Thomas Posthumous Hoby

[3] Hoby was a very small boy and grew up to be nicknamed "the little knight" for his slightness and short stature.

[5] Also in 1574, some years after his father's death, Hoby's mother married John, Lord Russell, the eldest surviving son of the Earl of Bedford, and with him had three further children, Elizabeth, Anne and Francis.

In 1609 he alleged in the Star Chamber that Sir Richard Cholmley had twice spoken contemptuously to him in the hope of provoking a duel.

[13] It has been suggested that the character of Malvolio in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is based on Hoby[1][14] and that his legal action of 1600 inspired Scene III of Act 2 of Twelfth Night, in which Malvolio is disturbed by drunken merry-making.

[4] Hoby died on 30 December 1640 and was entombed with the remains of his wife in the Hackness parish church.

He made further bequests to other members of the Sydenham family, and he also left each of his servants three years' wages.

[18][19] A memorial to him was erected in the church at Hackness in 1682 by Sir John Posthumous Sydenham (1643–1696), the son of Hoby's principal heir and a knight of the shire for Somerset.