NORWICH, Sir John (1613-61), of Brampton Ash, Northants.

The Norwich family, which claimed descent from an earl of the ‘East Angles’ before the Conquest, had settled at Brampton Ash, 17 miles north of Northampton and close to the Leicestershire border, in the mid-fifteenth century.34Bridges, Northants. ii. 281. Norwich was still a minor when he succeeded his father in 1625 and made little impression upon Northamptonshire county affairs before the 1640s. His closest contact with the court before 1640 may have been the fine of £400 he was obliged to pay in 1639 for exempting his estate at Brampton from further penalty for breach of the forest laws.35CSP Dom. 1638-9, pp. 388-9.

Knighted on 19 July 1641 and created a baronet just five days later (24 July), Norwich was clearly regarded by the crown as a potential loyalist whose support was worth cultivating – and to this end the customary fee for a baronetcy of £1,095 was waived in his case.36Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 210; SO3/12, f. 159v. With the outbreak of civil war, however, Norwich sided with Parliament, and in August 1642, he was appointed to the parliamentary committee for executing the Militia Ordinance in Northamptonshire.37CJ ii. 711a; LJ v. 277a. Having been commissioned that autumn – probably by Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex – as colonel of a regiment of dragoons, he seems to have served until the spring or summer of 1643 under Thomas Lord Grey of Groby*, the commander of Parliament’s East Midland Association.38SP28/133, pt. 2, ff. 24v-27. Several units in his regiment were deployed during the first half of 1643 to help defend Nottingham and to strengthen Essex’s army in the Thames valley.39SP28/133, pt. 2, f. 25v; SP28/7, f. 53. Norwich’s regimental chaplain was the Northamptonshire Presbyterian minister Richard Trueman.40SP28/238, f. 308; J. Fielding, ‘Conformists, Puritans, and the Church Courts: the Diocese of Peterborough 1603-42’ (Birmingham Univ. PhD thesis, 1989), 23, 126, 160, 182. In August 1643, Norwich was appointed major-general of a body of horse, nominally under the command of Oliver St John, 1st earl of Bolingbroke, for the defence of Northamptonshire and several adjacent counties.41CJ iii. 177b; SP28/133, pt. 2, f. 29. And in March 1644, Norwich’s regiment was added to the Eastern Association army under Edward Montagu, 2nd earl of Manchester, where it seems to have languished to little military effect.42Bagwell, Brockedon, A Full Discovery, 1. There is no evidence that Norwich was present at the battle of Marston Moor in July. Indeed, six weeks after that engagement, the Committee of Both Kingdoms complained that Norwich’s troops ‘had been long without employment’.43CSP Dom. 1644, p. 461; 1644-5, p. 158. His slowness in complying with orders to move his forces eastwards in August with the rest of the Eastern Association army, prompted the committee to order Manchester to cashier him unless he obeyed.44CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 411, 412, 430, 460, 461. What, if any, role Norwich’s troops played in the second battle of Newbury campaign that autumn is not clear. His regiment was broken up and incorporated into the New Model army in the spring of 1645.45Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 344.

Norwich and the earl of Essex were apparently on friendly terms by 1645, and shortly before resigning as lord general that April, Essex appointed Norwich governor of Rockingham Castle in Northamptonshire.46Luke Letter Bks. 294; CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 412. Norwich was involved in the mopping up operation after Naseby that June, but does not appear to have fought in the battle itself.47LJ vii. 436a; Luke Letter Bks. 577. In the summer of 1647, a group of his former officers petitioned Parliament against him, alleging dereliction of duty and embezzlement of their pay and other state revenues – charges that the Committee of Accounts investigated and that he strongly denied.48SP28/257, pts. 2 and 3, unfol.; SP28/260, ff. 144-6; CJ v. 235b, 244a, 253a; LJ ix. 315b, 328b, 335a, 341b; HMC 6th Rep. 181; HMC 7th Rep. 50; Holmes, Eastern Assoc. 99, 261. The case was still not fully resolved in 1652.49Bagwell, Brockedon, A Full Discovery; A Concealment Discovered for the Publique Advantage (1652, 669 f.16.61).

It was perhaps Norwich’s own uncertain future as much as the kingdom’s that prompted him to obtain a pass from the Lords in May 1648, allowing him and his family to travel into Holland – although if he did venture abroad he had returned home by September, when he signed orders of the Northamptonshire county committee.50LJ x. 280a; Add. 5508, ff. 78, 82, 103. Despite his Presbyterian associations and the question marks surrounding his military career, he was appointed to the Northamptonshire bench in 1650 and seems to have remained a magistrate until the autumn of 1653.51C193/13/3, f. 48; C231/6, p. 267. The government apparently attached little credence to information by Thomas Coke* in 1651 that Norwich would raise forces in Northamptonshire as part of a projected royalist-Presbyterian plot to restore the king.52HMC Portland, i. 581. In the elections to the first protectoral Parliament in the summer of 1654, Norwich was returned for Northamptonshire – probably on the strength of his connections with the county’s influential Presbyterian interest. However, he left no trace upon the House’s proceedings. There is no evidence that he stood for election to the second or third protectoral Parliaments in 1656 and 1659.

By October 1659, the royalist spymaster Lord Mordaunt was confident that Norwich and Sir Henry Yelverton† could be engaged by Charles II to secure Northamptonshire for the royalist cause. According to Mordaunt, Norwich’s interest was strongest among the county’s gentry; Yelverton’s with its godly ministers. ‘Sir John Norwich is a soldier’, he added, ‘and I think is most popular’.53Mordaunt Letter-Bk. 66. Late in December, Norwich raised a troop of militia horse and collaborated with Francis Hacker*, Thomas Sanders* and Nathaniel Barton* to seize Coventry and to secure the north midlands in the cause of recalling the Rump.54Z. Grey, An Impartial Examination of the Fourth Vol. of Mr. Daniel Neal’s History of the Puritans (1739), 136-7; HMC Portland, i. 689; HMC 11th Rep. vii. 92; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 320; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 317. In January 1660, however, he presented a petition to General George Monck* from the Northamptonshire gentry, calling for a ‘free Parliament’ – that is, the re-admission of the Members secluded at Pride’s Purge, whereupon the council of state ordered him to be taken into custody.55HMC 7th Rep. 483; CCSP iv. 532; Baker, Chronicle, 681; Bridges, Northants. ii. 281-2. In March, Mordaunt listed Norwich with Thomas 3rd Baron Fairfax (Sir Thomas Fairfax*), Edward Rosseter* and other prominent Presbyterians who had engaged themselves in the king’s cause.56CCSP iv. 592. A few months later, Norwich was among the signatories to Northamptonshire’s loyal address to the restored Charles II.57SP29/1/41, f. 80; May it Please Your Most Excellent Maiesty (1660, 669 f.25.49).

Defeated on a poll in the elections at Northampton to the 1660 Convention, Norwich petitioned the Commons, alleging sharp practice by the town’s mayor, and was duly seated in place of Francis Hervey*.58Bodl. Top. Northants. c.9, pp. 111-12; Northants. RO, FH3496; HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Northampton’; ‘Francis Harvey’. In the elections to the Cavalier Parliament in 1661, Norwich and another gentleman stood as court candidates for Northampton against Hervey and James Langham*, and when the result again went against him, he allegedly forged an indenture returning himself and Langham, and after the dispute was debated at Westminster the election was declared void. A by-election was scheduled for that autumn, but before it could be held Norwich died and was buried at Brampton on 19 October 1661.59Northants. RO, Fermor Hesketh Baker ms 712, unfol.; HP Commons, 1660-90, ‘Sir John Norwich’; ‘Northampton’; Vis. Northants. 155. In his will, which featured an unusually pious preface, he charged his estate with repayment of debts totalling almost £3,000. Among his many minor bequests was £20 for the repair of Brampton church.60PROB11/306, ff. 242v-243v. Norwich was succeeded as second baronet by his son Roger, who represented Northamptonshire in March 1679 and 1685.