Who Is Thomas Knyvett? Bio, Life History, Wife, Death, Family

Sir Thomas Knyvett of Buckenham, Norfolk was born in 1485 and he died on August 10th, 1512. He was a young English nobleman who was a close associate of King Henry VIII shortly after that monarch came to the throne.

Sir Thomas Knyvett was the son of Sir Edmund Knyvett of Buckenham and his wife Eleanor Tyrrell, who was the granddaughter of Robert Darcy, a knight, and Sir William Tyrrell of Gipping, Suffolk.

His mother Eleanor was the sister of Sir James Tyrrell. He was the grandson of Sir William Knyvett.

Thomas Knyvett nationality

Thomas Knyvett was born in Buckenham, Norfolk in England. He was English.

Thomas Knyvett age

Knyvett was born in 1485 and he died in 1512. He was 27 years of age at the time of his death.

Thomas Knyvett family

Elizabeth Grey, Viscountess Lisle, who was once engaged to Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and later became Henry Courtenay’s wife, was born to Knyvett and Muriel Howard before 9 July 1506, the widow of John Grey, 2nd Viscount Lisle.

Knyvett was linked to numerous notable persons in English history through Muriel Howard, daughter of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, and Elizabeth Tilney (his brother-in-law, for example, was Thomas Boleyn, father of Queen Anne, and grandfather of Queen Elizabeth I).

Edmund (1508–1551), Katherine, who would wed Henry Paget, 2nd Baron Paget, Ferdinand, Anne, and Henry were among Knyvett’s seven children, along with two daughters.

Henry was the father of Sir Henry Knyvet, who was the grandfather of Katherine Knyvett and, via her, the ancestor of the Earls of Suffolk and Berkshire. Katherine Knyvett married Thomas Howard, the first Earl of Suffolk, who was her third cousin.

Between December 13 and December 21, 1512, Muriel Howard passed away during childbirth, four months after her husband’s passing. Eleanor Knyvett, the grandmother of their five orphans, raised them.

Thomas Knyvett death

Knyvett was assigned command of the royal flagship, the Regent, along with Sir John Carew in 1512 when Henry launched war on France. A modest fleet sailed for the Brittany coast, with some court favorites in charge of additional ships.

They engaged a slightly smaller French fleet on August 10, 1512, off the coast of Brest, and a bloody battle known as the Battle of St. Mathieu followed.

Knyvett’s ship was engaged in boarding the Breton command ship Cordelière when the Cordelière’s powder magazine exploded, according to some reports it was ignited on purpose.

The two vessels caught fire. Along with the Breton commander Hervé de Portzmoguer and more than 1,700 other soldiers, both French and English, Knyvett and Carew also perished.

Thomas Knyvett wife

Knyvett was married to Muriel Howard.

Thomas Knyvett children

Knyvett was the father of five children.