Edward Norton (baptised 1654 – 1702) was an English soldier and politician, an early Whig supporter and conspirator of the

Rye House Plot The Rye House Plot of 1683 was a plan to assassinate King Charles II of England and his brother (and heir to the throne) James, Duke of York. The royal party went from Westminster to Newmarket to see horse races and were expected to make the ...

Life

His sister Ellen married the Westbury Member of Parliament

William Trenchard William is a masculine given name of Norman French origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conques ...

. With Trenchard's support, Norton was himself elected MP for Westbury in the second 1679 general election, though it required an election petition to unseat Henry Bertie and

Richard Lewis Richard, Rich, Richie, Rick, Ricky or Dick Lewis may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Richard Field Lewis Jr. (1907–1957), American radio network owner * Dick "Rocko" Lewis (Richard Henry Lewis III, 1908–1966), American entertainer * Rich ...

who had been declared the winners.historyofparliamentonline.org, ''Norton, Edward (1654-1702), of Ashe, Stourpaine, Dorset''.
/ref> With others of the Whig faction, he was the target of a government attempt towards the end of 1681 to discredit opponents by establishing

subornation of perjury In United States law, American law, Scots law, and under the laws of some English-speaking Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth nations, subornation of perjury is the crime of persuading or permitting a person to commit perjury, which is the swe ...

. He appeared before the Privy Council, to answer charges laid by Robert Bolron, and Lawrence Mowbray. Norton attended meetings of the Rye House Cabal around Robert West in December 1682, in which an assassination plot and a general armed uprising were discussed.

Richard Ashcraft Richard Ashcraft (26 September 1938 – 1 November 1995) was an American political theorist and Professor of Political Science at UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, ...

, ''Revolutionary Politics and Locke's Two Treatises of Government'' (1986), p. 363
Google Books
When the plot was discovered he escaped to Holland. In later life he supported the

Glorious Revolution The Glorious Revolution; gd, Rèabhlaid Ghlòrmhor; cy, Chwyldro Gogoneddus , also known as the ''Glorieuze Overtocht'' or ''Glorious Crossing'' in the Netherlands, is the sequence of events leading to the deposition of King James II and ...

, and served in the army in the following decade.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Norton, Edward 1654 births 1702 deaths Members of the Green Ribbon Club People of the Rye House Plot English MPs 1680–1681