32. Sir John¹⁴ KNYVETT (Sir John¹³, Sir John¹², Richard¹¹, John¹⁰, John⁹, Thomas⁸, John⁷, Manser⁶, Thomas⁵, Drugo⁴, Edmund³, Alfred² LE KNEVET, Ofthomarus¹) was born in Southwick, Northamptonshire, ENG CA 1380. John died 1446 at 66 years of age.

He married Elizabeth CLIFTON. Elizabeth was born 1400. Elizabeth was the daughter of Constantine CLIFTON and Catherine SCALES. Elizabeth died ABT 1441. He was a soldier, active, but not very fortunate, in the wars in France. There is no evidence that he was at the Battle of Agincourt but he was certainly on Henry V's campaigns in Normandy and at the siege of Rouen in 1418-9. He was 'lodging fellow' with his brother-in-law, Sir John Clifton, and a group of East Anglian gentlemen who included William Oldhall and Henry Inglose. He must have returned to England after his father's death for in October 1421, by which time he had been knighted. He settled the manors of Winwick and Weldon in Northamptonshire upon feoffees.

John seems to have resided on his Northamptonshire estates, perhaps because his mother continued to live on her ancestral lands at Mendlesham, and in Henry V's last parliament in October 1421 he was elected knight of the shire for Northamptonshire. He returned to France, perhaps with the King. Soon afterwards, and was captured, with Henry Inglose, by the French, which may have cost him a considerable sum in ransom and begun his financial problems.

He was back in England by October 1426. The following year he was sheriff of Northamptonshire. He was probably in France at times during the late 1420s and early 1430s but certainly was in England in 1430 when he settled some of his Northamptonshire lands on feoffees to the use of his son, John, at his marriage to Alice Lynne. In 1434, John inherited a share of the estates of his cousin, Joan Streche, one of the heirs of the Weylands, dividing the inheritance with Sir Thomas Tuddenham, who had already inherited Oxburgh, Norfolk, and the bulk of the Weyland estates.

John does not appear to have kept this very long, for in 1434-5 he and his son were busy selling property. His financial situation was soon to deteriorate further. Sir John was at Calais when it was attacked by the Duke of Burgundy in 1436. He was sent to defend its outlying fort at Sandgate but, according to a chronicle, surrendered it 'shamefully and cowardly without any stroke'. He was made a prisoner and his ransom set at the large sum of £1,000.

John was still a prisoner in June 1438 when his wife, Elizabeth, petitioned the King, claiming that his friends would not help raise the money because they feared that he was out of the King's favour. The King responded by formally asserting that he accepted John as his faithful liegeman, notwithstanding what had happened in the past. The ransom must have been raised for Sir John was back in England by 1440, but was forced during the next year to sell more land.

His wife died at Mendleshamin 1441 and in the same year he granted a life-lease of that manor to Sir Thomas Tuddenham - no doubt as a form of mortgage. There is no surviving inquisition for John's Suffolk lands after his death, when he and his feoffees were found to hold Boxworth, Hamerton and Weldonmanors. He had already settled other Northamptonshire lands upon his son to whom the whole of the rest of the inheritance, with its encumbrances, now came.

Though Sir John's career is clearly of some interest, the evidence for it is too slight to understand its full significance. In any case his contribution to the rise of the family was less his own achievements than his marriage. His wife, Elizabeth, was the daughter of Constantine Clifton of Buckenham Castle, Norfolk, and the only surviving sister of Sir John Clifton. Her brother was to die without surviving children and she thus left to her son a claim to the Clifton estates and a high position in Norfolk society.

It was through her marriage to John, that the family acquired Buckenham Castle and the manors of Old and New Buckenham, which remained the principal seat of the family till 1649.

Sir John KNYVETT and Elizabeth CLIFTON had the following children:

38 i. Richard¹⁵ KNYVETT.

39 ii. Margaret KNYVETT was born in Norfolk, ENG.

40 iii. Joan KNYVETT.

41 iv. Ann KNYVETT.

+ 42 v. Sir John KNEVET was born ABT 1420.

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