KNOLLYS, Edward (c.1546-75), of Rotherfield Greys, Oxon.

Knollys was the first son to benefit from his father’s appointment as high steward of Oxford in 1564. After the 2nd Earl of Bedford had nominated an outsider in 1563, the city council ruled that only a freeman of three years’ standing and of the rank of bailiff could be elected. But on 12 Mar. 1571 it agreed that Edward Knollys, on taking the oath, ‘be recorded as free within the city’. On 15 Mar. it dispensed with its other requirements and Knollys was returned a second time in April 1572. He died before the end of that Parliament, in Ireland, probably in the service of his sister’s husband, the 1st Earl of Essex. His brother Francis succeeded him, the writ being dated 24 Dec. 1575.1Neale, Commons, 167; W. H. Turner, Oxf. Recs. 336, 338, 341, 377. The burgess was not the Edward Knollys who died in Devon in 1572, C142/156/25.