illustrated publication Herωologia Anglica, called by Roy Strong

Roy Strong

Sir Roy Colin Strong FRSL is an English art historian, museum curator, writer, broadcaster and landscape designer. He has been director of both the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London...

 a "Protestant pantheon". It appeared in 1620 in two folio volumes, the first dedicated to James I and the second to the universities of Cambridge and Oxford. Holland's letterpress is in Latin throughout. The work opens with a portrait of Henry VIII, and closes with one of Thomas Holland

Thomas Holland (translator)

Thomas Holland was an English Calvinist scholar and theologian, and one of the translators of the King James Version of the Bible.He was a 1570 graduate of Exeter College, Oxford and Fellow of Baliol...

. There are sixty-five portraits in all, and two engravings of monuments (of Prince Henry and Queen Elizabeth respectively).

In 1614 Holland published, in conjunction with M. Laws, a compilation Monumenta Sepulchraria Sancti Pauli, A reissue, entitled ‘Ecclesia Sancti Pauli illustrata,’ and continued to 1633, was published (J. Norton … sold by H. Seyle) in 1633, with a dedication by Holland, addressed to William Laud

William Laud

William Laud was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633 to 1645. One of the High Church Caroline divines, he opposed radical forms of Puritanism...

, then bishop of London

Bishop of London

The Bishop of London is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of London in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers 458 km² of 17 boroughs of Greater London north of the River Thames and a small part of the County of Surrey...

, and to the dean and chapter of St Paul's Cathedral

St Paul's Cathedral

St Paul's Cathedral, London, is a Church of England cathedral and seat of the Bishop of London. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. St Paul's sits at the top of Ludgate Hill, the highest point in the City of London, and is the mother...

.

Other publications included

• ‘Newes from Frankfort,’ 1612;
• ‘Newes from Gulick and Cleve,’ 1615 (jointly with G. Gibbs).

In 1626 he printed at his own expense and published at Cambridge his brother Abraham Holland's posthumous works as ‘Hollandi Posthuma.’ To ‘Salomon's Pest House,’ by I. D., which he published with T. Harper in 1630, he added ‘Mr. Hollands Admonition,’ a poem by his brother Abraham.

Holland helped his father with his later publications. He wrote the dedication to Charles I of his father's Cyropædia of Xenophon

Xenophon

Xenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates...

 (1632), and edited after Dr. Holland's death his Latin version of Brice Bauderon's ‘Pharmacopœia’ in 1639, and his ‘Regimen Sanitatis Salerni’ in 1649.