Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/130

 Norris lie beneath an elaborate canopy supported by marble pillars, and they are surrounded by kneeling effigies of their children.

‘Although himself of a meek and mild disposition,’ Norris was father of ‘a brood of spirited, martial men’. His six sons all distinguished themselves as soldiers, fighting in France, Ireland, or the Low Countries. Norris outlived five of them; Edward, who, with John, the second son, and Thomas, the fifth son, is separately noticed, alone survived his parents.

The eldest son, William, was with Walter Devereux, earl of Essex, in Ulster in 1574, and was on one occasion rescued from death by his brother John (, Chron. p. 805). He was, it appears, temporarily appointed in 1576 marshal of Berwick in succession to Sir William Drury [q. v.], but soon returned to Ireland. He died of a violent fever at Newry on 25 Dec. 1579, and is said to have accurately foretold his own death (cf. Cal. State Papers, Ireland, 1574–85, p. 201; Carew MSS. 1575–88, 188, 191, 193). The queen sent his mother a letter of condolence (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547–80, p. 639). He married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Richard Morison [q. v.], by whom he left a son Francis [see ].

Henry (1554–1599), Lord Norris's fourth son, matriculated from Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1571, and was created M.A. in 1588. He was captain of a company of English volunteers at Antwerp in June 1583 (Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd Rep. p. 73), and while serving with his brothers John and Edward in the Low Countries in 1586 was knighted by the Earl of Leicester after the battle of Zutphen (September). He was sent to Brittany in May 1592 to report on the condition of the English forces, and in December 1593 was captain of a regiment of nine hundred Englishmen there (cf. Hatfield MSS. iv. 202; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1591–4, p. 397). He was M.P. for Berkshire in 1588–9 and 1597–1598, but spent his latest years with his brothers John and Thomas in Ireland. In 1595 he was colonel-general of infantry (Carew MSS. 1589–1600, p. 113). Taking part under Robert Devereux, second earl of Essex, in the campaign in Munster in June 1599, he was wounded in the leg in an engagement with the Irish at Finniterstown. He bore ‘amputation with extraordinary patience,’ but died a few weeks later. The youngest of Lord Norris's sons, Maximilian, was slain while fighting in Brittany under his brother John in 1593.

The family of Lord Norris of Rycote must be carefully distinguished from that of the contemporary John Norris of Fyfield, Berkshire, as well as from that of the contemporary Sir William Norris of Speke, Lancashire. The Fyfield family descended from the first marriage of Sir Henry Norris of Speke (fl. 1390), while the Rycote family descended from Sir Henry's second marriage [see under, d. 1536)]. John Norris of Fyfield, in the sixteenth century, was succeeded by his son, (1523–1591). Sir William was a member of Queen Mary's household, was M.P. for Windsor (1554–7), and was sent to France as her herald in 1557 to declare war against Henri II (cf. Discours de ce qu'a faict en France le Heraut d'Angleterre, Paris, 1557). He was continued in office by Queen Elizabeth, and was usher of the parliament-house, gentleman-pensioner, controller of the works of Windsor Castle and Park, and J.P. for Berkshire. He died on 9 Aug. 1591, being buried at Bray (, Berkshire [1723], iii. 1). By his wife Mary, daughter of Adrian Fortescue, he left six sons and six daughters. His eldest son, John (d. 1612), was knighted at Reading in 1601, and was sheriff of Berkshire in the same year; by his wife Mary, daughter of George Bashford of Rickmansworth, he was father of Elizabeth, wife of Sir Edward Norris [q. v.]

To the Speke family belonged Sir William Norris, who is credited with having carried away at the capture of Edinburgh in 1543 some volumes from James IV's library at Holyrood, which, after remaining long at Speke, are now in the Liverpool Athenæum. By his first wife he was father of another William who was slain at Musselburgh in 1547, and by his second wife he had a son Edward, the builder, in 1598, of Speke Hall, whose younger son, William, was made K.B. at the coronation of James I, had the reputation of a spendthrift, died in 1626, and was great-grandfather of William Norris (1657–1702) [q. v.] (, Lancashire [1836], iii. 754–5; Norris Papers, Chetham Soc., Pref.; cf., Archæologia Scotica [1831], vol. iv. pt. i.)

 NORRIS, HENRY (1665–1730?), known as, actor, was the son of Norris, an actor, who joined Sir William D'Avenant's company, known as the king's servants, and was the original Lovis in Etherege's ‘Comical Revenge, or Love in a Tub,’ licensed 1664. Henry's mother, Mrs. Norris, said by Davies to have been the first English actress on the stage, was the