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Into the very early mediaeval history of the house I do not think that I need enter. It is suggested that a Roman building once occupied the site, and that some foundations which were recently unearthed beneath the larder—evidently one of the oldest portions—once formed part of that construction. The question of dating the existing buildings, however, is quite sufficiently complicated without going back to a building which no longer exists. Nor do I think that the early owners—the Pembrokes, or the Say and Seles—offer the smallest interest; if we knew precisely what parts of the house we owed to them severally it would be another matter, but the mediaeval records are very scanty. It is safe to say, generally speaking, that the north side is the oldest side; it is the most sombre, the most massive, and the most irregular; there are buttresses, battlements, and towers, but no gables and no embellishments—nothing but solid masonry. Up in the north-east corner is the old kitchen, and the old entrances through dark archways at the top of stairways. The passages here, of thick stone, twist oddly, and their ceilings are groined by semi-arches which have become lost and embedded in the alterations to the stone-work. It is a dark, massive, little-visited corner, this nucleus of Knole.

The house, or such portions of it as then existed, was bought from William, Lord Say and Sele, by Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, on June 30, 1456, and it is clear from the numerous bills among the archives at Lambeth Palace that both he and his more notable successor, Cardinal Morton, carried out extensive additions, alterations, and repairs. It is, however, a very difficult task to determine what parts of the building definitely belong to this period, for, what with the additions of the archbishops and the alterations of the later Sackvilles, all is confusion. It would appear, for instance, that upon a foundation of Tudor masonry the Sackvilles constructed the Elizabethan gables which are now so characteristic a feature of the house; but it is less easy to say exactly how much the first Tudor archbishop found there on his arrival of earlier workmanship. A further confusing factor is the great fire which took place in 1623, and is reported to have destroyed a large part of the building—but exactly where, and how much, we cannot say. Nor are the accounts at Lambeth very illuminating:

In divers costs and expenses made this year [1467] for repairing the manor of Knole, carriage for the two cart loads of lathes from Panters to the manor, 14d. For carriage of thirty loads of stone for the new tower, 7d. load = 16/9. Carriage of six loads of timber at 7d. = 3/6. Carriage of one fother of lead from London to Knole, 3/4.

The next year, 1468:

Repairs at Knole. One labourer for 6 days work in the great chamber and the new seler, 2/-. Making of 700 lathes to the new tower, 14d. One labourer 4½ days in the old kitchen, 4d. Item, for 1 j M¹ of walle prygge (sic) to the stable and other places, 13d. One cowl to the masonry, 12d.

THE GREEN COURT: BOURCHIER’S ORIEL

The “great chamber” referred to here was in all probability the present Great Hall, which we know to have been built by Bourchier about 1460, although it was altered by Thomas Sackville, who put in the present ceiling, panelling, and oak screen. Thomas also built the Great Staircase in 1604–8, leading to the Ball-room, which is of the time of Bourchier. I expect this is the “seler” referred to, meaning solar and not cellar, as might be thought; or did it mean the present colonnade, which is also of Bourchier’s building, in 1468? The position of the “new tower” is nowhere specified, but I wonder whether it is not the tower beside the chapel, where there is a stone fireplace bearing Bourchier’s cognisance—the double knot—and the same device in a small pane of stained glass in the window. This tower, moreover, goes commonly by the name of Bourchier’s Tower.

There are a few more items mentioned in the Lambeth papers, 1468–9: “Repairs at Knole. Repairs at one house set aside for the slaughter of sheep and other [animals?] for the use of the Lord’s great house at Sevenoaks, 113s. 2d.” This, I think, is certainly the old slaughter-house which forms one side of the Queen’s Court. It is obviously a very old building. But there is one point in this account which is of interest, namely, that Knole should at this date have been referred to as the “great house.” This would seem to prove that the greater mass of the building was already in existence, since by the latter half of the fifteenth century there were already many houses and palaces in England whose bulk would argue that the current standard of greatness might be high and the adjective not too readily applied. The Primate owned, moreover, up to the time of the Reformation no less than twelve palaces and houses of residence in the diocese of Canterbury alone, namely, Bekesburn, Ford, Maidstone, Charing, Saltwood, Aldington, Wingham, Wrotham, Tenterden, Knole, Otford, and Canterbury. It seems, therefore, unlikely that Knole should be singled out as a “great house” unless there were good justification for the expression.

Bourchier also built the Brown Gallery about 1460, and at or about the same date he put up the machicolations over the gate-house between the Green Court and the Stone Court. Towards the end of the same century, Morton, his successor, “threw out an oriel window which rendered the machicolations useless, and showed that all idea of such fortifications was at an end.” It is not known precisely how much Morton built at Knole. It is even uncertain whether he or Bourchier built the Chapel. The Lambeth records cease with some small repairs in 1487–88, so we have nothing to go upon—all the more pity, for Morton was a great prelate, forgotten now in the greater fame of the Tudor dynasty, “his name buried,” says his chronicler, “under his own creation.” This cardinal, having succeeded Bourchier in 1486, held the Primacy for fourteen years, and died at Knole in 1500. I pass over his successors, Dean and Wareham, for I do not know how much they did at Knole. Cranmer, the next archbishop, enjoyed the house for seven years only, when he was compelled—quite amicably, but nevertheless compelled—to present it to Henry VIII, whose fancy it had taken. Here the accounts begin again,^[1] although they give very little indication: £872 by Royal Warrant in 1543, £770 in 1548, £80 in 1546—three sums which would now be equivalent, roughly, to £30,000.

After Henry VIII Knole continued as Crown property, passing now and then temporarily into the hands of various favourites, until in 1586 it was given by Queen Elizabeth to her cousin, Thomas Sackville, and has remained in the possession of his family ever since.