Sir William de Notton, or Norton (died c.1365) was an English landowner and judge, who had a highly successful career in both England and Ireland, culminating in his appointment as
Lord Chief Justice of Ireland
The Court of King's Bench (or Court of Queen's Bench during the reign of a Queen) was one of the senior courts of common law in Ireland. It was a mirror of the Court of King's Bench in England. The Lord Chief Justice was the most senior judge ...
in 1361.
[Ball, F. Elrington ''The Judges in Ireland 1221-1921'' John Murray London 1926 Vol.i pp.83-4]
He belonged to the landowning family of de Notton, who took their name from
Notton in
West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...
.
[ By the time of his birth, however, Notton had already passed to the
Darcy family. He acquired the manors of ]Fishlake
Fishlake is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster. It was historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire until 1974. In 2001 it had a population of 628, increasing to 682 at the 2011 Census. It was mentioned in ...
, which he bought from John de Wingfield, Monk Bretton
Monk Bretton is a village in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England. It lies approximately two miles north-east from Barnsley town centre.
History
Monk Bretton has been a settlement since medieval times and was origin ...
and Woolley Hall
Woolley Hall is a country house in Woolley, West Yorkshire, England. It is a Grade II* listed building.
Overview
In the mid-fourteenth century, the nucleus of what became the Woolley estate belonged to Sir William de Notton, a man of local o ...
in Yorkshire, as well as Litlington, Cambridgeshire
Litlington is a village and civil parish in the East of England region and the county of Cambridgeshire in the United Kingdom. The village lies approximately southwest of Cambridge and northwest of Royston.
History
The parish of Litlington cov ...
,[and Cocken Hatch near ]Royston, Hertfordshire
Royston is a town and civil parish in the District of North Hertfordshire and county of Hertfordshire in England.
It is situated on the Greenwich Meridian, which brushes the town's eastern boundary, and at the northernmost apex of the count ...
. Cocken Hatch had previously been held by John de Vere, 7th Earl of Oxford
John de Vere, 7th Earl of Oxford (c. 12 March 1312 – 24 January 1360) was the nephew and heir of Robert de Vere, 6th Earl of Oxford who succeeded as Earl of Oxford in 1331, after his uncle died without issue.
John de Vere was a trusted capta ...
, who granted them to William.
Early career
He served on a commission of oyer and terminer
In English law, oyer and terminer (; a partial translation of the Anglo-French ''oyer et terminer'', which literally means "to hear and to determine") was one of the commissions by which a judge of assize sat. Apart from its Law French name, the ...
in 1343-5. In 1346 he became Serjeant-at-law
A Serjeant-at-Law (SL), commonly known simply as a Serjeant, was a member of an order of barristers at the English and Irish Bar. The position of Serjeant-at-Law (''servientes ad legem''), or Sergeant-Counter, was centuries old; there are wri ...
: he was an excellent lawyer, whose arguments were frequently reported in the Year Books
The Year Books are the modern English name that is now typically given to the earliest law reports of England. Substantial numbers of manuscripts circulated during the later medieval period containing reports of pleas heard before the Common B ...
.[ He became a ]Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...
in 1349 and sat on a commission to inquire into the condition of labourers
A laborer (or labourer) is a person who works in manual labor types in the construction industry workforce. Laborers are in a working class of wage-earners in which their only possession of significant material value is their labor. Industries e ...
and artisans in Surrey.[ A neighbouring landowner, John de Stainton, appointed William as guardian of his four daughters on his death. In 1353 he sat on a wide-ranging commission to inquire into all serious crimes committed in the lands granted by the King to ]Queen Philippa
Philippa of Hainault (sometimes spelled Hainaut; Middle French: ''Philippe de Hainaut''; 24 June 1310 (or 1315) – 15 August 1369) was Queen of England as the wife and political adviser of King Edward III. She acted as regent in 1346,Strickla ...
as her personal estates.[''Calendar of Patent Rolls of Edward III Vol. 9 p.448'']
Chantry
In 1350 he and his wife Isabel conveyed their lands at Fishlake, Monk Bretton, Woolley and Moseley
Moseley is a suburb of south Birmingham, England, south of the city centre. The area is a popular cosmopolitan residential location and leisure destination, with a number of bars and restaurants. The area also has a number of boutiques and ot ...
to John de Birthwaite, the Prior of Monk Bretton Priory
Monk Bretton Priory is a ruined medieval priory located in the village of Lundwood, and close to Monk Bretton, South Yorkshire, England.
History
Originally a monastery under the Cluniac order, Monk Bretton Priory is located in the village of ...
, to build a chantry
A chantry is an ecclesiastical term that may have either of two related meanings:
# a chantry service, a Christian liturgy of prayers for the dead, which historically was an obiit, or
# a chantry chapel, a building on private land, or an area i ...
chapel at Woolley, where prayers were to be said for the King and his family, and for Notton, Isabel and their children. The grant may have been inspired by the recent ending of the first outbreak of the Black Death, a time when many people felt a sense of thanksgiving for their deliverance from the plague, together with an increased awareness of their own mortality.
In 1354-5 he conveyed his lands at Cocken Hatch, which had been granted to him by the Earl of Oxford, to the Prior of Royston.
Judge
In 1355 he was appointed a judge of the Court of King's Bench
The King's Bench (), or, during the reign of a female monarch, the Queen's Bench ('), refers to several contemporary and historical courts in some Commonwealth jurisdictions.
* Court of King's Bench (England), a historic court court of common ...
. When he was on assize
The courts of assize, or assizes (), were periodic courts held around England and Wales until 1972, when together with the quarter sessions they were abolished by the Courts Act 1971 and replaced by a single permanent Crown Court. The assizes e ...
in 1356 he was ordered to remove from office the Sheriffs
A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland that is commonly transla ...
of Oxfordshire and Northumberland
Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey.
It is bordered by land ...
. In 1357 he was appointed to a powerful commission to inquire into an alleged affray
In many legal jurisdictions related to English common law, affray is a public order offence consisting of the fighting of one or more persons in a public place to the terror (in french: à l'effroi) of ordinary people. Depending on their act ...
between a servant of John Gynwell, Bishop of Lincoln
The Bishop of Lincoln is the ordinary (diocesan bishop) of the Church of England Diocese of Lincoln in the Province of Canterbury.
The present diocese covers the county of Lincolnshire and the unitary authority areas of North Lincolnshire and ...
and members of the Order of Hospitallers
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic Church, Catholic Military ord ...
. Ironically (in view of Notton's later office as Irish Chief Justice) the alleged instigator of the affray, Richard de Wirkeley, the Prior of the Hospitallers, was himself a former Lord Chief Justice of Ireland; while the commission included another former Irish Lord Chief Justice, Henry de Motlowe.
He sat on another judicial commission later in the same year to inquire into the death, presumed to be murder, of George de Longueville, described as "chevalier" (knight
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...
), at Billing, Northamptonshire. Longueville was an MP, and a member of the prominent landowning family who later owned Wolverton
Wolverton is a constituent town of Milton Keynes, England. It is located at the northern edge of Milton Keynes, beside the West Coast Main Line, the Grand Union Canal and the river Great Ouse. It is the administrative seat of Wolverton and G ...
in Buckinghamshire. He was probably the father or brother of John Longueville, who married the heiress of Wolverton, Joan le Hunt, daughter of John le Hunt
John le Hunt, or Hunter (died after 1351) was an English-born judge who served briefly as Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. He was the ancestor of the prominent Longueville family of Wolverton (which is now part of Milton Keynes).
Career
He was bor ...
(yet another English judge who served as Lord Chief Justice of Ireland). Little seems to be known about the circumstances of Longueville's murder, and the outcome of the commission of inquiry into the crime is unknown.
Excommunication and later career
In 1356 Thomas de Lisle
Thomas de Lisle (–1361) ( Latinised to ''Thomas de Insula'' ("Thomas from the island") was a medieval Bishop of Ely.
Lisle was elected to Ely on 15 July 1345 and consecrated in July 1345. He had his servants burn down some of the houses be ...
, Bishop of Ely, was charged with inciting the murder of Wiliam Holm, a servant of Blanche of Lancaster
Blanche of Lancaster (25 March 1342 – 12 September 1368) was a member of the English royal House of Plantagenet and the daughter of the kingdom's wealthiest and most powerful peer, Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster. She was the first w ...
, the King's cousin, with whom Bishop de Lisle had a long-standing quarrel, and was also accused of sheltering the murderers.[
Notton sat on the court which found the Bishop guilty on both charges. For this Norton was summoned to appear and answer for his conduct at the ]Papal Court
The papal household or pontifical household (usually not capitalized in the media and other nonofficial use, ), called until 1968 the Papal Court (''Aula Pontificia''), consists of dignitaries who assist the pope in carrying out particular ceremoni ...
in Avignon in 1358, and when he failed to appear, he was excommunicated
Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to end or at least regulate the communion of a member of a congregation with other members of the religious institution who are in normal communion with each other. The purpose ...
.[ King Edward III, who clearly placed great trust in Notton, simply ignored the sentence of excommunication. Notton remained on the King's Bench until 1361 when he was sent to Ireland as Lord Chief Justice. In 1363 he was a member of the Council which advised the King's second son ]Lionel of Antwerp
Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence, (; 29 November 133817 October 1368) was the third son, but the second son to survive infancy, of the English king Edward III and Philippa of Hainault. He was named after his birthplace, at Antwerp in the Duc ...
, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.[
He probably died in 1365, and was certainly dead before 1372.][ By his wife Isabel he had at least two children, but much of his property passed to Sir William Fyncheden, ]Chief Justice of the Common Pleas
The chief justice of the Common Pleas was the head of the Court of Common Pleas, also known as the Common Bench or Common Place, which was the second-highest common law court in the English legal system until 1875, when it, along with the othe ...
in England, who died in 1374. The precise relationship between the two men is unclear.[Walker p.221]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Notton, William de
14th-century English judges
Serjeants-at-law (England)
People from the City of Wakefield
English landowners
English MPs 1349
Lords chief justice of Ireland