Sir Francis Kynaston or Kinaston (1587–1642) was an English lawyer, courtier, poet and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1621 to 1622.
He is noted for his translation of Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde into Latin verse (as rime royal, Amorum Troili et Creseidae Libri Quinque, 1639).
On 27 February 1636 Prince Charles, the Duke of York, and others visited the museum, and a masque by Kynaston, entitled Corona Minervæ, was performed in their presence.
In July of the same year Sir George Peckham bequeathed money to the institution.
[6] Shortly after this, Kynaston was preoccupied with promoting a certain ‘hanging furnace,’ recommended by him to the lords of the admiralty for ships of war.
Kynaston also contributed to the Musæ Aulicæ by Arthur Johnston, a rendering in English verse of Johnston's Latin poems, London, 1635, and was author of an heroic romance in verse, Leoline and Sydanis, containing some of the legendary history of Wales and Anglesey, published with Cynthiades: Sonnets to his Mistresse (technically not precisely of the sonnet form) addressed by Kynaston to his mistress under the name of Cynthia (London, 1642).