Frances Norton, Lady Norton

Frances Norton, Lady Norton (1644 - 1731) was an English religious poet and prose writer who primarily wrote about grief. She was born in Oxford and married Sir George Norton in 1672. This George Norton was the son of the Sir George Norton who hid Charles II at the time of the regicide of Charles I. The couple had three children, but only one, Grace, survived infancy.

Grace Norton died in 1697 at the age of twenty-one, and Frances Norton went into a deep state of grief. She published a collection of Grace's own writings, "Reliquae Gethinianae", in 1699, and in 1705 she wrote two tracts on grieving and consolation. These were "The Applause of Virtue" and "Memento mori, or, Meditations on Death," which were sold together in a quarto. They were dedicated to two women who had helped Lady Norton in her grief who had themselves experienced a recent loss. The books are pious and collect together consoling thoughts from Christian, Classical, and philosophical literature. In 1714, she produced "A miscellany of poems, compos'd, and work'd with a needle, on the backs and seats &c. of several chairs and stools." According to near contemporaries, Frances Norton did a great deal of needlepoint work on furniture in Abbots Leigh (where the Norton estate was). She composed her own short poems, almost always with a pious theme, for such embroidery.

In 1715, her husband died. She married his cousin, Colonel Ambrose Norton, in 1718, and, when he died, married a man named William Jones in 1724. She outlived her third husband by a few years and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

References

* Ross, Sarah. "Frances Norton, Lady Norton" in Matthew, H.C.G. and Brian Harrison, eds. "The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography." vol. 41, p 169. London: OUP, 2004.

Persondata
NAME=Norton, Frances
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=English poet
DATE OF BIRTH=1644
PLACE OF BIRTH=Oxford, England
DATE OF DEATH=1731
PLACE OF DEATH=England