Thomas Norton - Wikipedia Thomas Norton From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search 16th-century English lawyer, politician, writer, and playwright For other people named Thomas Norton, see Thomas Norton (disambiguation). Thomas Norton (1532 – 10 March 1584) was an English lawyer, politician, writer of verse, and playwright. Contents 1 Official career 2 Literature 3 References 3.1 Citations 3.2 Sources Official career[edit] Norton was born in London, the son of Thomas Norton and the former Elizabeth Merry. He was educated at Cambridge.[1] He became a secretary to Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset. In 1555 he was admitted as a student at the Inner Temple.[2] He married Margery Cranmer, the daughter of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and his wife Margarete, with whom he had no children. Margery died before 1568. In 1568, Thomas married Alice Cranmer, the daughter of Archdeacon Edmund Cranmer, the brother of the Archbishop of Canterbury, with whom he did have issue.[3] Norton served in Parliament as the representative of Gatton. In 1562 he became M.P. for Berwick, and was active in politics. He became the unofficial leader of a group of about fifty members of the House of Commons, which G. R. Elton saw as the first semi-official opposition in Parliament.[4] He was inspired by the religious views of his father-in-law, and was in possession of Cranmer's manuscript code of ecclesiastical law; this he permitted John Foxe to publish in 1571. He went to Rome on legal business, in 1579. From 1580 to 1583 he frequently visited the Channel Islands as a commissioner to inquire into the status of these possessions.[2] Norton was the first Remembrancer of the City of London, holding the office from 1570 until his death in 1584.[5] Norton's Calvinism grew, and towards the end of his career he became a fanatic. Norton held several interrogation sessions in the Tower of London using torture instruments such as the rack. His punishment of the Catholics, as their official censor from 1581 onwards, led to his being nicknamed "Rackmaster-General"[2] and "Rackmaster Norton."[citation needed] Norton's puritanism made him objectionable to the English bishops; he was deprived of his office and thrown into the Tower. Francis Walsingham released him, but Norton's health was undermined, and in March 1584 he died in his house at Sharpenhoe, Bedfordshire.[2] Literature[edit] From his eighteenth year Norton began to compose verse. With Jasper Heywood he was a writer of sonnets. He contributed to Tottel's Miscellany, and in 1560 he co-authored, along with Thomas Sackville, the earliest English tragedy, Gorboduc, which was performed before Elizabeth I in the Inner Temple on 18 January 1561.[2] Gorboduc was revised, as The Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex in 1570. Norton's early lyrics have mostly disappeared. His numerous anti-Catholic pamphlets include those on the rebellion of Northumberland and on the projected marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots, to the Duke of Norfolk. Norton also translated Calvin's Institutes (1561) and Alexander Nowell's Catechism (1570).[2] Gorboduc was edited by William Durrant Cooper (Shakespeare Society, 1847), and Lucy Toulmin Smith in Karl Vollmöller's Englische Sprache-und Literatur-denkmale (1883). References[edit] Citations[edit] ^ "Norton, Thomas (NRTN570T)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge. ^ a b c d e f Gosse 1911. ^ Hasler, P.W. (ed)(1981) The History of Parliament: ... Boydell and Brewer (via History of Parliament online) ^ p 283-4 G. R. Elton, England under the Tudors (1955) Methuen, London ^ "The Remembrancers of the City of London - British History Online". www.british-history.ac.uk. Sources[edit]  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:  Gosse, Edmund (1911). "Norton, Thomas". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. 19 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 798. "Norton, Thomas (1532-1584)" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. Authority control BNF: cb11917878w (data) GND: 119111594 ISNI: 0000 0001 0881 4357 LCCN: n50022826 NLI: 000405281 NLK: KAC200605143 NTA: 068564988 PLWABN: 9810559087505606 SNAC: w6qj8h5b SUDOC: 027049973 Trove: 936337 VcBA: 495/143222 VIAF: 27069632 WorldCat Identities: lccn-n50022826 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thomas_Norton&oldid=998775549" Categories: 16th-century English poets 16th-century English dramatists and playwrights Writers from London 1532 births 1584 deaths Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge English MPs 1558 English MPs 1563–1567 English MPs 1571 English MPs 1572–1583 Prisoners in the Tower of London English male dramatists and playwrights English male poets 16th-century jurists Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description is different from Wikidata Use dmy dates from June 2012 Use British English from June 2012 All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from April 2016 Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica Articles incorporating Cite DNB template Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLI identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLK identifiers Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers Wikipedia articles with VcBA identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikisource Languages العربية Deutsch Español Français Italiano مصرى Nederlands Norsk bokmål Polski Português Simple English Svenska Edit links This page was last edited on 7 January 2021, at 00:06 (UTC). 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