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who Was John Norton, the Martyr?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Ann M. C. Forster
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Extract

On the 9th August, 1600, after trial at the Summer Assizes at Durham, three men were hanged there: a priest named Thomas Palaser and two laymen, John Talbot, of Thornton-le-Street in Yorkshire, and John Norton, of Ravensworth, Co. Durham, in whose house the priest had been apprehended. The career of John Talbot has been ably reconstructed by Dom Hugh Bowler, O.S.B., in Biographical Studies. Of John Norton little is generally known beyond the bare facts of his capture and death, and the circumstance that Margaret Norton, his wife, who was also condemned to death, was reprieved and afterwards pardoned. I have taken up the study of Norton and abandoned it several times for lack of evidence, during the last few years. Now it seems best to put on record the facts that have emerged, incomplete though they be, in the hope that further information may be forthcoming.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , April 1961 , pp. 56 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1961

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References

1. Biog. Stud, vol.2, no.1.

2. Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests, 1924 ed. p.250.

3. H.M.C. Salisbury MSS vol. X, 202-5.

3a. Cal. Arts of Privy Council, 1599-1600.

4. Index 4208, fol.244. (P.R.O.)

5. Index 6744. (P.R.O.)

6. C.66/1591. (P.R.O.)

7. With regard to Margaret, the martyr's wife, I have ventured (in their Genealogical Table, under John Norton (6)) to suggest that she was the Margaret Redshawe, daughter of Christopher Redshawe, of Owston or Ouston, whomarried a John Norton. An Ouston is near Raversworth. A Christopher Redshawe of Blanchland in South Northumberland was a recusant in 1609, and a Redshawe of Gateshead was a recusant in 1680. The burial of aMargaret Norton (no description) in 1620 is recorded in the parish register of Houghton-le-Spring, Durham.

8. D.N.B. under RICHARD NORTON. The article contains some obvious errors.

8a. Bowes papers (XII of Sir C. Sharp's series), University Library, Durham.

9. A John Norton was married at Aycliffe, near Darlington, the 12 Feb. 1603/4,and his family may be traced in the parish register for a couple of generations.

10. Surtees, Durham, III, p.345.

11. I am indebted to the Rector, the Rev. Canon P. J. H. Kirner, for permission to search these records.

12. He is not recorded in Venn's “ Alumni Cantabrigienses.”

13. The Vicar, the Rev. Ralph L. Davis kindly looked up the register for me, and found no record of any Norton of this period, with the exception of an Elizabeth Norton married in 1574. The burials for 1578 (three times the normal) suggested that this was a plague year.

14. A John Norton was probably concerned in the affairs of Mary, Queen of Scots. Geo. Dentall, servant of the Earl of Shrewsbury, was paid for bringing John Norton up to London from Sheffield, 15 April 1580. (Fr. Pollen's notes on Treasury Accounts, contributed by Fr. FitzGibbon).

15. Richard Sayer of Worsall appears again as a recusant in 1604. (Peacock's Yorkshire Papists of 1604, p.89).