Third dau. of Ralph Freke, of Hannington, Wilts, Esq., by Cecilia, dau. of Sir Thomas Colepeper, of Hollingbourne, Kent, Kt. She married, first, about 1672, Sir George Norton, of Abbotts-Leigh, co. Somerset, Kt., from whom, in 1697, she had been living apart for some years, who died 26 Apl. 1715, aged sixty-seven ; secondly, at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall, 23 Apl. 1718, Col. Ambrose Norton, cousin-german of her first husband, to whom she was third wife (see his first marriage 8 June 1685, and note thereto), who died 10 Sep. 1723, in his seventy- seventh year ; and thirdly, at Somerset House Chapel, 24 Sep. 1724, then aged eighty-four, William Jones, Esq., whom she also survived. She died, according to the Funeral Book, 20 Feb., aged ninety, and was therefore considerably the senior of her first and second husbands, and probably of her third. Her will, as Dame Frances Norton alias Jones, widow, dated 25 Jan. 1730-1, was proved 20 Feb. following, the very day of her death, by her kinswoman Sarah Munn, of St. Giles in the Fields, Midx., widow, whom she made her residuary legatee, having disposed of her estate by deed previous to her third marriage. She occupied a certain position among the literary ladies of her day, and her writings have been much commended, but they do not appear to have demanded modern reproduction. See the burials of her sisters, Mrs. Elizabeth Freke 12 Apl. 1714, and Mrs. Judith Austen 24 May 1716. It has always been erroneously stated that her dau. Grace, who married Sir Richard Gethin, of Ireland, was buried in the Abbey, and the inscription on the monument erected to her memory leads to the inference that her only other two children, George and Elizabeth, were also buried there. But a precise duplicate of this inscription is to be found in the Abbey Church at Bath, and probably another was put up in Ireland, or wherever Dame Grace Gethin was buried. Neither of the three children were interred in the Abbey, unless unaccountably omitted from both the Register and Funeral Book, and the son George, who was baptized at St. Margaret's, Westminster, 30 Aug. 1673, was certainly also buried there 10 Sep. following.

Source: The marriage, baptismal, and burial registers of the collegiate church or abbey of St. Peter, Westminster, edited by Joseph Lemuel Chester, London, 1876