KNIGHT, Ralph (c.1619-91), of Langold, Firbeck, Yorks.

Ralph Knight’s family came from Newbury in Berkshire, but claimed descent from the Knights of St Denys near Southampton. Nothing is known of Ralph Knight’s upbringing, but in 1642, at the age of 23, he joined the parliamentarian army, and from the autumn of 1643 served as a captain in Edward Montagu, 2nd earl of Manchester’s Eastern Association army.20Wanklyn, New Model Army, i. 53; SP28/12, f. 263; SP28/13, ff. 56, 231; SP28/14, ff. 20, 161; CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 345. When the New Model army was formed in April 1645, Knight was brought in to replace Captain William Bough in Algernon Sydney’s* regiment, and then reassigned to the regiment of Sir Robert Pye I*, with instructions from the House of Lords (in May) that his men were to have a shilling added to their daily pay.21Temple, ‘Original officer list’, 66. Knight, who was later described as ‘a great friend of Lord Manchester’, may have owed his preferential treatment to the influence of his former commander.22Nicholas Pprs. iv. 195. Under Pye, Knight fought at Naseby in June 1645, and when the regiment was transferred to Matthew Thomlinson’s command in mid-1647, he was promoted to the rank of major.23Firth and Davis, Regimental Hist. i. 128, 131. During this period he may have been garrisoned in South Yorkshire, where he married the daughter of a former vicar of Rotherham in June 1646. The marriage established a permanent link with the county: his family lived at Rotherham in the later 1640s (where his eldest daughter and son were baptised in April 1647 and June 1648 respectively), and in 1650 he purchased an estate at Langold.24Hunter, S. Yorks. i. 298-9. The marriage to an ejected vicar’s daughter also gives an indication of Knight’s conservative religious views, which can also be seen in his outburst against the Ranters in October 1650, ‘complaining of the great profaneness and blasphemies that were in some troops’ in the army.25Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 353. Such evidence supports later accounts which suggest he supported the Prayer Book liturgy of the Church of England, but tolerated Presbyterianism.26HP Commons 1660-1690.

Originally selected to join the Cromwellian invasion of Ireland, Thomlinson’s regiment was sent instead to Lancashire, before joining the army sent to Scotland in 1650.27Firth and Davis, Regimental Hist. i. 132. In August of that year Knight was in London, procuring arms for Thomlinson’s soldiers; he had joined his regiment at Glasgow by October; and in January 1651 he was receiving money on his colonel’s behalf.28CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 301, 306; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, ii. 353; SP28/74, f. 7. In June he was one of the officers present at the court martial of Colonel Edward Sexby in Edinburgh.29Clarke Pprs. v. 29, 31. Thomlinson’s regiment returned to England later in the summer and fought at Worcester, but was sent back to Scotland in October 1653 to suppress the rebellion led by the earl of Glencairn.30Firth and Davis, Regimental Hist. i. 132-3.

From this time onwards the regiment was under Knight’s command, as Thomlinson was sent to Dublin as an Irish councillor. Thomlinson’s departure, and the arrival of George Monck* as commander-in-chief in Scotland in April 1654, marked the beginning of Knight’s involvement in politics. Monck seems to have recognised his potential from the very beginning. On 17 April Knight joined Colonels Thomas Morgan and Thomas Fitch* and Lieutenant-colonel William Michell* as a commissioner to examine a dispute about the earl of Seaforth’s lands. On 2 September he was given a pass to go to England for three months, and, once again in conjunction with Michell and others, Monck gave him the task of ‘moving his highness and Lord [John] Lambert* earnestly for a constant way of supplying the forces here’.31Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLV, unfol.: 17 Apr. 1654; xlvi, unfol.: 2 and 6 Sept. 1654. Knight grew closer to Monck in June 1655, when the general took over Thomlinson’s horse as his own regiment, and continued to entrust its day-to-day command to the major.32Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS LXII, unfol.: 30 June, 31 July 1655, 11 Mar. 1656, 5 July 1658, 8 June 1659. In June 1656 Knight was given leave to return to England, and in September he was in London as a representative of the Scottish officers, reporting to Monck the protector’s warnings of the activities of royalist agents and Fifth Monarchists.33Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS XLVII, unfol.: 12 June 1656; Clarke Pprs. iii. 71-2. He was included as a Scottish commissioner for the safety of the protector in November 1656.34A. and O.

Knight’s election for the shires of Sutherland, Ross and Cromarty in the third protectorate Parliament of January 1659 was almost certainly at Monck’s instigation. Knight had no connection with the region (his regiment was based at Linlithgow during the later 1650s), and the shires had returned another of Monck’s friends, Dr Thomas Clarges*, in 1656.35Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS LI, ff. 18, 56. Monck evidently thought Knight’s presence at Westminster of some importance, complaining to John Thurloe* on 15 February 1659 that he and Thomas Fitch had been delayed, as ‘their indentures are not come to hand, and the sheriffs are so far asunder, and some of them absent, that they cannot meet so suddenly as was expected; but Major Knight will be sent you speedily’.36TSP vii. 613. Knight’s activity in Parliament confirms that he was sent south as one of Monck’s agents. On 10 March he defended the right of the Scottish MPs to be included in the Commons, asking, ‘if you will not admit them to sit, why were they called?’, and adding trenchantly: ‘as to withdrawing, I cannot, till by your vote I am commanded. I cannot discharge my trust if I withdraw till you command me’.37Burton’s Diary, iv. 116-7; Schilling thesis, 199-200. On 16 March Knight insinuated that Major-general Robert Overton, who had escaped from imprisonment, might have been given help by some English officers, and ‘moved that Lord Lambert and Judge Advocate [Henry] Whalley* give you an account of his imprisonment. Haply they know more’.38Burton’s Diary, iv. 153. Such comments were highly provocative, and it was no coincidence that on the following day, when the Scottish elections were discussed, the writ for ‘the sheriffdom of Ross’ was that chosen for critical examination.39Burton’s Diary, iv. 172. Knight’s only other contribution to debate came on 25 March, when he expressed impatience with the Commons’ slow progress, arguing that a petition from former royalist prisoners should be ‘rejected’, ‘for if you sit 12 months you will not have time to hear all petitions from cavaliers’.40Burton’s Diary, iv. 270. Once the right of the Scottish MPs to sit had been established, Knight was elected to the committee for Scottish affairs on 1 April, but he made no further contribution before Parliament was dismissed at the end of the month.41CJ vii. 623b.

In the summer of 1659 Knight returned to his family in Yorkshire, but in October he went back to Scotland: ‘for hearing of the disorders at London, and that some jealousies had been entertained of him, upon an information that he had been some months before engaged with the Lord Castleton in Sir George Boothe’s* rising’.42R. Baker, Chronicle of the Kings of England (1665), 724. There is no evidence for Knight’s involvement in plotting, but his closeness to Monck was sufficient to make him suspect in the eyes of the senior officers in England. In late October Knight narrowly failed in a bid to seize Newcastle, and in the negotiations which followed, Monck chose Knight, with Colonel Wilkes* and Lieutenant-colonel John Cloberry† to go to London and meet the English officers, ‘for the begetting a unity and right understanding betwixt us’.43Clarke Pprs. iv. 89; v. 324. Reaching London by 15 November, the commissioners signed a preliminary agreement with Charles Fleetwood* and his allies, but this was rejected by Monck, who insisted that the Rump Parliament must be restored, saying that the commissioners had ‘mistaken’ their instructions.44Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS LII, ff. 16-20. A further attempt to strike a deal at Newcastle in December also failed, and by 19 December Knight was once again with Monck at Coldstream.45Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS LII, ff. 31v, 32, 39v, 41. Knight’s regiment joined Monck’s march towards Newcastle on 2 January 1660, and was sent to shadow Lambert’s forces during the advance.46Clarke Pprs. iv. 238; Hunter, S. Yorks. i. 298n. On the 17th of the same month Monck stayed at Knight’s house at Langold in Yorkshire, where he met a number of local royalists.47Clarke Pprs. v. 358-9. When the army entered London a few days later, Knight’s men were quartered in strategically important positions in King Street and Tuttle Street in Westminster, and at Holborn.48Worcester Coll. Oxf. Clarke MS LII, f. 66v.

Knight’s reputation for royalism was based on his closeness to Monck in the early months of 1660. He was elected, on the general’s interest, as MP for Morpeth in the elections to the Convention in April 1660, and used his influence to secure the acquiescence of the army in the same period.49HP Commons 1660-1690; Baker, Chronicle, 759. Dr John Barwick accounted him one of ‘the best inclined to your majesty’s service as any about Monck’.50TSP vii. 853. On the eve of the restoration, Knight’s regiment was at the head of the army when it was presented to Charles II at Blackheath, and he was knighted shortly afterwards.51Firth and Davis, Regimental Hist. i. 290. He was retained in military commands until 1673, but spent most of his time in retirement, building up his estates in Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. In 1687 Knight took as his second wife the widow of his Nottinghamshire neighbour, John Rolleston, who had been the secretary to the duke of Newcastle. He died in 1691, and was succeeded by his eldest son, John.52Hunter, S. Yorks. i. 298-9.