Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/225

 in the latter's retirement to his Aldborough vicarage, though with a certificate from the commonalty of Ipswich attesting his good conversation and doctrine. His successor at Aldborough, Robert Neave, fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, was appointed on 30 June 1587, from which date nothing further is heard of Norton.

He wrote: ‘Certaine Godlie Homilies or Sermons upon the Prophets Abdias and Jonas, conteyning a most fruitefull Exposition of the same, made by the excellent learned man Rodolph Gualter of Tigure, and translated into English by Robert Norton, Minister of the Word in Suffolk,’ London, 1573, two editions; an epistle dedicatory to William Blennerhasset is signed by John Walker from Leighton. 

NORTON, ROBERT (d. 1635), engineer and gunner, was third son and fifth child of Thomas Norton (1532–1584) [q. v.], and of his second wife, Alice, daughter of Edmund Cranmer, brother to the archbishop. In the pedigree entered by Norton himself in the ‘Visitation of Hertfordshire’ in 1634 (Harl. Soc. p. 80) he is given as the son of his father's first wife, Margaret, daughter of Archbishop Cranmer; but, according to Mr. Waters (Chesters of Chicheley, p. 389), she died without issue in 1568. He studied engineering and gunnery under John Reinolds, master-gunner of England, and through his influence was made a gunner in the royal service. On 11 March 1624 he received the grant of a gunner's room in the Tower, and on 26 Sept. 1627 he was sent to Plymouth in the capacity of engineer, to await the arrival of the Earl of Holland and to accompany him to the Isle of Rhé, and in the same year he was granted the post of engineer of the Tower of London for life.

He married Anne, daughter of Robert Heare or Hare, and by her had three sons and two daughters. He died early in 1635, as his will, dated 28 Jan. 1634–5, was proved in P.C.C. on 19 Feb. following.

The following works are attributed to him: 1. ‘A Mathematicall Apendix,’ London, 1604. 2. ‘Disme, the Art of Tenths, or Decimall Arithmetike,’ London, 1608. 3. ‘Of the Art of Great Artillery,’ London, 1624. 4. ‘The Gunner, showing the whole practise of Artillerie,’ London, 1628. He supplied tables of interest and measurement, and instructions in decimal arithmetic to Robert Record's ‘Ground of Arts,’ 1623. The ‘Gunner's Dialogue,’ with the ‘Art of Great Artillery,’ by Norton, was published in the 1643 edition of W. Bourne's ‘Arte of Shooting.’ Norton also published an English version of Camden's ‘Annals,’ London, 1630; 3rd edit. 1635, in which he interpolated a panegyric on his father (p. 146), and was probably the Robert Norton whose verses are printed at the beginning of Captain John Smith's ‘Generall Historie of Virginia,’ 1626. 

NORTON, SAMPSON (d. 1517), surveyor of the ordnance and marshal of Tournay, was related to the Norton family of Yorkshire, a member of which, a rebel of 1569, was called Sampson Norton. He was early engaged in the service of Edward IV, and was knighted in Brittany by Lord Brooke about 1483, probably during the preparation for war caused by the English dislike of the Franco-Burgundian alliance. In 1486 he was custumer at Southampton, and 6 Aug. 1486 was appointed a commissioner to inquire what wool and woolfels were exported from Chichester without the king's license. The same year he received the manor of Tarrant Launceston in Dorset in tail male. Machado met him in Brittany in 1490. He was also serjeant-porter of Calais, and in office during the affair of John Flamank and Sir Hugh Conway [see ]. In 1492 he was one of those who received the French ambassadors in connection with the Treaty of Etaples. In 1494 he was present at the tournaments held when Prince Henry was created a knight. On 10 April 1495 he became constable of Flint Castle, and the office was renewed to him on 23 Jan. 1508–1509. In 1509 he was created chamberlain of North Wales. He distinguished himself in Henry VIII's French wars, holding, as he had held under Henry VII, the office of surveyor of the ordnance—an important position, involving the control of a number of clerks and servants. He may have been a yeoman of the guard in 1511. In 1512 he was taken prisoner at Arras, and after some difficulty was set free. In February 1514–5 he was marshal of Tournay, and was nearly killed in a mutiny of the soldiers, who wanted their pay. On 11 Sept. 1516 he became chamberlain of the exchequer. Norton died 8 Feb. 1516–17, and was buried at All Saints, Fulham, where there was a monument with an inscription,