Genealogy Richard Remmé, The Hague, Netherlands » Sir Robert Knollys of Skulthorpe (± 1325-1407)

Persönliche Daten Sir Robert Knollys of Skulthorpe 

• Alternative Namen: Robert Knollys Sir, Robert Knollys
• Er wurde geboren rund 1325 in Cheshire, England.Quelle 2
• Beruf: vor 1351 Sir Knight.Quelle 3
• Wohnhaft: Norfolk, England.Quelle 3
• (Alt. Birth) im Jahr 1312 in North Mimms, Hertfordshire, England.Quelle 1
• (Alt. Death) am 15. August 1407 in Sconethorp Manor, Norfolk, England.Quelle 1
• Er ist verstorben am 15. August 1407 in Skulthorpe Manor, Fakenham, Walsingham, Norfolk, England.Quelle 2
• Er wurde beerdigt in Whitefriars, London, England.Quelle 3
• Ein Kind von Richard Knollys und Eva Calveley
• Diese Information wurde zuletzt aktualisiert am 4. Dezember 2022.

Familie von Sir Robert Knollys of Skulthorpe

Er ist verheiratet mit Constance Nn.

Sie haben geheiratet vor 1355.Quelle 3

Kind(er):

1. Thomas Knollys  1334-????
2. Robert Knollys  ± 1346-1421 

Notizen bei Sir Robert Knollys of Skulthorpe

An essay towards a topographical history of the county of Norfolk, Volume 3
By Francis Blomefield
p. 847

==========

[Jim Weber.ged]

KNOLLES (or KNOLLYS), SIR ROBERT (c. 1325-1407), English soldier,belonged to a Cheshire family.  In early life he served in Brittany,and he was one of the English survivors "who were taken prisoners bythe French after the famous " combat of the thirty " in March 1351.He was, however, quickly released and was among the soldiers offortune who took advantage of the distracted state of Brittany, atthis time the scene of a savage civil war, to win fame and wealth atthe expense of the wretched inhabitants.  After a time he transferredhis operations to Normandy, when he served under the allied standardsof England and of Charles II. of Navarre.  He led the " great company" in their work of devastation along the valley of ,the Loire,fighting at this time for his own hand and for booty, and winning aterrible reputation by his ravages.  After the conclusion of thetreaty of Bretigny in 1360 Knolles returned to Brittany and took partin the struggle for the possession of the duchy between John ofMontfort (Duke John IV.) and Charles of Blois, gaining great fame byhis conduct in the fight at Auray (September 1364), where KNOLLYS

Du Guesclin was captured and Charles of Blois was slain.  In 1367 hemarched with the Black Prince into Spain and fought at the battle ofNajera; in 1369 he was with the prince in Aquitaine.  In 1370 he wasplaced by Edward III.  at the head of an expedition which invadedFrance and marched on Paris, but after exacting large sums of money asransom a mutiny broke up the army, and its leader was forced to takerefuge in his Breton castle of Derval and to appease the disappointedEnglish king with a large monetary gift.  Emerging from his retreatKnolles again assisted John of Montfort in Brittany, where he acted asJohn's representative; later he led a force into Aquitaine, and he wasone of the leaders of the fleet sent against the Spaniards in 1377.In 1380 he served in France under Thomas of Woodstock, afterwards dukeof Gloucester, distinguishing himself by his valour at the siege ofNantes; and in 1381 he went with Richard II.  to meet Wat Tyler atSmithfield.  He died at Sculthorpe in Norfolk on the 15th of August1407.  Sir Robert devoted much of his great wealth to charitableobjects.  He built a college and an almshouse at Pontefract, hiswife's birthplace, where the alms-house still exists; he restored thechurches of Sculthorpe and Harpley; and he helped to found an Englishhospital in Rome.  Knolles won an immense reputation by his skill andvalour in the field, and ranks as one of the foremost captains of hisage.  French writers call him Canolles, or Canole.
[1911 Edition Encyclopedia]

---

[Curt Hofemann]

Knolles [Knollys], Sir Robert (d. 1407), soldier, was probably the sonof Richard, who was of burgess or yeoman stock from Tushingham in theparish of Malpas, Cheshire.  His mother is frequently named as EvaCalveley, sister of Sir Hugh Calveley, with whom Robert had a lifelongfriendship.  But no convincing proof of Eva's existence has ever beenfound, nor of a family relationship between Robert and Hugh, longprofessional brothers-in-arms, though their families were associatedas early as 1354 when Sir John Wingfield granted Lea manor in ChurtonHeath, Cheshire, to Mabel Calveley and Henry Newton, chaplain, withremainders in tail to Hugh and David Calveley (both described as 'theelder'), and Robert, son of Richard Knolles.
Early career
Knolles and Calveley first appear together in arms in documentsrelating to the siege of La Roche-Derrien in northern Brittany in1346, when Knolles may have served as an archer under Calveley,probably his senior by a few years.  But Knolles was already a knightwhen next glimpsed, in one of the most notable chivalric feats of thelater middle ages, the battle of the Thirty (26 March 1351).  This wasfought between two teams representing the Anglo-Breton andFranco-Breton forces then disputing the succession to the Bretonthrone in a civil war that began after the death of Duke John (III) in1341 without direct heirs.  They agreed to joust a outrance, followinga challenge by Jean de Beaumanoir, captain of Josselin, to the Englishcaptain of Ploermel, whom he accused of mercilessly exploiting thelocal population.  Combatants were killed on both sides and the restwounded in a bitter contest in which the Anglo-Bretons were vanquishedand both Calveley and Knolles made prisoner.
Released shortly afterwards, Knolles soon amassed a considerablepersonal landed fortune in south-eastern Brittany and neighbouringMayenne, while acknowledging allegiance to Edward III and his ward,John de Montfort.  In February 1352 Edward III confirmed hispossession of Le Grand Fougeray, between Nantes and Rennes, which hehad recently captured.  He also held Chateaublanc (Ille-et-Vilaine)and La Gravelle (Mayenne) through the 1350s.  When Gui de Nesle,marshal of France, brought troops in support of Charles de Blois,Montfort's rival, in the summer of 1352, Knolles fought alongside SirWalter Bentley, Edward's lieutenant in the duchy.  At Mauron(Morbihan) on 14 August 1352, a shattering defeat was inflicted on theFrench by using a combination of dismounted men-at-arms and archersthat had already proved effective in the Breton war and at Crecy(1346).  Evidence for the moveable wealth Knolles had already amassedfrom his career is provided by a schedule of plate and other goods,drawn up at Sutton Vautort, Devon, forfeit when Knolles felltemporarily out of favour in 1354, probably for disobeying Bentley'ssuccessor, Thomas Holland. ; In 1355 Edward III also revoked an earliergrant of the castle of Pestivien (Cotes-d'Armor).
However, in June 1356 Knolles joined Henry, duke of Lancaster, with300 men-at-arms and 500 archers drawn from Breton garrisons,contributing a third of Lancaster's force, in a chevauchee throughNormandy in support of Godefroy de Harcourt and Philippe de Navarrethat reached as far as Verneuil, before returning to base at the abbeyof Montebourg in the Cotentin.  Skirmishing around Rouen and a siegeof Domfront followed.  But Lancaster failed to link up with Edward,prince of Wales, who had launched his own famous raid from Bordeauxthat culminated in the battle of Poitiers, from which Knolles, unableto cross the Loire, was also absent, despite some reports to thecontrary.
Knolles's next campaign with Lancaster was an unsuccessful siege ofRennes (October 1356-June 1357).  When this was lifted, he led anattack on Honfleur in Normandy with Sir James Pipe, where according tothe chronicler Henry Knighton, with some 600 men, they defeated Robertde Clermont, marshal of France, with 800 men-at-arms and 5000infantry, killing at least 500, while another surprise attack resultedin the slaughter of a further 1000 Frenchmen. Whatever the exactfigures or circumstances (much embroidered by chroniclers, who alsomention Knolles at a siege of Dinan), it is in these years that hegained his reputation as 'the most able and skilful man of arms in allthe companies' (Chroniques de J. Froissart, 5.366), cool, calculating,knowing when to retreat but striking with terrible effect.
Knolles in the Orleannais and Auvergne, 1358-1359
Knolles's reputation as 'a true demon of war' (Bridges, 178) was mostspectacularly demonstrated in a great raid into the Orleannais andupper Loire region in autumn 1358 when he ostentatiously displayed abanner announcing:
Qui Robert Canolle prendera,
Cent mille moutons gagnera.
(Chroniques de J. Froissart, 5.351)
He burnt the suburbs of Orleans, and, establishing himself atChateauneuf-sur-Loire, ravaged the Auxerrois where numerous otherEnglish garrisons were living off the countryside, as they had beendoing in Brittany and Normandy for years, and where the charred gablesmarking his progress became known as 'Knolles's mitres'.  A firstattack on Auxerre in January 1359 was repulsed, but on 10 March 1359the town was delivered to him, despite the presence of a garrisonunder the renowned routier Arnaud de Cervole (the Archpriest).  AmongKnolles's companions on this occasion was Sir Thomas Fogg; he waslater joined by Ieuan Wyn, known as the Poursuivant d'Amour, a famousWelsh mercenary, and by Calveley.  On 30 April the Auxerrois agreed topay 40,000 moutons and hand over pearls worth a further 10,000 moutons(approximately 10,000 in total) to be rid of Knolles.
Knolles now turned his attentions to the Auvergne, after apparentlyabandoning even more ambitious plans to attack the Comtat Venaissin,where Pope Innocent VI and his cardinals became highly alarmed at hisprogress when he was allegedly within twelve leagues of Avignon.Using Pont-du-Chateau as he had previously exploited Chateauneuf,Knolles raided widely in the Auvergne, taking Cusset, attacking StPourcain, and even moving on Le Puy.  On 25 June 1359 the townsmen ofMillau in the Rouergue received letters warning them of his approach.But a counter-attack led by Thomas de la Marche, deputy of thedauphin, Charles, regent of France during the absence in prison of hisfather, Jean II, following his capture at Poitiers, forced a retreatafter some captains accompanying Knolles went off independently.Burning Montbrison and sacking churches and abbeys around St Etienne,Knolles then began a staged withdrawal in which he was joined byCalveley, who had been fighting with other Anglo-Navarrese forces onthe borders of Burgundy.  Knolles passed through Limoges, and by theautumn was back in Brittany where he captured the future constable ofFrance, Bertrand du Guesclin, who was establishing his own formidablecredentials as a captain by similarly ruthless means.
The treaty of Bretigny-Calais (May-October 1360) brought the firstphase of the Hundred Years' War to a close and temporarily restrictedopportunities for freebooters like Knolles.  He was confirmed inpossession of his French estates, visited England, obtained a pardonfor any crimes committed abroad, sat in the court of chivalry, andregularized the payments he owed Edward III for his castles in France. But by October 1361 he was clearly tired of inactivity since he isreported fighting in Savoy, en route for Italy with Sir John Hawkwoodand Annechin de Bongarden, though little appears to be known about hisactions there.  By 1363 he was back in Brittany, serving at the reliefof Becherel in June, and accompanying John de Montfort to Poitiers inNovember, when the prince of Wales tried to negotiate a peaceful endto the Breton civil war by bringing the two rivals together.  Whendiscussions finally broke down in February 1364, following anothermeeting at Poitiers attended by Knolles, preparations began for theinevitable military campaign that was to follow.  In March 1364,Montfort conferred on him the lordships of Derval and Rouge(Loire-Atlantique), whose rightful owner had been a prisoner since thebattle of Poitiers.  As the Breton rivals manoeuvred for advantage inthe summer, Knolles brought a force of 900 or 1000 men to Montfort'ssiege of Auray (Morbihan).  He then fought, under the overall commandof Sir John Chandos, in the vanguard of the Anglo-Breton army, whichinflicted a crushing defeat on Charles de Blois as he attempted tolift the siege.  Blois himself was killed on the field (29 September1364) and Knolles took several prisoners, including the count ofAuxerre.  In April 1365, by the first treaty of Guerande, Charles Vfinally acknowledged John de Montfort as duke of Brittany.
Middle years
With his wife, Constance, to whom he was married by 1355, and whohailed from Yorkshire, though she had spent much of the previousdecade in Brittany, whence she sometimes personally led smallcontingents of English troops, Knolles briefly settled down to enjoyhis Breton estates and his prominent position at the ducal court.  In1365 he negotiated the return of La Gravelle, Segre, and Ingrande(Mayenne) to Amaury de Craon for 10,000 livres and arranged anexchange of Chateaublanc and Fougeray with John de Montfort for anannual rent of 2000 livres on the lordships of Conq (Concarneau) andRosporden (Finistere), though he retained Derval and Rouge, whichshould have returned to their lord under the treaty of Guerande,despite his protests.  Knolles was, however, forced to disgorge someprofits from the raid of 1358-9, in his search for respectability andsocial acceptance, by repaying some of the 40,000 moutons Auxerre hadagreed to pay, in exchange for a papal pardon.  On 4 August 1366 theabbot of St Aubin d'Angers was ordered to return jewels, relics, andother goods which he had deposited at the abbey to St Germaind'Auxerre.
Early in 1367 Edward, the Black Prince, summoned Knolles to join hisexpedition to Spain in support of Pedro the Cruel of Castile.  Aftercrossing the Pyrenees via Roncevalles, he reconnoitred aroundNavaretta in February and March with Sir William Felton.  But heescaped the skirmish in which Felton was killed and fought on the leftwing at Najera (3 April 1367), before returning to Brittany. ; AtCandlemas 1368 he was at Dinan (Cotes-d'Armor) when, in a celebratedincident, John de Montfort's efforts to expunge a painting of his laterival, Blois, from the walls of the Dominican friary resulted in anapparently miraculous occurrence, as drops of blood seeped throughwhitewash used to obliterate the image.  Witnesses later recalled thatKnolles (who, according to the Chandos herald, was a man of fewwords), berated those collecting the liquid for their credulity:'Countryfolk and villeins, do you believe he was a saint?  By StGeorge, you lie, you idiots!  He was no saint!' (Plaine and Serent,283).  In March 1368 Knolles had a further protection to come toEngland with his wife and an entourage of sixty persons.  From thisperiod he began acquiring manors in Norfolk where he eventuallyretired.  At the same time, he also cast envious eyes on an even moreprestigious lordship, the vicomte of Limoges, held by the widow ofCharles de Blois, but at the time still under the Black Prince'sdominion, which he attempted to purchase.
At the end of 1368 Knolles was again campaigning in the Rouergue.After bringing reinforcements from Brittany in the spring of 1369, hewaged war in the Cahorsin between May and July, besieging Domme andattacking Rocamadour and Villefranche, before joining the earls ofCambridge and Pembroke in Poitou.  He was at the Black Prince's courtat Angouleme in January 1370 and at the relief of Belleperche, beforereturning once more to Derval, from whence he was summoned to Englandby Edward III.
The expedition of 1370
Since the reopening of the war with France in 1369, the English hadrecorded no major successes.  It was decided early in 1370 that alarge expedition should be launched which for the first time was to becommanded by a captain below the rank of earl.  It was for this taskthat Knolles was chosen.  The original intention seems to have been togive him sole charge of a force to invade Normandy in June and link upwith Charles II of Navarre, with whom negotiations were in train.  Butdelays and growing criticism of the decision to appoint Knolles tosuch a high command forced a change of plan.  This had disastrousconsequences.  On 13 June Knolles agreed terms with Sir Alan Buxhull,Sir Thomas Grandison, and Sir John Bourchier, who were now to sharecommand with him, over the division of their expected profits.  On 20June Knolles sealed an indenture to serve with 2000 men-at-arms and2000 archers for two years, with permission to fight anywhere inFrance outside Aquitaine.  On 5 July he appeared before the king'scouncil to agree these terms, as the other captains did in the nextfew days.  Ships (under John, Lord Neville, and the admiral, RalphFerrers), troops, and supplies had been gathering for some weeks andby 22 July, Knolles, his men, and horses (some 8464 in total), wereready to set out from Calais, having crossed from Winchelsea and Rye.
Spreading out into smaller bands and marching in roughly parallellines, Knolles's troops pillaged their way through Picardy, Champagne,and the Ile-de-France into Normandy, the Chartrain, the Vendomois, andMaine in the next five months, inflicting much superficial damage butavoiding sieges of major strong points, for instance, bypassing Rheimsand Paris, though Knolles tried on several occasions to offer battle.By the autumn disagreements among the commanders, all of whom feltsocially superior to Knolles, and, in the case of Sir JohnMinsterworth (who called Knolles 'an old brigand'), even hints oftreasonable communication with the enemy, together led to a completebreakdown in discipline and the disintegration of the army.  Knolleshimself eventually found refuge at his castle of Derval, some menlater returning to England from western Breton ports, while anotherdivision, under Thomas Grandison, after hot pursuit, was finallydefeated by du Guesclin at Pontvallain, 30 kilometres south of LeMans, on 4 December 1370.  For the first time, the French army hadeffectively employed the Fabian tactics that allowed Charles V in thenext few years to regain most of the territory lost before 1360: ithad shadowed the invading force, picked off stragglers, and avoidedfull-scale battle by withdrawing to well-defended towns whenever theEnglish approached.
In the recriminations that followed this disaster (for a time it wasbelieved that Knolles had perished, and his attempt to assuage EdwardIII with a large sum of money was foiled when most of it was embezzledby William, Lord Latimer), Edward III seized Knolles's properties inEngland.  For several years he was out of favour, serving the BlackPrince in Gascony or guarding his interests in Brittany. ; However,worsening relations between John de Montfort and his nobility placedthese in jeopardy and in May 1373 Charles V declared the lordships ofRouge and Derval forfeit after du Guesclin had overrun all the duchyexcept Brest Castle.  Here Knolles was captain for Montfort, who hadfled into exile in England.  He was besieged in June; terms andhostages for the delivery of Brest to du Guesclin were agreed in July,but aid provided by the earl of Salisbury, cruising in the channel,allowed Knolles to renege. ; He also disavowed a similar agreement byhis lieutenant, Hugh Browe, to deliver Derval to the French in theautumn though, unlike Brest, it did eventually fall in 1374.  Knollesalso gained more experience of naval warfare: Walsingham reports himattacking Spanish shipping off Sluys in 1374; a ship owned by him waslost off Purbeck while carrying his goods from Plymouth to London in1371; and in autumn 1377 he was in the fleet sent to the relief ofBrest under Thomas of Woodstock, earl of Buckingham.
On land, Knolles campaigned in the Cotentin in June 1374 where theEnglish still held St Sauveur-le-Vicomte, shortly before it wasbesieged by the admiral of France, Jean de Vienne, though it resistedfor almost a year before falling. ; Knolles may also have fought aroundNiort (Deux-Sevres) in this period, finally receiving a full pardonfor the expedition of 1370.  He continued to consolidate his Englishestates, investing not only in rural properties in Norfolk, Kent, andWiltshire, but establishing strong links with leading citizens ofLondon, where he acquired extensive possessions, including the manorof St Pancras and houses and shops in Islington, Kentish Town, and theparishes of All Hallows, Barking, and St Giles Cripplegate.
During the Anglo-French truces of 1374-7 Knolles acted as aconservator, and was involved both as a defendant and as acommissioner in further court of chivalry cases.  But as soon as thetruces expired, he was to the fore in military affairs.  He wasappointed captain of Brest once more in January 1378, from where heattacked John de Montfort's domestic enemies.  He continued in officefor a short period after the duke agreed to deliver the castleofficially into English keeping in April 1378, but was replaced inJune 1378, only to raid Harfleur with Richard (III) Fitzalan, earl ofArundel, and then accompany John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, in hissiege of St Malo in August.  If not already one of Gaunt's retainers,Knolles subsequently received an annual fee from him as he had fromthe Black Prince.  A domestic moment is revealed about 1 October 1378,when he dined congenially with John de Montfort at Cheshunt,Hertfordshire, one of the manors that Richard II had delivered inexchange for Brest.  In February 1379 Knolles was appointed along withSir John Cobham, Robert Bealknap, and others, including Sir ThomasFogg and Sir John Devereux, with whom he had frequently campaigned inFrance, to guard the coasts of Kent.  He went back to Brittany withMontfort in the summer, when the Breton nobility suddenly relented andasked the duke to return to his throne.  After returning to England in1380, he was retained as one of Buckingham's captains for anothergreat chevauchee, with a retinue of 140 men-at-arms and 240 archers.They left Calais almost exactly ten years to the day after theexpedition of 1370.
Buckingham's army took an almost identical route to that of 1370through northern-eastern France, before sweeping westwards aroundParis, reaching Nantes in October.  Here a siege was laid on behalf ofJohn de Montfort against his most stubborn domestic opponent, Olivier,lord of Clisson, who had just succeeded du Guesclin as constable ofFrance, following the latter's death in July 1380.  The siege was longand ultimately unsuccessful, with winter weather causing much sicknessamong the besiegers.  There was also growing tension between Montfortand his English allies, as he secretly negotiated terms with theFrench, finally ratified in the second treaty of Guerande in April1381.  To pacify Buckingham and his lieutenants, who reluctantlyagreed to return to England, Montfort had to make substantialpayments, though it is not clear what Knolles's share was.  He wasback in England, however, in time to take a characteristically robustpart in suppressing the peasants' revolt.  In order to disperse themob, one chronicler reports that Knolles counselled Richard II toissue a proclamation on 13 June stating that Gaunt (who had been inScotland on a diplomatic mission) was approaching London with a largeforce, while on 14 June Knolles was with the king at Mile End, when hemet the rebels.  On 15 June, after William Walworth killed Wat Tylerin Richard's presence at Smithfield, Knolles brought soldiers whom hehad been gathering in the city to surround the leaderless rebels, amove that appears carefully co-ordinated with Walworth's actions,though Richard succeeded in persuading them to disperse without theneed for Knolles to exercise force.  This timely service earnedKnolles the freedom of the city, a title he proudly boasted in hiswills, as well as other rewards.  There was one final campaign in 1383with Bishop Despenser to Flanders, though he was appointed to latercommissions for the defence of the realm, as in 1385 when he isreported gathering troops at Sandwich.  Following his experience ofpacifying London in 1381, he helped suppress a riot there in 1384, andat the time of the Merciless Parliament a faction, led by NicholasExton, wanted to appoint him captain of the city, but his fightingdays were over.
Later years
War had made Knolles a wealthy man.  Much booty inevitably passedquickly through his hands as larders and cellars were looted, food andwine consumed, and material possessions generously shared with his ownmen or even, in the case of Auxerre, returned to their owners.  ButKnolles also proved astute not only in converting some gains into realestate but in lending specie and increasing his liquid assets.  It isimpossible to draw an exact balance sheet.  Most payments to himconcern military service, for which confusing pledges and assignmentswere made by the crown.  Many of these could not be honoured.  Thisled to much complex bargaining and rescheduling of debts. ; But fromthe early 1370s Knolles increasingly developed mercantile interestsand lent money to private individuals as well as to the crown.  In1382, for example, Richard II acknowledged loans totalling 6888; andit may have been through his contacts in the city that a presumedrelative, Thomas Knolles (d. 1435), one of Robert's executors, wasable to make a highly successful career as a grocer and citizen whowas twice mayor of London.
After 1381, with advancing years, Knolles's attentions turned moreobviously to charitable and religious foundations.  The traditionalview (derived from Stow) that he helped establish an English hospitalat Rome with Calveley and Hawkwood is now discounted, but he didreceive a licence in 1389 to visit 'the Roman court for the quietingof his conscience' (Rymer, Foedera, 7.641).  His two chief concernswere rebuilding the bridge over the Medway at Rochester, with itsassociated chapel, an enterprise taken in hand with John, third LordCobham by March 1388 and completed in the 1390s, and founding acollege at Pontefract, the probable birthplace of his wife.  In thishe was following a fashion set by other old soldiers-Sir WalterMauny's patronage of the London Charterhouse, Sir Nicholas Cantilupe'sestablishment of Beauvale Priory, Nottinghamshire, or Calveley's ownfoundation of a collegiate church at Bunbury, Cheshire, under a willwhich Knolles executed-and reflecting an ascetic piety shared withother members of Gaunt's retinue. ; In 1385 Richard II confirmedKnolles's plans for a chantry at Pontefract, staffed by a warden andsix priests, with an almshouse for thirteen poor persons.  AfterConstance's own death (c.1389), he paid a further fine of 240 foranother royal confirmation, and bestowed on it a wealth of vestmentsand chapel furnishings (some possibly loot) as well as 1000 marks incash under his second will (1404).  The college was dissolved at theReformation, but Knolles's Almshouses survived until 1881, when theirendowments were reinvested with others to fund the still flourishingPontefract Charities.  At Rochester the new bridge served until 1856,before being replaced.  But the chapel, dissolved in 1548, was saved.After restoration in the 1930s, it now provides a boardroom for thewardens of the Rochester Bridge Trust, with the arms of Cobham andKnolles displayed in its east window.
Following his death on 15 August 1407 at Sculthorpe, his chief Norfolkmanor, Knolles, a small but physically powerful man, was commemoratedby Walsingham as 'a most invincible knight, whose arms the kingdom ofFrance had felt against it for many years, the duchy of Brittanyfeared, and the lands of the Spaniards dreaded' (St Albans Chronicle,22).  The most famous English professional soldier of the HundredYears' War, he was described by the same author as 'a poor and humblevalet [who rose to be] a great leader of soldiers, possessed of regalriches' (Historia Anglicana, 1.286), yet he was buried with littlepomp at the Whitefriars, London, alongside his wife.  Knolles left ahuge range of bequests to household servants and churches in Londonand elsewhere, including 5 to Malpas parish church.  In earlier yearsConstance accompanied him with their 'boys' on his expeditions.  Nonesurvived their parents; a son, who died young, was buried in the abbeyof Prieres (Morbihan), about 1360.  Since there were no direct heirs,the residue of his estate was settled on the college at Pontefract,while Knolles's fame was preserved by the display of his arms inseveral Norfolk churches (some of which, like Harpley and Sculthorpe,he rebuilt) and on other monuments that reflect family ties andfriendships, like the tombs of Calveley at Bunbury and Thomas Knollesat North Mimms, Hertfordshire, or Bodiam Castle, Sussex, the home ofSir Edward Dallingridge, while a boss in the cloisters of NorwichCathedral portrays Robert and Constance at prayer, flanking arepresentation of the Trinity.
Michael Jones
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Likenesses boss, c.1420, Norwich Cathedral [see illus.]
Wealth at death see wills, Archbishop Arundel's register, LPL, vol. 1,fols. 245r-246r, 247v-249r
[Ref: Michael Jones, 'Knolles , Sir Robert (d. 1407)', OxfordDictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004;online edn, May 2006 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/15758,accessed 30 Jan 2007]

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