Knollys (family) - Sir Francis Knollys (c.1514-1596)

Sir Francis Knollys (c.1514-1596)

Francis Knollys, who entered the service of Henry VIII before 1540, became a Member of Parliament in 1542 and was knighted in 1547 while serving with the English army in Scotland. He became custodian of Wallingford Castle in 1551. A strong and somewhat aggressive supporter of the reformed doctrines, he retired to Germany soon after Mary became queen, returning to England to become a privy councillor, vice-Chamberlain of the royal household and a Member of Parliament under Queen Elizabeth, whose cousin Catherine Carey (d. 1568), daughter of William Carey and niece of Anne Boleyn, was his wife. After serving as governor of Plymouth, Knollys was sent in 1566 to Ireland, his mission being to obtain for the queen confidential reports about the conduct of the lord-deputy Sir Henry Sidney.

Approving of Sidney's actions, he came back to England, and in 1568 was sent to Carlisle to take charge of Mary, Queen of Scots, who had just fled from Scotland; afterwards he was in charge of the queen at Bolton Castle and then at Tutbury Castle. He discussed religious questions with his prisoner, although the extreme Protestant views which he put before her did not meet with Elizabeth's approval, and he gave up the position of guardian just after his wife's death in January 1569. In 1584 he introduced into the House of Commons, where since 1572 he had represented Oxfordshire, the bill legalizing the national association for Elizabeth's defence, and he was treasurer of the royal household from 1572 until his death on 19 July 1596.

His monument may still be seen in the church of Rotherfield Greys. Knollys was repeatedly free and frank in his objections to Elizabeth's tortuous foreign policy; but, possibly owing to his relationship to the queen, he did not lose her favor and he was one of her commissioners on such important occasions as the trials of Mary Queen of Scots, of Philip Howard, earl of Arundel, and of Anthony Babington. An active and lifelong Puritan, his attacks on the bishops were not lacking in vigour and he was also very hostile to heretics. He received many grants of land from the queen, and was chief steward of the city of Oxford and a Knight of the Garter.

It would seem that his son Sir Francis Knollys the Younger, in earlier years a pirate and soldier was Elizabeth's Vice-Chamberlain, who may be associated with The Lord Chamberlain's Men - Shakespeare's company - through Carey family connections to Sir Francis the Elder. In either case, Franklin's or Francolin's - an anagram of Francis Knollys - substitutes for Chamberlain's as a pun in the company's title.