Named after a Howdenshire village they may have held shortly after the Conquest, the Hothams acquired their main seat at Scorborough, four miles north of Beverley, during the thirteenth century, and fought in the Hundred Years’ War, the Wars of the Roses and the border wars with Scotland.
Hotham’s elder brother died in infancy, and his father, clearly relieved to secure a male heir, included him in the family entail when he was only five. Still a minor at his first marriage, he was unable to assign his interest to trustees to create a jointure for his wife, a problem resolved by the passage of a private Act of Parliament in 1607.
Hotham played little part in local politics during the first decade of his adult life, although in January 1615 he was involved in a quarrel with Sir Thomas Hoby* over the latter’s attempt to prosecute 300 recusants at the East Riding quarter sessions. Sir William Constable 1st bt.*, John Legard* and several other magistrates protested against what they saw as an unacceptable intrusion into local affairs by Hoby, a North Riding man, who was particularly affronted when Hotham (only half his age) interrupted his address to the jury and asked to examine his evidences. Hoby, construing the bench’s lack of sympathy as evidence of a crypto-Catholic conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, sued in Star Chamber, but his charges appear to have been dismissed.
There is no firm evidence that Hotham sought a place in the Commons in 1624, but he may have considered standing, in view of his support for the Palatine cause. Sir William Alford* applied to the Beverley corporation for a seat, and Hotham, with whom Alford was paired as MP for the remainder of the decade, may have joined him.
Returned at Beverley in 1625, Hotham was clearly doubtful of his standing with the corporation, and was therefore also elected at Appleby on the interest of Francis (Clifford*), 4th earl of Cumberland. This was probably arranged by Cumberland’s erstwhile son-in-law, Sir Thomas Wentworth*, one of the candidates for the Yorkshire county seats, for whom Hotham canvassed in the East Riding.
Yorkshire’s political landscape had altered by the time Parliament next met in January 1626: Wentworth was excluded by his appointment as sheriff, and the senior county seat was taken by his rival Sir John Savile*, who looked to the duke of Buckingham for preferment. This explains Hotham’s outspoken criticism of both Savile and the favourite, first voiced in a debate of 17 Mar. on the failure of the recent attack on Cadiz. Buckingham’s policies were widely attacked, but it was Hotham who drew the obvious conclusion, formally moving that ‘the possession of many offices by one man’ should be cited as a grievance. A week later, a report blaming the increase of popery in Yorkshire on lord president Scrope and Buckingham’s other northern allies was dismissed by Savile, who suggested that recusancy was due to the lack of good preachers. Hotham joined Sir Thomas Hoby in asserting ‘that they have as many preachers and as good in Yorkshire as in any other place’, and he speculated that ‘Lord Scrope [is] continued and countenanced in his place, as may be guessed, by the duke’. In the subsidy debate of 27 Mar. Hotham agreed that the three subsidies then offered should all be paid within a year, but even this concession was aimed at Buckingham, as the grant was conditional on the redress of grievances, which focused on the favourite’s overweening influence at Court.
In addition to the impeachment charges brought against Buckingham by the Commons, other accusations were made by the duke’s bitterest enemy, (Sir) John (Digby*), earl of Bristol. On 4 May, Hotham moved to debate ‘whether the duke were a countenancer of popery or not’, a motion obviously concerted with Bristol, whose stepson, Sir Lewis Dyve, promptly offered testimony that the duke had adored the Host during a Catholic procession in Madrid in 1623.
Buckingham’s partisans took revenge on their tormentors a month after the dissolution, when Savile’s enemies, including Constable and Hotham, were purged from the Yorkshire commissions of the peace. In October, the two men were reported to the duke as being ‘in all things ... opposed to your Grace’,
Hotham supported Wentworth’s stand against the Saviles at the general election of 1628, lobbying the Cholmleys, Sir Matthew Boynton* and Sir Henry Griffith shortly before the election.
Hotham also struck back at his local enemies in Parliament. On 12 May he was added to the committee charged with drawing up a list of recusant officeholders: Buckingham’s Yorkshire allies Lords Scrope (now earl of Sunderland) and Dunbar were included, despite the efforts of their supporters to get their names removed.
Hotham was one of the main beneficiaries of Wentworth’s appointment as president of the Council in the North in December 1628: he regained his place on the East Riding bench, became a deputy lieutenant, advised Wentworth about the replacement of Dunbar’s clique in the East Riding lieutenancy, and was appointed to the Council in the North in June 1629. He apparently also gained the honorific title of governor of Hull.
Hotham was one of Wentworth’s most energetic subordinates during the early years of the Personal Rule. In January 1630 he complained to Wentworth about official letters suspending recusancy prosecutions, warning that this would disrupt Wentworth’s composition scheme. Commended as ‘very forward’ over the collection of knighthood fines by Sir Thomas Tildesley, he was doubtless disappointed by Wentworth’s decision to appoint Sir Edward Osborne* as vice-president of the Council in the North on his departure for Ireland in 1633, although he deputized during Osborne’s absence in the summer of 1635.
Hotham broke with Wentworth over the Covenanter revolt: Wentworth sought his advice about the guardianship of the grandson of Sir Thomas Fairfax II* as late as November 1637, but when Osborne asked for assistance over the mustering of the militia in July 1638, he proved uncharacteristically reluctant, ‘alleging ‘tis now harvest time’.
Hotham finally turned his back on Wentworth in March 1640, when he played a key role in the county’s refusal to provide reinforcements for the Berwick garrison until the cost of levying the troops was settled.
Although ejected from the Commons on 7 Sept. 1643, Hotham was only court-martialled after his correspondence with the royalist commander, the duke of Newcastle (Sir William Cavendish II*) was captured at Marston Moor. Found guilty on 7 Dec. 1644, his execution was delayed to allow him to settle his affairs,
Hotham’s abandonment of his erstwhile allies in both 1640 and 1643 naturally led contemporary commentators to draw an unflattering picture of his motives: King Charles (or his amanuensis) recorded in the Eikon Basilike that ‘Sir John Hotham was ... most liable to those downright temptations of ambition which have no cloak or cheat of religion to impose upon themselves or others’.
Sir John was a man of good understanding and ingenuity, yet of a rash and hasty nature, and so much wedded to his own honour as his passion often overbalanced his judgment, and yet he was able to give good counsel and advice where his own interest was not concerned.
Clarendon SP, ii. 181-6.
While these judgments were largely made in the light of Hotham’s later career, they can be applied with equal force to the period before the Civil War: Hotham called for the investigation of Savile’s commission for compounding with recusants, but then condoned Wentworth’s use of the same device; he opposed the Forced Loan, but was one of the most zealous enforcers of knighthood fines and Ship Money. In February 1639 Wentworth observed that ‘there is somewhat more will and party than I could wish, but he [Hotham] is very honest, faithful and hearty whichsoever way he inclines, and to be won and framed as you please with good usage’.