Surnames beginning 'N'

The Cromwell Association Online Directory of Parliamentarian Army Officers . Originally published by British History Online, , 2017.

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'Surnames beginning 'N'', in The Cromwell Association Online Directory of Parliamentarian Army Officers , (, 2017) pp. . British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/cromwell-army-officers/surnames-n [accessed 24 March 2024]

Surnames beginning 'N'

Nanber, John John Nanber
Lieutenant in Captain Edward Scott’s troop in the Kentish horse early in 1644.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 79.
Armies: Kent; Waller (Southern Association)
Napeese, - - Napeese
Lieutenant, Dorset, payment 12 July 1643.
Initially a single troop of horse raised in Aug. 1642, to which two more troops, those of William Sydenham and – Newdigate, were added in Apr. 1643.
References: Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West, 5.524.
Armies: Dorset
Napper, Sheldon Sheldon Napper
Ensign in Thomas Grantham’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 41.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Nash, George George Nash
Ensign in William Colemore’s company in John Barker’s/Thomas Willoughby’s regiment of foot.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 22.
Armies: Warwickshire
Nayler, James James Nayler (1618-1660)
Of West Ardsley township, Woodkirk parish, Yorkshire (West Riding).
Nayler was a farmer who enlisted in 1643, serving as a foot soldier in Fairfax’s Army and for two years as quartermaster in John Lambert’s regiment of horse. He was at the battle of Dunbar, by when he had become a fiery lay preacher in the army. He was invalided out of the army the following year.
His fame rests not in his quite limited or obscure military record but as a leading early Quaker, a religious writer and author, who was by the orders of the second Protectorate Parliament imprisoned and mutilated for his exuberant entry into Bristol in autumn 1656 in imitation, the MPs believed, of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem.
References: Oxford DNB; L. Damrosch, The sorrows of the Quaker Jesus: James Nayler and the puritan crackdown on the free spirit (1996); Hopper, ‘Yorkshire parliamentarians’, 120.
Armies: Yorkshire; New Model Army
Neal, Timothy Timothy Neal
Captain. An officer in the regiment of foot of Oliver Lord St John/Thomas Essex. He probably transferred to Holles’s regiment in autumn 1642.
References: Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West , 6.649; Peacock, Army Lists, 33.
Armies: Bristol
Neale, Andrew Andrew Neale (1603-1660)
Son of Thomas Neale of Caddington, Bedfordshire.
Freeman of (upon apprenticeship) the Clothworkers’ Company, 1623.
Residences: St Mary Magdalen, Old Fish Street, 1630, 1660; Sermon Court, 1660.
Captain in the Yellow regiment, London Trained Bands (Colonel Ralph Harrison) in Oct. 1646; following the purge by the Presbyterian militia committee in 1647, promoted major (now under Colonel Laurence Bromfield), demoted and removed by the Independent purge later that year.
Major in the same Yellow regiment, Dec. 1659.
Common councilman for Castle Baynard Ward, 1658-60.
References: Nagel, ‘London militia’, 317-8; Marshall, Essex funeral, 11; Strype, London, 2.i.320; Woodhead, Rulers, 119; A paire of spectacles for the Citie (1648), 11.
Armies: London
Neale, John John Neale
In 1642 captain of a troop of horse in the earl of Essex’s Army.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 51.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Neale, Moses Moses Neale
Ensign in Sir William Constable’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 42.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Neale, Noah Noah Neale
Ensign in the regiment of foot of Oliver Lord St John/Thomas Essex, named in the published list of officers in the earl of Essex’s Army, 1642.
References: Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West, 6.650; Peacock, Army Lists, 34.
Armies: Bristol
Neale, William William Neale
Lieutenant in John Lilburne’s company in the earl of Manchester’s regiment of dragoons in the Eastern Association Army. In 1646 he became a captain in Okey’s New Model Army dragoon regiment and was still there in 1649.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 1.57; Wanklyn, New Model Army, I, 71, 81, 92, 104.
Armies: Eastern Association; New Model Army
Neast, William William Neast (1622-1670)
Captain. Of Chaceley, Worcestershire and Twyning, Gloucestershire. Collector, and captain of foot, in the Tewkesbury garrison; then commissioned captain of foot in the Gloucestershire militia, 8 Feb. 1651. Eldest son of William Neast. He married Elizabeth Atwood. After 1650 he became a JP and county Committeeman. An Independent in religion, and a candidate nominated by the gathered churches for Barebone’s Parliament in 1653, and was himself MP for Gloucestershire in 1653 and 1656.
References: Vis. Glos., 1682-3, 125; CSPD, 1651, 513; Warmington, Glos., passim; HoP: The Commons 1640-1660, (forthcoming).
Armies: Gloucestershire
Needham, Atwell Atwell Needham
Ensign in Sir William Fairfax’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 44.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Needham, John John Needham
Needham was a captain of foot in the Warwick Castle garrison in late 1642 and early 1643. On Brooke’s orders, he was responsible for disarming Stratford-upon-Avon. In Apr. 1643 he became governor of Kenilworth Castle. By Jan. 1646 he was governor of Leicester.
References: Hughes, Warwickshire, 194; TNA, SP28/136, Part 1; SP28/253B (examination of Gilbert Stocton); Hutchinson, Life, 97.
Armies: Lord Brooke; Warwickshire; Leicestershire
Needham, Simon Simon Needham (died 1648)
Probably a Yorkshireman.
Commissioned captain in Sir William Constable’s regiment of foot from 30 July 1642; a pay warrant of Sept. 1642 shows him claiming for sixteen days for twenty-four men, from 19 Sept. Needham went north with Constable in 1643 and was promoted lieutenant-colonel of the latter’s Yorkshire regiment of foot, formed on 17 Aug.
In Apr. 1644 he took the regiment to the battle of Selby, and later fought at the siege of York and in Sir William Fairfax’s division at Marston Moor (where he tried vainly to rally his men).
Needham led the regiment to the siege of Scarborough, where on 31 Jan. 1645 he was promoted its Colonel, and later was one of the officers who took the surrender of the castle. In Dec. 1645 the regiment was incorporated into John Bright’s regiment of foot, and Needham accepted the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and was still in the regiment on 5 June 1646.
However, soon after he was involved in raising a regiment for service in Munster under Inchiquin, and actually raised and transported 800 men. However, the latter’s defection in Apr. 1648 either kept him in England or brought him back.
With the outbreak of the second civil war, Fairfax gave him command of the Tower regiment of foot. Needham took the regiment (or at least seven companies of it, in all 400 men) to the siege of Colchester, where he was killed on 13 June 1648. In Nov. 1651 the Commons referred the case of his widow Katherine to the committee for the army.
References: Jones, ‘War in the North’, 395; Firth and Davies, Regimental history, 2.573; TNA, SP28/2a/86; Peacock, Army lists, 42; JHC, 7.39; Wanklyn, New Model Army, I, 159, 161.
Armies: Earl of Essex; Yorkshire; Northern Army (Fairfax); Northern Army (Poyntz); London; New Model Army
Nelme, John John Nelme
Captain. Captain of a company in the regiment of Gloucestershire townsmen (the regiment of Stephens/Massey/Morgan) raised in spring 1643. During the siege of Gloucester he was taken prisoner in a skirmish on 21 Aug. 1643. He had been released by 2 Aug. 1644, when he paid the funeral charge for his ensign.
References: Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West, 6. 625-7; Bibliotheca, 218.
Armies: Gloucestershire
Nelthorpe, James James Nelthorpe (1618-c.1701)
Of Beverley, Yorkshire (East Riding). Captain in Yorkshire and recruiter MP for Beverley (1645).
References: Hopper, ‘Yorkshire parliamentarians’, 97 [citing TNA, E121/3/3, no. 93, 113]; HoP: The Commons, 1640-1660 (forthcoming).
Armies: Yorkshire
Nelthorpe, John John Nelthorpe
Captain in Edward Rossiter’s regiment of horse in the Eastern Association Army and remained as such when the regiment transferred to the New Model Army and was still there, by then under Twistleton, in 1649.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 2.92; Wanklyn, New Model Army, I, 52, 62, 73, 83, 94, 106.
Armies: Eastern Association; New Model Army
Nerne, Alexander Alexander Nerne
Captain in James Wardlawe’s regiment of dragoons in the earl of Essex’s Army.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 57.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Neve, Edward Edward Neve
In summer 1642 he became an ensign in Holles’s short-lived regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army. Like most of his fellow-officers and the regiment as a whole, little is heard of him after their shattering defeat at Brentford in Nov. 1642.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 37.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Nevill, - - Nevill
Captain-Lieutenant (or captain). Nevill may originally have served in a local Somerset regiment (probably Strode’s or Popham’s) as he appears to have held a rank in Bristol before the arrival of Nathaniel Fiennes. He became an officer in Fiennes’s regiment of horse, probably commanding Fiennes’s troop. At the storming of Bristol on 27 July, he twice counter-attacked at Washington’s Breach.
References: Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West, 6.612-3.
Armies: Bristol
Neville, Henry Henry Neville
Captain in either John Alured’s or Matthew Alured’s regiment of horse in Jan. 1645, when he signed a petition to Fairfax. Probably the Captain Neville who was a hostage to the royalists at the surrender of Knaresborough.
References: Jones, ‘War in the North’, 395.
Armies: Yorkshire
Neville, Thomas Thomas Neville
From spring 1644 (perhaps succeeding Robert Sparrow, after he became governor of Abingdon) captain in the earl of Manchester’s regiment of horse in the Eastern Association Army. He went with the regiment into the New Model Army and served as captain in what became Rich’s New Model foot regiment. He left the regiment in 1647.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 1.53; Holmes, Eastern Association, 201; Wanklyn, New Model Army, I, 52, 62, 73, 83.
Armies: Eastern Association; New Model Army
Newall [Newill], William William Newall [Newill]
Captain in Colonel Thomas Ceely’s regiment of foot at Lyme Regis. Peachey and Turton place him there, 1 May 1643-3 Apr. 1647.
References: Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West, 5.516. See also Mayo, Dorset Standing Committee, 568.
Armies: Dorset
Newall, William William Newall
Of a local family. He gave his name to, and presumably commanded, one of Lyme’s forts/blockhouses during the siege, Apr.-May 1644.
References: Bayley, Civil War in Dorset, 138.
Armies: Dorset
Newbery, -, - Newbery
Ensign in a Southwark regiment, Trained Bands or Auxiliaries. Purged, and in Aug. 1643 imprisoned.
References: Nagel, ‘London militia’, 94.
Armies: Southwark
Newbury, Henry Henry Newbury
Originally quartermaster in Adrian Scrope’s troop of horse in the earl of Essex’s Army, he is recorded as its cornet between late Oct. 1642 and late May 1643.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 54; TNA, SP28/144, Part 1, f. 71r.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Newcomen, Jonathan Jonathan Newcomen
Lieutenant in Viscount Saye and Sele’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642, continuing in the regiment under its successive Colonels Sir John Meldrum and Edward Aldrich. By 13 July 1644 he was major. When the regiment transferred into the New Model Army, Thomas Read became major against the preference of the Lords (and more ambiguously Aldrich) wishing to retain Newcomen.
References: TNA, SP28/17/62; Temple, ‘New Model Army’, 61, 71; Firth and Davies, Regimental history, 1.384.
Armies: Earl of Essex; New Model Army
Newdigate, - -Newdigate
Captain, Sir Walter Erle’s regiment of horse. References 18 Apr. 1643-Aug. 1643.
References: Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West, 5.526, 530-2.
Armies: Dorset
Newdigate, Henry Henry Newdigate
Ensign in Rochford’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 32.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Newdigate, Richard Richard Newdigate (1602-1678)
Second son of Sir John Newdigate (1571-1610) of Arbury, Warwickshire and his wife Anne Fitton (1574-1618).
Lieutenant in Sir William Waller’s troop of horse in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642. Captain in Waller’s regiment of foot in Aug. and Sept. 1643, and probably serving there until succeeded by his Lieutenant Jacob Taylor on 15 Mar. 1644. Newdigate’s ‘direct military activity seems to have been limited and short-lived’ (Oxford DNB). MP for Tamworth in 1660.
References: Oxford DNB; HoP: The Commons, 1660-1690, 3.133; Spring, Waller’s army,150; Peacock, Army lists, 49; V. Larminie, Wealth, Kinship and Culture: The Seventeenth-Century Newdigates and their World (1995), 175-92.
Armies: Essex’s Army; Waller; Waller (Southern Association)
Newham, Robert Robert Newham
A captain in Sir William Fairfax’s/ Matthew Alured’s regiment of horse in the Fairfaxes’ Northern Army, signing petitions as such in Dec. 1643 and early 1645.
References: Jones, ‘War in the North’, 395.
Armies: Yorkshire; Northern Army (Fairfax)
Newman, George George Newman
From its raising in 1643 until at least spring 1645, colonel of Aylesford Lathe’s Kentish Trained Bands regiment of volunteers, which fought under Waller at the second battle of Newbury in autumn 1644.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 84.
Armies: Kent; Waller (Southern Association)
Newman, William William Newman
Appears as a lieutenant in William Ayres’s troop in Oliver Cromwell’s regiment of horse in the Eastern Association Army in summer 1644.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 1.22.
Armies: Eastern Association
Newnham, Richard Richard Newnham
Lieutenant in Captain Mark Coe’s company in the Southwark auxiliaries regiment (Colonel James Houblon) on 16 Apr. 1644.
References: TNA, SP28/121A, Part 4, ff. 572r.-575r.
Armies: Southwark
Newton, Alexander Alexander Newton (baptised 1623, died 1655)
Baptised at Ashton-under-Lyne, 7 Dec. 1623, the eldest surviving son of George Newton (1601-1640) of Newton in Longdendale, Cheshire, and his wife Dorothy, eldest daughter of Henry Bradshaw of Marple (and hence nephew of his Colonel Henry Bradshaw). Dore suggests that he was possibly the actual commander of the colonel’s own company in Robert Duckenfeild’s regiment of foot in Sir William Brereton’s Cheshire Army in 1645. In Aug. 1650 Newton was commissioned major of Henry Bradshaw’s Cheshire militia regiment of foot. He had been promoted to its lieutenant-colonel by the time the regiment fought as part of the Cheshire brigade at Worcester (3 Sept. 1651).
Newton died on 19 Feb. 1655, and was buried at Mottram in Longdendale three days later.
References: Dore, Brereton letter books,1. 327; Earwaker, East Cheshire, 2.68, 162-4; CSPD, 1650, 509-10.
Armies: Cheshire
Newton, Isaac Isaac Newton (died c. 1650)
Of Bagdale Old Hall, Ruswarp, Whitby parish, Yorkshire (North Riding), gentleman, eldest son of Christopher Newton of the same.
Newton was a captain in the Northern Army, probably in Boynton’s regiment of foot; and made governor of Mulgrave Castle when Boynton captured it in June 1644. He was still there in Feb. 1645, when he brought his company to reinforce Sir John Meldrum at Scarborough. He was also a JP.
Newton was described as captain in Apr. 1650, when commissioned lieutenant-colonel of a regiment of foot in the Yorkshire militia.
References: Jones, ‘War in the North’, 395; Hopper, ‘Yorkshire parliamentarians’, 96; Yorks. Vis, 3.495; CSPD, 1650, 506.
Armies: Yorkshire
Nicholetts, Richard Richard Nicholetts
He served as lieutenant to Captain Charles Guest and then Major Clutterbuck in Richard Turner’s/George Thompson’s regiment of horse. He succeeded as captain of the troop after Clutterbuck’s death on 27 Sept. 1644. He was still captain on 16 Aug. 1645, by when Edward Popham was colonel of the regiment.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 136.
Armies: Waller (Southern Association); Massey Brigade
Nicholls, - - Nicholls
A cornet in Waller’s Southern Association Army, captured at the battle of Cropredy Bridge (29 June 1644).
References: Spring, Waller’s army, App. 2, p. 3.
Armies: Waller (Southern Association)
Nicholls, - - Nicholls
Captain in Sir William Waller’s regiment of dragoons.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 147.
Armies: Waller (Southern Association)
Nicholls [Nicholson], John John Nicholls [Nicholson]
Captain-Lieutenant of the Colonel’s company in Sir William Waller’s regiment of foot. He probably succeeded Captain-Lieutenant Clinson [Clifton], and served in 1644.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 153.
Armies: Waller (Southern Association)
Nicholls, Ralph Ralph Nicholls
Captain in John Hampden’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 46.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Nicholls, Thomas Thomas Nicholls (born 1596)
Born into a landed Shropshire family, of Boycott, and held office in Shrewsbury and Shropshire before the civil war. Forced out in 1642 by the royalist domination of Shropshire, he moved to parliamentarian Hertfordshire and leased Balls Park near Hertford. He was soon appointed not only to a string of war-time county committees but also to command one of the county’s militia-based regiments of foot.
He returned to Shropshire after the capture of Shrewsbury in Feb. 1645 and soon resumed his activities in the administration of the town and the county.
References: A. Thompson, The Impact of the First Civil War on Hertfordshire, 1642-47 (2007), passim but especially 225.
Armies: Hertfordshire
Nicholson, - - Nicholson
Lieutenant. An officer in Gloucestershire, recorded 5 June 1643.
References: Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West, 6. 635.
Armies: Gloucestershire
Nixon, Henry Henry Nixon
Of Brompton, parish of Northallerton, Yorks (North Riding). A cornet in Yorkshire.
References: Hopper, ‘Yorkshire parliamentarians’, 95 [citing TNA, SP24/66].
Armies: Yorkshire
Noake, Thomas Thomas Noake
Captain of a troop of horse in Sir Thomas Myddelton’s North Wales Army, as proved by surviving warrants by Myddelton of Mar. 1644 to pay him £150 to equip himself and his troop with sufficient horse for service in North Wales, of June 1644 to pay his 62 troopers, 2 corporals and 2 trumpeters and of July 1644 to pay 40 men and 3 corporals of his troop.
References: TNA, SP28/346, nos. 14, 19, 280.
Armies: North Wales
Noaks, - - Noaks
In summer 1643 captain in Sir John Wittrough’s regiment of foot in the Eastern Association Army.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 2.112.
Armies: Eastern Association
Noard, Roger Roger Noard
In summer 1642 he became a lieutenant in Holles’s short-lived regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army. Like most of his fellow-officers and the regiment as a whole, little is heard of him after their shattering defeat at Brentford in Nov. 1642.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 37.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Noble, John John Noble (1621/2-c.1676)
Of Chorley, Staffordshire. Captain. Eldest son of Michael Noble (c. 1591-1649) of Lichfield Close and his wife Mary, daughter of Walter Cotton of Crakemarsh, Staffordshire. Michael Noble was MP for Lichfield in the Long Parliament. The MP John Swinfen married his wife’s sister.
The 1663-4 Herald’s Visitation noted how the father, town clerk of Lichfield, was ‘by the bailiffs, Sheriff, and Magistrates chosen a Burgess in that never forgotten Parliament, for the city, in which assembly he forgot his own allegiance, and his son John was made captain of …. Amongst those seditious Varlets that went against Church and King.’
Noted in 1662-3 as a captain for the parliament, aged 44, worth £300 per annum and a Presbyterian: ‘Very able parts, will drink’ (‘Staffs. Gentry’, 23).
References: Vis. Staffs., 221-2; Staffs. Pedigrees, 174-5; ‘Staffs. Gentry’, 23.
Armies: Staffordshire
Norbury, Edward Edward Norbury
Lieutenant in Thomas Ballard’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 43.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Norcliffe, Sir Thomas Sir Thomas Norcliffe (1618-1669/70)
Of Langton, knight, eldest son of Sir Thomas Norcliffe (died 1627/1628) of Langton and of Nunnington, Yorkshire (East Riding), and his wife Catherine, daughter and coheir of Sir William Bamburgh, Yorkshire, baronet (who as her second husband married Sir John Hotham). The elder Sir Thomas was sheriff of Yorkshire in 1626.
The younger Sir Thomas married Dorothy, daughter of Sir Thomas Fairfax of Gilling, baronet, Viscount Emely in Ireland and widow of John Ingram (s. of Sir Arthur Ingram) in 1639. His wife’s sister married Sir Matthew Boynton and Captain John Hotham. The younger Sir Thomas’s own daughters included Elizabeth, who would marry Sir John Bright of Badsworth, and Catherine, who married Christopher Lister of Thornton. ’Norcliffe was thus part of the East Riding family network, but he was unusual in that he accepted Lord Fairfax’s authority from the start’ (Jones, ‘War in the North’, 395). Knighted in 1641 or 1642.
Norcliffe was commissioned a captain of dragoons on 12 Dec. 1642, and fought at Leeds in Jan. 1643. He went to Scarborough, and when Sir Hugh Cholmley changed sides there in Mar. 1643, Norcliffe went at once to Beverley and thence into the West Riding, where he fought in the Fairfaxes’ army at Wakefield and Adwalton Moor.
On 18 Sept. 1643 he was commissioned captain of horse, and fought at Winceby and Nantwich.
On 22 May 1644 he became a colonel of horse, and was at the siege of York and at Marston Moor, going on (after perhaps garrisoning York) to the siege of Pontefract.
Norcliffe did not go with his regiment into Cheshire in 1645 and on 1 May it was reduced, probably a consequence of the impending Northern Association Ordinance and its own weakness.
Norcliffe served as a committee man on the North Riding sequestration committee (Mar. 1643), the North Riding committee (Oct. 1644) and Northern Association committee for the North Riding.
He was buried at Langton on 8 Jan. 1670.
References: Jones, ‘War in the North’, 395-6; Yorks. visitation, II, 428-9; Hopper, ‘Yorkshire parliamentarians’, 100; Shaw, Knights, 211-2.
Armies: Yorkshire
Nore, Roger Roger Nore
Captain in Anthony Stapley’s Sussex regiment of foot by 31 Jan. and still serving with it in Nov. 1645. In summer 1644 his company was part of John Middleton’s force in the West.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 122
Armies: Sussex; Waller (Southern Association)
Norman, Thomas Thomas Norman
Lieutenant in Major William Chapman’s company in the Tower Hamlets Trained Bands regiment on 18 Apr. 1644.
References: TNA, SP28/121A, f. 571r.
Armies: Tower Hamlets
Normington, Josiah Josiah Normington
In 1642, probably at and from its formation, ensign in Lord Robartes’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 37.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Norris, Thomas Thomas Norris
Having served as a trooper and junior officer in Oliver Cromwell’s and then Nathaniel Fiennes’s regiments of horse, Norris was captain or captain-lieutenant in Sir John Pickering’s short-lived regiment of dragoons in the Eastern Association Army in 1643-4. He may be the Thomas Norris who from autumn 1645 was serving as an ensign in Skippon’s Bristol-based regiment, though this may be a second and separate man.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 2.82; Wanklyn, New Model Army, I, 157.
Armies: Eastern Association; Bristol?
Norship, Jo. Jo. Norship
Lieutenant in Rochford’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 32.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Northcote [Northcott, Norcott], Sir John, first baronet Sir John Northcote [Northcott, Norcott], first baronet ( c.1599-1676)
Of Hayne, Newton St Cyres, Devon. Colonel. Fourth, but eldest surviving son of Sir John Northcote (1570-1632) and his wife Susan, daughter of Sir Hugh Pollard of King’s Nympton, Devon. He married Grace (died 1675), daughter of Hugh Halswell of Wells, Somerset. Created baronet in 1641.
MP for Ashburton in the Long Parliament, abstaining after Pride’s Purge; MP for Devon, 1654, 1656, 1659 and in the Convention Parliament; MP for Barnstaple (23 Dec. 1667 until 24 June 1676, his death).
Captain of foot in the Devon Militia by 1629. He did not sit on the Bench in the 1630s and (before the outbreak of the war) only between Aug. 1641 and July 1642.
In 1641-2 Northcote was a generous contributor to the parliamentarian cause, particularly concerned as MP and loan subscriber with Irish affairs. In June 1642 the Commons sent him to Devon to help implement the Militia Ordinance. In Nov. he was one of three gentlemen specifically excluded from a proposed royal pardon as ‘Traitors and Stirrers of sedition against us’.
Northcote served in the campaign against Sherborne Castle, Dorset in the summer of 1642 and was sent by the earl of Bedford to treat (unsuccessfully) with the marquess of Hertford to persuade him to surrender.
In the autumn of 1642 Northcote was evidently colonel (or possibly lieutenant-colonel of a Trained Band regiment). His command changed over time, as officers from Lord Brooke’s regiment (which had been disbanded at London in Dec. 1642 after it had been shattered at Brentford a month earlier) came to Exeter. Re-organised during the armistice, it became (if it had not already evolved into) one of Devon’s three volunteer regts. In May 1643, when it was near Roborough, it was recorded as 1,200 men strong.
In early Feb. 1643 Northcote ambushed a royalist column at Chagford. He was present at the parliamentarian defeat at Stratton in May, and in July was shot in the arm at the siege of Exeter. He was in the city when it yielded to the royalists, and was named one of the senior officers granted a royal pardon in the terms of surrender (5 Sept). However, although his regiment marched out of Exeter, and was finally disbanded on 20 Dec. 1643 at Tothill Fields, London, to provide troops for the earl of Stamford’s regiment of foot garrisoning Gloucester, Northcote himself refused to take up the pardon and remained a prisoner in Exeter. It was only in Oct. 1644 that the Commons agreed to an exchange of prisoners, and in May 1645 that he was re-admitted as MP. In Nov. 1645 he came under suspicion because of a letter his servant had allegedly carried to Lord Digby.
Northcote was an active figure in the county in the late 1640s (and, for instance, was one of the leaders of the county bench’s petition at Michaelmas 1647 against an unruly troop of horse taking free quarter). He was excluded from the county bench in 1649 following his withdrawal from the Commons, returning in the late 1650s.
At New Year 1660, Northcote tried to seize Exeter for the king, but was arrested and sent to London. He was extremely active in the Convention Parliament, where he made forty-six speeches (a neighbour had commented in 1641 that Northcote ‘will prove an excellent member of your house, if you can keep him silent’ [Keeler, Long Parliament, 287]) and was named to sixty-seven committees. He was especially concerned with the religious settlement, seconding a motion against the Book of Common Prayer, speaking in favour of the loyalty of intruded Presbyterian clergyman; willing to accept only a primitive episcopacy and fearing the Popish threat.
References: Oxford DNB; Vis. Devon, 581-2; Keeler, Long Parliament, 287; HoP: The Commons, 1660-1690, 3.156-8; Notebook of Sir John Northcote (1877); Wolffe, Devon Gentry, 20, 144, 152, 152, 222, 257; Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West, 3.318, 4.424-6; Stoyle, Deliverance, 80-1, 201-2; HoP: The Commons, 1640-1660 (forthcoming).
Armies: Devon
Northend, John John Northend
An esquire, of Hunsley, Yorkshire (East Riding). Lieutenant of foot to Major William Goodrick in the Hull garrison until assigned to Captain Boynton on 1 July 1643. He became a captain in Lord Fairfax’s regiment of foot (probably in autumn 1643). He moved to the garrison regiment of Colonel John Mauleverer, deputy-governor of Hull (early 1644 to Mar. 1648), at the latter date transferring to the regiment of Maulverer’s successor, Robert Overton.
References: Jones, ‘War in the North’, 396; Hopper, ‘Yorkshire parliamentarians’, 101.
Armies: Yorkshire
Norton, - - Norton
Lieutenant-Colonel of a regiment of foot which served under Colonel Francis Russell in his capacity as governor of the Isle of Ely and which probably originated as an auxiliary regiment of the Cambridgeshire militia.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 1.27.
Armies: Eastern Association
Norton, Benjamin Benjamin Norton
Captain in Thomas Ayloffe’s regiment of foot in the Eastern Association, 22 June–6 Sept. 1643 (in the Boston garrison), and from then he continued as its lieutenant-colonel till its disbandment on 2 May 1645. Sheriff of Rutland, 1647-8 and 1650-1.
References: Spring. Eastern Association, 1.8; JHC, 5.361, 6.492; TNA, SP28/18/208, 210v-11.
Armies: Eastern Association
Norton, Richard Richard Norton (1615-1691)
Born 1619, the eldest surviving son of Sir Daniel Norton of Southwick, Hampshire, gentleman and prominent godly opponent of Laudianism. In 1636, shortly after his father’s death, Richard married Anne, daughter of Sir Walter Erle of Charborough, Dorset.
Prominent as a military and administrative supporter of parliament in his native Hampshire from the outbreak of the civil war. He was present at the siege and recapture of Portsmouth in Aug. and Sept. 1642. Lieutenant in the Portsmouth garrison regiment of foot commanded by Sir William Lewis on 10 Jan. 1643. In early 1643 he was appointed governor of Portsmouth and commissioned colonel of a regiment of horse, a regiment of dragoons and a regiment of foot. With part or all of his regiments, he supported Waller (and occasionally Essex) in several operations in southern England, fought at the battle of Cheriton and the second battle of Newbury, where he was wounded but recovered, and was active in several sieges of Basing House. In autumn 1643 he was appointed governor of Southampton, but in spring 1645 he was reappointed governor of Portsmouth.
He became MP for Hampshire in 1645 and thereafter his career was more political than military – his regiments seem to have been disbanded in the course of 1645. Despite his close friendship with Oliver Cromwell and, following the death of his first wife, his married to a daughter of Viscount Saye and Sele, he was held in some suspicion by New Model radicals and was secluded at Pride’s Purge, though he took his seat in the Rump in late 1651. He was returned to the Nominated Assembly and was MP for Hampshire in all three Protectorate Parliaments; he was governor of Portsmouth again in the mid-1650s. But he became increasingly disenchanted with the republican regimes, made his peace with the returning monarchy and sat in all the parliaments of the Restoration era down to his death.
References: Oxford DNB; Spring, Waller’s army, 72.
Armies: Hampshire; Waller (Southern Association)
Norwich, Sir John Sir John Norwich
Raised and commanded a regiment of horse, formed in Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire in 1643 and based in the Hitchin area initially, before moving to the Godmanchester area. However, it seems to have had a fairly uneventful history, mainly guarding Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, rather than campaigning further afield, and it may have been run down or possibly combined with the earl of Manchester’s regiment of horse well before spring 1645. Norwich himself continued to serve after the ending of the Eastern Association Army, albeit in a secondary role – from spring 1645 to spring 1647 he was governor of Rockingham Castle in Rutland. As such, he features from time to time in Sir Samuel Luke’s letter books and several letters to or by him survive there.
Norwich also briefly commanded a regiment of dragoons in the Eastern Association, though in late 1643 it was transferred to Lord Grey of Groby to support his campaign in Nottinghamshire and the East Midlands Association.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 2.73; Holmes, Eastern Association, 99; Luke Letter Books, nos. 421, 649, 663, 696, 1316, 1325, 1326, 1330, 1334, 1344, 1372.
Armies: Eastern Association
Norwood, Robert Robert Norwood (c.1610-1654)
His background and family are obscure and his surname too common to pin him down. He may be the Thomas Norwood who was apprenticed to the Grocers’ Company in the late 1630s, was made free of that Company in the mid-1630s and was living in Bread Street by the end of the 1630s. He later claimed to have suffered at the hands of the Charles I’s government during the pre-war period.
Captain in Edmund Harvey’s regiment of London horse, 9 May 1644. He and his troop probably went with Essex to the relief of Gloucester and fought at the first battle of Newbury; by the end of 1643 he was at Newport Pagnell. He probably remained with the regiment until around the time it was largely disbanded and some parts transferred to the New Model in spring 1645. He was a prosperous merchant and London radical in the later 1640s, but returned to the army in 1649, leading a troop of horse to and in Ireland, though his service there was quite brief, possibly cut short by wounds sustained in action. Back in London, he held and actively professed increasingly millenarian and radical religious views during the early 1650s and was several times questioned, tried or imprisoned for blasphemy.
References: Oxford DNB; TNA, SP28/131, Part 6, ff. 1r., 2r.; CSPD, 1644, 155.
Armies: London
Nourse, Luke Luke Nourse (c.1590-1673)
Captain. Son of Walter Nourse of Gloucester. Alderman of Gloucester, 1642-1662 (when he was purged under the Corporation Act). In June 1645 he was mayor, when he was one of those to whom the power of the governor was delegated pending the arrival of Edward Massey’s replacement. Elected MP for Gloucester in a by-election in December 1654. A county committeeman (signing two orders in 1646-7).
Captain of a company in the regiment of Gloucestershire townsmen (the regiment of Stephens/Massey/Morgan) raised in spring 1643.
References: Peachey and Turton, Fall of the West, 6. 625-7; VCH Glos., 4.377; Warmington, Glos., 92, 183; Bibliotheca, 152;
HoP: The Commons 1640-1660 (forthcoming).
Armies: Gloucestershire
Nowne, Joseph Joseph Nowne
In spring 1644, captain-lieutenant in the colonel’s own company in Godfrey Bosvile’s regiment of foot.
References: Spring, Waller’s army, 30.
Armies: Warwickshire; Waller
Noyes, Robert Robert Noyes
Captain in Thomas Ballard’s regiment of foot in the earl of Essex’s Army in 1642.
References: Peacock, Army lists, 43.
Armies: Earl of Essex
Nunnery [Nunney], Lawrence Lawrence Nunnery [Nunney]
By spring 1644 and continuing to serve after the regiment transferred to the New Model Army in spring 1645, captain in Edward Montagu’s regiment of foot in the Eastern Association Army. He was still there in 1649, in what was by then Constable’s regiment.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 2.71; Wanklyn, New Model Army, I, 48, 58, 70, 80, 90, 102.
Armies: Eastern Association; New Model Army
Nuthall, Charles Charles Nuthall
By Sept. 1643 until at least the beginning of 1644, lieutenant-colonel of Valentine Walton’s regiment of foot in the Eastern Association Army.
References: Spring, Eastern Association, 2.104.
Armies: Eastern Association
Nuttall, Richard Richard Nuttall
An officer in Lancashire ensign to Captain Adam Ireland, and later cornet and lieutenant of horse to Captain Gilbert Ireland. He was owed arrears of £256 0s 8d in Oct. 1650.
References: TNA, E121/4/8.
Armies: Lancashire