John Morton

This article is about the 15th century English Bishop; for other uses see John Morton (disambiguation).

John Morton (c. 1420 – 15 September 1500) was an English cleric.

Life

Born in Dorset, he was educated at Balliol College, Oxford. In February of 1477, he was sent by the Yorkist King Edward IV, together with Sir John Donne, as ambassador to the French court. Edward appointed him Bishop of Ely on 8 August 1479 and he was consecrated on 31 January 1479.^[1] After the dynastic change to the Tudors in 1485, Henry VII, made him Archbishop of Canterbury the following year 1486 on October 6.^[2] and appointed him Lord Chancellor of England in 1487.^[3] Morton was by then an important foe of the preceding Yorkist regime of King Richard III. In 1493 he was appointed titular Cardinal of the church of St. Anastasia in Rome by Pope Alexander VI. He built the "Old Palace" of Hatfield House where Queen Elizabeth I of England spent much of her girlhood.

As Lord Chancellor, Morton was tasked with restoring the royal estate, depleted by Edward IV; by the end of Henry VII's reign, his frugality and Morton's tax policy, carried out by Edmund Dudley and Richard Empson, had replenished the treasury. Morton gave a statement later known as 'Morton's Fork', for the fact that no one was exempt from its two distinctions: "If the subject is seen to live frugally, tell him because he is clearly a money saver of great ability he can afford to give generously to the King. If, however, the subject lives a life of great extravagance, tell him he, too, can afford to give largely, the proof of his opulence being evident in his expenditure."^[4]

He died at Knole House, Kent, on 15 September 1500.^[2] His monument was placed in the south-east part of Canterbury Cathedral's crypt, with an effigy and an arch decorated with angels, cardinal's caps, and tun barrels inscribed with MOR (a pun on his name, Mor-ton). However, this monument is a cenotaph since his actual body was buried in the crypt's central chapel of the Virgin Mary, according to his wishes.

Morton, More, and the history of Richard III

The young Thomas More served as a page in Morton's house. Morton was a mentor of Sir Thomas More, who acted in revels at Morton's court at Knole House, the archiepiscopal palace, and mentioned him in his work Utopia. Although most scholars accredit More with the style of History of King Richard III; they are divided on the issue of the original authorship. Morton is believed by many to be the originator of the account that More rewrote. Modern day enthusiasts of King Richard III thereby accuse Morton of concocting the account of Richard's murder of Edward V and his brother Richard, Duke of York and other crimes attributed to Richard III.

Notes

Bibliography

• Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third Edition, revised ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56350-X. 

External links

• John Morton at Britannia Biographies
• John Morton at Catholic Encyclopedia Online