Queries,’ 3rd ser. vi. 1–3, 21–3. The younger son, Sir Thomas, was third baronet (d. 1711). By his second wife, Dorothy, daughter of Sir Robert Honywood [q. v.] of Charing, Kent, and relict of Sir Edward Stewart, kt., he had no issue. A contemporary half-length portrait of Knatchbull by Hoogstraten has been engraved (Evans, ii. 234).
[Hasted's Kent, iii. 287, ii. 127, 444; Wotton's Baronetage, i. 402; Collins's English Baronetage, ii. 232; Addit. MS. 5520, ff. 257–8 (pedigree); M'Clintock and Strong's Cyclop. Eccles. Lit. v. 124; Duport's Musæ Subsecivæ, pp. 262, 295, 309, 311; Life of Dr. R. Warren, prefixed to his Sermons, 1739, pp. iiisq.; Knatchbull's Works in Brit. Mus. Library; information kindly supplied by R. F. Scott, esq.]
KNELL, PAUL (1615?–1664), divine, graduated B.A. from Clare Hall, Cambridge, in 1635, and was incorporated D.D. at Oxford on 31 Jan. 1643. He was for some time ‘chaplain to a regiment of curiassiers in his majesty's army,’ a fact which he is careful to mention on the title of each of his sermons. He appears subsequently to have lived at Woodford in Essex, where in 1650 he joined other clergymen and gentry in a petition, ‘addressed to the charity of all good Christians,’ in behalf of ‘the King's servants to the number of forty, being in present distress by reason that their sole dependence was upon the late King's Majesty’ (Lysons, iv. 285). He became vicar of Newchurch, Romsey Marsh, in 1660, rector there in 1662, and vicar of St. Dunstan's, near Canterbury, in 1664. He died at St. Dunstan's, and was buried in the church 24 Aug. 1664 (Hasted, Kent, iii. 468, 594).
Knell published: 1. ‘Israel and England Paralelled (sic) in a Sermon preached before the Honourable Society of Grayes Inn, 16 April 1648. Addressed to all those who are friends to Peace and King Charles.’ 2. ‘The Life Guard of a Loyal Christian. Preached at St. Peter's, Cornhill, 7 May 1648,’ and preceded by a prayer for the king. 3. ‘A Looking-glasse for Levellers, held out in a Sermon preached at St. Peter's, Paul's Wharf, 24 Sept. 1648.’ A savage attack upon the army and the independents, anathematising in particular the conduct of Fairfax and his ‘bloodhounds’ at Colchester; this passed through several editions. These three sermons with two others were published collectively in 1660, and again in 1661, under the title ‘Five Seasonable Sermons, preached before the King's Majesty beyond the Seas, and other eminent Auditories in England, formerly prohibited, but now published and dedicated to his Majesty.’
[Wood's Fasti, ed. Bliss, ii. 58; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
KNELL, THOMAS (fl. 1570), divine and verse-writer, was made rector of Wareham, Dorset, in 1569; he was appointed rector of St. Nicholas Acons, London, on 6 March 1570, and resigned before 3 March 1573. On 21 May 1571 he was instituted to the vicarage of Hackney, Middlesex, and on 19 May 1573 to that of St. Bride's. The last preferment he resigned at once, probably because he had become chaplain to Walter Devereux, first earl of Essex [q. v.] With Essex he proceeded to Ireland, and was present at the earl's death on 22 Sept. 1576. A contemporary copy of an account which he drew up of Essex's last illness is preserved in the British Museum (Add. MS. 32092, f. 5). He favoured the current rumour that the earl was poisoned. Knell was author of: 1. ‘Of the Hurt done in divers Parts of this Realm by a terrible Tempest, 20 Oct. 1570,’ 1571 (?). 2. ‘Epitaph on the Death of the Earl of Essex, in English verse’ (in Tanner's time among the Le Gros MSS.)
Knell has been confused with another author of the time, known as Thomas Knell, junior (fl. 1560–1581). The latter, who was probably Knell's son, and was also a clergyman, wrote: 1. ‘An A B C to the Christian Congregation,’ 1560 (?), a broadside. 2. ‘An Epitaph, or rather a short Discourse made upon the Life and Death of Dr. Boner,’ London, 1569, 12mo, reprinted in vol. i. of the ‘Harleian Miscellany.’ 3. ‘A pithy Note to Papists all and some that joy in Felton's Martyrdome,’ London, 1570, 12mo. A copy of this rare work is in the Lambeth Library. It has been reprinted by Collier in vol. i. of ‘Illustrations of Early English Popular Literature.’ 4. ‘An Answer at large to a most Hereticall and Papisticall Byll, in English Verse, which was cast abroade in the Streetes of Northampton, and brought before the Judges at the last Assizes there,’ London, 1570. A copy of this work is in the library of St. John's College, Cambridge, and it has been reprinted in the ‘Collection of Northamptonshire Reprints.’ Another edition, also issued in 1570, was in the Heber Library, and is now in the possession of Mr. S. Christie Miller. The two editions differ in the ‘Answer,’ but the ‘Bill’ of course remains the same. The work is an answer to a Romish ballad ridiculing the marriage of the English clergy. 5. ‘An Historical Discourse of the Life and Death of Dr. Story,’ 1571, 12mo, in English verse. This has been attributed to the elder Knell. 6. ‘A Treatise of the Use and Abuse of Prayer,’ London, 1581 (Tanner). The younger Knell was also author of the ‘Epistle to the Christian Reader’ prefixed to Northbrook's ‘Poore Man's Garden,’ 1573. All
