for Northamptonshire in March 1643 (Husbands, p. 942; cf. Cal. State Papers, 1645, p. 411). Knightley strongly disapproved of the plans for bringing the king to trial; was consequently imprisoned by the army from 6 to 20 Dec. 1648, and was excluded from the parliament (A full Declaration of the true state of the Secluded Members' Case, 1660, 4to, p. 55). He had a license to go abroad, 24 June 1651 (Cal. State Papers, 1651, p. 529), and in December 1655 he was included in a list drawn up by the quakers of those ‘who do not persecute but are loving to Friends’ (ib. 1655–6, p. 64). He sat in Richard Cromwell's parliament in January 1658–9 as member for Northamptonshire, and was suggested as speaker 9 March 1659, when he excused himself from taking the office (cf. Burton, Diary, vol. iv.; Clarendon State Papers, iii. 433). As an opponent of the army he was not summoned to the Rump—the restored Long parliament in May 1659. But on 7 May he and Prynne made an attempt to enter the house (A true and perfect Relation of what was done between Mr. Prynne and the Secluded Members and those now sitting, 1659, pp. 4, 7). On 17 Feb. 1659–60 he took part in the conference between the secluded and sitting members, and as soon as the former members took their places he was elected (23 Feb.) member of the council of state which arranged the recall of the king. At the coronation of Charles II (April 1661) he was created a knight of the Bath. He died in London on 22 June 1661, and was buried on 6 July at Fawsley. He married in 1647 a second wife, Ann, daughter of Sir William Courten, and widow of Essex Devereux, son and heir of Walter Devereux, fifth viscount Hereford. His widow was buried at Fawsley on 5 Feb. 1702–3, aged 88. By her Knightley had two sons, Richard (1647–1655) and Essex (1649–1671). The latter's widow, Sarah, daughter of Thomas Foley of Witley, married as second husband John Hampden the younger [q. v.]
[Notes kindly supplied by Prof. C. H. Firth; Le Neve's Pedigrees of Knights (Harl. Soc.), pp. 17–18; Baker's Northamptonshire, i. 389 sq.; Northamptonshire Notes and Queries, i. 120–1; Beesley's Hist. of Banbury, 1841; Forster's Sir John Eliot; Return of Members of Parliament. A Richard Knightley, who, according to Wood, joined the royalist standard in 1642, and on his arrival with the Marquis of Hertford's army in Oxford was created M.A. on 16 Jan. 1642–3 (Wood's Fasti, ed. Bliss, ii. 33), was probably son of a distant connection of the family of Fawsley, Edward Knightley, a royalist.]
KNIGHTON (or CNITTHON, as he himself spells the name), HENRY (fl. 1363), historical compiler, was a canon of St. Mary's Abbey, Leicester. He is the author of a ‘Compilatio de eventibus Angliæ,’ a work in four books beginning with Edgar and ending in 1366. His name, Henricus Cnitthon, is supplied by the initial letters of the sixteen chapters of each of the first three books. In his prologue he states that he follows the seventh book of Cestrensis (i.e. Higden), and that he adds to his extracts from him the accounts of other matters, ‘quæ aspectui meo sparsim se obtulerant.’ But he carefully conceals that almost the whole of the additional matter, with the exception of a few references to Leicester and its abbey, is transcribed from Walter of Hemingburgh. When Hemingburgh speaks of his own monastery (Gisburn) as ‘nostram,’ this is altered to its own name (e.g. ‘quandam ecclesiam de Gysburne,’ Twysden, col. 2522). At the end of the third book he states that he is proceeding alone, and the fourth book, which is not divided into chapters, and occupies from 1337 to 1366, may be original. It gives nearly the same sequence of events as is found in Robert of Avesbury. He speaks of being present at the visit of Edward III to the abbey of Leicester in 1363. As the history breaks off abruptly in 1366, he probably did not survive that year.
A fifth book is added in the manuscripts, begun ten years later (1377), and carrying on the history to 1395. This is clearly the work of another writer, whose style as well as ‘his whole tone of speaking of church matters’ is very different from that of Knighton. The documents preserved by the continuator, the details respecting the rising of 1381, and those of the history and opinions of Wycliffe, are of great value. He ‘is a partisan of the Duke of Lancaster,’ and almost ‘the only writer of that day on the less popular side.’ He was clearly, like Knighton, a canon of St. Mary's, Leicester, but there is no clue to his name. The book was in the library of Leicester Abbey, as may be seen in Nichols's ‘History of Leicester,’ App. p. 102. It is preserved in two manuscripts in the Cotton collection in the British Museum, Claudius E. 3 and Tiberius C. 7, from the latter of which Twysden printed his edition in the ‘Decem Scriptores.’ A new edition is in progress in the Rolls Series, under the editorship of the Rev. Dr. Lumby.
[Authorities given in text.]
KNIGHTON, Sir WILLIAM (1776–1836), keeper of the privy purse to George IV, son of William Knighton, was born at Beer Ferris, Devonshire, in 1776. His family had an estate at Grenofen, Whitchurch, Devonshire, but his father was disinherited, and,
