The following text has been kindly provided by Dr. Ariel Hessayon and is a provisional entry for the New Dictionary of National Biography, published in England. Published here by permission of the author.
SOME INTRODUCTORY NOTES
G. Marion Norwood Callam identifies the Robert Norwood (b. c. 1610) named by Richard Norwood, surveyor of Bermuda, as the son of Thomas Norwood [356], half-brother of Richard Norwood's father*, who inherited lands at Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, and Chipping Norton, Gloucestershire(The Norwoods III, p. 115). Richard Norwood of Bermuda was born in 1590, the son of Edward Norwood (1565-1634) and Sybil Matthew, son of Roger Norwood (b. c. 1538) and his first wife Elizabeth Monoxe, son of Thomas Norwood (b. c. 1520) and his first wife Margaret Goodrich, son of Robert Norwood (c. 1500-1588). This last Robert Norwood was the son of William Norwood and an unnamed wife. William was a son of John Norwood and Eleanor Giffard, the progenitors of the Leckhampton, Gloucestershire, Norwood line. The coat of arms of the Tyringham/Wykham Norwood line was Ermine, a cross engrailed gules, a crescent for cadency. Crest: A demi lion rampant erased argent, ducally crowned or, holding in the gambs a palm branch proper.
Dr. Ariel Hessayon has also written saying that in 1643 Robert Norwood was granted the arms ermine a cross engrailed gules in dexter chief a wolf's head erased proper and the crest: out of a ducal coronet a boar's head or. As he notes, this coat of arms and crest is like that of the Dane Court Norwoods. The crest indicates the Norwoods of Sheppey, having been used by Sir Roger de Northwoode. The wolf's head in the dexter chief quadrant is that of Norwood (Northwode) of Dane Court in Thanet. It is therefore possible that Robert Norwood (c. 1610-1654) was a descendant of the Dane Court Norwoods, of whom Alexander Norwood and his son Manasses Norwood bore this coat of arms. In this case, if he was kinsman to Richard Norwood of Bermuda, then their kinship must have been distant by several degrees.
Robert Norwood's biography matches in many ways the story of the father of Francis Norwood, the immigrant to Gloucester, Massachusetts, as passed down through Ebenezer Pool, the Rockport, Mass., historian. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that Robert had either a wife or any children, and Dr. Hessayon tells us that his estate was administered by his brother, indicating that he was either single or a widower with minor children. In any case Robert Norwood is a fasicinating figure within the greater Norwood family.
*Roger Norwood's second wife was Dorothy Wethide.
A BIOGRAPHY OF ROBERT NORWOOD (1610-1654)
by Dr. Ariel Hessayon
Norwood, Robert (c.1610-1654), army officer. Robert Norwood appears to have been born about 1610. As yet no trace has been found of his father and mother. The family name was not uncommon and is found in Buckinghamshire, Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Middlesex, Yorkshire, and particularly in Kent, from where it may have originated. Robert Norwood was put apprentice to Thomas Stocke of the Grocers' Company on 19 March 1628, and gained his freedom on 6 April 1636. In December 1639 Norwood began living at the sign of the Chequer in the parish of All Hallows, Bread Street. Some years later he claimed that before the calling of the Long Parliament he suffered imprisonment, seizure of goods, and long, tedious suits at the hands of Charles I and his Privy Council. He seems at this time to have shared mutual business interests with his elder brother [or cousin?] the presbyterian John Norwood (c.1602-fl.1662), and to have acted on behalf of his kinsman, Richard Norwood of Bermuda. In September 1642 he signed the petition in favour of the appointment of Lazarus Seaman as rector of All Hallows, Bread Street. On 15 November 1642 Norwood was appointed a Commissary of Horse, and by the following summer he was commissioned as Captain of a troop of horse in Colonel Edmund Harvey's regiment. His banner, taken from Zechariah IV:7, carried the motto of Zerubbabel's encouragement to finish the Temple ["Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain, and he will bring forth the topstone with shouts of Grace, grace to it."]. Norwood's nominally sixty strong troop of horse was mustered in London on 18 August 1643 and thereafter probably saw heavy fighting at the first battle of Newbury in September that year. In December, after further encounters with Royalist troops, Norwood was stationed at the garrison town of Newport Pagnell with a nominally forty-eight strong troop of horse, besides officers. In May 1644 the troop was mustered again at Colnbrook. Norwood probably served with Colonel Harvey until June 1644, perhaps even later.
Following the new modelling of Harvey's regiment under the command of Colonel John Hurrey, Norwood was sent to the west of England as part of the spring campaign of 1645. Thereafter, he appears to have temporarily returned to civilian life. It was during this time that, by his own account, Norwood was "threatned" for publicly opposing "the Scotish interest then on foot" [Robert Norwood: The Case and Trial of Capt. Robert Norwood (n.d. = 1651?), p20]. In April 1648 he was one of several men appointed to bring in the arrears of the assessments for the Army, and in February 1649 one of sixty-four men appointed to sit on the Court for the treason trials of the five Lords - Norwood was one of the thirty-five men who on 6 March 1649 signed the warrant for the execution of James, Earl of Cambridge (the Duke of Hamilton). Norwood's services were also required as a cavalry officer in the Irish campaign of 1649. His troop seems to have been mustered in the spring of 1649, quartering at Chester before landing at Dublin on 26 July 1649. Commanding a nominally eighty-strong troop of horse, besides officers, Norwood's troop may have supported Colonel Michael Jones' forces in their victory over the Earl of Ormond at the battle of Baggotsrath. Four days later, on 6 August 1649, Norwood and his cavalry troop repulsed Sir Thomas Armstrong's forces in a skirmish outside Dublin. It is possible that Norwood was wounded in these engagements. In November 1649 it appears that he returned to England, perhaps docking at Liverpool. The following year, on 26 March 1650, Robert Norwood was made a member of the High Court of Justice. Despite incurring, by his own account, a "just debt" of about 3000 li in the state's service, Norwood at this time still appears to have been a relatively wealthy merchant [Robert Norwood: The Form of an Excommunication (1651), sig.a2v]. He had committed himself to a millenarian scheme to establish a utopia in the Bahama Islands, and seems also to have had interests in foreign trade. In common with a number of London merchants, Norwood was a congregant of Sidrach Simpson's gathered church that met at St.Mary Abchurch.
On Wednesday 24 April 1650, Theaurau John Tany, the self-proclaimed prophet and Lord's High Priest of the Jews, issued a broadside. Its title was I Proclaime From the Lord of Hosts The returne of the Jewes , and it is possible that Norwood may have helped pay towards its printing. Norwood was at any rate, to contribute an epistle to another of Tany's works, His Aurora in Tranlagorum in Salem Gloria (1651). In April 1651 Tany addressed a large gathering at Norwood's house in the parish of St.Mary Aldermary; similar concourses apparently followed. In March that same year members of Sidrach Simpson's gathered church, troubled by Norwood's "erroneous opinions", had spoken with Norwood at his home [Norwood Case and Trial p1]. The following month on 21 April 1651 Robert Norwood made a public profession of faith at St.Mary Abchurch before the whole assembled church. Simpson, implacable, admonished Norwood for failing to repent his "blasphemous Errors" - and excommunicated him from his church in early May [Norwood: Form of an Excommunication p2]. Afterwards, by his own account, Norwood was summoned before Oliver Cromwell, and there entreated by Joseph Caryl and John Owen to retract his errors. Evidently he was setting a bad example. Norwood, however, remained unrepentant. In June 1651 he was brought by warrant of Thomas Andrewes, Lord Mayor of London, before the Bench at the Sessions house in the Old Bailey. At the next quarter sessions an indictment was prepared jointly against himself and Tany. The principle charges were that the two maintained that "the soul [of men and women] is of the essence of God", and that "there is neither hell nor damnation" [Norwood Case and Trial pp 9-10; Robert Norwood: A Brief Discourse made by Capt. Robert Norwood (1652), titlepage, pp3-4]. On 20 June 1651 Norwood was removed from his place on the High Court of Justice by order of Parliament. Five days later Norwood and Tany appeared at the quarter sessions at the Old Bailey to answer the charges presented against them. They pleaded "not Guilty". Proceedings continued [Public Record Office (London) K.B. 27/1743 mems.i-ii]. Then on Wednesday 13 August 1651, after adjournments the two previous days, at 7 o'clock in the morning, Tany and Norwood appeared at the London quarter sessions held at the Old Bailey to answer the charges presented against them in the indictment. Norwood at the last, wavered, and seems to have been ready to recant--to no avail. The two were convicted of blasphemy by a jury of twelve men and sentenced to six months imprisonment each in Newgate. Norwood was to intimate that his conviction owed much to the plotting of Thomas Andrewes, a long time member of Sidrach Simpson's church, and another merchant, Alderman Stephen Estwick (d.1657). Even so, it was on the charge of blasphemy that he became notorious.
Following their conviction for blasphemy, Tany and Norwood were committed to Newgate. The conditions for those that could not afford the services of the Gaoler were intolerable. Norwood, it appears, was nearly financially drained by the experience. There followed a series of legal proceedings in the Court of Upper Bench as Norwood brought forward a Writ of Error in an attempt to overturn the guilty verdict found against himself and Tany. The cardinal points of error in the writ were that two persons were not to be joined in one indictment--"their charge being severall"--that judgement should not be given jointly, and that the defendants' alleged opinions fell outside the ambit of the Blasphemy Act: Norwood and Tany had been convicted for supposedly saying that "there is no hell nor damnation", whereas the Act condemned only those that maintained that "there is neither Heaven nor Hell, neither Salvation nor Damnation" [Norwood Brief Discourse pp1,4]. Moreover, even though Norwood and Tany avowed that the soul of man is of the essence of God, nonetheless, the theological leap that the pair thus professed the mere creature to be very God had been provided by the framers of the indictment. On Tuesday 10 February 1652, the judges of the Upper Bench appear to have made their judgement. Chief Justice Rolle rejected the writ.
On Monday 16 February 1652, Robert Norwood and Theaurau John Tany, having served their terms of six months imprisonment, were each released upon 100 li bail--pending good behaviour for one year. In Easter term 1652 Robert Norwood prosecuted a new Writ of Error in the Court of Upper Bench. After several hearings the judges deferred proceedings until the following law term. And then on Monday 28 June 1652, in Trinity term, after two more hearings, the judges ordered that "the Judgement" against Norwood be reversed and the "p[ar]tie restored" [Public Record Office (London) K.B. 21/13 fol.212r]. Wary of setting a precedent, the judges of the Upper Bench had adhered to the strict letter of the law. Indeed, their decision to reverse the guilty verdict pronounced upon Norwood at the Old Bailey made manifest the discontiguous relationship between the Act against Atheistical, Blasphemous and Execrable opinions, and the supposed errors of doctrine propagated on the streets and public places of London: Tany and Norwood were convicted by inferring and taking out of context the true sense and meaning of their words, thereby making their opinions rigidly conform to the strictures of the Blasphemy Act of August 1650.
Following their release from Newgate, relations between Tany and Norwood appear to have cooled. Norwood, it seems, may have believed that the spirit of God had deserted Tany. During this period he wrote one pamphlet in which he advocated the readmission and toleration of the Jews, and two other works, both published in the summer of 1653. These last two tracts, the one entitled A Pathway Unto England's Perfect Settlement , the other An Additional Discourse , were concerned with constitutional theory, and in part derived from John Sadler's Rights of the Kingdom; or, Customs of our Ancestors (1649). They were censured in turn by John Spittlehouse, a former member of the army, and a group of six Presbyterian booksellers. John Lilburne, however, commended Norwood's An Additional Discourse , calling it "one of the excellentest pieces that lately I have read in England, for clearing up the ancient fundamental laws, rights, and liberties", and thought its author a "sober and rational man" [John Lilburne The Upright Mans Vindication (1653), pp29-30]. On 8 June 1654 Norwood was back with Tany, witnessing his claim under the name ThauRam Tanjah to the seven crowns of England, France, Reme, Rome, Naples, Sissiliah and Jerusalem. It may have been about this time that Norwood became acquainted with Roger Crab (c.1616?-1680), a former army agitator who had taken to a hermit's life. Crab subsisted on a vegetarian diet consisting of bread, bran, herbs, roots, dock-leaves, mallows, and grass. It was said that Norwood "enclining" to his "opinion, began to follow the same poore diet till it cost him his life" [Roger Crab The English Hermite, or, Wonder of this Age (1655), To the Readerı]. Robert Norwood died at one Mr.Manning's house in Enfield on 17 September 1654. His place of burial was unknown.