John Norreys - Death

Death

Norreys returned to Munster to serve as president, but his health was fragile and he soon sought leave to give up his responsibilities. He complained that he had "lost more blood in her Majesty's service than any he knew". At his brother's house in Mallow, he developed gangrene, owing to poor treatment of old wounds, and was also suffering from a settled melancholia over the disregard by the crown of his 26 years service. On 3 July 1597 he went up to his chamber, where he died in the arms of his brother Thomas.

It was generally supposed that his death was caused by a broken heart. Another version, recounted by Philip O'Sullivan Beare, states that a servant boy, on seeing Norreys go in to the chamber in the company of a shadowy figure, had listened at the door and heard the soldier enter a pact with the Devil. At midnight the pact was enforced, and on breaking in the door the next morning the frightened servants found that Norreys' head and upper chest were facing backwards.

Norreys' body was embalmed, and the queen sent a letter of condolence to his parents, who had by now lost several of their sons in the Irish service. He was interred in Yattendon Church, Berkshire - a monument there has his helmet hanging above - and his effigy (portrait by Zucchero, engraved by J. Thane.) was placed on the Norreys monument in Westminster Abbey.