Parliament established County Committees to govern the counties under its control. For the first 12 to 18 months of its operation, the Kent Committee was based at Knole, until its obvious disadvantage, being at one end of a very large county, led to its removal first to Aylesford and then to Maidstone. Apart from the committee, the county treasury was based here, along with a bodyguard of between 75 and 150 men and the so-called 'Household'. To provision its varied occupants, the Committee not only used the Knole estate but also rented fields from local landowners, including, surprisingly, Lady Sackville (Sir John's wife). Some accounts for the period survive. They show, for example, a gift of a few pounds to goodman Skinner for 'looking to Knole Parkgate.' Other expenditure was seen as much more extravagant, including £3091 for the Household, called the 'seraglio' by local enemies. Committee meetings were held in the room now known as Poets' Parlour where, in addition to using the existing furnishings, £153 was spent on sheets, table linen and carpets and £22 on silverware, candlesticks, glasses, jugs and drinking horns. Additional beds were also brought from Kippington, Thomas Farnaby's sequestered house from the other side of Sevenoaks. One indication of the religious issues involved in the War is shown from the expenditure of £1 17s 4d for the 'carpenters and others employed in taking away the rails and levelling the ground in the chapel at Knole'. Nevertheless, the committee had moved to Aylesford Priory before April 1645.