KNIGHT, John (?1686-1733), of Gosfield Hall, Essex.

Knight, whose father was expelled from the House in 1698 for false endorsing of exchequer bills, acquired by purchase and foreclosure the Cornish estates of John Tredenham, M.P. (d. 1710), carrying an interest for one seat at St. Mawes.W. P. Courtney, Parl. Rep. Cornw. 92. He bought Gosfield Hall in 1715,Morant, Essex, ii. 382. when he was returned as an administration candidate for St. Germans, voting with the Government. Returned for Sudbury in 1722, and again in 1727, when he was also returned for St. Mawes, he voted against the Government on the civil list arrears, 1729, for them on the Hessians, 1730, against them on the army, 1732, but for them on the excise bill, 1733, seconding the Address, 16 Jan. 1733.HMC Egmont Diary, i. 307. He died 2 Oct. 1733. His widow and heir erected a splendid monument by Rysbrack with an inscription by PopePope, Works (ed. Elwin Courthope), ix. 455-6, 475. to his memory in Gosfield church, but, marrying Robert Nugent soon afterwards, she ‘ordered it to be enclosed ... with a wainscot screen to shut it off from her sight when she went to church, which, however, she seldom did’.HMC Portland, vi. 70.