Thomas Norton - Official Career

Official Career

Norton was born in London and was educated at Cambridge, and early became a secretary to the Protector Somerset. In 1555 he was admitted a student at the Inner Temple, and married Margery Cranmer, the daughter of the archbishop.

In 1562 Norton, who had served in an earlier parliament as the representative of Gatton, became M.P. for Berwick, and entered with great activity into politics. He became the unofficial leader of the 'choir' a group of about fifty members of the House of Common which G R Elton saw as the first semi official opposition in Parliament In religion he was inspired by the sentiments 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, and from 1580 to 1583, he frequently visited the Channel Islands as a commissioner to inquire into the status of these possessions.

Norton's Calvinism grew with years, and towards the end of his career he became a rabid fanatic. Norton held several interrogation sessions in the Tower of London using torture instruments such as the rack. The rack stretched the body apart, until the joints were dislocated and then separated from the rest of the body. His punishment of the Catholics, as their official censor from 1581 onwards, led to his being nicknamed "Rackmaster-General" and "Rackmaster Norton."

At last his turbulent puritanism made him an object of fear even to the English bishops; he was deprived of his office and thrown into the Tower. Walsingham presently released him, but Norton's health was undermined, and in March 1584 he died in his house at Sharpenhoe, Bedfordshire.