Lady Alice Knyvet was an English noblewoman, and the wife of John Knyvet of Buckenham Castle.
Her husband John Knyvet was the son of Sir John Knyvet (d.1445).
In 1461, left in charge of the castle by her husband, she refused to surrender it to Edward IV and the royal commissioners.[1] Raising the drawbridge, she defended the castle "with slings, 'paveises', faggots, timbers, and other armaments of war", assisted by fifty people "armed with swords, 'glavyes', bows and arrows".[2]
When the castle of Bokenham fell to the Crown, in the turbulent last years of Henry VI, John and William Knyvet seized possession of it in defiance of royal authority. Armed with a writ, John Twyer, J P., and two other officers came to the castle to oust the intruders. They were suffered to enter the outer ward but found that the inner drawbridge across a deep moat had been raised. When Twyer shouted a demand to be admitted, there appeared 'at a certain little tower' of the drawbridge John Knyvet's wife Alice, backed by some fifty persons in warlike array. Alice explained the situation very clearly: 'Master Twyer, ye be a Justice of the Peace and I require you to keep the peace, for I will not leave the possession of this castle to die therefore; and if you begin to break the peace or make any war to get the place of me, I shall defend me. For rather had I in such wise to die than to be slain when my husband cometh home, for he charged me to keep it.'[3]Alice's manner must have been as emphatic as her words: 'for fear of death and mutilation' John Twyer and his companions hastily withdrew.
Alice was the daughter of William Lynne, a London grocer and wool merchant, and Alice Stokes.
Two of her children were Sir William Knyvet and Christian Colet.[4]