A Brief History of Aston Hall
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Who Were The Holtes?
The Holte family were highly influential as one of the great Warwickshire families who undertook much of the county’s administration during the 16th and 17th centuries. The Holte family lived at Aston Hall for nearly 200 years and owned much property dating back to the 14th century. The man responsible for the family’s growth in prosperity was Sir Thomas Holte, who built Aston Hall.
The Holte family name can be traced back to 1331 when Simon del Holte purchased the manor of Nechells through money made in the wool trade. In the early 16th century, John Holte went on to acquire the manors of Duddeston and Aston. Thomas Holte (Sir Thomas’ grandfather) later added several hundred acres from adjoining manors.
Sir Thomas Holte 1571-1654
Sir Thomas Holte, the eldest son of Edward Holte and Dorothy Ferrers, was born in 1571, and is the reason Aston Hall exists. Thomas studied at Magdelen College, Oxford from 1588 to 1590. Determined to do well in life, he bought the manors of Lapworth and Bushwood in Warwickshire, as land was a sign of status and a great economic resource in the 16th and 17th centuries. In 1599, he purchased the lay rectory of Aston. With an income of nearly £2,000 a year, he was one of Warwickshire’s leading landowners and was given the title of High Sheriff, a law enforcement position.
As a statement of his wealth and power, and to reflect his status in society, Holte embarked on the task of building Aston Hall in April 1618. He purposely chose a site on a hill for the Hall, which was visible for miles around. The Hall itself took seventeen years to build and is one of the finest examples of Jacobean architecture in England. During this time, he also married Grace Bradbourne, the daughter of William Bradbourne of Hough in Derbyshire. Grace and Sir Thomas had fifteen children but she died before the completion of Aston Hall in 1635. He later married Anne Littleton who was nearly forty years his junior.
Sir Thomas outlived all but one of his children, living to the grand age of 83. His children did not succeed him, leaving the estate to fall to his grandson Robert Holte who was Edward Holte’s son.
Five Baronets followed thereafter, keeping the family name associated with the Hall for the next 128 years.
Mary Elizabeth Holte was the last direct family member but due to a lack of male heirs, the estate was passed to the Legge family, who were linked by marriage.
Sir Thomas, His Son and the King
Sir Thomas Holte, although a rich and educated man, was also reputed to have been mean and vindictive. His quarrel with his oldest son, Edward, was to last nearly 20 years and involve King Charles I himself. Edward Holte had gone to London in 1619. In time he became one of the grooms of the King’s Bedchamber – the most personal servants to the King. Grooms would sleep at the King’s door and dress him in the morning.
Sir Thomas’s plans for his son included him making a good marriage that would advance the family further. Instead, Edward met and fell in love with Elizabeth King, a girl who had no particular prospects or money. Sir Thomas did not approve and disinherited Edward. Elizabeth however, had friends at court and her father had been Bishop of London. In August 1627 King Charles I intervened and wrote to Sir Thomas:
Wee have taken knowledge of a marriage between your sonne and a daughter of the late Bishop...and your dislike thereof...
Sir Thomas was ordered to restore Edward to favour and although he grudgingly made a marriage settlement, he made it clear that Edward could expect no more.
In 1631 the King summoned Sir Thomas before him to explain why he was refusing to accept Edward as his heir. Sir Thomas managed to convince the King that he had other financial pressures (building Aston Hall for example) and that things would be settled with Edward later on. Instead, he made his younger son George his heir. Edward, heavily in debt agreed to this and in return Sir Thomas paid off Edward’s £5,000 worth of debts.
King Charles accused Sir Thomas of going back on his word and summoned him to stand before a Privy Council where he was ordered not to leave London. The King clearly felt Sir Thomas was evasive at the very least. It is likely that Charles’s visit to Aston Hall in 1642, at the King’s very hour of need, was to ensure that he had Sir Thomas’s unwavering support.
After many more years of feuding and petitioning, and the untimely death of George Holte, Edward was still not reinstated as heir. In the end, Edward died before Sir Thomas and therefore would never have become the second Baronet.
King Charles I
Between 1629 and 1640, Charles I went further than his father James I in disagreeing with Parliament over religion and money, by trying to rule the country without it. This period, known as the “Personal Rule” or “Eleven Years’ Tyranny”, fuelled the conflict between King and Parliament that in 1642 led to the start of the English Civil War.
In January 1642 Charles, furious with MPs binging in law’s trying to limit his power, demanded their arrest. They had been warned in advance and had escaped. King Charles left London and raised an army of supporters and declared war.
In December 1643, Sir Thomas Holte wrote to Colonel Leveson, the royalist governor of Dudley Castle, and asked the he garrison Aston Hall. The detachment of forty musketeers fortified the house and in doing so sent a clear message that Sir Thomas Holte was with the King. Aston Hall was about to enter into one of the most turbulent periods of English history.
Arms, Equipment and Troops
At the start of the English Civil War, Regiments were generally raised and commanded by the local gentry. They paid for and equipped these troops from their own resources. Many of the ordinary soldiers were tenants and servants of the Commanding Officer. Sir Thomas did not raise a Regiment but his servants bravely defended the house during the Christmas siege. The ordinary foot soldiers of the English Civil War were armed as either musketeers or pikemen.
There would be two musketeers to every pikeman. Pikemen moved on the battlefield in large numbers, organised in various formations including a square and a hedgehog. They were highly effective against a cavalry charge.
Musketeers wore no armour ad generally used a matchlock musket. Loading and firing took time, but a good musketeer could fire three rounds in a minute. Both musketeers and pikeman wore swords for combat at close quarters. The cannons were fired from artillery set up in the parkland to the south of Aston Hall.
The heavier guns used throughout the Civil War by the artillery would have been deployed generally in siege warfare. The smaller guns were more mobile and could follow an advancing army. The process for loading and firing was lengthy and complex by today’s standards. Although the impact on buildings could be very destructive, cannon shot could also lay terrible waste to a body of men on the battlefield.
Birmingham and The Civil War
In 1643 King Charles appointed Prince Rupert commander of Royalist forces in the Midlands. One of the greatest concerns at this time was the need to secure a safe route for Queen Henrietta Maria from York to the King in his wartime capital of Oxford. With this in mind Rupert set about reducing Parliamentarian strongholds in the Midlands.
Birmingham at this time had no walls or natural defence. The city was a Parliamentary stronghold. Most of Warwickshire was under Parliamentary control. Troops made good use of the local iron industry for arms manufacturing. A force of 200 Parliamentarians command by Captain Greaves was positioned behind earthworks at Camp Hill. On the 3rd April 1643 Prince Rupert advanced on Birmingham with 1,200 horse and 700 foot soldiers.
As Greave’s troops withdrew further into Birmingham, Rupert’s soldiers eventually gained ground and were victorious. The Royalist troops plundered and burnt the suburb of Deritend before moving on leaving devastation to many including Sir Thomas Holte who lost £1,000 worth of property.
After the War
Aston Hall fell to the Parliamentarian forces on the third day of the siege. Sir Thomas Holte was immediately taken into custody, “without a shirt to shift him”.
For the household and the garrisoned troops things could have been much worse as many other local houses were attacked and destroyed having suffered enormous casualties. Sir Thomas was not kept a prisoner for long, but was now regarded as a declared Royalist. His estates were confiscated to two occasions while investigations into his support for the Royalist cause were carried out.
On the 20th February he finally paid a fine of £4,491 2s 4d an enormous sum which damaged the family’s finances for years afterwards.
In the 1650s Sir Robert Holte transformed the south front of the Hall. The projecting porch and bays were demolished leaving a more symmetrical and fashionable facade and disguising the damage suffered during the bombardment. The damage to the Great Stairs was left as a badge of honour; a reminder to the generations that followed of the role the house and family played in the Civil War.
The Holtes debts were eventually cleared by Sir Charles, third baronet, whose careful management allowed the estates to flourish again. As time passed, the damaged balustrade, and the occasional unearthed musket shot, are really the only reminders of this violent and critical period in the history of the Hall.