Richard Brooke (Norton)

[3] In May 1544, during the war now known as the Rough Wooing, Brooke served in Lord Hertford's army in Scotland which sacked and burnt Edinburgh.

[4] In September 1547 an English navy commanded by Lord Clinton comprising 34 warships with 26 support vessels sailed to Scotland.

William Patten included the ship in one of his plans of the battlefield, depicted in the woodcut with its oars visible, close to Musselburgh.

[12] Richard Brooke bought the manor of Norton, near Runcorn, Cheshire from Henry VIII in 1545 following the dissolution of the monasteries.

[15] Having bought the property, it seems that Brooke did not have the resources necessary to build an expensive house and therefore he modified the west range of the abbey as his residence, while the cloister became a rubbish dump.

[15] Following the accession of Queen Mary to the throne in 1553, Brooke assisted Reginald Pole in the re-establishment of the Order of St John in England.