"Opening of the Budget", 1796, by James Gillray

In 2014-16, Mark Knights held an AHRC Leadership Fellowship to research 'Corruption in Britain and its Empire, 1600-1850'. This resulted in a monograph published by Oxford University Press in 2021: Trust and Distrust: Corruption in Office in Britain and its Empire, 1600-1850. This provides the first overview of Britain's history of corruption in office in the pre-modern era and the first discussion on the development of public and corporate office in pre-modern Britain.

As part of his fellowship, Mark produced a freely downloadable report for the anti-corruption agency Transparency International https://www.transparency.org.uk/publications/old-corruption-what-british-history-can-tell-us-about-corruption-today/ and collaborated with the Council of Europe (which cites his work at length in a report of 2017) as well as the Italian anti-corruption agency Autorità Nazionale Anti-corruzione. He also published an article for History Today https://www.historytoday.com/mark-knights/corruption-and-anti-corruption-britain and a blog for BBC History online - https://www.historyextra.com/period/stuart/bribes-gifts-and-scandal-7-stories-of-corruption-that-shocked-britain/