Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Norton, Frances

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1415567Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 41 — Norton, Frances1895Elizabeth Lee ‎

NORTON, FRANCES, Lady (1640–1731), authoress, born in 1640, was the third daughter of Ralph Freke of Hannington, Wiltshire, by Cecilia, daughter of Sir Thomas Colepepper or Culpepper, of Hollingbourne, Kent. About 1672 she married Sir George Norton, knight, of Abbots Leigh, Somerset. He had concealed Charles I in his house after the battle of Worcester. There were three children of the marriage, George and Elizabeth, who died young, and Grace, afterwards Lady Gethin [q. v.], a girl of uncommon accomplishments. Lady Norton soon ceased to live with her husband, who died on 26 April 1715. On 23 April 1718 she married, at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall, Colonel Ambrose Norton, cousin german of her first husband. She was his third wife. He died on 10 Sept. 1723. On 24 Sept. 1724 she married at Somerset House Chapel, William Jones, esq. According to the ‘Funeral Book of Westminster Abbey,’ she died on 20 Feb. 1730–1 at the advanced age of 90. On 9 March she was buried in the abbey in the family tomb in the south aisle of the choir.

In 1705 appeared two works by Lady Norton, bound together in a small quarto volume, entitled respectively ‘The Applause of Virtue, in four parts,’ and ‘Memento Mori, or Meditations on Death.’ The book was evidently inspired by the death of her daughter Grace in 1697. It mainly consists of quotations on ethical subjects from ancient and modern writers. In the preface Lady Norton declares that she intended the essays for her ‘melancholy divertisement,’ without any idea of publication. The volume contains three title-pages and several quaint engravings.

[Chester's Registers of Westminster Abbey, p. 331; Collinson's Somerset, iii. 153; Crisp's Somersetshire Wills, 5th ser. p. 76; Hutchins's Dorset, iv. 86.]

E. L.