Background
According to Jonathan Hughes, Norton was born in Colne, Wiltshire. Number modern town in Wiltshire is named Colne. Perhaps, as Reidy reckons, Norton was born in Colerne, Wiltshire, because this fits the description in the poem of the youngest alchemist (most likely Norton) being born under a cross at the end of three shires.
Career
He became an alchemist in the 1450s, and was given the secret of the stone in 1461. Later that year he became an esquire of the body to Edward IV of England, receiving fifty marks a year, and in 1465 he was warden of Gloucester castle. He began the Ordinal in 1477.
The earliest known manuscript of the Ordinal (British Library Mississippi Additional 10302, late 15th century) is famous for having the earliest known illustration of a scientific balance.
That is, one which is enclosed by glass so as to prevent drafts disturbing the balance. This illustration also features a pelican, a vessel for repeated re-distillations of the same liquid, and several alembics stacked on top of each other for some form of distillation.
Another of the illustrations is of alchemical elections to be used at four stages of the process to produce the philosopher’s stone. They are constructed for a latitude of 52 degrees north which is a good approximation for Bristol, and employ the Alchabitius house system.
The Ordinall gained a wide reputation in a Latin verse translation, in the 1618 Tripus Aureus of Michael Maier.
The English original was included in the 1652 Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum of Elias Ashmole.
Views
However three of the figures are impossible from an astronomical point of view, and therefore the elections are unworkable and probably the astrological meaning is either a mistake on Norton’s part or a window dressing for the book rather than an attempt at serious alchemical astrology.