that the quakers, if let alone, would not prove so aggressive. After some weeks, however, Norton returned with John Rous [q. v.] to Plymouth, to attend the general court for that colony and protest against the intolerant treatment of their sect. On arriving there on 1 June 1658 they were arrested and imprisoned. Two days later they were brought up before the magistrates and questioned as to their motive in coming. Both were recommitted to prison.
Two days after they were again brought up and charged with heresy by Christopher Winter, a constable and surveyor, but a public disputation was denied (Plymouth Records, iii. 140). The magistrates, failing to convict of heresy, decided to tender the oath of fidelity to the state. On their refusal to ‘take any oath at all,’ they were ordered to be flogged, Norton with twenty-three lashes. The flogging ended, they were liberated on 10 June (ib. p. 149).
About the end of June 1658 Norton and Rous went to Boston, and were warned to depart at once. Instead, they attended the weekly lecture of John Norton (1606–1663) [q. v.], who uttered strong invectives against their sect. On Humphrey Norton attempting to reply at the close, he was haled before the magistrates, imprisoned three days, whipped, and returned to prison. On 16 July he wrote a letter to Governor John Endecott [q. v.] and John Norton (New England's Ensigne, pp. 106–8).
A fresh order that quakers in prison should be regularly flogged twice a week was put in force from 18 July; but the public of Boston were growing disgusted with the cruelties practised in the name of religion, and they made a public subscription to pay the prison fees and forward the prisoners to Providence, Rhode Island.
Norton appears to have gone to Barbados about January or February 1659. While on a voyage to England in April the same year he wrote ‘New England's Ensigne. … This being an Account of the Sufferings sustained by us in New England (with the Dutch), the most part of it in these two last years, 1657, 1658. With a Letter to John Indicot, and John Norton, Governor and Chief Priest of Boston; and another to the town of Boston. Also the several late Conditions of a Friend upon Road-Iland, before, in, and after Distraction; with some Quæries unto all sorts of People who want that which we have, &c. Written at Sea, by us whom the Wicked in Scorn calls Quakers, in the second month of the yeer 1659,’ London, 1659. He also took part in writing ‘The Secret Workes of a cruel People made manifest,’ &c., London, 1659, 4to [see under Rous, John], and ‘Woe unto them are mighty to drink wine,’ no place or date.
The time of his death is uncertain.
[Neal's Hist. of New England, i. 325; Doyle's English in America, ii. 126; Bowden's Hist. of Friends in America, i. 56–135; Rutty's Friends in Ireland, ed. 1811, p. 86; Besse's Sufferings, ii. 182, 187, 195, 196; Bishop's New England Judged, pp. 68, 71, 72, 163, 179, 203; Howgil's Dawnings of the Gospel Day, 1676, p. 303; Keith's Arguments of the Quakers … and my own … examined, 1698, pp. 85–6; The Secret Works of a Cruel People, London, 1659, pp. 2, 3, 9; Smith's Cat. ii. 241; Swarthmore MSS. and authorities given above.]
NORTON, JOHN (fl. 1485), sixth prior of the Carthusian monastery of Mountgrace, was the author of three works now extant in the Lincoln Cathedral MS. (A. 6. 8). The first work is in seven chapters, ‘De Musica Monachorum;’ the second in nine, ‘Thesaurus cordium amantium,’ of which part is lacking (f. 47 a); the third in eight, ‘Devota Lamentacio,’ ‘caret finis’ (f. 76 b).
The volume begins with a letter from William Melton (d. 1528) [q. v.] to Flecher, who copied out the work after Norton's death. Flecher's Christian name seems to have been Robert (f. 30 a), and he is probably identical with the Robert Flecher, priest, who appears in the pension book of 31 Henry VIII (Mon. Angl. vi. 24). Melton says he has read the first work—Norton's ‘De Musica Monachorum,’ a book which he thinks fitted for Carthusians to read. Its seven chapters are occupied with discourses on idle words, prayer, and obedience. Flecher adds that this work was written while Norton was proctor of the Mountgrace monastery.
At the same time Norton wrote his second work, ‘Thesaurus cordium amantium.’ The introductory letter, of which the beginning is lost, was written after Norton's death, and addressed to Flecher by a doctor, no doubt Melton; it is in two parts, beginning f. 28 a, ‘de refectione eterna,’ and ending f. 30 b. A request for information about the ‘Liber Magnæ Consolacionis’ follows. The writer remembers to have seen it, and recommends it for frequent reading.
Norton's third work, ‘Devota Lamentacio,’ is also introduced by a letter from William Melton. The prologue records that on Tuesday before Whitsunday in the third year of John Norton's entry into religion (1485) he had a vision immediately after mass while sitting in his cell. The Virgin Mary appeared to him, clothed in the dress of a Carthusian nun and surrounded by virgins in the same habit, and through her he saw in the spirit
