John Morton (cardinal)
John Morton (c. 1420 – 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.
John Morton
6 October 1486
15 September 1500
Thomas Langton (as bishop-elect), Henry Deane as true Archbishop
31 January 1479
by Thomas Bourchier
20 September 1493
by Alexander VI
c. 1420
15 September 1500 (aged approximately 79/80)
Knole House, near Sevenoaks, Kent, England
English
Bishop of Ely, 1479–1486
Early life[edit]
Morton was born in around 1420[1] either in Milborne St Andrew or Bere Regis in Dorset. He came from the minor gentry of the time:[2] his father was Richard Morton of Milborne St Andrew and his uncle, William Morton of Cerne, represented Shaftesbury in Parliament in 1437.[3] 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.[4]
Morton also practised as an advocate in the Court of Arches, the ecclesiastical court of the Province of Canterbury.[2] 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,[5] and on 26 September 1456 he entered royal service, being appointed as chancellor of the infant Edward, Prince of Wales.[2]
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).[6] In 1458 he was granted a papal dispensation to hold three benefices at the same time.[7] 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.[8]
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.[9] 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.[10] 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.[11]
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.[2] He accompanied the queen when, with French and Scottish support, she made incursions into Northumberland in 1462 and 1463.[12] 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.[13]
Exile under Richard III[edit]
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.[27] Gloucester was crowned as Richard III on 6 July 1483.[28] Rotherham was soon restored to favour[29] but Morton was committed to the custody of Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, who sent him to his castle at Brecon in Wales. 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.[2] 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.[30]
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.[31] He was granted an unsolicited pardon on 11 December 1484 but he nevertheless refused to return to England.[32] 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.[33]
In popular culture[edit]
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.[60] In the Netflix/Canal series Borgia, Morton appears in one scene in season 2, episode 4, and is portrayed by David Gant. In the Starz miniseries The White Princess, Morton is portrayed by Kenneth Cranham.