Christopher Lewknor was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons

House of Commons of England

The House of Commons of England was the lower house of the Parliament of England from its development in the 14th century to the union of England and Scotland in 1707, when it was replaced by the House of Commons of Great Britain...

 variously between 1628 and 1641. He supported the Royalist side in the English Civil War

English Civil War

The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...

.

Lewknor was the son of Richard Lewknor of West Dean, Chief Justice of Chester, and his wife Eleanor Broome, daughter of Christopher Broome of Halton, Oxfordshire.

In 1628 Lewknor was elected Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Midhurst

Midhurst (UK Parliament constituency)

Midhurst was a parliamentary borough in Sussex, which elected two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons from 1311 until 1832, and then one member from 1832 until 1885, when the constituency was abolished...

 and held the seat until 1629 when King Charles decided to rule without parliament for eleven years.

In 1636 Lewknor was appointed to a commission for better preservation of timber in view of the growth of the Sussex iron trade. By 1640 he was recorder of Chichester. In April 1640, he was elected MP for Chichester

Chichester (UK Parliament constituency)

Chichester is a county constituency in West Sussex, represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election....

 in the Short Parliament

Short Parliament

The Short Parliament was a Parliament of England that sat from 13 April to 5 May 1640 during the reign of King Charles I of England, so called because it lasted only three weeks....

. He was re-elected MP for Chichester in November 1640 for the Long Parliament

Long Parliament

The Long Parliament was made on 3 November 1640, following the Bishops' Wars. It received its name from the fact that through an Act of Parliament, it could only be dissolved with the agreement of the members, and those members did not agree to its dissolution until after the English Civil War and...

 and sat until he was disabled as a Royalist.

In August 1642 Lewknor supported the mayor of Chichester, Robert Exton when he issued the Royal Commission of Array, calling upon all able-bodied men to take arms for the king;in response to the city's "Valiant Resolution to stand for the privileges of Parliament, the Protestant religion, the laws of the land, and the liberty of the people". Lewknor was styled as " the man appointed by his Majesty to take in money and plate on his behalfe" and on 28 August 1642, he took part in a parley between the besiegers of Portsmouth and the beleaguered garrison. In January 1643 he was a prisonor at Windsor Castle. In 1651, parliament ordered his lands to be sold.

Lewknor married Mary Smith widow of Mr Smith and daughter of John May of Rawmere, Sussex. His son Richard Lewknor

Richard Lewknor

Richard Lewknor was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1621 and 1629.Lewknor was the son of Christopher Lewknor, recorder of Chichester, and his wife Mary May, daughter of John May of Rawmere, Sussex....

was MP for Midhurst and Sussex.