NORRIS, William

In the early stages of William’s career, before his elevation in status to knighthood, he needs to be distinguished from his uncle, a namesake who, usually styled ‘of Bray’ or ‘of Winkfield’ in Berkshire, was the man who leased land at Southill from St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, in 1455.20 St. Georges’s Chapel recs. XV 24. 75. That William is chiefly noted for his close association with his brother John, the prominent courtier, esquire for the body of Henry VI and Member of perhaps as many as nine Parliaments of the reign. Supporting his brother and the interests of their family, he was a feoffee of the estates John accumulated in Berkshire in the late 1440s, a co-founder with him of the guild established for the maintenance of the bridge across the Thames at Maidenhead, and finally an executor of the will he made in 1465.21 CCR, 1447-54, p. 475; CPR, 1446-52, pp. 261, 277, 576; CP25(1)/13/85/20; PCC 19 Godyn (PROB11/5, ff. 147v-8v). William of Winkfield and Bray also produced a son of the same name,22 See the pardon of 1468 granted to William Norris ‘of London, gentleman, alias late of Bray, junior, son of William Norris of Winkfield, Berkshire, senior’: C67/46 m. 21. but after 1460 the chances of confusing the careers of the two cousins are considerably reduced.

When first recorded our MP was still a minor. In March 1449, together with his father John, and their kinsmen William and Roger Norris, he received at the Exchequer joint keeping of the valuable lordships of Cookham and Bray, to hold from the previous Easter for the long term of 20 years at a farm of £101 p.a. Through his fresh negotiations with the treasurer, John Norris, who had held the lordships since the duke of Gloucester’s death in 1447, evidently hoped to guarantee the continued domination of the region by his family into the next generation, and although the lease was temporarily cancelled in accordance with the Act of Resumption of 1450, the Norrises regained it in July 1451 at only a slightly increased farm. John took on sole responsibility once more from March 1457, but at the same time his son William joined him as co-lessee of the manor of Benham Lovell and certain other properties in Berkshire, again for a 20-year term, which was back-dated to Michaelmas 1455.23 CFR, xviii. 110, 229; xix. 185. The blow to the family caused by the grant of Cookham and Bray in 1458 to the duke of Somerset did not, apparently, lead John to waiver in his allegiance to Henry VI, the King whom he had personally served for so long. Even so, it is strange that young William was returned for Berkshire to the loyalist Parliament at Coventry in 1459 rather than his father, the choice of the county electorate on at least seven earlier occasions. Whether he was qualified as a landowner to represent the county is open to doubt. Although there is a possibility that John had already transferred to William possession of the latter’s maternal inheritance at Yattendon, along with her lands at Codbarrow in Warwickshire, he nevertheless retained nominal ownership of the household goods in Yattendon, which he was formally to bequeathe to his son in his will.24 PCC 19 Godyn. It is also possible that William’s marriage to the daughter of a staunch Lancastrian, John de Vere, 12th earl of Oxford, had already taken place, and if so his standing among the gentry would have been considerably enhanced. Yet once again the relevant documentary evidence is lacking and a firm date for the match cannot be established.

The Parliament at Coventry proscribed the duke of York and his allies, who after the debacle at Ludford Bridge had speedily departed into exile. Their return from Calais in force in the summer of 1460 saw William riding to the support of the King as his army assembled for the field of Northampton. There he won his spurs before facing defeat and witnessing the King being led into captivity by the Yorkist victors. What became of him and his father in the next few months is uncertain, but neither of them are known to have fought in the decisive battles of the winter of 1460-1, or to have followed Henry VI north into exile. Initially, both appear to have weathered the change of regime satisfactorily. In August 1461 Edward IV appointed Sir William to the stewardship of Cookham and Bray, an office previously occupied by his father, and the latter recovered his lease of these important lordships a month later. Yet Edward’s magnanimous gesture, perhaps intended to conciliate two former opponents while he tried to establish his rule, was withdrawn within a very short time: on 20 Dec. both stewardship and lease were granted to two proven supporters of the new regime.25 CPR, 1461-7, p. 77; CFR, xx. 43. Another factor in this reversal for the Norrises may well have been their links with the earl of Oxford, who was to be executed for treason two months later. Given these circumstances, it is difficult to explain how Sir William then gained acceptance at Edward IV’s court. It may have been through offering his services in a military capacity for the King’s ‘jorny’ into Scotland at the close of 1462. Thereafter, his rise in Edward’s estimation was remarkable.26 Three 15th Cent. Chrons. (Camden Soc. ser. 2, xxviii), 157. Within three years he had been made one of just seven knights of the Chamber (their numbers afterwards increased to ten),27 E101/411/15, f. 18v. and his wife was among the ladies placed in attendance on Queen Elizabeth following her coronation in 1465.28 A.R. Myers, Crown, Household and Parl. 288. The King showed his personal appreciation of Norris’s services, but not always immediately to the desired effect. In the autumn of 1465 he gave him the wardship and marriage of the daughter and heir of the recently deceased William Babthorp, without realizing that this had already been sold by the treasurer to one of the officials at the Exchequer, William Essex*. On being informed about this, he compensated Norris with the sum of 200 marks which Essex owed for the marriage, and instructed the staff at the Exchequer to make sure that assignments for this sum were made on such revenues as would guarantee prompt payment. The King also wished this ‘trusty and welbeloved knight’ to have the stewardship of Cookham and Bray back again, and persuaded the occupant, Peter Beaupie, to relinquish the post in return for exoneration from the payment of £20 Beaupie had promised in order to secure the concession. A warrant was sent to the privy seal to this effect on 27 Nov. that year, and it would appear that Norris then held the stewardship under the queens of Edward IV and Henry VII (who held the lordships as part of their dower).29 PSO1/27/1403, 1434; E404/73/1/101; E403/839, m. 8. J.M. Mattingly, ‘Cookham, Bray and Isleworth’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1994), 111, lists Norris as steward 1461-?1485, without taking account of his attainder in 1484 and his return to office under Hen. VII.

Sir William’s first wife, Jane de Vere, was a kinswoman of (Sir) John Howard*, afterwards Lord Howard and duke of Norfolk, and in May 1465 the two of them received into their household Howard’s daughter Margaret, who was to stay as their guest. Howard sent a gift of £2 at the christening of one of the couple’s children the following month.30 Howard Household Bks. p. xiv; i. 292, 378. Even so, relations between them may have become much less cordial after January 1467, when Howard married Sir William’s widowed stepmother, for the latter held for life a very substantial part of his inheritance. By settlements made in 1459 and 1462 John Norris had given her, his third wife, a handsome jointure in numerous manors and vast tracts of land in Berkshire, as well as landed holdings in five other counties, and had also ensured that his son by her would inherit the Berkshire manor of Fulscot after he died.31 C140/22/45; CP25(1)/294/74/8; VCH Berks. iii. 501-2. Howard adopted Bray, conveniently close to Windsor castle, as one of his main residences, and his wife lived on, latterly as duchess of Norfolk, until 1494, thus preventing Sir William from taking possession of these particular estates of his inheritance for nearly 30 years. No further amicable dealings with Howard are recorded.

In 1467 Norris was granted for life the office of keeper of the rolls of chancery in Ireland,32 CPR, 1467-77, p. 34. but whether he ever crossed the Irish Sea to perform the duties in person seems unlikely, for he took his late father’s place on the Berkshire bench, and in the next year agreed to serve as sheriff of Oxfordshire and Berkshire. The King, aware that he would therby incur considerable charges and expenses, ordered the Exchequer to give him a tally for £100 levied on the issues of his bailiwick by way of compensation.33 E404/74/1/116. During his shrievalty, in July 1469, he was granted the sum of £16 18s. which a London fishmonger had recovered against a former sheriff, Norris’s friend Thomas de la Mare†, and then forfeited.34 CPR, 1467-77, p. 178. De la Mare had earlier been a feoffee for Sir William’s father, and Sir William had been enfeoffed of de la Mare’s manor of Aldermaston in 1473: ibid. p. 374. His actions as sheriff were not beyond reproach. One James Staverton alleged in a petition to the chancellor that, because of a plea long pending between Norris and his brother, the sheriff had only allowed him bail when arrested on suspicion of felony after he had paid him a ‘grete rewarde’ of 20s. Staverton asked that his trial be delayed until after Norris’s discharge from the shrievalty to ensure an impartial hearing.35 C1/46/199. Sir William’s movements during the Readeption of Henry VI in 1470-1 are largely undocumented. His dismissal from the Berkshire bench indicates that the King’s councillors saw no reason to trust him, yet, inexplicably, his kinsman William Norris (probably his cousin of that name),36 His half-bro. of this name can have been no older than 11. proved able to secured from the new government a lease of the lordships of Cookham and Bray.37 CFR, xx. 279, 283. The farm Sir William paid for Benham Lovell (originally committed to him and his father for 20 years from 1455), was now granted to the duke of Clarence, who was promised the property itself after the expiry of the lease – which was itself allowed to stand.38 CPR, 1467-77, p. 242. After Edward IV landed in the north of England, Norris played a double game, by persuading Henry VI of his loyalty while raising forces in Edward’s interest. It was credibly, if ambiguously reported that on the night of 4 Apr. 1471 ‘he laye at Walyngford to London ward to the Kyng; and Delamar and [John] Pury* ladde hym, and he shall have his grace’, and indeed a pardon granted him by King Henry by word of mouth was enrolled on the patent roll four days later.39 Stonor Letters (Cam. Soc. ser. 3, xxix), 118; CPR, 1467-77, p. 241. But he evidently had no intention of fighting for the house of Lancaster again. Within days he joined forces with Sir William Stanley and ‘dyverse other menne and tenants of Lord Hastings’ and at Nottingham they met up with Edward IV’s army heading south, boosting his company to more than 2,000 strong and tipping the scales in his favour at the battle of Barnet.40 J. Warkworth, Chron. Reign Edw. IV (Cam. Soc. x), 14.

Victory at Barnet paved the way for Norris’s second, and highly lucrative marriage, for his new wife was the widow of John Neville, Marquess Montagu, slain on that field. The widow, Isabel, obtained custody of Neville’s heir, their son George, duke of Bedford, in February following, together with a grant of 200 marks a year for his maintenance,41 CPR, 1467-77, pp. 313, 335. and married Norris two months later. She brought to her new husband her Neville dower (including two manors in Nottinghamshire worth £30 a year),42 C140/55/29. but an even bigger attraction for Norris was her inheritance from her late father, Sir Edmund Ingoldisthorpe, for these estates, situated in seven different counties, were worth some £200 p.a. Furthermore, under the terms of a grant made by Edward III to her Bradestone ancestor, she was entitled to an Exchequer annuity of as much as 500 marks. There were two drawbacks: Isabel’s widowed mother, Joan (the late earl of Worcester’s sister and coheir), kept a sizable dower portion of the Ingoldisthorpe estates (as well as one third of the Exchequer annuity), and Isabel herself had extravagantly run up a huge bill of £1,000 with her London dressmaker, William Parker. So that this bill might be settled, in November 1473 a substantial part of the Ingoldisthorpe estates in Cambridgeshire, Essex and Surrey were placed in the hands of a group of powerful trustees, including the chief justice, the chief baron of the Exchequer and the master of the rolls, who guaranteed that the profits arising from them would be paid to Parker for six and a half years after Joan’s death, so he could recoup his money and £20 in costs. Joan had only agreed to the arrangement after her daughter and Norris had pleaded with her, and because of her ‘great compassion’ for the tailor. In the event, she long outlived Isabel, who died in 1476 shortly after she and Norris had obtained a grant of the arrears of their two-thirds share of the Bradestone annuity.43 CCR, 1468-76, nos. 1204, 1409. As Isabel had borne him children, Norris was able to keep his wife’s inheritance ‘by the courtesy’ until he died, and these estates, valued at over £110 p.a. and put beside the annuity of just over £200, gave him a very considerable income.44 CFR, xxi. no. 328; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 161, 210-22; CCR, 1476-85, nos. 175-6. Furthermore, on 7 Feb. 1478 he managed to obtain a grant of the wardship of certain of the manors inherited by his stepson, George Neville, during his minority. His tenure of the Ingoldisthorpe lands may, however, have been a contributory factor to George’s degradation from all his peerage honours by Act of Parliament the following month, for this was done ostensibly because the boy lacked a sufficient estate to support his dukedom.45 CPR, 1476-85, p. 63; PROME, xiv. 361.

In the 1470s Sir William kept and strengthened his privileged position close to King Edward. In July 1474, now a knight for the King’s body, he received for life the office of keeper of the manor and park called Foliejon, which formed part of Windsor forest, with all its revenues.46 CPR, 1467-77, p. 488. This probably supplied his fee as lieutenant of the castle and forest of Windsor under the constableship of Sir Thomas Bourgchier, the son of the late Lord Berners. Earlier on, he had been enfeoffed of property in Old and New Windsor in association with Bourgchier’s father, the then constable of Windsor, and his uncles the archbishop of Canterbury and the earl of Essex – holdings which he released to the King in the 1480s.47 CCR, 1476-85, nos. 749, 826, 979; CAD, i. A623. Meanwhile, in May 1475 at a meeting of the Knights of the Garter in St. George’s Chapel, Norris had been nominated to join their number by filling a vacant stall, only for the queen’s son the marquess of Dorset to be chosen instead. He had already committed himself to join the planned invasion of France, with his own retinue of ten men-at-arms and 100 archers.48 Reg. Order of the Garter ed. Anstis, i. 196; E405/59, rot. 9.

There is no evidence that Norris sat in any of the Parliaments of the late fifteenth century, although he took the trouble of personally supporting the election of his younger brother John to the Parliament of 1478, by heading the list of attestors to the electoral indenture for Berkshire drawn up at Abingdon on 24 Dec. 1477. The main business of the brief parliamentary session was the attainder for treason of the duke of Clarence, and in May 1479 Sir William was granted during the minority of the duke’s son Edward, the heir to the earldom of Warwick, custody of the manor of Langley, Oxfordshire, with all its issues, together with the offices of keeper of Wychwood forest and steward of other manors in the same county, at a salary of 13 marks p.a.49 C219/17/3; CPR, 1476-85, pp. 157, 171. Norris now counted among the four ‘carvers and cupbearers’ in the royal household,50 A.R. Myers, Household Edw. IV, 200, 240. yet could not exert sufficient influence with his royal master to prevent him granting the wardship and marriage of his stepson George Neville to the King’s surviving brother Richard, duke of Gloucester, in March 1480, and this very likely led to hostility towards him.51 CPR, 1476-85, p. 192. Made sheriff of Oxfordshire and Berkshire for a second time in November 1481, he was again compensated for predicted losses, this time with an assignment on the revenues of his bailiwick of £90.52 E404/77/2/27.

The detailed account of Edward IV’s lying in state at Westminster Abbey after his sudden death in April 1483 reveals that Sir William was no longer a knight for the King’s body. By then his place at the King’s side had been taken by his brother John, one of the esquires in attendance by the bier throughout the ceremonies. Perhaps more surprisingly, he is not recorded as being at Windsor castle with his superior, the constable, to greet the hearse and witness the interrment.53 Letters Ric. III and Hen. VII ed. Gairdner, i. 3-10. Whatever he thought about the subsequent disinheritance of Edward V and the usurpation of Richard of Gloucester, he did attend the coronation of the latter as Richard III on 6 July,54 Excerpta Historica ed. Bentley, 384. and as late as 28 Aug. it was evidently assumed that he would be loyal to the new King, for he was then appointed to wide-reaching commissions of oyer and terminer in London and several counties of southern England. Nevertheless, by 23 Oct. it had been reported to the authorities that he and his brother had risen in rebellion with the duke of Buckingham and the marquess of Dorset.55 CPR, 1476-85, pp. 371, 465. Among their fellow rebels were Sir William’s friends (Sir) William Stonor† (who had married one of his Neville stepdaughters), and Sir Thomas de la Mare.56 For his friendship with Stonor, see Stonor Letters (Cam. Soc. ser. 3, xxx), 123, a letter informing Stonor that ‘Sir W. Norreys wull do for yow, and sey whatt he kanne’. Their motives are a matter for speculation, but it should be noted that Norris’s stepson George Neville had died on 4 May while still in Richard of Gloucester’s wardship, and it may be that Richard had prevented Stonor’s wife from receiving her share in the Neville inheritance and had contested Norris’s continued possession of the Ingoldisthorpe lands. Then again, Norris may have followed the lead of his superior at Windsor castle, Sir Thomas Bourgchier, who also took up arms against the new King. Resentment against his stepmother’s husband Lord Howard, now elevated to the dukedom of Norfolk, and still in possession of his paternal inheritance may also have played a part. Sir William’s precise movements are uncertain. According to the Act of Attainder passed against him in Richard III’s only Parliament in the following year, on 18 Oct. ‘at the traiterous mocion and stirryng of the said late Duk [of Buckingham]’ he conspired at Newbury and in other places to bring about the King’s death, and assembled a great force of people in manner of war. However, as a man sent to the Exchequer by the customer of Poole in Dorset at about that time was robbed by Norris’s men on his way to Westminster, it looks as if at some point Norris joined forces with the rebels massed near Salisbury. Following his attainder in the Parliament which met on 23 Jan. 1484, a royal pardon was warranted for him, but it failed to pass the great seal, unlike a similar reprieve warranted for his brother John, who had been taken into the duke of Norfolk’s custody and perhaps gained clemency through the intercession of the duchess.57 R. Horrox, Ric. III, 159; PROME, xv. 25-33; BL Harl. MS. 433 ed. Horrox and Hammond, i. 181; ii. 91; CPR, 1476-85, p. 458.

Sir William’s forfeited estates were granted to those favoured by the King. Thus, in August 1484 the lordship of Kenwick, Norfolk, which he held for life as parcel of his deceased wife’s inheritance, was granted to Sir Thomas Fitzwilliam (husband to one of his stepdaughters), and in September Braunstone in Leicestershire was granted to Sir Marmaduke Constable† in tail-male.58 CPR, 1476-85, pp. 471, 487. This last grant was unjust, for the Act of Attainder specifically protected land held by a traitor jure uxoris, and Braunstone belonged to Sir William’s third wife, Anne, as her dower from her former husband Sir William Harcourt.59 VCH Leics. iv. 429. In Berkshire, the two people who gained most from Norris’s fall were the King’s friend Francis, Viscount Lovell, and Lovell’s sister Frideswide. Within a few months, before January 1485, a match had been arranged between the latter and Sir William’s eldest son and heir, Edward, and Frideswide herself was granted an annual rent of 100 marks; the Lovells had taken advantage of Sir William’s fall from grace to make sure of their future possession of his estates.60 CPR, 1476-85, pp. 478, 508.

Sir William’s whereabouts while Richard III remained on the throne are uncertain. Perhaps he joined Henry Tudor in Brittany, crossed with him to England in the summer of 1485, and fought at Bosworth. His attainder was reversed in Henry’s first Parliament that November, and he was also accorded exemption from the Act of Resumption passed in the same Parliament with respect to any grants made to him by Edward IV or the new monarch – in particular, those relating to his offices on the earl of Warwick’s estates.61 PROME, xv. 102-5, 277. Henry VII presented him in July following a manor in Norfolk forfeited by his kinsman William Catesby†, and accorded him a pardon in January 1487.62 CPR, 1485-94, p. 129; C67/53 m. 20. That such a pardon was deemed necessary may have been due to his links with John de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, who at an unknown date previously had granted him an annuity of 20 marks ‘pro bono consilio impenso et impendendo’,63 W. Dugdale, Baronage, ii. 403. for Suffolk’s son and heir the earl of Lincoln was opposed to Henry’s rule. Norris himself displayed no doubts. He and his son Edward rallied to the King’s support at Nottingham to combat the forces of the earl allied with the pretender Lambert Simnel and Edward’s brother-in-law Viscount Lovell, and on the field of Stoke on 16 June Edward was knighted.64 J. Hardyng, Chron. ed. Ellis, 555; De Antiquis Legibus Liber (Cam. Soc. xxxiv), pp. ccxxxiii-iv. In the next year Norris’s letters patent regarding Foliejon were confirmed, with a mandate to the constable of Windsor castle to pay him arrears of his fee, so it may be assumed that the lieutenancy of the castle was his once more. Thereafter he held the office without further interruption until his death.65 CPR, 1485-94, p. 229; 1494-1509, p. 525. As lieutenant and warden of Windsor forest he and the restored constable Sir Thomas Bourgchier presided over judicial hearings at New Windsor and Guildford in August 1488,66 EHR, lxxxii. 248-9; J.C. Cox, Royal Forests of Eng. 293, 295. and Norris’s posts led to renewed contact with the dean and canons of St. George’s chapel, whom he served as steward.

Norris was among those who followed Edward, duke of Buckingham, to Taunton to do battle against the forces of Perkin Warbeck in 1497,67 Hardyng, 580; P. Vergil, Anglicae Historiae (Cam. Soc. ser. 3, lxxiv), 106. and a mark of royal favour came in April 1499 when he obtained exemplification of the charter his father had received from Henry VI more than 50 years earlier, regarding the enclosure of 600 acres at Yattendon to make a park.68 CPR, 1494-1509, p. 172. In June 1502 he was among the many noblemen and knights who provided recognizances (in his case in £100) guaranteeing the loyalty of Sir Nicholas Vaux as captain of Guînes castle, and he apparently did likewise in 100 marks for Sir Hugh Vaughan’s command of a stronghold on Jersey.69 CCR, 1500-9, nos. 131, 671, 767. Towards the end of the next year he and others, including Sir William Danvers† j.c.p., were given keeping of property in Combe, Great Chilworth and elsewhere in Oxfordshire, until a plea pending in Chancery between them and the King should have been decided, meanwhile answering at the Exchequer for the issues. It would seem that he was acting in the judge’s interest.70 CFR, xxii. no. 797; CIPM Hen. VII, iii. 786. After an absence of more than 20 years, Norris returned to his former place at the royal court: by January 1504 he was again a knight for the body of the King. In addition to his stewardship of Cookham and Bray he aquired those of Stratfield Mortimer and Newbury, and finally he was made steward of Oxford university by its chancellor, Richard Mayheu, bishop of Hereford. In November 1505 he received ex officio a special commission to inquire regarding abuses of the privileges of the university, whereby members of it might be tried before the steward rather than in other courts if charged with treasons or felonies.71 CPR, 1494-1509, pp. 346, 458. In this as in other respects he followed in his father’s footsteps, for John had been the university’s steward for the last 13 years of his life.

Over the years Sir William’s landed possessions had fluctuated in their extent. Besides the estates he acquired by his three marriages, he bought (and then sold) property in Reading in the 1470s and purchased the manors of Bullocks in Cookham and Marlston subsequently.72 CAD, iii. A5683-90, 5959; iv. 9037; CP25(1)/13/87/25, 88/8, 13; VCH Berks. iii. 128, 293. He gave his reversionary interest in certain lands in Sonning to Edward IV in 1472, to fall in from the death of his stepmother, and in 1475 he conveyed West Lockinge to the York family, possibly as a marriage settlement on one of his daughters. Whatcombe in Fawley was destined to be a gift to the chantry at Lambourn.73 VCH Berks. iv. 177, 308-9; CCR, 1468-76, nos. 996, 1457. When he finally inherited the bulk of his father’s estates in Bray and elsewhere on the duchess of Norfolk’s death in 1494,74 VCH Berks. iii. 103-5. he became a very wealthy man, with an income from land in Berkshire alone amounting to £245 p.a. to add to that from the former Ingoldisthorpe estates, which he retained until he died. His standing at the end of his life is clear from the identity of those he made his feoffees in 1495 and 1501, for they included the bishops of Winchester and Durham, the treasurer, Lord Dynham, the royal chamberlain, Giles, Lord Daubeney†, the influential Sir Reynold Bray† (with whom he had long been associated), Thomas Wood†, c.j.c.p. and Sir William Danvers. They were to make sure that certain of his properties passed after his death to his younger sons, Richard, Lionel and William, and that two of his daughters would each receive 300 marks for her marriage. Sir William died on 4 Jan. 1507 and was buried next to his father in the chapel at Bray.75 E150/784/11; C142/24/76. The Ingoldisthorpe estates now passed to the descendants of Norris’s 2nd w. by her 1st husband, Neville: CPR, 1494-1509, p. 553. His heir was his grandson, John (the son of Sir Edward Norris), who at the end of the year also inherited a share in the estates of William, Viscount Beaumont, his great-uncle on his mother’s side.76 De Antiquis Legibus Liber, p. ccxxvii; CP, ii. 63.