Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/18

 12

NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. x. JULY 4, 191*.

CHILEAK VIEWS. I shall be greatly obliged for descriptions of any prints relating to Chile, giving title of subject, artist, en- graver, size, date of publication, and where published also, whether coloured or not.

I am particularly anxious to get the description of an aquatint view of Val- paraiso, in colours, published in London probably between the years 1820 and 1840.

QUIEM SABE.

ORLEBAR. Information for family history purposes concerning the Orlebars prior to 1650 would be greatly appreciated. The surname (an uncommon one) is found recorded in Northamptonshire and Bedford- shire, 1100-1914; in Essex, Suffolk, and City of London, 1600-1800. It appears also as Orlebere, Orlibar, Orlyngbere, Or- lingbury, and with the prefix " De."

GERALD ORLEBAR. Silsoe Ampthill, Beds.

SEMAPHORE SIGNALLING STATIONS. I am desirous of tracing the locality of these stations between London and Portsmouth, and London and Plymouth. There are people alive now who recollect their use. BLAIR COCHRANE.

WILLS AT ST. PAUL'S. Has any calendar of the wills in the keeping of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's been printed ?

W. B. GERISH.

SIB GREGORY NORTON, THE REGI- CIDE, AND HIS SON SIR HENRY.

(1 S. ii. 216, 251 ; 6 S. xii. 187 ; 7 S. viii- 324, 394 ; 10 S. vii. 168, 330, 376, 416.)

THE Nortons of Rotherfield and the Nortons of Southwick have been fully dealt with in the pages of ' N. & Q.' Incidentally, Sir Gregory Norton, the regicide, and Sir Henry Norton his son have been referred to.

Much information relating to the regicide and his son has recently come under my notice, and at the same time a few addi- tional facts]relating to the'two families men- tioned above.

Nothing seems to be known of the parent- age or of the early history of Sir Gregory Norton. One contributor to ' N. & Q.' is inclined to believe that he belonged to the Nortons of Kent. Sir Dudley Norton, Secretary of State for Ireland (1612-34), son of John Norton of Boughton Monchelsea, Kent, is said to have had a brother Gregory

holding a commission in the Irish army (Herald and Gen., iv. 288). This Gregory may have been the " regicide " or his father.

Another contributor says it is thought he was either a grandson or nephew of this Sir Dudley Norton, who retired from office in 1634 from age and infirmity.

Published accounts of Sir Gregory Norton in later ^life have come very largely from the pens of his enemies, so that it is very difficult to tell his story impartially. A search through the State Papers of his period seems to point to the fact that he was a shrewd fellow, and one keenly alive to his own interests and the " wherewithal." In a scarce work entitled

" The true character of the educations, inclina- tions, and several dispositions of all and every one of those bloody and barbarous persons, who sate as judges upon the life of our late Dread Sove- reign King Charles I. of ever Blessed Memory. London, 1660,"

we read the following description of Sir Gregory :

" A man of no considerable fortune before those wars, but he obtained afterwards Richmond House [Palacel, and much of the King's goods for an inconsiderable value, which made him to lend so ready an eare for the taking away of the King's life, he being one of the Judges that murmured themselves into a conspiracy against it."

The 'History of King-Killers,' 1719, describes him as

" the poor scoundrel regicide and beggarly knight, one of the pensioners of the King, who, in return for the bread he had eaten and for being kept from starving, became one of the King's mur- derers, sitting in the court to try him, and signing the warrant for execution, for which dia- bolical action he was rewarded with Richmond House and Manor, escaping the more proper reward of his villainy, an halter, by dying before the Restoration."

In a curious broadside dated 1660, and entitled

" The Picture of the Good Old Cause drawn to the Life in the Effigies of Master Praise-God-Bare- bone with several examples of God's judgments on some Eminent Engagers against Kingly Govern- ment,"

we learn that Sir Gregory Norton " died raving mad, which by his Physicians was not imputed to the distemper of his body, but a troubled, disquieted mind ; he was one of the King's judges."

Created a baronet of Ireland on 27 April, 1624, he was described as " of Charlton, co. Berks." In 1645 he was M.P. for Mid- hurst, Sussex, in the Long Parliament. He married Martha, daughter of Bradshaw Drew of Chichester, Sussex, and widow of John Gunter of Racton, Sussex. His son