Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/228

 terms, he devoted much time to literature. Some verses which he wrote in early life attracted public notice. A sonnet by him appears in Dr. Turner's ‘Preservative or Triacle against the Poyson of Pelagius,’ 1551. His poetic ‘Epitaph of Maister Henrie Williams’ was published in ‘Songes and Sonettes’ of Surrey and others, published by Tottel in 1557. This, like another poem which was first printed in Ellis's ‘Specimens,’ 1805, ii. 136, is preserved among the Cottonian MSS., Titus A. xxiv. Latin verses by Norton are appended to Humphrey's ‘Vita Juelli’ (1573). Jasper Heywood, in verses prefixed to his translation of ‘Thyestes,’ 1560, commended ‘Norton's Ditties,’ and described them as worthy rivals of sonnets by Sir Thomas Sackville and Christopher Yelverton.

His wife's stepfather was Edward Whitchurch [q. v.], the Calvinistic printer, and Norton lived for a time under his roof. In November 1552 he sent to Calvin from London an account of the Protector Somerset (Letters relating to the Reformation, Parker Soc. p. 339). In 1559 the Swiss reformer published at Geneva the last corrected edition of his ‘Institutions of the Christian Religion,’ and this work Norton immediately translated into English at Whitchurch's request ‘for the commodity of the church of Christ,’ that ‘so great a jewel might be made most beneficial, that is to say, applied to most common use.’ The translation was published in 1561, and passed through numerous editions (1562, 1574, 1587, 1599).

But Norton had not wholly abandoned lighter studies, and in the same year (1561) he completed, with his friend Sackville, the ‘Tragedie of Gorboduc,’ which was his most ambitious excursion into secular literature [see below]. Very soon afterwards, twenty-eight of the psalms in Sternhold and Hopkins's version of the psalter in English metre, which was also published in 1561, were subscribed with his initials. Between 1567 and 1570 his religious zeal displayed itself in many violently controversial tracts aimed at the pretensions of the Roman church, and in 1570 he published a translation of Nowell's ‘Catechism,’ which became widely popular [see ].

As early as 1558 Norton had been elected member of parliament for Gatton, and in 1562 he sat for Berwick. In the latter parliament he was appointed a member of the committee to consider the limitation of the succession, and read to the house the committee's report, which recommended the queen's marriage (26 Jan. 1562–3). He had probably acted as chairman of the committee (Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. x. 262).

Meanwhile he was called to the bar, and his practice grew rapidly. On Lady day 1562 he became standing counsel to the Stationers' Company, and on 18 June 1581 solicitor to the Merchant Taylors' Company. On 6 Feb. 1570–1 he was appointed to the newly established office of remembrancer of the city of London, his functions being to keep the lord mayor informed of his public engagements, and to report to him the daily proceedings of parliament while in session. As remembrancer he was elected one of the members for the city of London, and took his seat in the third parliament of Elizabeth, which met 2 April 1571.

Norton spoke frequently during the session, and proved himself, according to D'Ewes, ‘wise, bold, and eloquent.’ He made an enlightened appeal to the house to pass the bill which proposed to relieve members of parliament of the obligation of residence in their constituencies (, Hist. i. 266). He warmly supported, too, if he did not originate, the abortive demand of the puritans that Cranmer's Calvinistic project of ecclesiastical reform should receive the sanction of parliament. Norton was the owner of the original manuscript of Cranmer's code of ecclesiastical laws, with Cranmer's corrections in his own hand. It had doubtless reached him through his first wife, the archbishop's daughter, and was the only remnant of the archbishop's library which remained in the possession of his family. While the proposal affecting its contents was before parliament, Norton gave the manuscript to his friend John Foxe, the martyrologist, who at once printed it, with the approval of Archbishop Parker, under the title ‘Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum (1571);’ the document forms the eleventh volume of Foxe's papers now among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum. But Norton's views went beyond those of Parker in the direction of Calvinism, and in October 1571 Parker openly rebuked him for urging Whitgift, then master of Trinity College, Cambridge, to abstain from publishing his reply to the Cambridge Calvinists' extravagant attack on episcopacy, which they had issued under the title of ‘An Admonition to Parliament.’

Norton was re-elected M.P. for the city of London in the new parliament which met on 8 March 1572, and again in 1580, when he strongly supported Sir Walter Mildmay's proposal to take active measures against the catholics.

Norton's activity and undoubted legal ability soon recommended him to the favour of the queen's ministers. When, on 16 Jan. 1571–2, the Duke of Norfolk was tried for