On 7 December 1541 the office of sheriff of Fife, then made hereditary in the Rothes family, was bestowed on him for life, his father personally resigning it.
[3] He fought at Solway Moss in 1542 and was taken prisoner, but received his liberty as the result of the bond signed by the captive Scottish nobles to promote the interests of Henry VIII in Scotland.
[4] Obtaining no satisfactory answer, they did not take advantage of the supposed opportunity, and subsequently, with his father, Norman appears to have given a pledge of personal service to the cardinal.
The castle of St. Andrews, where Beaton lived, was seized by men under his command, but he took no personal part in the act of assassination on 29 May 1546, and John Leslie of Parkhill, his uncle, struck the fatal blow, after the cardinal had requested that Norman, whom he called his friend, should come to him.
On the same day the castle was surrendered to the French, and a condition having been made that the lives of all within it should be spared, its principal defenders were carried captives to France.
[2] Norman probably made his escape from France at the same time as Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange, but there is no direct information on the point.
[8] His bravery and the manner of his death so impressed the French king that he used his influence with the queen-regent and the estates to obtain for the other confederates against Beaton the reversion of their lands.