Knollys (family) - Earls of Banbury

Earls of Banbury

The Earl of Banbury's wife, who was nearly forty years her husband's junior, was the mother of two sons, Sir Edward (1627–1645) and Sir Nicholas (1631–1674), whose paternity has given rise to much dispute. Neither is mentioned in the earl's will, but in 1641 the law courts decided that Edward was Earl of Banbury, and when he was killed in June 1645 his brother Nicholas took the title. In the Convention Parliament of 1660 some objection was taken to the earl sitting in the House of Lords, and in 1661 he was not summoned to parliament; he had not succeeded in obtaining his writ of summons when he died on 14 March 1674.

Nicholas's son Sir Charles (1662–1740), the 4th earl, had not been summoned to parliament when in 1692 he killed Captain Philip Lawson in a duel. This raised the question of his rank in a new form. Was he, or was he not, entitled to trial by the peers? The House of Lords declared that he was not a peer and therefore not so entitled, but the Court of King's Bench released him from his imprisonment on the ground that he was the Earl of Banbury and not Charles Knollys, a commoner. Nevertheless, the House of Lords refused to move from its position, and Knollys had not received a writ of summons when he died in April 1740. His son Sir Charles (1703–1771), vicar of Burford, Oxfordshire, and his grandsons, Sir William (1726–1776) and Sir Thomas Woods (1727–1793), were successively titular Earls of Banbury, but they took no steps to prove their title.

However, in 1806, Sir Thomas Woods's son Sir William (1763–1834), who attained the rank of general in the British army, asked for a writ of summons as Earl of Banbury, but in 1813 the House of Lords decided against the claim. Several peers, including the great Lord Erskine, protested against this decision, but General Knollys himself accepted it and ceased to call himself Earl of Banbury. He died in Paris on 20 March 1834. His eldest son, Sir William Thomas Knollys (1797–1883), entered the army and served with the Guards during the Peninsular War. Remaining in the army after the conclusion of the peace of 1815 he won a good reputation and rose high in his profession. He lived at Blount's Court at Rotherfield Peppard in Oxfordshire. From 1855 to 1860 he was in charge of the military camp at Aldershot, then in its infancy, and in 1861 he was made president of the council of military education. From 1862 to 1877 he was comptroller of the household of the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII. From 1877 until his death on 23 June 1883, he was Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod; he was also a privy councillor and colonel of the Scots Guards. Of his children, one son Francis Knollys, 1st Viscount Knollys (b. 1837), was private secretary to Edward VII and George V (created Baron Knollys in 1902 and Viscount Knollys in 1911); another son, Sir Henry Knollys (1840–1930), became private secretary to King Edward's daughter Maud, Queen of Norway; and daughter, Charlotte, became the Private Secretary and close friend to the Princess of Wales, later Queen Alexandra and died unmarried in 1930.