Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:57:10.906Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Thomas Norton the parliament man: an Elizabethan M.P., 1559–15811

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

M. A. R. Graves
M. A. R. Graves
Affiliation:
University of Auckland
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Thomas Norton is one of Sir John Neale's parliamentary heroes. Neale demonstrates his importance in the ‘puritan choir’, that organized opposition party which was so active in the parliaments of 1563–66 and 1571. He and his colleagues are variously described as ‘troublesome’, ‘rebellious’, ‘hostile’, ‘nuisances’, ‘zealots’, ‘agitators’and ‘hotheads’, and Norton himself is depicted as ‘one of the most conspicuous of our ‘‘choir’’’. The result is a generally accepted portrait of a puritan agitator, tactician, and parliamentary organizer.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , March 1980 , pp. 17 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

2 Neale, J. E., Elizabeth I and her parliaments, 1559–1581 [hereafter cited as Neale, 1 ] (London, 1971), PP. 91–240.Google Scholar

3 Neale, 1, pp. 92, 95, 115, 134–5, 139, 154.

4 Ibid. p. 105.

5 Ibid. pp. 257, 337–40, 342, 375–6, 407.

6 He sat for Gatton in 1558. There are no returns for Gatton in 1559, nor is he mentioned in the monsJournal. He was certainly a member in 1563–7 but his constituency is not known;although a Thomas Norton is recorded as burgess for Berwick, he was probably one of the Yorkshire Nortons. No official returns survive for 1571. In February of that year, however, he became the first incumbent of the new office of lord mayor's remembrancer, the duties of which included parliamentary service in furtherance of the City's interests. On 28 May, two days before parliament was dissolved, he was identified by John Hooker as one of’the burgesses for London’. Return of the name of every member of the lower house of the parliaments of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1213 1874, 3 vols. Parliamentary papers, 62 (London. 1878), pt. 1, p. 398, 401, 405, 409; [J. B. Davidson], ‘Hooker's journal [of the house of commons in 1571,’Transactions of the Devonshire Association, xi (1879)], 488.Google Scholar

7 Arber, E. (ed.), A transcript of the registers of the Company of Stationers of London, 1554–1640 (5 vols, London, 1875–94), 1, 192.Google Scholar

8 Ibid. 1, 246, 247, 458, 490.

9 Ibid. 1, 229V; [L. Stephen and S. Lee (eds.)], D[ictionary of].N[ational] B[iography, 22 vols, London, 1908–9], xIv, 667.

10 , W. H. and Overall, H. C. (eds.), Analytical index to the remembrancia preserved among the archives of… London (London, 1878), pp. v vi.Google Scholar

11 21 Feb. 1576/7, ibid. p. 27.

12 16 Oct. 1581, ibid. p. 92.

13 22 Sept. 1581, ibid. p. 266.

14 13 and 18 Jan. 1583, ibid. pp. 335–6.

15 Cooper, W. D. (ed.), ‘Further particulars of Thomas Norton, and of state proceedings in matters of ligion, in the years 1581 and 1582’, Archeologia, xxxvi 1855, 112–13.Google Scholar

16 See, for example, P.R.O., S.P. 12/161, fo. 37; Dasent, J. R. (ed.), Acts of the privy council of England(32 vols, London, 1890–1907), VIII, 319Google Scholar, 322; x, 246; XI, 32,48, 78, 86, 89, 392; XII, 62, 116, 211, 238–9, 264; XIII, 31–2, 37–8, 68, 135, 144–5, 147, 165, 249; Cobbett, W., Howell, T. B. et al. (eds.), A complete collection of state trials and proceedings for high treason… (42 vols, London, 1816–98), 1, 958; D.N.B. XIV, 667–8.Google Scholar

17 For his correspondence with Walsingham see, for example, B[ritish] M[useum], Add[itional] MS 32379, fos. 52–6; P.R.O., S.P. 12/147, fos. 4 and 4I; ibid. 12/152, fo. 72; ibid. 2/153, fo. 5; ibid. 12/158, fo. 20; ibid. 12/164, fo. 32. Letters between Norton and Hatton are to be found in, for example,.M., Add. MS 15891, fos. 42, 75, 81 d. For examples of the Burghley-Norton correspondence, see B.M., Lansdowne MS, xxxI, no. 6; ibid, XXXIII, no. 6I; ibid, XLVIII, no. 8I.

18 Hooker's Journal, 472–92; a collection of anonymous ‘Remembrances of the parlament holden at Westminster in the 13 yeare of Q. Eliz’in Exemplar Rotuli Parliamentorum, 1 -28 Eliz., BM., Cotton MS, Titus F. i, fos. 129–71 [hereafter cited as Cotton]; an anonymous private journal of proceedings in 1572, Bodleian Library, Tanner MS, 393, fos. 45–63 v [hereafter cited as Tanner]; Cromwell's, Thomas diary for the parliamentary sessions of 1572–84, Trinity College, ublin MS, 1045, fos. 1–135 v [hereafter cited as Cromwell]; and ulk Onslow's journal for part of the 1572 session, H[istorical] M[anuscripts] C[ommission], The manuscripts of the house of lords, vol. XI, addenda, 1514–1714 (London, 1962), no. 3186 (pp. 6–15) [hereafter cited as Onslow].Google Scholar

19 Cotton, fos. 136 136V, 140V, 155V–156, 170V (1571); [Sir Simonds] D'Ewes, [The journals of all the parliaments during the reign of Queen Elizabeth] (London, 1682), pp. 282, 289 (1581).Google Scholar

20 Cotton, fos. 138V, 147V–148V.

21 Hooker's Journal, pp. 488–9.

22 Tanner, fo. 63V; Cromwell, fos. 13V–15V, 19, 2IV, 25V, 27V, 33V, 36V–37, 53V, 54, 58, 65–65V.

23 See above, n. 4.

24 Cromwell, fos. 5V, 19V, 29, 33, 69; D'Ewes, pp. 281, 283, 289; Onslow, p. 7; Cotton, fos. 157V, 167.

25 Cotton, fos. 136, 147V, 167.

26 Hooker's Journal, 488; House of Lords Record Office, Journals of the house of commons [hereafter cited as C.J.], 11, 38V.

27 Onslow, pp. 7–8; Cotton, fos. 137V, 142, 147.

28 Cotton, fo. 156; C.J. 11, fo. I6v.

29 [Ajgainst secret and stoln contracts of children without the consent of parents’and ‘[A]gainst xacting upon the clergy by ordinaries and by under-collectors of tenths’, 7 Jan. 1581. D'Ewes, p. 289.

30 E.g. on 12 April 1571a committee of twelve was appointed ‘[t]o heare bothe parties for the bill of Bristowe; and to make report thereof to the howse…’. When the committee met in star chamber four days later, however, two members, Mr Newton and Mr Younge, were absent, whilst Sir John Thynne, who was not one of the original twelve members, was present. C.J. 11, fo. 15V; Hooker's Journal, 478.

31 Neale, J. E., [The] Elizabethan [house of] commons (London, 1961), p. 378.Google Scholar

32 E.g. on 16, 20–23, 27, 29, 30 January and 1, 3–5, 12, 15, 18, 22, 24 February 1563. C.J. 1, fos. 217V, 218v, 219.V, 220–220V, 221v, 222, 223–224V, 226, 227, 228, 229V, 230V.

33 These totals have been calculated from entries in C.J. 11, 9–153; Cromwell; Cotton; Hooker; Onslow; Tanner; D'Ewes.

34 1571–81; C.J. 11, fos. 16v, 19, 70, 71, 72V, 113, 145V; D'Ewes, p. 289.

35 Cotton, fo. 138V.

36 Ibid. fo. 148V; C.J. 11, fo. 15V.

37 CJ. 11, fo. 116; Cooper, 109.

38 CJ. 11, fo. 116.

39 List of Thomas Norton's papers, Hatfield, Cecil MS, 140/5, item 69.

40 1576: CJ. 11, fo. 72V.

41 Ibid. fo. 71.

42 Walsingham to Norton, 6 Oct. 1577, B.M., Add. MS 32379, fo. 52; Norton to Walsingham, 9 Oct. 1577; B.M., Add. MS 32379, fos. 52V–56.

43 C.J., 11, fos. 117–146V.

44 Bills concerning ‘broggers and drovers’and haberdashers. CJ. 11, fos. 80v, 85V.

45 16 and 23 Feb. 1576, C.J. 11, fo. 72V; Cromwell, fo. 122v; 26, 29 and 30 May 1572, CJ.II, fos. 50, 52V, 54V.

46 E.g. bill committees for measures concerning the London goldsmiths (1576), Sir Thomas Gresham's creditors, and the merchant adventurers of London (1581), to all of which Norton was named. C.J. 11, fos. 96, 131V–132, 136–136V.

47 Hooker's Journal, 478.

48 E.g. 13 Feb. 1576, 20, 21 Feb. and 17 March 1581. D'Ewes, p. 247; C.J. 11, fos. 72V, 131–132, 147V. orning committees were no longer unusual, for example on 23 Feb. 576 Thomas Cromwell ‘was absent a good parte of the orning] by reason I was in a commyttee uppon the bill of promoters’. Cromwell, fo. 122V. See also ibid. fos. 46V, 61, 109.

49 C.J. 11, 23.

50 7 Feb. 1581. This is a conflation of the texts of the resolution as recorded in Cromwell, fo. 104V, and C.J. 11, fo. 121.

51 The commons'resolution was passed on 2 May; parliament was dissolved on the 29th. C.J. 11, 23, 39. The composition of the commons'committees in three of the sixteen joint conferences is not recorded in the journal. C.J. 11, fos. 28, 34V, 35.

52 Tanner, fo. 46. On nine other occasions in 1576 he was named to committees to confer with the lords.

53 The commons’committees at one of the joint conferences are not named by the clerk. C.J. 11, fos. 73V, 84, 94V, 95V, 121 v, 132V, 134V–135, 143V, 150.

54 Ibid. fo. 131.

55 9 May 1571. C.J. 11, fo. 25V. Twelve days later, when this provision failed to clear the accumulation of bills, the house resorted to daily afternoon sittings (including Saturdays) ‘and then to procede aswell to the secunde Readinges of bills as to the firste’. CJ. 11, 32. See also Neale, Elizabethan commons, p. 380; CJ. 11, fo. 59.

56 21 and 26 April 1571, CJ. 11, fos. 18–18V, 20; D'Ewes, pp. 178–9.

57 8 March, CJ. 11, fo. 89v.

58 One was 'stayeD'after the second reading; the other was engrossed but did not receive a third reading. Ibid. fo. 30V.

59 Ibid. fos. 74V, 82V. It was also instructed to confer ‘towching the unlawfull engrosseng of woolles’. Another bill - for ‘double serching of clothes’-was not, however, referred to this committee. 9 March 1576, ibid. fo. 90.

60 Ibid. fos. 120V–121, 123V.

61 Ibid. fos. 130V, 132. Two cloth bills, however, were referred to other committees: one ‘againste the inordynate selling of woolle and yarne’; the other ‘for the trewe folding and wyndeng ofwoolles’. 13 and 23 February, ibid. fos. 124, 133.

62 Ibid. fos. 123V, 132.

63 Ibid. fos. 135, 136, 141, 146V. Although the bills revised or re-drawn by the committees for cloths enjoyed little more success than earlier cloth measures, the house continued the practice in the same session when bills on ‘the assise of fewell’and iron mills were referred to a committee originally appointed to scrutinize a measure for ‘the reservation of woodes’. This committee (which included Norton) eventually brought in two new bills for the assize of fuel and redrafted measures on iron mills and timber conservation. C.J. 11, fos. 114V, 117V, 132, 133V.

64 Foster, F. Freeman, The politics of stability: a portrait of the rulers in Elizabethan London (London, 1977). P. 27, n. 2.Google Scholar

65 B.M., Add. MS 33271, fo. 30.

66 21 May 1572, Cromwell, fo. 33.

67 C.J. 11, fos. 114V, 124V, 133V, 138, 140V, 143V, 150; LJ. v, fo. 92; Cromwell, fos. 32–3.

68 1572: Cromwell, fos. 63V–64. John Popham, Bristol's recorder, set forth clearly the priorities of a city's representatives when he declared, during the course of a debate in 1571, that ‘hee wai nowe growne to a resolution, what, in that case, for the commonmmoditie of the Cittie should be the best, his Charge and oath to the Cittie moving him…’, Cotton, fo. 145.

69 1572: ibid. fo. 43.

70 1572: ibid. fo. 47.

71 Hooker's Journal, 478–9; see also ibid. p. 485.

72 Cromwell, fo. 58.

73 C.J. 11, fo. 19.

74 D.N.B., VII, 268; ibid, XIV, 667. Foster, The politics of stability, p. 107, n. 2. Norton was Remembrancer (1571–84), Fleetwood was Recorder (1571–92), and Marsh was common Serjeant (1547–63) and City solicitor (1563–79).

75 December 1581. B.M., Lansdowne MS, XXXII, no. 9.

76 Hooker's Journal, 488.

77 These figures are based on an examination of C.J. 11; Cromwell; Cotton; Hooker's Journal; Onslow; Tanner; D'Ewes.

78 H.M.C. [12th Report, app. IV, Duke of] Rutland MS (London, 1911), 1, 130.

79 20 March 1581. Cooper, 109–10.

80 C.J. 11, fos. 112–50.

81 Thomas Norton's ‘Devices’, P.R.O., S.P. 12/177, fos. 144, 147V.

82 The bill for the restitution in blood of John Lord Stourton. Cromwell, fo. 130V.

83 Cooper, 110.

84 C.J. 11, fos. 9–153; Cotton; Cromwell; Hooker's Journal; Onslow; Tanner; D'Ewes.

85 Cromwell, fo. 58.

86 These speeches apart, his parliamentary activity, both in speech and in committee, was confined to four related subjects: Norfolk's execution, Mary Stuart's condemnation, penal laws against the Roman catholics, and religious reformation. Cotton, fos. 167V, 212; Hooker's Journal, 479; Cromwell, fos. 18, 44, 45–45V, 47, 58, 62, 116–17; Onslow, p. 9. See also Neale, 1, 197, 201, 205, 222–3, 247, 255, 268, 275--6, 278, 287, 290, 305, 307, 318–32, 385. The speech for Norfolk's execution, delivered on 23 May, may have been made by Paul Wentworth. Cromwell, fo. 39V. If so it reduces Peter Wentworth's total of recorded speeches to eight.

87 C.J. 1, 221. See also M. Axton, ‘Robert Dudley and the Inner Temple revels’, Historical Journal, XIII, 3 (1970), 375–8.

88 Read, C., ‘William Cecil and Elizabethan public relations’, in Bindoff, S. T. et al. (eds.), Elizabethan government and society (London, 1961), pp. 31, 32.Google Scholar

89 To the Queries Majesties poor deceived subjects of the northe contrey, drawen into rebellion by the earles of Northumberland and Westmorland (London, 1569).Google Scholar

90 A disclosing of the great bull, and certain calves that he hath gotten; and specially the monster bull, that roared at my lord Byshop's Gate (London, 1570), in Park, T. (ed.), The Harleian miscellany (10 vols, London, 1808–13)Google Scholar, VII, 535–9. Norton wrote, that ‘[s]urely, as of a body, there is but one head that can not be spared, so, in a body, may be many heads that must needes by spared…?’There followed an extended and nasty metaphor on the heads of boils which, if allowed to go back into the body, ‘perchance, infect the hart blouD', and put the body in danger, and so needs ‘be well lanceD'. Ibid. 539.

91 A warning against the dangerous practises of papistes and specially the parteners of the late rebellion (London, 1570 (?)), pp. Aiv-Aiv (v).Google Scholar

92 A disclosing of the great bull, which combined classical parody with unblushing coarseness, was an attack on the papal bulls of 1567 and 1570. It recounted the story of Daedalus and the ustful Queen Pasiphae who sought ‘to engender with a bull’. Daedalus (representing ‘the treason of popish clergie, full of cunning orkmanshyp’) attempted ‘to bryng this copulation to [the] contentment f the unchast Pasiphae [for whom read papistical] treason in hye estates… [So he] endoseth her in a counterfeit cow [symbolising]… such princes, or great estates, as desire to lie under the bull of Rome’. A disclosing of the great bull, pp. 536–7; Cotton, fo. 170V.

93 Cotton, fos. 170–170V.

94 Ibid. fo. 138V; Neale, 1, 226.

95 16–23 May 1572- Cromwell, fos. 19, 25V, 27V, 33V, 36V 37.

96 C.J. 11, fo. 52; Onslow, p. 9.

97 List of Thomas Norton's Papers, Hatfield, Cecil MS, 140/5, item 19.

98 D'Ewes, p. 285; Hatfield, Cecil MS, 140/5, item 47. 99 Cotton, fo. 170V.

100 Strype, J., [The life and acts of Matthew] Parker (3 vols, London, 1821), III, 212 14.Google Scholar

101 Norton's ‘Devices’, P.R.O., S.P. 12/177, fos. 145–66.

102 D'Ewes, p. 288.

103 C.J. 11, fo. 113; D'Ewes, p. 288.

104 According to D'Ewes, on 28 January 1581 the articles ‘exhibited by Mr Norton concerning the Bill of Subsidy were allowed by the Committees, and he appointed to draw the said Bill accordingly…’. Yet on 7 February the articles for the subsidy were ‘delivered by Mr Speaker to Mr Attorney General, to draw a Bill according to the same Articles…’. As the committee's terms of reference included both the subsidy and a new penal law, it may well be that Norton was authorized to draw up the subsidy articles and to draft the anti-catholic bill. The confusion and obscurity are characteristic of the published collection of D'Ewes Journals. D'Ewes, pp. 289, 293.

105 Cooper, 109–10.

106 The opinions of Norton and the councillors frequently harmonized, as in 1571 when Sir Francis Knollys supported his addition to the treasons bill, or again in 1581 when they both eclared their approval of the ‘Bill for children born in England of fathers that were aliens, not to be accounted or reputed as English.’Cotton, fo. 149; D'Ewes, p. 284.

107 Cooper, 114. When Archbishop Parker suspected Norton of sympathy with the presbyterians’Admonition, he protested that ‘It is one thing to mislike the state and doctrine of our Church, as they do, and another thing to dislike the corrupt ministration of justice, and evil executing of the laws as they be. Which is the fault of men, and may without slander of our Church… be reformed. And yet these very reformations, which your Grace desired as much as any man, are not to be sought in such manner as they do… But what need all this? Your Grace knoweth long ago my whole mind herein…’homas Norton to Archbishop Parker, 16 Jan. 1573, Strype, Parker, 11, 143–4.

108 Thomas Norton to John Whitgift, 20 October 1572, Strype, J., The life and acts of the most reverend father in God, John Whitgift, 3 vols (London, 1822), 1, 58–9.Google Scholar

109 Cooper, 112.

110 Peele, A. (ed.), The seconde parte of a register (2 vols, Cambridge, 1915), pp. 191–4.Google Scholar The consistent basis of his specific complaints was the advantage which lax episcopal administration gave to the catholics: that, as a result of the bishops’'sufferance of corrupt privat scholemasters’, three quarters of the papists ‘are under 35 yeares olde, and so learned theire papistrie in her ma[jes]ties owne tyme’; that ‘papistrie, heresie, rebellions, affections, do growe upon the people for lacke of preaching, teaching, catechizing etc.’; and that a subscription and 'search of conscience’was only required from ‘brethren agreeing in doctrine and not from Papists, although Papistry is daily joined with treason’. Ibid. pp. 192, 195.

111 Hooker's Journal, 490.

112 Roger Manners to earl of Rutland, 5 December 1581, H.M.C., Rutland MS, I, 130.

113 A Warning against the dangerous practises of papists, fo. Aii (v).

114 1572, Tanner, fo. 63V.

115 Cooper, 109. Norton's intimate connexions with official circles were demonstrated in 1581 when the Commons debated the eligibility of a burgess who stood indicted of felony. The House resolved that he should remain a member until and unless he was convicted. It was Norton who then rose to announce’that the Lord Chancellor willed him to signifie unto the House that [when] this matter had been moved to him, and that a new Writ had been desired of him for the Election of another… [he had insisted that the burgess in question] ought first to be removed by the Judgement of the House…’. D'Ewes, p. 283.

116 Tanner, fo. 53.

117 Cooper, 109–10.

118 On only one occasion, on 7 April 1571, is his name mentioned in connexion with such parliamentary criticism. In response to Sir Francis Knollys’request for a subsidy, Robert Bell, Serjeant Lovelace, John (or Edward) Popham, Thomas Sampole, and other members of the commons, complained about a wide range of grievances: licences, promoters, treasurers, purveyors, respite of homage, exchequer writs, and collectors. Norton and others urged that a petition to the queen about these grievances was the best course of action. As Norton's name is coupled with the treasurer and comptroller of the household, as well as with Bell and Popham, he may have been assisting councillors to pour oil on the troubled waters. Certainly there is no record of specific complaints voiced by him. And when a committee was appointed to deal with the grievances about administrative abuses, Bell, Popham and 'seyntpole’(i.e. Sampole) were named to it, but not Norton. Hooker's Journal, 476; C.J. 11, fo. 13; Cotton, fos. 137V–138.

119 Thomas Screven to earl of Rutland, 6 February 1581, H.M.C., Rutland MS, 1, 161.

120 The collaboration of parliamentary ‘men-of-business’, such as Norton, Fleetwood, and John Marsh, with the privy council is the subject of further study at present being undertaken by the author of this article.