John Morton ( – 15 September 1500) was an English cleric, civil lawyer and administrator during the period of the Wars of the Roses. He entered royal service under Henry VI and was a trusted councillor under Edward IV and Henry VII. Edward IV made him Bishop of Ely and under Henry VII he became Lord Chancellor, Archbishop of Canterbury and a cardinal.
Early life Morton was born in around 1420 either in Milborne St Andrew or Bere Regis in Dorset. He came from the minor gentry of the time: his father was Richard Morton of Milborne St Andrew and his uncle, William Morton of Cerne, represented Shaftesbury in Parliament in 1437. Morton was educated at the University of Oxford, becoming a Bachelor of Civil Law in 1448, a Bachelor of Civil and Canon Law in 1451 and a Doctor of Civil Law in 1452. He practised as a proctor in the chancellor's court at Oxford from 1448 and in 1451 he was acting as a commissary or deputy and official of the chancellor of the university. In 1452 he became principal of the civil law school and in 1453 he became the principal of Peckwater Inn where he had previously been a fellow. Later in life, Morton was elected as Chancellor of the University of Oxford for life in 1495 and as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge in 1499.
Morton also practised as an advocate in the Court of Arches, the ecclesiastical court of the Province of Canterbury. As a result of his work as a civil lawyer Morton came to the notice of Thomas Bourchier, who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1454, and on 26 September 1456 he entered royal service, being appointed as chancellor of the infant Edward, Prince of Wales.
Morton was ordained as an acolyte and subdeacon on 17 December 1457, as a deacon on 17 February 1458 and as a priest on 10 March 1458. He had already obtained his first benefices, as rector of Shellingford in Berkshire (23 January 1453) and rector of Maiden Newton in Dorset (21 March 1457). In 1458 he was granted a papal dispensation to hold three benefices at the same time. In May 1458 he was made a subdean and prebend of Lincoln Cathedral, in November 1458 a prebend of Salisbury, and by 1461 he was also rector of Bloxworth in Dorset and archdeacon of Norwich.
In 1459 the Duke of York, the Earl of Salisbury, and Salisbury's eldest son, the Earl of Warwick, rose in rebellion against Henry VI but they fled after the Rout of Ludford Bridge. Morton was one of a number of lawyers involved in drawing up the act of attainder against the Yorkist lords passed by the parliament which met in Coventry in November 1459. After the defeat of the Lancastrian forces at the Battle of Towton on 29 March 1461, Morton was captured at Cockermouth along with the Earl of Wiltshire. They were brought to Edward IV in Newcastle where Wiltshire was beheaded while Morton was sent to the Tower of London.
Morton was included in the act of attainder passed by Edward IV's first parliament in November 1461 and he lost all the benefices which he had accumulated. However, he escaped and joined Queen Margaret of Anjou in France, being appointed Keeper of the Privy Seal to Henry VI and assisting in the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Tours on 28 June 1462. He accompanied the queen when, with French and Scottish support, she made incursions into Northumberland in 1462 and 1463. After these attempts to restore Henry VI failed, Morton returned to France with the queen and shared the exile of the small Lancastrian court at the Chateau of Koeur near Saint-Mihiel in Lorraine. In 1469 he was admitted to study theology at the University of Louvain.
Service under Edward IV Following the final defeat of the Lancastrian cause at the Battle of Tewkesbury on 4 May 1471, Morton was granted a pardon by Edward IV and resumed his career in royal service. By 29 September 1471 (Michaelmas) he was appointed as a Master in Chancery and on 16 March 1472 he was granted the office of Master of the Rolls. Besides being the keeper of the rolls of the Chancery, the parchment rolls which formed the official records of the government of England, the Master of the Rolls was by this time a judicial official, second only to the Lord Chancellor in the Court of Chancery. He also acted as the keeper of the Great Seal during a vacancy in the office of Lord Chancellor or during the Lord Chancellor's temporary absence.
Morton began to accumulate more benefices, being made Rector of St Dunstan-in-the-East in London in 1472 (exchanged in 1474 for appointments as Rector of South Molton in Devon and master of St Bartholomew's Hospital in Bristol), a prebend of St Paul's in London in 1473, archdeacon of Chester (1474), Winchester (1475), Huntingdon (1475), Berkshire (1476), Norfolk (1477) and Leicester (1478) and a prebend of Wells (1476), York (1476) and Exeter (1476).
Civil lawyers were also in demand for diplomatic missionsAllmand, C T., ‘The civil lawyers’, in Clough, C. H. (1982), ed. Profession, Vocation, and Culture in Later Medieval England. Liverpool University Press. pp. 155-180 at p. 157. and Morton left England in early January 1474 together with Lord Duras on an embassy to Burgundy. He did not return until early June. In December 1474 he was despatched on another embassy to Burgundy along with Sir Thomas Montgomery and the king's secretary, William Hatclyf. They were also commissioned to seek alliances against France with the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick III, and Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary.Scofield, C. L. (1923). The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth. Vol. II. Longmans, Green and Co. pp. 107-108. After Edward IV invaded France in the middle of 1475, Morton was involved in negotiating the Treaty of Picquigny (29 August 1475) by which Louis XI undertook to pay Edward IV 75,000 crowns within fifteen days, and 50,000 crowns yearly thereafter as long as they both lived, in exchange for the withdrawal of the English army. Along with other members of the English court, Morton was rewarded by Louis XI with an annual pension, in his case of 600 crowns.Ross, C. D. (1974). Edward IV. Eyre Methuen. pp. 222-223, 230-234.
On 16 February 1477 Edward IV sent Morton and Sir John Donne as ambassadors to Louis XI to seek the extension of the truce under the Treaty of Picquigny. When Louis XI sent ambassadors to England in July 1477 to continue negotiations, Morton was one of those appointed to meet them. By a treaty made on 21 July 1477 the truce was extended for the lives of the kings and for a year after the death of whichever of them died first.Scofield, C. L. (1923). The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth. Vol. II. Longmans, Green and Co. pp.177, 191-194. On 21 January 1479 Edward IV instructed Morton and others to begin negotiations with the French ambassador, Charles de Martigny, Bishop of Elne, with a view to extending the truce between the two nations to last for one hundred and one years and to pay the pension of 50,000 crowns yearly throughout that period to Edward and his successors. In February 1479 the bishop signed agreements to that effect drawn up by Morton.Scofield, C. L. (1923). The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth. Vol. II. Longmans, Green and Co. pp. 245-247.
In the meanwhile, Morton had been consecrated by Archbishop Bourchier as Bishop of Ely in the chapel at Lambeth on 31 January 1479 and he vacated the other ecclesiastical offices which he had accumulated.Emden, A. B. (1958). A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to AD 1500. Vol. II. Oxford University Press. pp. 1318-1319. It was during this period that Morton was mentioned by the visiting Italian observer, Dominic Mancini, as being, along with Archbishop Thomas Rotherham and William, Lord Hastings, "of no small influence" with the king. Mancini wrote that "these men being in age mature, and instructed by long experience of public affairs, helped more than other councillors to form the king's policy, and besides carried it out".Mancini, D. (1969). The Usurpation of Richard III. Translated Armstrong, C. A. J. 2nd ed. Reprinted, Alan Sutton, 1984. p. 69.
As Bishop of Ely, Morton initiated various building works, including rebuilding the Bishop's Palace at Hatfield in HertfordshireBentham, J. (1771). The History and Antiquities of the Conventual and Cathedral Church of Ely. Cambridge University Press. p. 181. which had been in the possession of the Bishops of Ely since 1109. Morton rebuilt it in about 1480 as a stately manor house, all in brick.“Parishes: Hatfield”, in Page, W. (1912), ed. A History of the County of Hertford: Volume 3. Victoria County History. pp. 91-111. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/herts/vol3/pp91-111. He was also responsible for the construction of Morton's Leam, a cut or ditch twelve miles in length, forty feet broad and four feet deep, from Stanground near Peterborough to Guyhirn, by which water was channelled from the River Nene to Wisbech. Morton had a tower built to monitor the works.“The Middle Level of the Fens and its reclamation”, in Page, W., Proby, G., and Inskip Ladds, S. (1936). A History of the County of Huntingdon: Volume 3. Victoria County History. pp. 249-290. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/hunts/vol3/pp249-290.
Exile under Richard III Edward IV died unexpectedly on 9 April 1483 and Morton was involved in making arrangements for the coronation of his elder son as Edward V. However, on 13 June he was arrested at a council meeting along with Lord Hastings and Archbishop Rotherham. They were accused of treason by the king's uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and Hastings was beheaded. Morton and Rotherham were imprisoned in the Tower of London. Gloucester was crowned as Richard III on 6 July 1483.Ross, C. (1981). Richard III. Eyre Methuen. pp. 93-95. Rotherham was soon restored to favour but Morton was committed to the custody of Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, who sent him to his castle in Wales, Brecon Castle. Morton was involved in the failed uprising known as Buckingham's rebellion but he subsequently escaped to Flanders from where he continued to coordinate opposition to Richard III. In particular, when Richard III was seeking the return of Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, from Brittany, Morton sent Christopher Urswick to alert him, and Henry was able to escape over the border into France.
Morton was included in the Acts of Attainder passed by Richard III's first (and only) parliament which met at Westminster in January 1484 and he once again lost all his temporal possessions.Davies, C. S. L. (1987). "Bishop John Morton, the Holy See and the Accession of Henry VII". The English Historical Review. 102 (402): 2-30 at 7. He was granted an unsolicited pardon on 11 December 1484 but he nevertheless refused to return to England. He is known to have been in Rome by 31 January 1485, when he signed the register of the Santo Spirito fraternity, and he was still there in April, when he secured a papal brief for the reform of Peterhouse, and probably on 7 May, when a papal indulgence was secured, the proceeds of which were to go to the repair of the dykes of the Isle of Ely and Ely Cathedral, damaged in recent floods. His real mission, however, may have been to secure papal dispensation for Richmond's intended marriage to Edward IV's eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York, which was necessary because both were descended from John of Gaunt.Davies, C. S. L. (1987). "Bishop John Morton, the Holy See and the Accession of Henry VII". The English Historical Review. 102 (402): 2-30 at 13-14.
Service under Henry VII