Part 14

Sir Francis's eldest son Henry (d. 1583), and his sons Edward (d. c. 1580), Robert (d. 1625), Richard (d. 1596), Francis (d. c. 1648), and Thomas, were all courtiers and served the queen in parliament or in the field. His daughter Lettice (1540-1634) married Walter Devereux, earl of Essex, and then Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester; she was the mother of Elizabeth's favourite, the 2nd earl of Essex.

Some of Knollys's letters are in T. Wright's _Queen Elizabeth and her Times_ (1838) and the _Burghley Papers_, edited by S. Haynes (1740); and a few of his manuscripts are still in existence. A speech which Knollys delivered in parliament against some claims made by the bishops was printed in 1608 and again in W. Stoughton's _Assertion for True and Christian Church Policie_ (London, 1642).

Sir Francis Knollys's second son William (c. 1547-1632) served as a member of parliament and a soldier during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, being knighted in 1586. His eldest brother Henry, having died without sons in 1583, William inherited his father's estates in Oxfordshire, becoming in 1596 a privy councillor and comptroller of the royal household; in 1602 he was made treasurer of the household. Sir William enjoyed the favour of the new king James I., whom he had visited in Scotland in 1585, and was made Baron Knollys in 1603 and Viscount Wallingford in 1616. But in this latter year his fortunes suffered a temporary reverse. Through his second wife Elizabeth (1586-1658), daughter of Thomas Howard, earl of Suffolk, Knollys was related to Frances, countess of Somerset, and when this lady was tried for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury her relatives were regarded with suspicion; consequently Lord Wallingford resigned the treasurership of the household and two years later the mastership of the court of wards, an office which he had held since 1614. However, he regained the royal favour, and was created earl of Banbury in 1626. He died in London on the 25th of May 1632.

His wife, who was nearly forty years her husband's junior, was the mother of two sons, Edward (1627-1645) and Nicholas (1631-1674), whose paternity has given rise to much dispute. Neither is mentioned in the earl's will, but in 1641 the law courts decided that Edward was earl of Banbury, and when he was killed in June 1645 his brother Nicholas took the title. In the Convention Parliament of 1660 some objection was taken to the earl sitting in the House of Lords, and in 1661 he was not summoned to parliament; he had not succeeded in obtaining his writ of summons when he died on the 14th of March 1674.

Nicholas's son Charles (1662-1740), the 4th earl, had not been summoned to parliament when in 1692 he killed Captain Philip Lawson in a duel. This raised the question of his rank in a new form. Was he, or was he not, entitled to trial by the peers? The House of Lords declared that he was not a peer and therefore not so entitled, but the court of king's bench released him from his imprisonment on the ground that he was the earl of Banbury and not Charles Knollys a commoner. Nevertheless the House of Lords refused to move from its position, and Knollys had not received a writ of summons when he died in April 1740. His son Charles (1703-1771), vicar of Burford, Oxfordshire, and his grandsons, William (1726-1776) and Thomas Woods (1727-1793), were successively titular earls of Banbury, but they took no steps to prove their title. However, in 1806 Thomas Woods's son William (1763-1824), who attained the rank of general in the British army, asked for a writ of summons as earl of Banbury, but in 1813 the House of Lords decided against the claim. Several peers, including the great Lord Erskine, protested against this decision, but General Knollys himself accepted it and ceased to call himself earl of Banbury. He died in Paris on the 20th of March 1834. His eldest son, Sir William Thomas Knollys (1797-1883), entered the army and served with the Guards during the Peninsular War. Remaining in the army after the conclusion of the peace of 1815 he won a good reputation and rose high in his profession. From 1855 to 1860 he was in charge of the military camp at Aldershot, then in its infancy, and in 1861 he was made president of the council of military education. From 1862 to 1877 he was comptroller of the household of the prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII. From 1877 until his death on the 23rd of June 1883 he was gentleman usher of the black rod; he was also a privy councillor and colonel of the Scots Guards. His son Francis (b. 1837), private secretary to Edward VII. and George V., was created Baron Knollys in 1902; another son, Sir Henry Knollys (b. 1840), became private secretary to King Edward's daughter Maud, queen of Norway.

See Sir N. H. Nicolas, _Treatise on the Law of Adulterine Bastardy_ 1833); and G. E. C(okayne), _Complete Peerage_ (1887), vol. i.

KNOT, a Limicoline bird very abundant at certain seasons on the shores of Britain and many countries of the northern hemisphere. Camden in the edition of his _Britannia_ published in 1607 (p. 408) inserted a passage not found in the earlier issues of that work, connecting the name with that of King Canute, and this account of its origin has been usually received. But no other evidence in its favour is forthcoming, and Camden's statement is merely the expression of an opinion,[1] so that there is perhaps ground for believing him to have been mistaken, and that the clue afforded by Sir Thomas Browne, who (c. 1672) wrote the name "Gnatts or Knots," may be the true one.[2] Still the statement was so determinedly repeated by successive authors that Linnaeus followed them in calling the species _Tringa canutus_, and so it remains with nearly all modern ornithologists.[3] Rather larger than a snipe, but with a shorter bill and legs, the knot visits the coasts of some parts of Europe, Asia and North America at times in vast flocks; and, though in temperate climates a good many remain throughout the winter, these are nothing in proportion to those that arrive towards the end of spring, in England generally about the 15th of May, and after staying a few days pass northward to their summer quarters, while early in autumn the young of the year throng to the same places in still greater numbers, being followed a little later by their parents. In winter the plumage is ashy-grey above (save the rump, which is white) and white beneath. In summer the feathers of the back are black, broadly margined with light orange-red, mixed with white, those of the rump white, more or less tinged with red, and the lower parts are of a nearly uniform deep bay or chestnut. The birds which winter in temperate climates seldom attain the brilliancy of colour exhibited by those which arrive from the south; the luxuriance generated by the heat of a tropical sun seems needed to develop the full richness of hue. The young when they come from their birthplace are clothed in ashy-grey above, each feather banded with dull black and ochreous, while the breast is more or less deeply tinged with warm buff. Much curiosity has long existed among zoologists as to the egg of the knot, of which not a single identified or authenticated specimen is known to exist in collections. The species was found breeding abundantly on the North Georgian (now commonly called the Parry) Islands by Parry's Arctic expedition, as well as soon after on Melville Peninsula by Captain Lyons, and again during the voyage of Sir George Nares on the northern coast of Grinnell Land and the shores of Smith Sound, where Major Feilden obtained examples of the newly hatched young (_Ibis_, 1877, p. 407), and observed that the parents fed largely on the buds of _Saxifraga oppositifolia_. These are the only localities in which this species is known to breed, for on none of the arctic lands lying to the north of Europe or Asia has it been unquestionably observed.[4] In winter its wanderings are very extensive, as it is recorded from Surinam, Brazil, Walfisch Bay in South Africa, China, Queensland and New Zealand. Formerly this species was extensively netted in England, and the birds fattened for the table, where they were esteemed a great delicacy, as witness the entries in the Northumberland and Le Strange Household Books; and the British Museum contains an old treatise on the subject: "The maner of kepyng of knotts, after Sir William Askew and my Lady, given to my Lord Darcy, 25 Hen. VIII." (_MSS. Sloane_, 1592, 8 _cat._ 663). (A. N.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] His words are simply "_Knotts_, i. _Canuti aues_, vt opinor e Dania enim aduolare creduntur." In the margin the name is spelt "Cnotts," and he possibly thought it had to do with a well-known story of that king. Knots undoubtedly frequent the sea-shore, where Canute is said on one occasion to have taken up his station, but they generally retreat, and that nimbly, before the advancing surf, which he is said in the story not to have done.

[2] In this connexion we may compare the French _maringouin_, ordinarily a gnat or mosquito, but also, among the French Creoles of America, a small shore-bird, either a _Tringa_ or an _Aegialitis_, according to Descourtilz (_Voyage_, ii. 249). See also Littré's _Dictionnaire_, _s.v._

[3] There are few of the _Limicolae_, to which group the knot belongs, that present greater changes of plumage according to age or season, and hence before these phases were understood the species became encumbered with many synonyms, as _Tringa cinerea_, _ferruginea_, _grisea_, _islandica_, _naevia_ and so forth. The confusion thus caused was mainly cleared away by Montagu and Temminck.

[4] The _Tringa canutus_ of Payer's expedition seems more likely to have been _T. maritima_, which species is not named among the birds of Franz Josef Land, though it can hardly fail to occur there.

KNOT (O.E. _cnotta_, from a Teutonic stem _knutt_; cf. "knit," and Ger. _knoten_), an intertwined loop of rope, cord, string or other flexible material, used to fasten two such ropes, &c., to one another, or to another object. (For the various forms which such "knots" may take see below.) The word is also used for the distance-marks on a log-line, and hence as the equivalent of a nautical mile (see LOG), and for any hard mass, resembling a knot drawn tight, especially one formed in the trunk of a tree at the place of insertion of a branch. Knots in wood are the remains of dead branches which have become buried in the wood of the trunk or branch on which they were borne. When a branch dies down or is broken off, the dead stump becomes grown over by a healing tissue, and, as the stem which bears it increases in thickness, gradually buried in the newer wood. When a section is made of the stem the dead stump appears in the section as a knot; thus in a board it forms a circular piece of wood, liable to fall out and leave a "knot-hole." "Knot" or "knob" is an architectural term for a bunch of flowers, leaves or other ornamentation carved on a corbel or on a boss. The word is also applied figuratively to any intricate problem, hard to disentangle, a use stereotyped in the proverbial "Gordian knot," which, according to the tradition, was cut by Alexander the Great (see GORDIUM).

[Illustration: FIG 1.]

[Illustration: FIG 2.]

Knots, Bends, Hitches, Splices and Seizings are all ways of fastening cords or ropes, either to some other object such as a spar, or a ring, or to one another. The "knot" is formed to make a knob on a rope, generally at the extremity, and by untwisting the strands at the end and weaving them together. But it may be made by turning the rope on itself through a loop, as for instance, the "overhand knot" (fig. 1). A "bend" (from the same root as "bind"), and a "hitch" (an O.E. word), are ways of fastening or tying ropes together, as in the "Carrick bend" (fig. 21), or round spars as the Studding Sail Halyard Bend (fig. 19), and the Timber Hitch (fig. 20). A "splice" (from the same root as "split") is made by untwisting two rope ends and weaving them together. A "seizing" (Fr. _saisir_) is made by fastening two spars to one another by a rope, or two ropes by a third, or by using one rope to make a loop on another--as for example the Racking Seizing (fig. 41), the Round Seizing (fig. 40), and the Midshipman's Hitch (fig. 29). The use of the words is often arbitrary. There is, for instance, no difference in principle between the Fisherman's Bend (fig. 18) and the Timber Hitch (fig. 20). Speaking generally, the Knot and the Seizing are meant to be permanent, and must be unwoven in order to be unfastened, while the Bend and Hitch can be undone at once by pulling the ropes in the reverse direction from that in which they are meant to hold. Yet the Reef Knot (figs. 3 and 4) can be cast loose with ease, and is wholly different in principle, for instance, from the Diamond Knot (figs. 42 and 43). These various forms of fastening are employed in many kinds of industry, as for example in scaffolding, as well as in seamanship. The governing principle is that the strain which pulls against them shall draw them tighter. The ordinary "knots and splices" are described in every book on seamanship.

_Overhand Knot_ (fig. 1).--Used at the end of ropes to prevent their unreeving and as the commencement of other knots. Take the end _a_ round the end _b_.

_Figure-of-Eight Knot_ (fig. 2).--Used only to prevent ropes from unreeving; it forms a large knob.

[Illustration: FIG. 3.]

[Illustration: FIG. 4.]

_Reef Knot_ (figs. 3, 4).--Form an overhand knot as above. Then take the end _a_ over the end _b_ and through the bight. If the end _a_ were taken under the end _b_, a _granny_ would be formed. This knot is so named from being used in tying the reef-points of a sail.

[Illustration: FIG. 5.]

[Illustration: FIG. 6.]

[Illustration: FIG. 7.]

_Bowline_ (figs. 5-7).--Lay the end _a_ of a rope over the standing part _b_. Form with _b_ a bight _c_ over _a_. Take _a_ round behind _b_ and down through the bight _c_. This is a most useful knot employed to form a loop which will not slip. _Running bowlines_ are formed by making a bowline round its own standing part above _b_. It is the most common and convenient temporary running noose.

[Illustration: FIG. 8.]

[Illustration: FIG. 9.]

[Illustration: FIG. 10.]

_Bowline on a Bight_ (figs. 8, 9).--The first part is made similar to the above with the double part of the rope; then the bight _a_ is pulled through sufficiently to allow it to be bent over past _d_ and come up in the position shown in fig. 9. It makes a more comfortable sling for a man than a single bight.

_Half-Hitch_ (fig. 10).--Pass the end _a_ of the rope round the standing part _b_ and through the bight.

_Two Half-Hitches_ (fig. 11).--The half-hitch repeated; this is commonly used, and is capable of resisting to the full strength of the rope. A stop from _a_ to the standing part will prevent it jamming.

[Illustration: FIG. 11.]

[Illustration: FIG. 12.]

[Illustration: FIG. 13.]

_Clove Hitch_ (figs. 12, 13).--Pass the end _a_ round a spar and cross it over _b_. Pass it round the spar again and put the end _a_ through the second bight.

_Blackwall Hitch_ (fig. 14).--Form a bight at the end of a rope, and put the hook of a tackle through the bight so that the end of the rope may be jammed between the standing part and the back of the hook.

_Double Blackwall Hitch_ (fig. 15).--Pass the end _a_ twice round the hook and under the standing part _b_ at the last cross.

[Illustration: FIG. 14.]

[Illustration: FIG. 15.]

[Illustration: FIG. 16.]

[Illustration: FIG. 17.]

_Cat's-paw_ (fig. 16).--Twist up two parts of a lanyard in opposite directions and hook the tackle in the eyes _i_, _i_. A piece of wood should be placed between the parts at _g_. A large lanyard should be clove-hitched round a large toggle and a strap passed round it below the toggle.

_Marling-spike Hitch_ (fig. 17).--Lay the end _a_ over _c_; fold the loop over on the standing part _b_; then pass the marline-spike through, over both parts of the bight and under the part _b_. Used for tightening each turn of a seizing.

[Illustration: FIG. 18.]

[Illustration: FIG. 19.]

[Illustration: FIG. 20.]

_Fisherman's Bend_ (fig. 18).--Take two turns round a spar, then a half-hitch round the standing part and between the spar and the turns, lastly a half-hitch round the standing part.

_Studding-sail Halyard Bend_ (fig. 19).--Similar to the above, except that the end is tucked under the first round turn; this is more snug. A _magnus hitch_ has two round turns and one on the other side of the standing part with the end through the bight.

_Timber Hitch_ (fig. 20).--Take the end _a_ of a rope round a spar, then round the standing part _b_, then several times round its own part _c_, against the lay of the rope.

[Illustration: FIG. 21.]

_Carrick Bend_ (fig. 21).--Lay the end of one hawser over its own part to form a bight as _e_´, _b_; pass the end of another hawser up through that bight near _b_, going out over the first end at _c_, crossing under the first long part and over its end at _d_, then under both long parts, forming the loops, and above the first short part at _b_, terminating at the end _e_´´, in the opposite direction vertically and horizontally to the other end. The ends should be securely stopped to their respective standing parts, and also a stop put on the becket or extreme end to prevent it catching a pipe or chock; in that form this is the best quick means of uniting two large hawsers, since they cannot jam. When large hawsers have to work through small pipes, good security may be obtained either by passing ten or twelve taut racking turns with a suitable strand and securing each end to a standing part of the hawser, or by taking half as many round turns taut, crossing the ends between the hawsers over the seizing and reef-knotting the ends. This should be repeated in three places and the extreme ends well stopped. Connecting hawsers by bowline knots is very objectionable, as the bend is large and the knots jam.

_Sheet Bend_ (fig. 22).--Pass the end of one rope through the bight of another, round both parts of the other, and under its own standing part. Used for bending small sheets to the clews of sails, which present bights ready for the hitch. An ordinary net is composed of a series of sheet bends. A _weaver's knot_ is made like a sheet bend.

_Single Wall Knot_ (fig. 23).--Unlay the end of a rope, and with the strand a form a bight. Take the next strand _b_ round the end of _a_. Take the last strand _c_ round the end of _b_ and through the bight made by _a_. Haul the ends taut.

_Single Wall Crowned_ (fig. 24).--Form a single wall, and lay one of the ends, _a_, over the knot. Lay _b_ over _a_, and _c_ over _b_ and through the bight of _a_. Haul the ends taut.

[Illustration: FIG. 22.]

[Illustration: FIG. 23.]

[Illustration: FIG. 24.]

_Double Wall and Double Crown_ (fig. 25).--Form a single wall crowned; then let the ends follow their own parts round until all the parts appear double. Put the ends down through the knot.

_Matthew Walker_ (figs. 26, 27).--Unlay the end of a rope. Take the first strand round the rope and through its own bight; the second strand round the rope, through the bight of the first, and through its own bight; the third through all three bights. Haul the ends taut.

[Illustration: FIG. 25.]

[Illustration: FIG. 26.]

[Illustration: FIG. 27.]

[Illustration: FIG. 28.]

_Inside Clinch_ (fig. 28).--The end is bent close round the standing part till it forms a circle and a half, when it is securely seized at _a_, _b_ and _c_, thus making a running eye; when taut round anything it jams the end. It is used for securing hemp cables to anchors, the standing parts of topsail sheets, and for many other purposes. If the eye were formed outside the bight an _outside clinch_ would be made, depending entirely on the seizings, but more ready for slipping.

_Midshipman's Hitch_ (fig. 29).--Take two round turns inside the bight, the same as a half-hitch repeated; stop up the end or let another half-hitch be taken or held by hand. Used for hooking a tackle for a temporary purpose.

[Illustration: FIG. 29.]

[Illustration: FIG. 30.]

[Illustration: FIG. 31.]

[Illustration: FIG. 32.]

_Turk's Head_ (fig. 30).--With fine line (very dry) make a clove hitch round the rope; cross the bights twice, passing an end the reverse way (up or down) each time; then keeping the whole spread flat, let each end follow its own part round and round till it is too tight to receive any more. Used as an ornament variously on side-ropes and foot-ropes of jibbooms. It may also be made with three ends, two formed by the same piece of line secured through the rope and one single piece. Form with them a diamond knot; then each end crossed over its neighbour follows its own part as above.

_Spanish Windlass_ (fig. 31).--An iron bar and two marling-spikes are taken; two parts of a seizing are twisted like a cat's-paw (fig. 16), passed round the bar, and hove round till sufficiently taut. In heaving shrouds together to form an eye two round turns are taken with a strand and the two ends hove upon. When a lever is placed between the parts of a long lashing or frapping and hove round, we have what is also called a Spanish windlass.

_Slings_ (fig. 32).--This is simply the bight of a rope turned up over its own part; it is frequently made of chain, when a shackle (bow up) takes the place of the bight at _s_ and another at _y_, connecting the two ends with the part which goes round the mast-head. Used to sling lower yards. For boat's yards it should be a grummet with a thimble seized in at _y_. As the tendency of all yards is to cant forward with the weight of the sail, the part marked by an arrow should be the fore-side--easily illustrated by a round ruler and a piece of twine.

_Sprit-Sail Sheet Knot_ (fig. 33).--This knot consists of a double wall and double crown made by the two ends, consequently with six strands, with the ends turned down. Used formerly in the clews of sails, now as an excellent stopper, a lashing or shackle being placed at _s_ and a lanyard round the head at _l_.

[Illustration: FIG. 33.]

[Illustration: FIG. 34.]

[Illustration: FIG. 35.]

_Turning in a Dead-Eye Cutter-Stay fashion_ (fig. 34).--A bend is made in the stay or shroud round its own part and hove together with a bar and strand; two or three seizings diminishing in size (one round and one or two either round or flat) are hove on taut and snug, the end being at the side of the fellow part. The dead-eye is put in and the eye driven down with a commander.