Thomas James Knyvet, 1st Baron Knyvet (or Knevytt, Knyvett, Knevett, Knevitt; 1558 – 27 July 1622) was the second son of Sir Henry Knyvet of Charlton, Wiltshire and Anne Pickering, daughter of Sir Christopher Pickering of Killington, Westmoreland. His half-sister Catherine Knyvet was married to Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk. He attended Jesus College, Cambridge.[1]
In 1579 he was appointed High Sheriff of Norfolk. He was a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to Queen Elizabeth I, and in 1592, he was made Master at Arms; and Member of Parliament for Thetford in 1601. In 1603, King James I gave him the manor of Stanwell, Middlesex.
On 21 July 1597 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Roland Hayward and widow of Richard Warren of Essex. He was knighted in 1604.[2]
Knyvet is noted for his role in foiling the Gunpowder Plot. On the evening of 26 October 1605, the Catholic Lord Monteagle received an anonymous letter warning him to stay away from Parliament during the opening, and to "retyre youre self into yowre contee whence yow maye expect the event in safti for ... they shall receyve a terrible blowe this parleament".[3] Monteagle's letter was shown to King James. The King ordered Knyvet to conduct a search of the cellars underneath Parliament, which he carried out with Edmund Doubleday in the early hours of 5 November. Guy Fawkes was found leaving the cellar, shortly after midnight, and arrested. Inside, the barrels of gunpowder were discovered hidden under piles of firewood and coal.[4]
After foiling the Plot, he was appointed a Privy Councillor, Member of the Council to Queen Anne, and Warden of the Mint, and was granted the manor of Stanwell and later (in 1613) the manor of Staines. He was given charge of the education of Princess Mary. He sat in Parliament as Baron Knyvet of Escrick, Yorkshire in 1607.
Lord Knyvet was also famous for a long running feud with Edward de Vere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford. Knyvet's niece was Anne Vavasour, the mistress of the Earl of Oxford who bore him a child. On numerous occasions, servants on either side were killed. On one occasion, Knyvet injured Oxford, apparently in the leg.
When Lord Knyvet died in July 1622 his will provided for the foundation of a free-school in Stanwell, and the Lord Knyvet School was founded in 1624. There is an effigy of him and his wife in the chancel of Stanwell parish church.
Lord Knyvet was the first domestic resident of the site of 10 Downing Street, the modern-day residence of the British Prime Minister, in a large timber and brick building with an L-shaped garden, called Knyvet House[2]. It was first leased to him in 1581 by Queen Elizabeth I, and his lifetime lease was extended in 1604 to extend to his heirs[2]. The house was described by the parliamentary commissioners in 1650 as,
This house later passed to his niece, Elizabeth Hampden, whose nephew was Oliver Cromwell[2] . After the lease expired on the now-named Hampden House in 1682, George Downing developed the site.