Heading the list of Dulwich tenants in 1376 is the name of 'Dominus Robertus Knolles'.  Dominus in this context denotes a person of high rank, and indeed later documents make it clear that this was none other than Sir Robert Knolles who, on June 15th 1381, was respon- sible for ensuring the defeat of the Peasants' Revolt and saving the life of King Richard II.  It is ironic that a man so celebrated in his own time, without whose prompt action on that fateful day English history might well have taken a very different course, should now be all but forgotten.

Born in Cheshire into the lower gentry, Robert Knolles fought as a young man of about 25 at the battle of Crecy in 1346, and was knighted soon afterwards.  He first achieved real fame, or perhaps one should say infamy, after the next great English victory, at Poi- tiers in 1356. Remaining in France as the Captain of one of the notorious 'Free Companies', he and his band of 500 archers prac- tised systematic extortion and terrorism on the civil population of the Loire Valley and Normandy, with such success that in a short time he had made a personal fortune of 100,000 crowns.  He was re- called to active service by the Black Prince, and took part in his successful campaign in Castile in 1367.  An account of that period by the so-called 'Chandos Herald' describes Knolles as a man of few words, who enlivened his own side and terrorised the enemy.  Returning to Aquitaine, he briefly held the office of Master of the Black Prince's Household, but then retired to his estates in Brittany.

After twenty years of victories, the three years after 1367 saw an al- most complete reversal of English fortunes in France, with the hold on Aquitaine threatened by a revival of the French forces under a new king.  In 1370 our own Edward III sent two expeditions, one to Aquitaine under John of Gaunt, the other to Calais under Sir Robert Knolles, who thus became England's supreme commander in France itself. His task was to draw the French in that direction and away from Aquitaine, but he met with so little resistance that by September he had advanced almost to Paris.  The French king appointed one Bertrand du Guesclin Constable of France, with responsibility for defeating Knolles' force of 1,500 men-at-arms and 4,000 archers.  Since Knolles had no orders to capture any castles, he restricted his men to burning crops and villages, and as Christ- mas approached ordered a withdrawal to Brittany, to winter there.  Some of his aristocratic subordinates, who disliked Knolles and referred to him as 'The Old Brigand', were unhappy at being denied the opportunity of making some money by looting or taking captives for ransom, and refused to go with him.  Du Guesclin (who, as it happened, was an old personal adversary of Sir Robert's, and had been captured and ransomed by him after Poitiers) seized his chance, and when Knolles returned to Brittany with his loyal contingent, du Guesclin attacked and defeated the remaining forces.

At some time in the next decade Knolles returned to England for good.  He was undoubtedly a very wealthy man, and as well as est- ates in Normandy and Brittany he owned a manor in Norfolk and a mansion house in Seething Lane, near the Tower of London.  We don't know for certain when he acquired his Dulwich property, as unfortunately none of the relevant charters or court rolls have sur- vived.  However, we do know that towards the end of his very long life (he died in 1407, aged about 90), he disposed of all his property in Dulwich to one Sir Robert Denny, since the court rolls of 1403 to 1405 give details of a dispute with the lord of the manor as to which of Denny's holdings, "lately Robert Knolles, knight, formerly John Pere's", were freehold and which were copyhold.  We can deduce from this litigation that Knolles had held 26 acres (freehold) "former- ly called Gerardes, now called Kinolles", 12 acres (freehold) called Amiels, 9 acres (freehold) called Reygates, and 13 acres of copy- hold land, as well as other freehold land called Longeredenum of unspecified acreage.  'Kinolles' must be none other than the so- called 'manor' of Knowlys, which later became known as Hall Place.  Note the phonetic spelling, which clearly indicates that 'Knolles' was pronounced with a hard 'K', not as we would pronounce the equiva- lent 'Knowles' nowadays.  The reference to 'Kinolles' is interesting for another reason, in that the name 'Kennoldes', recently resurrec- ted for one of the blocks of flats in Croxted Road, can be traced back to references in the 16th century court rolls to fields in Dulwich known collectively as 'Kennelles', and in earlier times as 'Canelcroft', 'Canelfield', etc.  This may, of course, have been because these fields adjoined a canal, but it is just possible that they took their name from Sir Robert Knolles. There is a surviving picture of him, reproduced below, as captain of his band of mercenaries in France, captioned 'robert canole', which further shows how unstandardised English spelling was in the middle ages, and one of the several joint purchasers of John Pere's former Dulwich property in 1376, probably as trustees for Knolles, was one William Canele, almost certainly a relative.  All this evidence tends to indicate that, surprisingly, Sir Robert Knolles is still commemorated in Dulwich.