This distinguished MP was probably the Thomas Knolles who, in the late 1420s, claimed to have been cheated of property left to him in West Cheap, London, by his father, Richard Knolles. He may well have been a kinsman of Sir Robert Knolles, one of Edward III’s captains in France and a defender of the City during the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381: the two men were clearly on close terms, because on making his will in 1389 Sir Robert named Thomas among his executors.
Knolles’s increasingly generous loans to the Crown also suggest that his fortunes were rising steadily throughout this period. He lent £100 to Richard II at some point before 1397, but in common with most Londoners he was reluctant to offer him credit after this date. He was, on the other hand, more than willing to assist Henry IV, who borrowed heavily from him. Between 13 July 1400 and 9 June 1410 Knolles pledged at least 15 sums ranging from £20 to 500 marks (often on the security of the London customs of which he was himself a collector from 1400 to 1401). It is now impossible to calculate how much money he advanced altogether, although the King was rarely less than £100 in his debt at any one time. The £200 which he promised Henry V for his second expedition to France in 1417 was one of the largest sums then contributed by any individual citizen of London, and was to be repaid out of the wool subsidy due after February 1420. Knolles provided additional finance to the tune of £267 in May 1421; and five years later he joined with a group of Londoners to lend £130 to the Crown. In December 1429 he cashed tallies at the Exchequer for the £100 which Henry VI then owed him, but so far as is known this marks the end of his involvement in government borrowing. Only once, in December 1421 does he appear to have supplied the royal household with merchandise, but it is none the less possible that he also offered the Crown financial help in the form of goods supplied on credit. Certainly, in the summer of 1415, the receiver-general of the duchy of Lancaster was ordered to pay him £200, although the terms of the transaction are not recorded.
A substantial part of Knolles’s income seems to have been invested in land. By 1412 he enjoyed an annual income of about £38 from property in the City alone; and in the year after his death his eldest son, who had inherited most of his estates, was said to receive £120 a year from holdings both in and out of London. At the end of his life, Thomas Knolles the elder owned premises in at least eight city parishes. Some of these shops and tenements had been in his hands since the early 1390s while others were more recent purchases. He also acquired the advowson of the church of St. Margaret Pattens at some point before January 1425 when it passed into the hands of the bishop of London.
howe heynousely the pore tenantes cursed hym for his wrongfulle vexacion, And shewed how somme of theym were woxen madde, And somme were ronne awey for sorow, by whiche langage the same Knolles was gretely moeved.
Cal. P. and M. London, 1437-57, pp. 153-5.
The running of the manor had, in fact, been left to the grocer’s wife and one of his kinsmen, presumably to allow him more time for his business affairs and civic responsibilities. Nor was this the first time that he had sought to rationalize the management of his estates by hiving off the outlying parts. During the 1390s Knolles either sold land in Latton and Harlow in Essex or else settled it upon feoffees. He had evidently disposed of this property by the time of his death, and the nature of his title remains obscure. Most of the other holdings conveyed to him at various times in the home counties, Hampshire, Norfolk, Somerset and Wiltshire were clearly held in trust on behalf of others. He was, for example, a feoffee and executor of Richard Clitheroe I, who named him as an arbitrator when he was being sued by Robert Ashcombe in 1411; and he also held property to the use of his fellow grocer, John Welles III, as well as being a trustee of the influential crown servant, John Hotoft, and of Thomas, Lord Berkeley.
One of the few eminent citizens to serve two terms as mayor of London during the early 15th century, Knolles played a prominent part in civic affairs for over 40 years. He was among the 24 commoners who were summoned to accompany the dignitaries of London for a meeting with Richard II at Nottingham in June 1392; and, although he played no further part in the King’s quarrel with the City, he was made an alderman in the first elections following the restoration of normal government there. Knolles’s appointment as one of the four treasurers for the wars chosen by Parliament to supervise government expenditure in March 1404 is an indication of his standing and reputation for administrative skill, as well as his importance as a royal creditor. He is not known, however, to have sat in the Commons until 1416 (Oct.), when the most active and demanding part of his career was already behind him. He none the less retained his aldermanry until the time of his death, and attended at least nine of the parliamentary elections held in the City between 1413 and 1431.
Thomas Knolles died between 29 June and 11 July 1435. He was survived by at least three daughters and two sons, the younger of whom established a flourishing business as a grocer in Bristol. The descendants of his elder son, Thomas, enjoyed even greater prosperity, one of their number, the courtier, Sir William Knollys, becoming earl of Banbury in 1626.