[6] It was close enough to London to allow easy access for owners who were involved with affairs of state, and it was on "sounde, parfaite, holesome grounde", in the words of Henry VIII.

Saye and Sele was executed on the authority of a hastily assembled commission initiated by Henry VI in response to the demands of Cade's rebels when they arrived in London.

[14] James Fiennes's heir, William, second Baron Saye and Sele, sold the property for 400 marks (£266 13s 4d) in 1456 to Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury.

[18] After Cardinal Bourchier's death in 1486, Knole was occupied by the next four archbishops: John Morton (1487–1500), Henry Deane (1501–1503), William Warham (1504–1532) and finally Thomas Cranmer.

[22] After the death of Warham and before the appointment of his successor, Henry found his properties in nearby Otford and Knole useful residences for his daughter Mary, at the time of the protracted divorce from her mother, Catherine of Aragon.

[31] One of Sampson Lennard's daughters, Margaret, married Sir Thomas Waller, at one time lieutenant of Dover Castle and the younger son of an important Kent family, with their seat at Groombridge.

Lennard was happy to sell, not only because of his mounting debts but also because he wished to gain the Dacre title, which he did in 1604 from a commission headed by the Lord Treasurer, Thomas Sackville.

[35] Thomas Sackville, at that time Lord Buckhurst, had considered a number of other sites to build a house commensurate with his elevated status in court and government.

However, he could not overlook the multiple advantages of Knole: a good supply of spring water (rare for a house on a hill), plentiful timber, a deer park and close enough proximity to London.

Perhaps, with his renovations to the state rooms at Knole, Sackville hoped to receive a visit by the King, but this does not seem to have occurred and the lord treasurer himself died during the building work, in April 1608, at the age of about 72.

[37] Unlike any surviving English great house apart from Haddon Hall, Knole today still looks as it did when Thomas died, having managed "to remain motionless like this since the early 17th century, balanced between growth and decay.

[45] Edward, a relatively moderate royalist, was away from Knole in the summer of 1642, when he and his cousin and factotum Sir John Sackville fell under suspicion of stockpiling arms and preparing local men to fight for Charles I during the Civil War.

On Sunday 14 August 1642, Parliament sent three troops of horse under Colonel Edwin Sandys, a member of a Kentish puritan family, to seize these arms from Knole.

Sandys's troops then moved to Knole where, according to the earl of Dorset's steward, they caused damage to the value of £186, and 'The Armes they have wholie taken awaie there being five wagenloads of them (sic passim).

For the first 12 to 18 months of its operation, the Kent Committee was based at Knole, until its obvious disadvantage, being at one end of a very large county, led to its removal first to Aylesford and then to Maidstone.

To provision its varied occupants, the Committee not only used the Knole estate but also rented fields from local landowners, including, surprisingly, Lady Sackville (Sir John's wife).

Committee meetings were held in the room now known as Poets' Parlour where, in addition to using the existing furnishings, £153 was spent on sheets, table linen and carpets and £22 on silverware, candlesticks, glasses, jugs and drinking horns.

[54] When Edward Sackville died in 1652, his son Richard inherited not only the earldom, but estates in substantial debt, not least owing to fines imposed by Parliament for his father's role in the Civil War.

He practised quiet retrenchment, despite taking part in some public work following the Restoration of Charles II, including membership of the commission for the trial of the regicides.

'[58] He was a poet and patron who became Charles II's lord chamberlain and 'unofficial minister of the arts', with the 'poets' parlour' in Knole becoming a venue for literary society to converse.

[63] Her great friend, Lady Elizabeth Germain, lived at Knole for such a long time that her bedroom, sitting room and china closet are, to this day, named after her.

It was not at the forefront of architectural development and, in 1673, John Evelyn called it '‘a great old fashioned house', quite unlike the classical style favoured by Inigo Jones and also illustrated by Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk's almost contemporary rebuilding of Audley End.

However, Edward Town asserts its importance, arguing that 'what Sackville achieved at Knole was a remarkable synthesis of what was inherited from the existing fabric and what was newly built.

Sackville recommended the "very excellent surveyor" John Thorpe to survey and make "plots" in 1605 for the rebuilding of Ampthill for Anne of Denmark and Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, and may have employed him on his own building projects.

[81] As part of this work, in 2014, archaeologists found that the late-medieval wall and roof timbers, and the oak beams beneath floors, particularly near fireplaces, had been scorched and carved with scratched marks.

[83] Since many of these are late-medieval marks, covered up during the early-17th-century rebuilding of Knole, it is fanciful to link them to James I's interest in witchcraft, particularly since, after the publication of his book Daemonologie (1597), he later became much more sceptical about the existence of witches.

These include three state beds, silver furniture (comprising a pair of torchieres, mirror and dressing table, being rare survivors of this type), outstanding tapestries and textiles, and the Knole Settee.

Reynolds's portraits in the house include a late self-portrait in doctoral robes and depictions of Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith and Wang-y-tong, a Chinese page boy who was taken into the Sackville household.

The 'Sackville leopards', holding heraldic shields in their paws and forming finials on the balusters of the principal stair (constructed 1605–1608) of the house, are derived from the Sackville coat of arms.

The organ has four ranks of oak pipes (Stopped Diapason 8, Principal 4, Twelfth 22/3 and Fifteenth 2) contained in a rectangular ornamented chest with the keyboard at the top.