NORDEN, John (c.1613-69), of Rowde, Wilts.

Although overshadowed by their neighbours the Bayntuns (who held the advowson of Rowde) and the Hungerfords (from whom they acquired the manor in the early seventeenth century), by this period the Nordens were a solid north Wiltshire gentry family.21VCH Wilts. vii. 123, 217-20; Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxx. 312. John Norden’s elder brother Richard, who inherited the estate from their father in November 1637, was an Inner Temple lawyer and trustee of Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke. The many beneficiaries of Richard’s 1640 will indicate a circle of friends locally and in London which included William Eyre II* of Neston and William Yorke* of Basset Down.22Wilts. N. and Q, i. 422-3.

When in February 1641 Richard died and (aged 28) John in turn inherited the estate, he probably also continued his career at the bar, having been called in 1638.23Wilts IPMs Chas. I, 318-9; M. Temple Admiss. i. 124. However, it is unclear how long he remained in London. In May 1647, when he was described as ‘late’ of the Middle Temple and ‘now’ of Rowde, suspicions surfaced that he had gone with others to the royalist headquarters at Oxford, presumably at an early point in the civil war, to discuss the association of Wiltshire for the king against Parliament. In September 1648 the Committee for Advance of Money received information that he was a delinquent, who had indeed been at the Oxford garrison, and ordered that his estates be secured and inventoried.24CCAM 824. At the Restoration Norden claimed to have neglected his profession, endangered his life and spent his estate in the royalist cause during the wars.25CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 207. But either he exaggerated significantly, or he had powerful supporters in his county prepared to overlook his previous allegiance (for example the earl of Pembroke or Sir John Danvers*), or his main contribution to the cause came in the 1650s.

It is conceivable that Norden hid some activities from his neighbours’ eyes. When on 29 May 1647 he was licensed to marry the daughter of Edmund Skinner of Cradley, Herefordshire, Norden was also living there.26Marr. Lics. Faculty Office, 35. Placed on the Wiltshire commission of the peace with William Yorke (by this time Danvers’s steward) in November 1646, at the Salisbury assizes the following August he was deputed to investigate the state of the highway in Bishops Cannings.27C231/6, p. 69; Western Circuit Assize Orders ed. Cockburn, 261. He was not recorded as appearing at quarter sessions until October 1647, but then, despite the questions about his past, he attended again in January, April and October 1648.28Wilts. RO, A1/160/1, ff. 94, 102, 108, 123. That August Anthony Ashley Cooper* encountered him both on a commission from chancery to hear a case relating to Fisherton manors and, a few days later, at the Salisbury assizes.29Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxviii. 26. He was still a justice of the peace in 1650, apparently operating only at petty sessions, and in July 1653 sat at Wanborough on a commission to enquire into lunacy, but like the Bayntuns he was rejected as a magistrate by that October, probably in the remodelling of 13 September.30C193/13/4, f. 109; C231/6, p. 266; Wilts. IPMs Chas. I, 360.

In this context, Norden’s election to Parliament in 1654 as one of ten Members for the county outraged some, who detected a conspiracy. Writing to the protector after the 1655 risings to complain of royalist activity in Wiltshire, enthusiasts James Hely* and Edward Holton appended adverse comment about Norden to their fulminations against Yorke, another of the ten. The latter, who had also once faced allegations of going to Oxford before the Committee for the Advance of Money, had

never yet been publicly questioned for being of that party, by which means both himself, as also one Mr Norden, another dangerous person in this county, obtained to be of the last parliament, through the disaffection of some people, to the great grief of honest men.31TSP iv. 610.

Evidence that Norden actually used his seat in Parliament for subversive purposes is lacking, although at least at first he had opportunity, if that was his intention, to be obstructive to reform. In the opening weeks of the session he received seven nominations to important committees. His legal experience potentially informed activity on those to investigate the proceedings of the judges at Salters’ Hall with regard to imprisoned debtors (15 Sept.) and to address abuses in chancery and elsewhere in the legal system (5 Oct., 3 Nov.), as well as to review the ordinances made in the months surrounding the genesis of the protectorate (10 Oct.).32CJ vii. 368a, 374a, 375b, 381b. He also had a chance to mould a cornerstone of religious policy, the ordinance establishing the mechanism for replacing unorthodox ministers and schoolmasters, to review the continuation of the army and navy (both 26 Sept.), and to influence the course of Lincolnshire fen drainage (31 Oct.).33CJ vii. 370a, 370b, 380a. However, these committees had many members and Norden made no recorded speeches. After 3 November he disappears from the Commons Journal.

For the next few years, whatever the nature and extent of his engagement in covert plotting, Norden was absent from official public life. In March 1657 he was again, with Yorke and John Ernle*, expressly omitted from the commission of the peace.34C231/6, p. 363; C193/13/6, f. 96v. Yet he was named that June as an assessment commissioner and may thus have been on the way to rehabilitation before 1660.35A. and O. That April he was elected to the Convention for both Old Sarum and Devizes, opting to sit for the former.36HP Commons 1660-1690.

After the Restoration Norden, who soon resumed regular activity at quarter sessions, enjoyed mixed fortunes.37Wilts. RO, A1/160/2, pp. 181, 193, 233, 239, 253, 262 etc. On the one hand he was proposed as a knight of the Royal Oak, a confirmation that, after all, suspicions of him had been well founded. Following the purge of corporations in 1662, he became an alderman of Devizes and four years later was returned to serve as one of its burgesses at a by-election. But in the meantime he had become involved in costly litigation, and having waited eight years to gain possession of the office of making and passing commissions of bankrupts, granted him in reversion in August 1660, he was then deprived of full enjoyment of it by the conflicting claims of the lord keeper’s son.38HP Commons 1660-1690; CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 207; 1667-8, p. 500; 1668-9, p. 114. ‘Sick in body’ when he made his will on 20 and 21 May 1669, he had died by the time Parliament reassembled on 19 October after a recess. The will remembered friends whose identity hints at Norden’s earlier contribution to the royalist cause through contacts at Oxford – John Fell, Richard Allestree and Thomas Willis – but was undermined by his financial liabilities. Executors John Ernle* and Jeffrey Daniels proved the will with his widow, but declined to act. None of Norden’s children entered Parliament.39PROB11/335/270; HP Commons 1660-1690.