John Morton (cardinal)

His Eminence John Morton J.C.D. D.C.L.
Cardinal, Archbishop of Canterbury Primate of All England
Appointed	6 October 1486
Term ended	15 September 1500
Predecessor	Thomas Bourchier
Successor	Thomas Langton
Orders
Consecration	31 January 1479
Created Cardinal	20 September 1493
Rank	Cardinal priest of Santa Anastasia
Personal details
Born	c. 1420 Dorset, England
Died	15 September 1500 Knole House, near Sevenoaks, Kent, England
Buried	Crypt of Canterbury Cathedral
Nationality	English
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Previous post	Bishop of Ely, 1479–1486
Education	Balliol College, Oxford
Coat of arms

John Morton (c.1420 – 15 September 1500) was an English prelate who served as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1486 until his death and also Lord Chancellor of England from 1487. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 1493.^[1]

Life

Born in Dorset,^[2] he was probably educated at Balliol College, Oxford. After graduating with a BCL in 1448, he practised law in ecclesiastical courts, including the Court of Archesbeing appointed rector of Shellingford (Berkshire) in 1453. He was made prebendary of Sarum in 1458, rector of St. Dunstan's (in the West), archdeacon of Norwich circa 1460. He became a government lawyer the Lancastrian party and drafted the Bill of Attainder against Richard, Duke of York in 1459. He was cap[tured after the Battle of Towton and attainted, but escaped into exile, joining Queen Margaret in France, where he was Keeper of the Privy Deal to Henry VI in the Lancastrian government in exile and graduated in theology from the University of Louvain in 1469.

He returned to England, but following the failure of the Readeption and the murder of Henry VI, he made his peace with Edward IV. He received a royal pardon in July 1471, and became a Master of Chancery that Michaelmas, and Master of the Rolls in the following March. Further church appointments followed, as archdeacon of Winchester and Dean of the Court of Arches in 1474, canon of Wells from 1475 to 1478, archdeacon of Berkshire in 1476 and archdeacon of Norfolk in 1477.^[3][4] He was appointed Master of the Rolls from 1472 to 1479.

In February 1477, he was sent by the Yorkist King Edward IV, together with Sir John Donne, as ambassador to the French court. After serving a short spell in 1478 as Archdeacon of Leicester he was appointed Bishop of Ely by King Edward on 8 August 1478 and he was consecrated on 31 January 1479.^[5] Morton was an important foe of the Yorkist regime of King Richard III and spent some time in captivity in Brecknock castle. After the dynastic change to the Tudors in 1485, King Henry VII made him Archbishop of Canterbury on 6 October 1486,^[6] and appointed him Lord Chancellor of England in 1487.^[7] In 1493 he was appointed Cardinal priest of the church of St. Anastasia in Rome by Pope Alexander VI. He built the "Old Palace" of Hatfield House where Queen Elizabeth I 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, the king's 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', that no one was to be exempted from taxes: "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."

Morton died at Knole House, Kent, on 15 September 1500.^[6] 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).^[8] 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

Morton was a mentor of the young Sir Thomas More. More served as a page in Morton's house, acted in revels at Morton's court at Knole House, the archiepiscopal palace, and later mentioned him in his work Utopia. Although most scholars credit More with authoring the History of King Richard III, they debate 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 inventing the account whereby Richard murdered Edward V and his brother Richard, Duke of York and committed other crimes attributed to him.

Armorials

James Bentham wrote in 1771 concerning the arms of Bishop Morton:^[9][10]

"The Arms given him in Anglia Sacra, p. 673, are not sufficiently explicit; they should be thus blasoned: Quarterly gules and ermine on the 1st and 4th a goat's head erased argent. And this agrees with his arms carved various times on the noble Tower of Wisbeche Church, and as they were formerly in a window of Linton Church in Cambridgeshire, as I have it in a manuscript of church notes taken above a century ago. However these accord not with those for our bishop in his own cathedral twice, viz. in the east window of the north aisle of the presbytery, and in another window of the same aisle, where they are still remaining, and are thus blasoned: Quarterly gules and ermine, on the 1st and 4th three goat's heads erased argent, attired or.

In popular culture

In the 1972 BBC television series The Shadow of the Tower, which focused on the reign of Henry VII, Morton was played by Denis Carey.^[11] In the Netflix/Canal series "Borgia," Morton appears in one scene in season 2, episode 4, and is portrayed by David Gant.

Citations

References

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

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