Sir John Knight (died February 1718) was an English merchant and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1689 to 1695.
Knight was the eldest surviving son of John Knight, of St Augustine's Back, Bristol and his first wife called Parsons of Somerset. His father was a sugar refiner and a cousin of Sir John Knight MP for Bristol. He succeeded his father 1678. [1]
Knight was appointed sheriff of Bristol in September 1681, and in this office he persecuted Dissenters, arousing great controversy in the city. He was presented to King Charles II in March at Newmarket and knighted on 12 March 1682. [2] In April 1686 Knight alerted the mayor and the sheriffs of a Catholic meeting, resulting in the arrest of a priest. When the news reached the Catholic King James II's court of Knight's behaviour, he was arrested by late May and had to explain himself before the Privy Council. [2] A writ of habeas corpus failed to release him but a Bristol jury acquitted him in November.
Having stood unsuccessfully at a by-election in December 1685, Knight was elected MP for Bristol in the Convention Parliament in 1689. [1] He disagreed with the Whig doctrine that King James's flight from England had left the throne vacant. He therefore opposed making William III and Mary II monarchs. [2]
In 1693 he opposed the Naturalisation Bill which aimed to grant English citizenship to foreign Protestants resident in England. In a speech against the Bill, Knight said: "Let us first kick the bill out of the House; and then let us kick the foreigners out of the kingdom". [3] Knight's speech was printed as a pamphlet and tens of thousands of copies circulated. But when the House of Commons saw the pamphlet they voted it as "false, scandalous, and seditious" and to be burnt by the hangman. Knight disclaimed all knowledge of the pamphlet. [4]
Knight was called a "violent tory" by Narcissus Luttrell [2] and a "coarse-minded and spiteful Jacobite, who, if he had been an honest man, would have been a nonjuror" by Thomas Babington Macaulay. [4]
Knight married Anne Smith, daughter of Thomas Smith of Long Ashton and had a son and two daughters. [1]
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, FRS FRSE PC was a British historian and Whig politician. He wrote extensively as an essayist, on contemporary and historical sociopolitical subjects, and as a reviewer. His The History of England was a seminal and paradigmatic example of Whig historiography, and its literary style has remained an object of praise since its publication, including subsequent to the widespread condemnation of its historical contentions which became popular in the 20th century.
Sir John Wildman was an English politician and soldier.
Algernon Sidney or Sydney was an English politician and member of the middle part of the Long Parliament. A republican political theorist, colonel, and commissioner of the trial of King Charles I of England, he opposed the king's execution. Sidney was later charged with plotting against Charles II, in part based on his most famous work, Discourses Concerning Government, which was used by the prosecution as a witness at his trial. He was executed for treason. After his death, Sidney was revered as a "Whig patriot–hero and martyr".
Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury PC, known as Anthony Ashley Cooper from 1621 to 1630, as Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, 2nd Baronet from 1630 to 1661, and as The Lord Ashley from 1661 to 1672, was a prominent English politician during the Interregnum and the reign of King Charles II. A founder of the Whig party, he was also the patron of John Locke.
Sidney Godolphin, 1st Earl of Godolphin was a leading British politician of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. He was a Privy Councillor and Secretary of State for the Northern Department before attaining real power as First Lord of the Treasury. He was instrumental in negotiating and passing the Acts of Union 1707 with Scotland, which created the Kingdom of Great Britain.
John Somers, 1st Baron Somers, was an English Whig jurist and statesman. Somers first came to national attention in the trial of the Seven Bishops where he was on their defence counsel. He published tracts on political topics such as the succession to the crown, where he elaborated his Whig principles in support of the Exclusionists. He played a leading part in shaping the Revolution settlement. He was Lord High Chancellor of England under King William III and was a chief architect of the union between England and Scotland achieved in 1707 and the Protestant succession achieved in 1714. He was a leading Whig during the twenty-five years after 1688; with four colleagues he formed the Whig Junto.
Roger Palmer, 1st Earl of Castlemaine, PC (1634–1705) was an English courtier, diplomat, and briefly a member of parliament, sitting in the House of Commons of England for part of 1660. He was also a noted Roman Catholic writer. His wife Barbara Villiers was one of Charles II's mistresses.
The Exclusion Crisis ran from 1679 until 1681 in the reign of King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland. Three Exclusion bills sought to exclude the King's brother and heir presumptive, James, Duke of York, from the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland because he was Roman Catholic. None became law. Two new parties formed. The Tories were opposed to this exclusion while the "Country Party", who were soon to be called the Whigs, supported it. While the matter of James's exclusion was not decided in Parliament during Charles's reign, it would come to a head only three years after he took the throne, when he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Finally, the Act of Settlement 1701 decided definitively that Catholics were to be excluded from the English throne.
Rothley Temple, or more correctly Rothley Preceptory, was a preceptory in the village of Rothley, Leicestershire, England, associated with both the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller.
Sir Jonathan Trelawny, 3rd Baronet was a British Bishop of Bristol, Bishop of Exeter and Bishop of Winchester. Trelawny is best known for his role in the events leading up to the Glorious Revolution which are sometimes believed to be referenced in the Cornish anthem The Song of the Western Men.
Lieutenant-General Thomas Erle PC of Charborough, Dorset was an English army general and Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons of England and of Great Britain from 1678 to 1718. He was Governor of Portsmouth and a Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance.
Sir George Treby JP (1643–1700), of Plympton, Devon, and of Fleet Street in the City of London, was Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and six times Member of Parliament for the Rotten Borough of Plympton Erle, Devon, largely controlled by him and his descendants until abolished by the Great Reform Act of 1832.
Edmund Bohun (1645–1699) was an English writer on history and politics, a publicist in the Tory interest.
Sir John Germain, 1st Baronet was a British soldier of Dutch origin and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1713 and 1718. He was involved in a notorious affair with the Duchess of Norfolk and became very wealthy.
William Stewart, 1st Viscount Mountjoy (1653–1692), was an Anglo-Irish peer and soldier.
Sir Richard Nagle was an Irish politician and lawyer. He held the positions of Attorney-General for Ireland, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, Lord Justice of Ireland and Secretary of State and War for Ireland under King James II. He fled to France in 1691, joining James II at Saint Germain, where he resumed his duties as nominal Secretary of State and War. He later served as Commissioner of the Household.
Sir John Knight was an English merchant and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1660 to 1681. When mayor of Bristol he became notorious for his activities against Nonconformists.
Babington is the name of an Anglo-Irish and English gentry family. The Anglo-Irish branch of the family is still extant today.
Sir Francis Warre, 1st Baronet, of Hestercombe House, Kingston, Somerset, was a British landowner and Tory politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons between.1685 and 1715.
