KNIGHT, Thomas (by 1475-1518/20), of Walford in Baschurch and Shrewsbury, Salop.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. by 1475, 1st s. of Roger Knight of Shrewsbury by Jane, da. of William Mytton of Weston-under-Lizard, Staffs. m. Elizabeth, da. of Nicholas Pontesbury, 3s. 5da.2

Offices Held

Warden, Shrewsbury drapers’ co. 1497-9, 1505-7; alderman, Shrewsbury by 1501, bailiff 1501-2, 1505-6, 1509-10, 15I3-14, 1517-18; escheator, Salop 1512-13; commr. subsidy, Shrewsbury 1514, 1515.3

Biography

Thomas Knight came of a leading Shrewsbury family and was related through his mother to those of Mytton and Corbet. His father was bailiff of Shrewsbury five times between 1465 and 1488 and his uncle Henry Knight was a clerk of the signet, but a Northamptonshire namesake who was also a clerk of the signet and, from 1543, clerk of the Parliaments seems to have been of a different family, although one branch of his own did settle at Charwelton in that county. In 1501 Knight and Humphrey Blike acted as feoffees for Lawrence Hosier alias Howels. Admitted to the drapers’ company in the year 1495-6, Knight was serving his third term as bailiff of Shrewsbury when he was returned to the Parliament of 1510 with his fellow-bailiff Roger Thornes. Since that Parliament lasted only 34 days, the entry in the Shrewsbury bailiffs’ accounts for 1509-10 of a payment of £10 to Knight and Thornes for 50 days’ expenses may mean that they had sat in the Parliament of 1504, for which the town’s Members are unknown. Shrewsbury was to be slow in paying Sir Thomas Kynaston and Thomas Trentham, the Members for 1512 and 1515 and the absence of Knight’s name from the assessment made for that purpose in 1519-20 has been taken to mean that he was then dead.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Muriel Booth

Notes

  • 1. Shrewsbury Guildhall 438, ff. 1-5; HMC 15th Rep. X, 31.
  • 2. Date of birth estimated from admission to drapers’ company. Vis. Salop (Harl. Soc. xxix), 289-90 where Knight’s wife is given as ‘Bonsbury’, 360; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 4), xii. 178.
  • 3. Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 1), iii. 251-3; (ser. 4), iii. 214, 245; H. Owen and J. B. Blakeway, Shrewsbury, i. 530; Statutes, iii. 119, 174.
  • 4. Owen and Blakeway, i. 529-30; Emden, Biog. Reg. Univ. Oxf. 1501-40, p. 332; Vis. Northants. ed. Metcalfe, 30, 105-6; CIPM Hen. VII, iii. 1068; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 4), iii. 213; Shrewsbury Guildhall 438, ff. 1-5; 986; HMC 15th Rep. X, 31.