Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/435

  to Sir Thomas de la Moore's account of a scene in which Moore had himself played a part (Preface, pp. vii-viii).

The patron who has thus by a singular chance for so long been regarded as the real author of his protégê's work was said by Camden in his preface, with a vague reference to ancient records, to have belonged to a Gloucestershire family of knightly rank, and to have served in the Scottish wars of Edward I, who knighted him. On this hint Sir Robert Atkyns made him the eldest son of Richard de la More of Eldland. in the parish of Bitton, Gloucestershire, who was knight of the shire for that county in 1290, and died in 1292 (Hist. of Gloucestershire, p. 287). Tanner accepted Atkyns's statement without question (Bibl. Brit. Hib. p. 531). But Bishop Stubbs has shown that it is erroneous, and that Galfrid le Baker's patron, who was in Bishop Stratford's train, perhaps as a young man, in 1327, may be safely identified with a Sir Thomas de la More of Mora or Moor (now Northmoor), in southern Oxfordshire, only eleven miles south-east of Swinebrook, who sat as knight of the shire for Oxfordshire in the first two parliaments of 1340, and served on the great committee appointed in the second session to sit from day to day until the business was finished and the petitions turned into a statute (, Preface, p. lxi; Rot. Parl. ii. 113). His position as a person of weight in his county was shown by his re-election in 1343 and 1351. It was at his instance, Galfrid le Baker tells us, that he wrote his shorter chronicle, finished in 1347, and in his larger chronicle, besides the passage already quoted, he once addresses him as 'miles reverende' (ed. Thompson, p. 30). It is quite likely, therefore, that he was still alive when Baker wrote the final lines of this chronicle in 1358. It is not, indeed, impossible that he may be the Sir Thomas de la More who in 1370 was constable or vice-warden of Porchester Castle under the Earl of Arundel (, Issue Roll, 5, 243, 372, 424; Fœdera, iii. 880;, p. lxiii). The family of de la More, which was long seated at Northmoor, may perhaps, Bishop Stubbs thinks, have been connected with the Berkshire family of de la More or de la Mare (ib.} A Sir Thomas de la More, who was apparently a member of this family, was sheriff of Oxfordshire in 1370.

The 'Vita et Mors' ascribed to de la More exists in three manuscripts of the second half of the sixteenth century: 1. MS. Cotton, Vitellius E. 5, ff. 261-70, copied, perhaps, by (1562–1619) [q. v.], the historian, from a transcript by Laurence Nowell, brother of Alexander Nowell, dean of St. Paul's, who himself died dean of Lichfield in 1576 (, Preface, p. lxvi). 2. MS. Inner Temple, Petyt, A. 7, ff. 303-14, formerly belonging to John Foxe the martyrologist. 3. MS. Harleian, 310. That numbered 81 in the Jekyll MSB. is no longer forthcoming (ib.)

 MORE, THOMAS (1478–1535), lord chancellor of England and author, was born between two and three in the morning of Saturday, 7 Feb. 1477-8 (Notes and Queries, 4th ser. ii. 365, by Dr. W. Aldis Wright). He was the only surviving son of Sir John More, then a barrister, living in Milk Street, Cheapside. His mother was his father's first wife, Agnes, daughter of Thomas Graunger [see under ]. Thomas was sent at an early age to St. Anthony's school in Threadneedle Street. The head-master, Nicholas Holt, had already had under his care [q. v.], the future dean of St. Paul's, and [q. v.], both of whom were subsequently among More's intimate friends. At the age of thirteen More was placed by his father in the household of [q. v.], archbishop of Canterbury and lord chancellor. He was a merry boy, and his intellectual alertness attracted the attention of his master, who prophesied that he would prove 'a marvellous man.' 'At Christmas time he would suddenly, sometimes, step in among the players [in the archbishop's house], making up an extemporary part of his own.' Morton inspired the lad with lasting respect (cf. Utopia, ed. Arber, p. 36), and gave practical proof of his interest in his welfare by recommending that he should be sent to Oxford. About 1492 he seems to have entered Canterbury Hall, which was afterwards absorbed in Christ Church. His father gave him barely sufficient money to supply himself with necessaries, and he consequently had no opportunity of neglecting his studies for frivolous amusements. He made the acquaintance of [q. v.] and of [q. v.], both of whom had lately returned from Italy, and from the former he received his earliest instruction in Greek. He never became a minute scholar, but by intuition, or an 'instinct of genius,' he was soon able at a glance to detect the meaning of any Greek sentence put before him (cf., De Fructu, 1517, p. 82), and by steady practice he came to write an easy and harmonious Latin prose (, Epist. 447). Besides