NORTON, Major (1593-1673), of St Nicholas, Richmond, Yorks.

Norton belonged to a junior branch of a family that had been established in Yorkshire since the fourteenth century. Once prominent in Richmondshire, the Nortons had suffered attainders and executions for their part in the revolt of the northern earls in 1569-70.15Dugdale’s Vis. Yorks. ii. 75, 92-3; Whitaker, Richmondshire, i. 182-3. Norton’s early life and education remain obscure. Indeed, it was not until he was almost 40 that he received his first notable appointment to local office.

Norton’s career was closely linked to the political fortunes of his brother-in-law, Christopher Wandesford†, and those of Wandesford’s close friend and patron Sir Thomas Wentworth† (the future earl of Strafford), who was appointed president of the council of the north in 1628. Through Wandesford, Norton was drawn into the faction-fighting between Wentworth and his Yorkshire opponents during the early 1630s, almost becoming involved in a public affray, when he and Wandesford, out riding, came face to face with one of the president’s leading adversaries, Henry Belasyse*, and his party.16Cliffe, Yorks. 298. It was almost certainly Wandesford and Wentworth who secured Norton the post of paymaster of the dissolved garrison at Berwick in 1633, an office worth 100 marks a year.17Coventry Docquets, 186. Norton retained this office until December 1640 and thus became involved in the military preparations for the bishops’ wars.18E351/3518-19; E403/2813, f. 38; M. C. Fissel, The Bishops’ Wars, 143, 146. Evidently trusted by Wandesford, Norton helped to manage his estate when Wandesford left for Ireland with Wentworth on the latter’s appointment as lord deputy in 1633.19H.B. MacCall, Story of the Fam. of Wandesforde, 265, 271, 273. Wandesford made Norton one of the executors to his will in October 1640.20Autobiog. of Alice Thornton ed. C. Jackson (Surt. Soc. lxii), 182, 185.

In the elections to the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640, Norton was returned for Richmond along with another friend of Strafford’s, Sir William Pennyman. Although Norton owned property in and around Richmond, both he and Pennyman probably owed their return to Wandesford, who was Strafford’s deputy as bailiff and steward of the liberty of Richmond and had represented the borough himself in the 1620s.21Supra, ‘Richmond’; HP Commons, 1604-29, ‘Christopher Wandesford’. Norton received no committee appointments in this Parliament and made no recorded contribution to debate. He showed a similar lack of interest in the proceedings of the ‘disaffected’ Yorkshire gentry during the summer of 1640, signing none of their petitions to the king for a reduction in the county’s military burdens.

In the elections to the Long Parliament that autumn, Pennyman retained his seat, but Norton’s place was taken by Sir Thomas Danbie, whom Norton had referred to in 1634 as his ‘noble friend and kinsman’ (in 1638 Norton’s wife had stood as godparent to one of Danbie’s sons).22N. Yorks. RO, ZS, Swinton estate mss, Danby fam. letters and pprs. [mic. 2087]: Norton to Danbie, 11 Nov. 1634. Danbie was married to Wandesford’s daughter and was a cousin of Strafford, and it is likely that Norton resigned his place to him as a favour to their common patrons.23Supra, ‘Richmond’. But if Norton did indeed stand down as a favour to Wandesford, it was against the wishes of his wife, who was anxious for him to secure re-election so that – as his brother-in-law John Wandesford put it – ‘your person might be privileged from this present service’.24MacCall, Fam. of Wandesforde, 315-6. The ‘present service’ to which John Wandesford referred was almost certainly the receivership of the crown revenues in Richmondshire, Durham and Northumberland – an office to which Norton had been appointed in July 1640 and which as worth about £100 a year.25E126/5, f. 320; SC6/CHASI/1660; CTB iv. 56. In a petition to the Committee for Advance of Money (CAM) after the war, Norton claimed that he had been summoned to London by Lord Treasurer Juxon in 1640 and had been commanded to take over the receivership from the previous incumbent, who had run into ‘great arrears’ and had been imprisoned in the Fleet. In light of his predecessor’s fate, there may be some truth in Norton’s claim that he undertook the job against his will. In 1642, having cleared his account, Norton petitioned the lord commissioners of the treasury, asking to be discharged from his trust. According to Norton, however, the lords commissioners simply referred him to the king, with a recommendation that Norton be retained, being ‘an honest man, fit for the place’.26SP19/121, ff. 58, 60; CCAM 927. In July 1642, Charles granted Norton the receivership for life, which going immediately under the great seal, Norton ‘dared not refuse the office’.27SO3/12, f. 207; SP 19/121, f. 60; Docquets of Letters Patent ed. Black, 324.

Like Pennyman, Danbie and other Straffordians in the North Riding, Norton was to side with the king during the civil war. In July, he was named to the Yorkshire commission of array; and in August, he signed a petition to Parliament from the county’s royalists, protesting at the proceedings of Sir John Hotham* as parliamentary governor of Hull.28Northants. RO, FH133, unfol.; LJ v. 273b-274a. Norton was also active in raising money for the maintenance of the king’s forces, being employed as ‘an assessor of his neighbours for taxes and levies made upon them for that purpose’.29SP23/187, p. 175. During composition proceedings after the war, Norton claimed that he had acted ‘with moderation’ in this capacity.30SP23/187, p. 179. However, some of his neighbours alleged that he and his son Edmund (who had raised a troop of horse for the king) had distrained money by force.31SP23/187, pp. 175, 178-9; E134/15CHAS2/MICH39; E113/7, pt. 1; P. R. Newman, Royalist Officers, 275. In March 1643, Norton wrote from York to the chancellor of the exchequer Sir John Culpeper* at Oxford, complaining that he had been driven from his house by Captain John Hotham* and his troops, but that he and his family had served the king ‘to our utmost powers ... as in duty and allegiance we are bound; as also to receive and secure so much of his revenue as could be got in these hard times in this distressed country [i.e. county]’.32Bodl. Clarendon 21, f. 199. Norton disbursed large sums to the king at Oxford and to the queen at York, although here, he later insisted, he was merely performing his trust.33SO3/12, f. 223; E178/6561; LR5/30. Similarly, in answer to the charge that in January 1644 he had willingly supplied the earl of Newcastle – commander of the king’s northern army – with £1,500 from the money he had collected as receiver, he claimed (probably truthfully) that the money had been illegally seized by the earl’s men.34SP19/121, ff. 55, 58, 60v, 68; SP28/133, pt. 5, f. 12; CCAM 927; CSP Dom. 1644, p. 10.

It also emerged after the war that as well as raising funds for the king, Norton had contributed money from his own pocket. In November 1642, Sir William Savile*, Sir Henry Slingesby*, Sir John Ramsden*, Sir George Wentworth II*, Francis Nevile* and several other leading Yorkshire royalists had stood surety for Norton for the payment by him of £1,000 for the maintenance of Newcastle’s forces.35Bodl. Tanner 62, f. 655v; SP19/12, p. 199; SP28/133, pt. 5, f. 12; CCAM 928. Again, Norton maintained his innocence, arguing that these gentlemen had taken the money from him by force, although the CAM was inclined to believe that he had contributed this sum voluntarily. There is certainly evidence that Norton, despite his assertions to the contrary, signed the so-called Yorkshire ‘engagement’ of February 1643, by which the signatories pledged to maintain Newcastle’s army out of their own estates if necessary.36SP19/121, ff. 58, 59, 69, 70, 74; CCAM 907, 927-8. And only a firm commitment to the king’s cause would explain his presence in the royalist stronghold of Bolton Castle while it was besieged by the parliamentarians in the spring of 1644.37SP23/107, p. 860. Norton later claimed that he and his son Edmund had submitted themselves to the parliamentary committee at York in June of that year – but there was no such committee before Marston Moor, in July.38SP23/187, p. 178; CCC 879. The Committee for Compounding stated that the Nortons had not formally surrendered until February 1645.39SP23/187, p. 175. Norton petitioned to compound in March 1646, claiming that his estate had been under sequestration for almost two years and that he and his family had been ‘utterly ruined thereby’.40SP23/187, p. 179; CCC 878. He and his son were fined £756, which they had paid by February 1648, when Parliament passed an ordinance for their pardon and the restitution of their estate.41CCC 879; LJ x. 28b.

Norton’s troubles did not end with his composition. At some point after the war, the Committee for Revenue (CR) began to take an interest in his financial dealings during the early 1640s. According to Norton, Thomas Fauconberge*, the receiver-general, and George Serle*, the ‘auditor of Yorkshire’, had him imprisoned until he handed over to the committee all the bonds and securities he had received from the gentlemen party to the Yorkshire engagement.42E178/6561; SP19/121, f. 69; Bodl. Nalson XIV, f. 222v. Norton also claimed that for many years after the war he was prosecuted in chancery by a prominent member of the CR, Cornelius Holland* – again, presumably, in connection with his activities as receiver and money-raiser for the king during the early 1640s.43E178/6561. Moreover, in May 1649, his estate was sequestered by the CAM for failure to pay his twentieth part, a sum calculated at £500.44SP19/7, f. 31; SP19/71, f. 77; CCAM 814. The committee agreed to reduce his fine to £150, but in February 1651 Norton asked for a further respite on the grounds that the CR had demanded £3,000 from him for the money he had received as a crown receiver. This sum, he declared, was more than his entire estate was worth, and he asked to be spared paying his twenthieth part until he learnt whether he had any estate left with which to compound.45SP19/113, f. 118; CCAM 814. In the event, the CR appears to have accepted his claim that he had disbursed all the sums he had received to the crown or its agents. The CAM also hounded him about his fund-raising activities for the king, summoning him in May 1650 and again in November 1652 to show cause why he should not pay his proportion of the Yorkshire engagement (like all debts due to royalists, this was deemed payable to the state).46SP19/12, f. 197; SP 19/121, f. 59; CCAM 927-8. Finally, in 1656, he was targetted for payment of the decimation tax.47E113/7, pt. 1; SP19/121, f. 74; CCAM 928. Overall, he reckoned that he had paid over a £1,000 in fines during the 1640s and 1650s, not to mention having his estate twice sequestered, his person imprisoned and his house and grounds ‘several times plundered’.48E113/7, pt. 1.

Norton welcomed moves towards a restoration of monarchy, signing a petition to General George Monck* in February 1660 from the Yorkshire gentry ‘who adhered unto his late majesty’, requesting a free Parliament.49W. Yorks. Archives (Wakefield), C176/2. He was rewarded after the Restoration with the restitution of his office as crown receiver for Richmondshire, county Durham and Northumberland (which he retained until 1669).50E113/7, pt. 1; E134/15CHAS2/MICH29; CTB iii. 278, 667. For the remainder of his life, he appears to have lived quietly on his estate at St Nicholas. He died late in 1673 and was buried at Richmond on 12 December.51Dugdale’s Vis. Yorks. ii. 92-3. No will is recorded. Norton was the first and last of his line to sit in Parliament.