NOY, William (1577-1634), attorney-general, was born, it is believed, on the family estate of Pendrea in Buryan, Cornwall, in 1577, his father belonging to a family whose pedigree is included in the visitation of Cornwall in 1620. He matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, 27th April 1593, and looked back upon his academical life with such affection that, twenty years later, when the privileges of that institution were invaded by Lord Petre, he pleaded its cause gratuitously and successfully. His legal career began at Lincoln’s Inn, and throughout life he was a diligent student of the grounds and precedents on which English law is based. From 1603 until his death he was elected, with one exception, to each parliament, sitting invariably for a constituency of his native county. For several years his sympathies were in antagonism to the wishes of the court, so that his historical knowledge was freely laid at the service of the opposition. Every commission that was appointed numbered Noy among its members, and even those who were opposed to him in politics acknowledged his learning. A few years before his death he was drawn over to the side of the court, and in October 1631 he was created attorney-general, but was never knighted. It was through his advice that the impost of ship-money was levied, and popular feeling vented its rage against him for its disastrous revival. Noy had long been a martyr to disease of the stone, and his death occurred, under circumstances of great agony, 9th August 1634; two days later he was buried at New Brentford church. Though he was of a reserved, almost morose disposition, and after his change of principles had little regard for the feelings of his old friends, many acts of kindness which he showed can be gleaned from the literature of ...

NOYON, a city of France, department of Oise, 67 miles north-north-east of Paris by the railway to Brussels, is built at the foot and on the slopes of a hill, and traversed by a small stream, the Verse, which joins the Oise a mile farther down. The old cathedral of Notre Dame, constructed during the latter half of the 12th century, is a fine example of the mixture of Romanesque and Gothic architecture. In plan it is a Latin cross, with a total length from east to west of 343 feet, and from north to south of 66. The west front has a porch, added in the 14th century, and two unfinished towers, their upper portions dating from the 13th century; its decorations have been greatly mutilated. The nave (167 feet long and 66 broad) consists of eleven bays, including those of the west front, which, in the interior, forms a kind of transept. In the windows of the aisles, the arches of the triforium, and the windows of the clerestory the round type is maintained; but double Pointed arches appear in the lower gallery; and the vaults of the roof, originally six-ribbed, were rebuilt after the fire of 1293 in the prevailing Pointed style. Side chapels were added in the north aisle in the 14th century and in the south aisle in the 15th and the 16th, one of the latter (15th) is especially rich in decorations. The flying buttresses of the building are at present (1884) being restored in the style of the 12th century. From the north-west corner of the nave runs the western gallery of a fine cloister, erected in 1230; and next to the cloister is the chapter-house of the same date, with its entrance adorned with statues of the bishops and other sculpture. The bishops’ tombs within the cathedral were destroyed during the Revolution. The chapel of the bishops’ palace is an example of the ...