KNATCHBULL, Sir Norton (1569-1636), of Mersham Hatch, Kent

Knatchbull’s ancestor, Richard Knatchbull of Lympne, bought Mersham Hatch, four miles south-east of Ashford, in the reign of Henry VII. E. Hasted, Kent, vii. 593-4. Following the death of his father in 1582, Knatchbull was educated at Cambridge and the Middle Temple alongside his two elder half-brothers. After a brief first marriage, he wed Bridget, one of the daughters of John Astley, master of the Jewel House, and so acquired property in Maidstone.Cent. Kent. Stud. U951/F9, 4 Dec. 1739, Curteis Wightwick to Sir Wyndham Knatchbull, Bt. notes on MIs. In February 1593 he unexpectedly inherited his family’s estate, including the 600-acre manor of Cheyney Court, after the deaths in rapid succession of his half-brothers and five-year old nephew, Thomas. Cent. Kent. Stud. U274/L4, pp. 1, 27-8. He subsequently improved the value of his holdings by draining land in Romney Marsh. E134/17Jas.I/Mich.9. According to a valuation of Kent’s gentry prepared for lord treasurer Salisbury (Robert Cecil†), he enjoyed an annual income of around £2,000. HMC Hatfield, xxii. 526.

Knatchbull was appointed to the bench in 1600, was knighted in April 1604, and licensed in the following August to travel abroad for a year. Between November 1606 and November 1607 he served as sheriff of Kent, but evidently neglected his duties, incurring fines totalling £106 13s. 4d. for failing to execute process. WARD 9/625, unfol. In 1610 he became the first member of his family to sit in Parliament after being returned for Hythe, eight miles from his home, at a by-election in October 1609. He left no trace in the records of the first Jacobean Parliament, and proved unwilling to serve again in 1614, preferring instead to manage the campaign for the county seat for his neighbour and former brother-in-law, Sir John Scott*. After sending a letter to the mayor of Hythe asking to be excused, he co-ordinated the quiet dispatch of Scott’s supporters to Maidstone, but to no avail. G. Wilks, Barons of Cinque Ports and Parl. Rep. of Hythe, 66; Cent. Kent. Stud. U1115/011.

Following the death of his second wife in 1625, Knatchbull married the widow of a wealthy London alderman, so bringing him within the orbit of lord keeper Sir Thomas Coventry*, whom he entertained in August 1635 at Mersham. Cent. Kent. Stud. PRC 32/52, f. 117. In April 1625 he wrote warmly in favour of Sir Edward Dering* for a parliamentary seat at Hythe. Wilks, 76-7. Sometime between July 1626 and March 1627 he was removed from the commission of the peace, perhaps for reasons connected with the Forced Loan. During the war years of the 1620s he kept himself informed of military developments on the Continent. Cent. Kent. Stud. U951/C261/13. Wealthy but childless, he founded Ashford grammar school, which he endowed in his will of 15 June 1636. His other bequests included £20 for the poor of Mersham, £10 for John Cragg, ‘the scholar in my house’ and £20 for ‘Mr. Henry Carpenter, minister, lately dwelling with me’. Cent. Kent. Stud. PRC 32/52, ff. 116-18v; Hasted, vii. 538. Though it was reported on 3 Dec. ‘that his stomach continues and he resteth reasonable well’, Knatchbull was buried at the church of St. John the Baptist, Mersham six days later. J.R. Scott, Scott, of Scot’s-Hall, p. xxxvi; Cent. Kent. Stud. P248/1/1. A monument, which included a fine, life-sized effigy in marble, was subsequently erected at the north wall of the chancel. J.H. Edinger, Par. Church of St. John the Baptist, Mersham, unpag.; Hasted, vii. 600. A three-quarter-length portrait, showing Knatchbull hand-in-hand with his third wife, painted in 1629, hung at Mersham Hatch in 1919. Cent. Kent. Stud. U951/F9, rough list of pictures, 1919. Knatchbull’s widow married Edward Scott*. His nephew and heir of the same names represented the county in the Short Parliament, sitting for New Romney until Pride’s Purge and again after the Restoration.