Edward Knight's Family
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Elizabeth Austen, later Knight, continued.
'... great sorrow of his accident, when he fell down a flight of stairs and broke his back – and was crippled for the rest of his life. Over all these years was his constant sound judgment and strong influence, and even more precious was the watchful love of the mother 'who was never angry, but whose word was law'.
The ten brothers were a remarkable group of men, of outstanding good looks and attainments, high bred, vigorous, gifted with great charm of manner, witty, courteous, very acceptable to their neighbours, making friends with care and bringing into whatever society they entered an atmosphere of animation and friendliness that seemed to dominate the assembly. Two things in particular balance these brothers together: their devotion to their mother, and their passionate love of their home. This the sisters shared to the full, and they gave their brothers not only love, but respect and admiration, deferring to their opinion to an extent hardly now accorded by the feminine to the masculine members of a family! Evelyn Templetown, who knew her uncles and aunts in far younger days than I did, wrote of them.
"They truly were an exceptionally attractive and interesting family and one and all devoted to each other – and all of them adored their mother and had a deep affection and respect for their father." It should also be recorded of them that, without exception, they were ...'
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