Richard Knightley, of Fawsley, Esq.

Richard Knightley of Fawsley, co. Northamptonshire, esquire, son and heir of Richard Knightley of Gnosall, was enfeoffed with Elizabeth his wife and others of the manors of Fawsley by Geoffrey Somerton, by a deed dated 8th February 1414/1415.

Fawsley Hall and landscape park was created by the Knightley family. Richard Knightley, a well-to-do Staffordshire lawyer, bought the manor of Fawsley in 1416. His grandson Richard, knighted by Henry VII, built the first wing of the present house.

Sir Richard's son, Sir Edmund Knightley, was a commissioner concerned with the confiscation of monastic lands after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. King Henry VIII granted the manors of Badby and Newnham in 1542 to Sir Edmund Knightley and his wife Ursula and their heirs in exchange for Alderton and Stoke. Sir Edmund ordered the building of the Elizabethan hall, which was visited by Elizabeth I in 1575, after it had passed to Edmund's nephew, Richard Knightley, a prominent Puritan. He ran a secret printing press at the house on which were printed Puritan pamphlets and for which he was briefly imprisoned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fawsley

s. and h. of Richard Knightley of Gnosall by his w. Joan, da. of Sir John Giffard of Chillington, Staffs.; nephew of John*. m. by Jan. 1416, Elizabeth (d.1474), da. of Thomas Purefoy of Drayton, Leics., at least 2s.1

RICHARD KNIGHTLEY, M.P.

Per "The History of Paliament: The House of Commons 1386 - 1421 (Roskell, Clark, & Rawcliffe, eds. / 1993)" -- "This M.P. belonged to a distinguished family of Staffordshire landowners which could trace its descent from Nicholas Maucovenant, one of the followers of William the Conqueror. His immediate ancestors had settled at Gnosall during the mid 13th century and his grandfather, John Knightley (d. 1413 / 14), had further consolidated their holdings by marrying the heiress to the manors of Burgh Hall (in Gnosall) and Cowley. We do not know exactly when Knightley suceeded to these properties, although his appointment to the Staffordshire bench in 1422 may, perhaps, have followed shortly after the death of his father. By then, however, he had made his home at the manor of Fawsley, in Northamptonshire, which he and his wife acquired in February 1416 from Geoffrey Somerton."

Richard Knightley's "curriculum vitae" includes --

1.) Teller of the Receipt of the Exchequer -- Mar. 2, 1413 - Feb. 28, 1425

2.) Justice of the Peace / Staffordshire -- Feb. 1422 - Mar. 1430

3.) Justice of the Peace / Northants -- Feb. 1422 - July 1423 & July 1432 - Nov. 1443

4.) Member of Parliament / Northamptonshire -- 1420, 1423, & 1439

http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/kn...

The Visitation of Essex, page 66

The Visitation of Warwickshire, page 399

This is one of many panels from Fawsley Hall intended to display the ancestry of Sir Edmund Knightley.

References

1. http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/kn...
2. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/153063488/richard-knightley
3. WikiTree contributors, "Richard Knightley (abt.1395-abt.1442)," WikiTree: The Free Family Tree, (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Knightley-68 : accessed 02 October 2024). cites
4. **1. The Ancestor; a quarterly review of county and family history, heraldry and antiquities, pg 5 < Archive.Org >
   1. L. G. Pine, The New Extinct Peerage 1884-1971: Containing Extinct, Abeyant, Dormant and Suspended Peerages With Genealogies and Arms (London, U.K.: Heraldry Today, 1972), page 167. [2]
   2. The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993 [3]
   3. The Ancestor; a quarterly review of county and family history, heraldry and antiquities, pg 6 [4]
5. http://www.thepeerage.com/p23580.htm#i235799
6. http://www.stirnet.co.uk/genie/data/british/kk/knightley1.php#con4