the Bath. The honor would have cost Knyvett over £500, so he refused the honor and attempted to revive his de jure title of the Baron Berners. The title had been dormant since his ancestor John Bourchier, 2nd Baron Berners died in 1533. Thomas would maintain his claim to the Barony for several years, but never succeed in obtaining it. In 1632, Knyvett received the post of the Porter of the Mint, a post that had been held by his grandfather Sir Thomas. Four years later, Thomas is recorded as serving as a Justice of the Peace for the county Norfolk. In matters of religion, Thomas was an unremarkable traditionalist. During the interlude between the Bishops' Wars, Thomas stated that he went "to Church now to learn the old way to heaven," as opposed to the more radical preaching heard by "Parliament men." A few weeks later, Thomas was required by Parliament, as a Justice of the Peace, to present the names of people who refused to receive Communion, then known as recusants. Parliament ordered that the recusants be charged and prosecuted for their recusantry at the next Assizes, and Thomas dutifully complied in January 1641. Parliament's order was an extension of the Ecclesiastical Canons issued in 1640 by Archbishop Laud and the Convocation of Canterbury that stated that every Bishop send out writs de excommunicato capiendo once a year. Bishops and JPs used this writ to punish and fine recusants who had refused to reconcile with the church after a given period of time. Sometime after presenting his list of recusants for Norfolk, Thomas and a fellow JP Henry Cogan, petitioned Archbishop Laud, asking for forgiveness for proceeding in the writs before their commissions had been properly issued. Thomas' commission was corrected, and he proceeded with what little of the proceedings he could before the outbreak of military hostilities six months later. As order deteriorated in the spring of 1641, Thomas was in London reporting on the trial of the Earl of Strafford and the imprisonment of Laud. Early stirrings of Thomas' loyalty to the crown come across in his letters, where he sympathizes with Strafford, and remarks that Strafford was a man "of so unmovable a temper," against the "bad cause" of his opponents. After the outbreak of open warfare between Charles and Parliament, Thomas was a known Royalist sympathizer, and refused a Captain's commission to serve in