NORTON, Sir Henry, 2nd bt. (1633-?85), of Richmond, Surr. and Stokenham, Devon.

In March 1652 Sir Henry Norton was 19 and perhaps still a student at Oxford when his dying father, pronouncing him ‘unnaturally disobedient’, left him only a mortgaged manor in Buckinghamshire.15PROB11/223/270. Possibly, as was claimed after the Restoration, this was punishment for a royalist allegiance.16CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 159. Baptized in London early in 1633, he seems to have been brought up largely in fashionable Westminster, but was too young to have participated in Sir Gregory Norton’s* transition from courtier to regicide.17St Andrew, Holborn par. reg. Henry’s mother, Dame Martha, who returned from the continent to obtain probate of Sir Gregory’s will, was probably the chief beneficiary of an estate settlement in trust to Sir Gregory’s great friend Humphrey Edwardes*.18CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 319; CCC 1797. Once Henry attained his majority he plunged into litigation over property in several counties, some of it directed against his stepfather Robert Gordon, 4th viscount Kenmure, the Scottish royalist leader whom his mother married in November 1655.19St Paul, Covent Garden par. reg.; C3/453/108; C3/455/54; C5/20/79; C5/395/113; C6/137/54; C7/242/26; C7/423/23; C7/431/78. Less than a year later Henry himself married a daughter of Sir Richard Norton†, 1st bt., a distant kinsman who had been a royalist in the 1640s, like his two sons, Sir Richard Norton, 2nd bt. (1619-1652), and Sir John Norton*, 3rd bt. (1620-1687).20CB. In March 1658 Norton was admitted to Gray’s Inn.21GI Admiss. 285.

It was probably on the basis of family interest that in 1659 Norton sought election to Parliament at Petersfield, represented by his father-in-law in 1621, and by Sir John Norton in time to come. It is not clear if Norton attended the Commons after it assembled on 27 January. A dispute, which may or may not have involved other candidates, was referred to the committee for elections and privileges. An interim opinion, delivered on 19 February, found that the election was void, since the mayor had made the election ‘surreptitiously’ and ‘without due warning’, but republican Members, led by Sir Henry Vane II* and Sir Arthur Hesilrige*, got the case recommitted.22CJ vii. 605b; Burton Diary, iii. 348-9; Mercurius Politicus no. 555 (17-24 Feb. 1659), 248 (E.761.17). The Journal does not record whether Norton and his fellow burgess, Josiah Child*, were permitted to take their seats in the meantime, and it was not until 22 March that the committee delivered a final report. This stated that only half an hour’s notice had been given before the election, which had privileged the burgesses, while effectively excluding the freeholders from voting. The Commons duly resolved the election was void, and ordered the issue of a new writ.23CJ vii. 617a; Mercurius Politicus no. 559 (17-24 Mar. 1659), 319 (E.761.25).

Following the Restoration, Norton’s family tried to salvage what they could from an estate declared forfeit to the crown for the treason of Sir Gregory.24CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 344; CCSP v. 41. Richmond manor, which he had acquired from the crown, was restored to the queen.25Parliamentary Intelligencer no. 26 (18-25 June 1660), 416 (E186.8); LJ xi. 78b. Petitioning by Sir Henry Norton and his wife, citing the former’s disinheritance and the sufferings of the latter’s male relatives for the royalist cause, was regarded favourably by the solicitor-general and Lord Treasurer Southampton, who in October 1661 recommended that other lands be restored to the Norton family, even though the king was entitled to them.26CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 298; CTB i. 297; CJ viii. 185b. This was not the end of Norton’s financial problems. Hearing that Stokenham had been restored, Nicholas Delves*, who because of his ‘extreme necessity’ had lent Norton money against this security, requested and obtained an order for repayment.27SP29/44, f. 202; SP29/46, f. 41. However, at least part of the Devon property was then very promptly granted to Sir John Norton and others, presumably in trust to secure it for Sir Henry.28SP44/5, f. 105. In 1671 the latter was named, as of Stokenham, as his mother’s executor and residuary legatee.29PROB11/337/464. In 1685 he bequeathed his estate to his nephew William Nelson, but the circumstances of his last years and the precise date of his death are unknown.30Lysons, Magna Britannia vi. 451-68.