NORRIS, Francis (1579-1622)

Norris’ ancestors were Berkshire landowners by the mid fourteenth century, and held numerous minor court offices from the reign of Henry VI onwards. His great-grandfather, an esquire of the body to Henry VIII, was implicated in the disgrace of Anne Boleyn, and died on the scaffold. However, Norris’ grandfather Henry^† (later 1st Lord Norreys) restored the family’s fortunes, marrying a wealthy Oxfordshire heiress and serving as lord lieutenant of both that county and Berkshire. Following a successful term as ambassador to France, he was created Baron Norreys in 1572.22 Dugdale, ii. 403-4; C142/188/7; G.M. Bell, Handlist of British Diplomatic Representatives, 90. Despite this privileged background, Norris’ early years were not easy. In December 1579, when he was less than six months old, his father died on military service in Ireland. Norris’ mother secured his wardship, but her second marriage to Henry Clinton^*, 2nd earl of Lincoln proved disastrous, with the countess at intervals effectively imprisoned by her husband. Norris’ formative years were dominated by family disputes, and although latterly he enjoyed an amicable relationship with his stepfather, his strongest emotional bond as a child was with his maternal grandmother, the formidable Bridget Russell, countess of Bedford, who left him the bulk of her personal fortune when she died in 1601.23 CSP Carew, 1575-88, p. 191; CPR, 1580-2, p. 59; Harl. 6995, f. 77; HMC Hatfield, x. 146-7, 162; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 330; PROB 11/143, f. 9; Chamberlain Letters, i. 116.

As the heir to both a peerage and a landed estate of more than 100,000 acres, Norris inevitably attracted attention at court. He was presumably the ‘Mr Norris’ who accompanied Sir Robert Cecil^* (later 1st earl of Salisbury) to France in 1598; in the following year he certainly married Cecil’s niece, Bridget de Vere.24 C142/188/7; HMC Hatfield, xxiii. 22; Chamberlain Letters, i. 70; HMC Portland, ix. 70; CSP Dom. 1598-1601, p. 189. However, far from advancing his career, this union damaged his relationship with Cecil, since Norris and his bride were ill suited, and soon fell out over the latter’s jointure. Norris later blamed Bridget’s ‘youth and weakness’ for their troubles, but Cecil considered the root cause to be Norris’ own ‘bitter passions’.25 HMC Hatfield, xi. 557; xii. 61; xviii. 254; xix. 464-5. While the young man could be a warm and generous friend, he was also quick to take offence, slow to forget a grudge, and acerbic in his conversation. The newsletter-writer John Chamberlain, who knew him, observed in 1607 that he spared ‘neither friend nor foe’.26 Chamberlain Letters, i. 159, 247; Holles Letters ed. P.R. Seddon (Thoroton Soc. xxxi), 61. Consequently, although Norris took his place at court and in Parliament on succeeding his grandfather as Lord Norreys in 1601, he struggled to obtain office. He had to wait two years even to be appointed a magistrate, and his request to replace his grandfather as a lord lieutenant was rejected out of hand (though this was probably partly in view of his youth).27 APC, 1601-4, p. 190; HMC Hatfield, xi. 251, 540; xii. 638.

In March 1603 Norreys proclaimed James I’s accession at Oxford. The new reign initially promised greater things, as he and his stepfather were selected to help escort Anne of Denmark south from Scotland. However, when the queen’s journey was unexpectedly delayed, they requested permission to abandon this duty.28 HMC 10th Rep. VI, 82; J. Nichols, Progs. of Jas. I, i. 167; HMC Hatfield, xv. 90. A few months later, Norreys received a boost to his income when his childless uncle, Sir Edward Norris, died, leaving him as his principal heir. Unfortunately, the latter’s will was disputed, and Norreys found himself embroiled in a protracted legal battle.29 CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 530; HMC Hatfield, xvi. 170, 344.

Norreys attended two-thirds of the 1604 parliamentary session, with no extended absences until its final weeks. He attracted 11 appointments, though several of them related to the same business. Named to attend conferences about the proposed Anglo-Scottish Union, he was also nominated to the committees for both versions of the bills against witchcraft and seditious books.30 LJ, ii. 269a, 275a, 278a, 284a, 290a, 301b. Family ties account for his appointment to the bill committee concerning the naturalization of a Scottish courtier, Sir Thomas Erskine, who had recently married Sir Edward Norris’ widow. His marital difficulties perhaps explain his nomination to scrutinize the bill to prevent divorced people from remarrying during the lifetime of their former spouses. He was also selected to attend the king for the presentation of the Lords’ proposals for resolving the dispute over the Abergavenny barony.31 Ibid. 272b, 298b, 303b; Carleton to Chamberlain ed. M. Lee, 59.

Whatever his difficulties with some English notables may have been, Norreys was not anti-Scots, and it was at his Berkshire seat, Rycote, that the 6th Lord Sanquhar [S] almost died in a fencing accident in August 1604. Such contacts no doubt helped Norreys to advance at court, and in the following January he became a knight of the Bath when Prince Charles (Stuart^*, later prince of Wales) was created duke of York.32 Chamberlain Letters, i. 197; T. Rymer, Foedera, vii. pt. 2, p. 128.

In the spring of 1605 Charles Howard^*, 1st earl of Nottingham went to Spain to ratify the new Anglo-Spanish peace treaty. Norreys travelled in his entourage, taking with him Dudley Carleton^* (later Viscount Dorchester), formerly a secretary to his uncle, Sir Edward Norris. Having received a personal gift from Philip III, namely a valuable ornament for his hat, Norreys opted to return to England overland, journeying with Carleton and Robert Bertie^*, 14th Lord Willoughby de Eresby (later 1st earl of Lindsey), his wife’s cousin.33 Chamberlain Letters, i. 204-5; Stoye, 25, 239; HMC Downshire, ii. 424; CP, viii. 15; ix. 647. After reaching Paris in the autumn, he developed a serious fever, which rendered him unconscious for several days, and left Carleton despairing of his life. Tended by Henri IV’s own physicians, including Theodore Turquet de Mayerne, whom he probably later encouraged to visit England, Norreys slowly recovered, but was unable to attend the 1605-6 session of Parliament.34 HMC Hatfield, xvii. 447-8; Hatfield House, CP 191/60; Stoye, 25; E. Chaney and T. Wilks, Jacobean Grand Tour, 68. His wife Bridget, with whom he was then on better terms, procured the necessary licence of absence, and he awarded his proxy to Cecil, now earl of Salisbury.35 HMC Hatfield, xvii. 448, 471, 543; LJ, ii. 361a. Norreys arrived home in March 1606, and promptly retired to Rycote to recuperate. In April he optimistically applied to Salisbury for the vacant governorship of Portsmouth, but the two men were soon at odds again, for Norreys’ reconciliation with his wife proved to be short-lived, and the couple permanently separated later that year.36 Chamberlain Letters, i. 217; SP14/20/4; HMC Hatfield, xviii. 100, 184; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 317. Under pressure from Salisbury, Norreys surrendered custody of his daughter to Bridget, and agreed to pay her maintenance. However, his behaviour grew so extreme that he was rumoured to have gone mad and been placed under restraint. His relationship with the earl never recovered.37 HMC Hatfield, xviii. 184, 242-3, 424, 439-40.

Norreys attended almost two-thirds of the 1606-7 parliamentary session, but attracted no nominations until after the Christmas recess. Thereafter, he received eight appointments, all to bill committees. The issues under consideration included composition for defective property titles, an exchange of lands between the king and Salisbury, the estates of the late Ferdinando Stanley^†, 5th earl of Derby, and the repeal of anti-Scottish legislation.38 LJ, ii. 471b, 480a, 494a, 511a, 520b.

In the face of Salisbury’s displeasure, Norreys spent much of the next few years in seclusion at Rycote. A well-read man who certainly understood Latin and French, he regularly badgered Carleton for news of foreign events, expressing frustration at the paucity of civilized conversation in rural Berkshire.39 SP14/32/11; SP15/39/28; Univ. of Nottingham Lib., PwV2, item 53, p. 104. He was also struggling with health problems. Some were relatively minor, such as the toothache he developed after sliding on the frozen moat at Rycote in January 1609. However, during the previous summer he fell seriously ill again, and while taking the waters at Bath became convinced that he was dying. Word reached Salisbury that Norreys was planning to disinherit his daughter, and Carleton was hastily sent down to dissuade him. This episode prompted a fresh attempt to reunite him with his wife. However, when Norreys was advised that such a step would restore him to Salisbury’s favour, he reportedly replied ‘with an oath that unless he [the earl] could do as the apostles did, [and] cure him of his palsy, he neither needed nor cared for his friendship’.40 SP14/35/71; 14/43/40; Carleton to Chamberlain, 104; Chamberlain Letters, i. 247, 276. That same year the long-running dispute over Sir Edward Norris’ estate was finally settled, but Norreys spent much of 1609 engaged in a largely futile argument with Salisbury over the management of Shotover and Stowood forest, of which he was bailiff.41 SP14/34/37; HMC Hatfield, xxi. 41, 46-8, 62, 65-70, 167. His marital stalemate continued, and it may have been around this time that Norreys took a mistress, Sarah Rose. Their illicit union produced a son, Francis, to whom the baron later assigned four of his manors.42 C142/399/153.

Norreys attended barely a third of the first parliamentary session of 1610, and attracted just three bill committee nominations, the topics under discussion being the handling of stolen goods in London, apprenticeships in Devon, and the finances of the Sutcliffe family. Privilege was granted on 24 May to one of his servants, who had been arrested in London.43 LJ, ii. 583b, 593b, 597b-8a, 599a, 603b. In fact, Norreys was lucky to avoid arrest himself, as he absented himself from the Lords on 18 Apr. in order to fight a duel with Sir Peregrine Bertie^‡, brother to Lord Willoughby. The cause of this quarrel probably lay in Norreys’ treatment of his wife, Bertie’s cousin. Norreys emerged the victor, wounding Bertie in the shoulder. Surprisingly the episode went unpunished.44 HMC Downshire, ii. 279-80; Chamberlain Letters, i. 298.

Norreys participated in the festivities surrounding Prince Henry’s creation as prince of Wales, but shortly afterwards, on 9 June, he applied to Salisbury for permission to leave Parliament early, alleging ‘divers businesses in the country’. One of those peers who habitually avoided paying taxes, he doubtless had no interest in supporting the Great Contract, which project Salisbury was then promoting. Indeed, when the Lords reconvened in October 1610 to continue debating this issue, Norreys attended only the first three sittings, and left no other trace on proceedings.45 Hatfield House, CP 127/68; SP14/37/48; 14/49/55; 14/61/86.

Although Norreys continued ordinarily to absent himself from London, this did not prevent him from meeting the king, as Rycote was conveniently situated on James’s habitual summer progress route between Woodstock, Oxfordshire and Windsor Castle, in Berkshire. Norreys first hosted the monarch in August 1610, and received another visit two years later.46 P.E. McCullough, Sermons at Court, (suppl. cal. 164); Nichols, ii. 462. Following Salisbury’s death in May 1612, Norreys began to participate more frequently in court life. He joined Prince Henry’s funeral procession in December that year, and two months later served as cupbearer to the king when the Elector Palatine was installed as a knight of the Garter at Windsor. In September 1613 Norreys risked the king’s displeasure by going abroad to fight a further duel with Sir Peregrine Bertie.47 Harl. 5176, f. 208; Nichols, ii. 497, 523; Chamberlain Letters, i. 474; HMC Mar and Kellie, ii. 54. Once again, he escaped official sanction, but this episode coincided with an upsurge in high-profile challenges, and possibly helped to prompt a royal proclamation against duelling, published a month later.48 G.P.V. Akrigg, Jacobean Pageant, 255; Stuart Royal Proclamations I: Jas. I ed. J.F. Larkin and P.L. Hughes, 295-7.

Norreys had not yet entirely abandoned hope of a public career. During the summer of 1613, noting that Frances Howard, daughter of the lord chamberlain, Thomas Howard^*, 1st earl of Suffolk, was on the verge of securing the annulment of her marriage to Robert Devereux^*, 3rd earl of Essex, he sensed an opportunity for personal advancement. Evidently unaware that Frances planned to marry the royal favourite, Robert Carr^*, Viscount Rochester (later earl of Somerset), Norreys approached Suffolk for his daughter’s hand, on the assumption that, with Salisbury gone, he might similarly rid himself of his wife Bridget and remarry. This clumsy manoeuvre made Norreys a laughing stock at court, and he later observed that ‘it doth me not to be a courtier, especially in the feminine court’. Nevertheless, he was invited to perform in the tilt held to celebrate Somerset’s wedding, and apparently continued to ingratiate himself with the favourite thereafter.49 Chamberlain Letters, i. 498-9; Univ. of Nottingham Lib., PwV2, item 53, p. 104.

Norreys missed the bulk of the 1614 Parliament, attending only six or seven sittings in the early stages, before presenting his proxy to Somerset, and withdrawing. He received no nominations during this session.50 LJ, ii. 686b. Around this time Norreys formed a close friendship with another of Somerset’s clients, John Holles^* (later 1st earl of Clare), who became a regular visitor to Rycote, and a useful new source of London gossip.51 HMC Portland, ix. 27; Holles Letters, 57, 61, 68-71. Norreys needed such friends in September 1615. While visiting Bath, he was assaulted by Lord Willoughby. In the ensuing mêlée Norreys ran through one of the latter’s servants with his rapier and killed him. Found guilty of manslaughter by the inquest jury, he was obliged to throw himself on the king’s mercy, albeit with a defiant plea that he acted in self-defence. The Privy Council duly investigated the affair, and Norreys was pardoned three months later.52 SP14/81/82, 93; APC, 1615-16, pp. 290, 293; CSP Dom. 1611-18, pp. 306, 308; Stowe 145, ff. 154-5; Holles Letters, 82-3; Chamberlain Letters, i. 614; C231/4, f. 12.

By now Somerset and his wife had been arrested on suspicion of murdering Sir Thomas Overbury, and in January 1616 Norreys was questioned to establish whether he was concealing any of Somerset’s papers. Nothing incriminating was found, and three months later he was summoned to London to sit in judgement when the earl was tried before his fellow peers.53 SP14/86/8; APC, 1615-16, p. 505. Remarkably, given his recent track-record, Norreys was selected that August to assist at the creation of the new royal favourite, George Villiers^* (later 1st duke of Buckingham), as Baron Whaddon and Viscount Villiers. Shortly afterwards, the king yet again visited Rycote, while in the following November Norreys was back at court to assist at the creation of Philip Stanhope^* (later 1st earl of Chesterfield) as Baron Stanhope of Shelford.54 Harl. 5176, ff. 221v, 226; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 392. Nevertheless, Norreys was becoming reluctant to visit the capital. In April 1617 Holles, now Lord Houghton, invited him to his son’s baptism in London, with an elaborate apology that this would necessitate ‘the cessation of your country contents, among which now you sit [en]compassed, and removed from the seacoal air of this town, … the place you love so little’.55 Holles Letters, 155. Rycote remained a regular fixture in the king’s summer progresses, but Norreys seems to have largely avoided Whitehall, except for major events such as Anne of Denmark’s funeral in May 1619. He also continued to ignore the government’s requests for contributions to such levies as the 1620 Palatine benevolence.56 Nichols, iii. 436, 564; Harl. 5176, f. 235v; SP14/117/97; 14/118/44.

However, a major aristocratic landowner with an only daughter of marriageable age could not hope to remain in isolation indefinitely. Early in 1621, news broke that a match had been agreed between Elizabeth Norris and Edward Wray^‡, a groom of the bedchamber and protégé of George Villiers, now marquess of Buckingham. In return for his compliance, Norreys was to receive an earldom and, according to one account, become lord deputy of Ireland. For reasons which are unclear, he initially requested the earldom of Gloucester (normally reserved for royal kinsmen) or Bristol, but on 28 Jan. he was created Viscount Thame and earl of Berkshire, in an obvious nod to the location of his estates. Nothing more was heard of any Irish office.57 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 334; ‘Camden Diary’ (1691), 66; C66/2219/5.

Just two days later, Berkshire helped to lead the procession of earls at the state opening of the third Jacobean Parliament.58 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 338-9. He attended all but one of the first ten sittings, being appointed to help scrutinize the bills on ordnance exports and the condition of the kingdom’s armaments.59 LJ, iii. 13a. Then, on 16 Feb., disaster struck. Berkshire was standing by the entrance to the House of Lords when Emanuel Scrope^*, 11th Lord Scrope (later earl of Sunderland) pushed past him into the chamber. Scrope had formerly outranked him in precedence, and Berkshire, evidently viewing this action as a deliberate slight, lost his temper, and shoved the baron so violently that he was almost knocked to the floor. Such a flagrant breach of decorum could not be ignored. Initially both men were called to the bar of the House, but with Berkshire clearly the offending party, and the incident having occurred in the presence of Prince Charles, retribution could not this time be avoided. By a vote of 45 voices to 31, the earl was sentenced to close confinement in the Fleet.60 Ibid. 19b-20a; LD 1621, 1625 and 1628, p. 8; ‘Hastings 1621’, pp. 19-20. The next day, at Scrope’s request, Berkshire was granted the liberty of the prison, and allowed access to his servants. By 19 Feb. he had petitioned the Lords, expressing remorse for his ‘sudden passion, in respect of a conceit and apprehension of some distaste given me’. This submission satisfied the peers, and he was brought back to the House for a formal reconciliation with Scrope, during which he was also obliged to publicly request the prince’s forgiveness.61 LJ, iii. 21b, 22b-3a; ‘Hastings 1621’, p. 23. For the next fortnight, Berkshire regularly took his seat, but he received no further nominations, and was reportedly ‘per fitts melancholy’. On 8 Mar. the Lords were informed that he had been granted leave to depart into the country and appoint a proxy, his choice falling on Buckingham. In fact, he remained in London for several weeks, for he accompanied the king to St Paul’s Cathedral on 26 March. Thereafter he does seem to have retired to Rycote, and recorded attendances of the Lords on 18 Apr. and 1 June were probably clerical errors.62 Diary of Sir Richard Hutton 1614-39 ed. W.R. Prest (Selden Soc. suppl. ser. ix), 31; LJ, iii. 4b, 39a; Harl. 5176, f. 241.

In August 1621 word spread that the marriage between Berkshire’s daughter and Edward Wray had ‘found some rub’, and would not now go ahead. While this may have reflected the earl’s disgrace, it is also likely that Buckingham had intervened, as he had another suitor in mind for this wealthy heiress, his own brother Christopher Villiers^* (later 1st earl of Anglesey).63 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 395, 423. How this development affected Berkshire is unclear, but ostensibly he took the news quietly. Consequently, there was widespread shock when, on 28 Jan. 1622, he shot himself with a crossbow at Rycote. Accounts differ over whether he targeted his chest or his head, but the wound was mortal, and he died three days later. A puzzled Chamberlain blamed the earl’s suicide on ‘laesum principium [a troubled nature] and the want of God’s grace’. The antiquary William Dugdale recorded a more specific explanation, that Berkshire killed himself because he was ‘a person of so great a spirit, that he could neither bear some injuries, which had made a deep impression upon him, nor find out a proper way of remedy’, effectively a seventeenth-century description of depression. Arguably, he had never got over his very public humiliation in the previous February.64 Dugdale, ii. 404; Add. 72254, f. 86; Add. 72299, f. 58; ‘Camden Diary’, 77; Diary of Walter Yonge ed. G. Roberts (Cam. Soc. xli), 50; T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, ii. 291; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 423.

Berkshire left his affairs in some disorder. He had not updated his will since August 1614, and his designated executor, his kinsman Francis Moore^‡, had predeceased him. Administration instead fell to the earl’s widow, Bridget, even though the will mentioned neither her nor their daughter. Berkshire left £200 for a tomb to be erected at Dorchester, Oxfordshire, his designated burial site, but requested that his heart be interred separately in the vault of his grandmother, the countess of Bedford, at Watford, Hertfordshire. (Dorchester’s burial records for this date do not survive, and it is unclear whether, as a suicide, Berkshire’s wishes would have been respected.) The earl provided generously for the poor of both towns, and for his servants, and also bequeathed legacies of £500 and £400 respectively to his friend Lord Houghton and a distant kinsman, Sir John Jephson^‡. The will was not proved until January 1624, by which time Berkshire’s daughter had eloped with Edward Wray in order to escape the unwelcome attentions of Christopher Villiers.65 PROB 11/143, f. 9r-v; Add. 72275, f. 128; Add. 72299, f. 69; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 429. In the absence of a legitimate male heir, the bulk of the earl’s property passed to Thomas Erskine, now 1st earl of Kellie [S], on the strength of his marriage into the Norris family. The now extinct earldom of Berkshire, having been offered to Christopher Villiers, was recreated in 1626 for Thomas Howard^*, a son of the 1st earl of Suffolk. The barony of Norreys fell into abeyance, but was revived in 1675 for Berkshire’s great-grandson, James Bertie^†, who later became 1st earl of Abingdon.66 CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 365; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 441-2; CP, ii. 150; ix. 648-9.