William Knight

William Knight (1475/76 – 1547 ) was the Secretary of State to Henry VIII of England, and Bishop of Bath and Wells.

Knight was sent to Rome in 1527 to try to get Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon annulled. He rebuilt Horton Court in Gloucestershire using ideas from Italian architecture.

Life Born in London, he entered Winchester School as a scholar in 1487, and proceeded in 1491 to New College, Oxford, where he became Fellow in 1493. He afterwards proceeded D.C.L. 12 October 1531. In 1495 Knight went to court, where Henry VII made him one of his secretaries. He was frequently employed as an ambassador in the reign of Henry VIII. On 3 June 1512 he went with Sir Edward Howard to Spain, and, after storms and sickness, reached Valladolid 18 February 1513. He had received a commission authorising him and John Stile to treat with Ferdinand II of Aragon about the defence of the church. Knight remained at Valladolid till June 1513.

On 3 April 1514 he was at Mechlin on the first of a long series of embassies to the Low Countries. Richard Wingfield and Spinelly were with him (18 April), and on 12 June he was at The Hague with Sir Edward Poynings. In July he seems to have visited Switzerland. He received, on 14 July 1514, a grant of arms; in the grant he is described as prothonotary.

In February 1532 Hacket and Knight were appointed to treat with the emperor's commissioners about commerce; the embassy did not bear much fruit. Knight held at this time the rectory of Romald Kirk, Yorkshire. On 30 January 1535 Knight was a commissioner for collecting the ecclesiastical tenths, and on 15 October 1537 was present at the christening of Edward VI.

On 29 May 1541 he was consecrated bishop of Bath and Wells, in succession to John Clerk, and he resigned all his other preferments. At Wells Thomas Fuller relates that he built a market cross with the assistance of Dean Woolman. He died in 1547 at Wiveliscombe, Somerset, and was buried in Wells Cathedral next to Sugar's Chapel, where a pulpit which he had erected and which bears his arms served as a monument. He was a patron of Henry Cole. When in London Knight lived in a house in Cannon Row, Westminster, afterwards (1536) assigned, in accordance with an act of 27 Henry VIII, to the bishops of Norwich. By his will he left money to Winchester and New Colleges.