In 1547 Brackley and Peterborough returned each two members, and in 1557 Higham Ferrers returned one member. Under the act of 1832 the county returned four members in two divisions, and Brackley and Higham Ferrers were disfranchised.
Antiquities.—Although Northamptonshire was rich in monastic foundations, remains, except of the abbey-church of Peterborough, afterwards the cathedral, are of small importance. At Geddington, and also at Hardingstone, near Northampton, there is an Eleanor cross, erected by Edward I. to the memory of his queen, in good preservation. For the architecture of its churches Northampton holds a place scarcely inferior to any other English county. To the Saxon period belong the tower of Earls Barton church, which stands on an eminence, probably the mound of an old English strong-house; the tower and other portions at Brigstock; the ground plan and other portions at Wittering; the remarkable tower at Barnack; and Brixworth church, constructed in part of Roman materials, and by some believed to include part of a Roman basilica. Of Norman, besides the cathedral of Peterborough, the finest examples are St Peter's and St Sepulchre's, Northampton, and the tower of Castor church. St Mary's church, Higham Ferrers, formerly collegiate, Early English and Decorated, is one of the finest churches in the county, and, as specially noteworthy among many beautiful buildings, there may be mentioned the churches at Irthlingborough and Lowick, with their lantern towers, Warmington, a very fine specimen of Early English work, Rushden, Finedon, Raunds and Fotheringhay. Of the church at Easton Maudit, Percy, author of the Reliques, and afterwards Bishop of Dromore, was rector.
A gateway at Rockingham, and earth-works at Higham Ferrers and Brackley are worthy of mention. Some castellated ruins remain of the castle at Fotheringhay, famous as the scene of the imprisonment, trial and execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. Barnwell Castle, founded by William the Conqueror, an interesting example of the defensive construction of the period, is still a fine ruin, which includes four of the round towers and an imposing gateway. Holdenby Manor House, where Sir Christopher Hatton (1540–1591) was born, and where Charles I. was staying when he was carried away by Cornet Joyce, is largely restored. Among ancient mansions are Castle Ashby, the seat of the Comptons, the oldest portion belonging to the reign of Henry VIII.; Althorp, the seat of the Spencers, of various dates; Drayton House, of the time of Henry VI.; the vast pile of Burghley House, Stamford, founded by Lord Burleigh (1553), but more than once altered and enlarged; and Kirby Hall, a beautiful Elizabethan building once the residence of Sir Christopher Hatton.
See Victoria County History, Northamptonshire; G. Baker, History and Antiquities of the County of Northampton (2 vols., London, 1822–1841); John Bridges, History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire, compiled by Rev. Peter Whalley (2 vols., Oxford, 1791); John Norden, Speculi Britanniae, pars altera, or A Delineation of Northamptonshire (London, 1720); Francis Whellan, History, Topography and Directory of Northamptonshire (2nd ed., London, 1874).
NORTH BERWICK, a royal and police burgh of Haddingtonshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 2614. It is situated on the south shore of the entrance to the Firth of Forth, 2212 m. E.N.E. of Edinburgh by the North British railway, being the terminus of a branch line from Drem Junction. It was created a royal burgh by Robert III. (d. 1406), and though once a port of some importance it dwindled to a fishing hamlet. In the latter half of the 19th century, however, it gradually became a fashionable watering-place, much frequented for its firm sandy beach and bathing, and especially for its two golf-courses. Near the station are the ruins of the abbey of Cistercian nuns founded by David I. Immediately to the south rises the fine cone of North Berwick Law (612 ft.), which was utilized as a signal point at the period of the Napoleonic scare.
About 3 m. E. stand the strikingly picturesque ruins of Tantallon Castle, which probably dates from the end of the 14th century and was for many generations the stronghold of the Angus Douglases. Though the 6th earl successfully resisted the sieges of James V. in 1528 and 1530, the castle had at last to be surrendered by treaty. It was besieged and captured by General Monk in 1651, and some time after the restoration became the property of Sir Hew Dalrymple, lord president of session, whose family still own it. It was then dismantled and fell into decay.
About 2 m. S.W. of North Berwick is Dirleton, with a castle dating from the 12th century. Edward I. took it in 1298, and in the reign of Robert Bruce it was acquired by the Haliburtons, from whom it passed to the family of Ruthven. On the failure of the Gowrie conspiracy (1600) the castle was forfeited and given to Sir Thomas Erskine (1566–1639), who became Baron Dirleton in 1604, two years later Viscount Fenton, and in 1619 earl of Kellie. Monk laid siege to the castle in 1650, and in 1663 it was purchased by Sir John Nisbet (1609–1687), lord advocate, afterwards a lord of session and Lord Dirleton.
NORTHBROOK, THOMAS GEORGE BARING, 1st Earl of (1826–1904), English statesman, eldest son of the first baron (long known as Sir Francis Baring; see Baring), was born on the 22nd of January 1826, and educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated with honours in 1846. He entered upon a political career, and was successively private secretary to Mr Labouchere (Lord Taunton), Sir George Grey, and Sir Charles Wood (Viscount Halifax). In 1857 he was returned to the House of Commons in the Liberal interest for Penryn and Falmouth, which constituency he continued to represent until he became a peer on the death of his father in 1866. He was a lord of the admiralty in 1857–1858; under-secretary for War, 1861; for India, 1861–1864; for the home department, 1864–1866; and secretary to the admiralty, 1866. When Mr Gladstone acceded to power in 1868, Lord Northbrook was again appointed under-secretary for war, and this office he held until February 1872, when he was appointed governor-general of India. In January 1876, however, he resigned. He had recommended the conclusion of arrangements with Shere Ali which, as has since been admitted, would have prevented the second Afghan war; but his policy was overruled by the duke of Argyll, then secretary of state. Lord Northbrook was created Viscount Baring of Lee in the county of Kent and earl of Northbrook in the county of Southampton. From 1880 to 1885 he held the post of first lord of the admiralty in Mr Gladstone's second government. During his tenure of office the state of the navy aroused much public anxiety and led to a strong agitation in favour of an extended shipbuilding programme. The agitation called forth Tennyson's poem “The Fleet.” In September 1884 Lord Northbrook was sent to Egypt as special commissioner to inquire into its finances and condition. The inquiry was largely unnecessary, all the essential facts being well known, but the mission was a device of Mr Gladstone's to avoid an immediate decision on a perplexing question. Lord Northbrook, after six weeks of inquiry in Egypt, sent in two reports, one general, advising against the withdrawal of the British garrison, one financial. His financial proposals, if accepted, would have substituted the financial control of Great Britain for the international control proposed at the London Conference of June-August of the same year. A heavy blow would thus have been struck at internationalism in Egypt. Mr Gladstone was not, however, prepared to give a British guarantee of the interest of the loan, and so Lord Northbrook's mission proved abortive. The £9,000,000 loan issued in 1885 bound Egypt even more securely in international fetters (see Cromer's Modern Egypt, 1908, vol. ii. chap. xlv.). When Mr Gladstone formed his third ministry in 1886 Lord Northbrook held aloof, being opposed to the home rule policy of the premier; and he then ceased to take a prominent part in political life. In 1890 he was appointed lord-lieutenant of Hampshire. He died on the 15th of November 1904. He had married in 1848 Elizabeth Sturt, sister of Lord Alington, and was succeeded as 2nd earl by his eldest son, who as Lord Baring had been M.P. for Winchester (1880–1885) and North Bedford (1886–1892).
See B. Mallet, Thomas George, Earl of Northbrook (1908).
NORTH CAPE (Nordkap), a promontory on the island Magerö off the north coast of Norway in 70° 10′ 40″ N., 25° 45′ E., 78 m. N.E. of Hammerfest. Knivskjaerodden, an island a little to the west, actually reaches a point a little farther north than the North Cape, and Nordkyn, 45 m. E., is the northern extremity of the mainland (71° 7′ N.). The desolate cape, rising abruptly
