Norton’s mother was a Fletcher, of Little Strickland, in the County of Westmoreland. The present Sir Henry Fletcher, Bart., M.P., belongs to a branch of the Fletcher family, who originally came from Cockermouth, in Cumberland. There is a tradition that when Mary Queen of Scots had been defeated at the Battle of Langside, after her romantic escape from Lochleven Castle, Henry Fletcher, of Cockermouth Hall, waited on the Scots’ Queen when she first landed at Workington. Henry Fletcher “entertained” the Queen at Cockermouth Hall (17th May, 1568), “most magnificently, presenting her with robes of velvet.” It is further said that when James I. came to the English Throne he treated Henry Fletcher’s son, Thomas Fletcher, with great distinction, and offered to bestow upon him a knighthood. — See Nicholson & Burns’ “History of Cumberland and Westmoreland.”
As to the Nortons and Markenfields, see Wordsworth’s “White Doe of Rylstone”; “Memorials of the Rebellion of 1569” (1840); Froude’s “History of England”; “Memorials of Cardinal Allen”[A] (Ed. by Dr. Knox, published by Nutt, London); and J. S. Fletcher’s “Picturesque Yorkshire” (Dent & Co.). In Hailstone’s “Portraits of Yorkshire Worthies” (two magnificent volumes published by Cundall & Fleming) are photographs of old Richard Norton and of his brother Thomas, and of the former’s seventh son, Christopher. The photographs are taken from paintings in the possession of Lord Grantley, now, I believe, at Markenfield Hall.
The same valuable work also contains a photograph of a portrait of “the Blessed” Thomas Percy Earl of Northumberland, from a painting belonging to the Slingsbies, of Scriven.
From the Ripon Minster Registers of Baptisms, Marriages, and Deaths, it is plain that, between the years 1589 and 1601, a “Norton,” described as “generosus,” lived at Sawley, close to Bishop Thornton and Grantley, near Ripon.
[44] — In 1569 the Norton Conyers estate seems to have been vested in a Nicholas Norton, probably as a trustee. — See “Sir Ralph Sadler’s Papers,” and see ante, Supplementum III.
The Winters were also related to the Markenfields, their aunt, Isabel Ingleby, having married Thomas Markenfield, of Markenfield.
The Wrights and Winters were also, through the Inglebies, connected with the Yorkes, of Gowthwaite, in Nidderdale, of which family, most probably, sprang Captain Roland Yorke (who introduced the use of the rapier into England — see Camden’s “Elizabeth”), the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, in the Netherlands. — See Foster’s Edition of “Glover’s Visitation of Yorkshire”; “The Earl of Leicester’s Correspondence” (Camden Soc.); also “Cardinal Allen’s Defence of Sir William Stanley’s Surrender of Deventer, 29th January, 1586-87” (Chetham Soc.).
The Wards, of Mulwith, Newby, and Givendale, were related to the Nortons, old Richard Norton’s grandmother being Margaret, daughter of Roger Ward, of Givendale. Richard Norton’s mother was Ann, daughter and heiress of Miles Ratcliffe, of Rylstone. Through her came to the Nortons the Rylstone estates. Hence the title of the immortal poem of the Lake poet.
Rylstone and Barden (or Norton) Tower are both near Skipton-in-Craven. Skipton Castle was the seat of the Cliffords Earls of Cumberland. The Craven estates of the Nortons, it is said, were granted by James I. to Francis Earl of Cumberland. (I visited Norton Tower in company with my friend, Mr. William Whitwell, F.L.S., now of Balham, a gentleman of varied literary and scientific acquirements, in the year 1883. Norton Tower, built on Rylstone Fell, between the valleys which separate the Rivers Aire and Wharfe, commands a magnificent prospect “without bound, of plain and dell, dark moor and gleam of pool and stream.” — See Dr. Whitaker’s “Craven.”)
[A] Cardinal Allen, though a Lancashireman by his father, was a Yorkshireman by his mother, who was Jane Lister, of the County of York. — See Fitzherbert’s Life of Allen, in “Memorials of Cardinal Allen.” — Lord Ribblesdale, of Gisburn Park, in the West Riding of the County of York, is the representative of this ancient Yorkshire family of Lister. Lord Masham is a representative of a younger branch of the same family.