Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/841

 MORE at the bar and in parliament was frequently successful against the claims of the crown. His effective opposition to a royal grant, caus- ing Henry VII. to declare that "a beardless boy had disappointed all his purpose," drew a ^ine and imprisonment upon his father, and he imself had resolved to leave the country at time of that monarch's death. After the sion of Henry VIII. he was still more rominently employed in public affairs. In 1514 and 1515 he was sent on embassies to the Netherlands with reference to commercial in- 2ourse ; after his return he became a privy )uncillor ; in 1521 he was knighted and made 3asurer of the exchequer; and at various imes he was employed in France to manage 'ie intrigues of Wolsey with Francis I. When irliament assembled in 1523, he was chosen iker of the house of commons, and dis- his tact and quiet firmness when the by its silence refused a heavy grant rhich Cardinal Wolsey had appeared in state demand. In 1525 he was appointed chan- llor of the duchy of Lancaster ; in 1527 he accompanied Wolsey on his magnificent em- sy to France ; and about this time he pub- shed several learned, witty, and bitter pam- )hlets against the reformers. He succeeded to ie lord chancellorship in 1529, after the fall " Wolsey, and in this position evaded the de- id of the king for an opinion concerning his divorce from Queen Catharine. The charges that he was over-zealous in his official efforts for the suppression of heresy were partially denied in his " Apology," written in 1533. He constantly refused to lend his authority to the king's project of divorce and second marriage ; and after holding the great seal for two and a half years, he determined no longer to coun- tenance by his official position measures which he ^ disapproved, and obtained permission to resign. In his house at Chelsea he lived in retirement, making ready for evil times. Im- plicated in the alleged imposture of Elizabeth Barton, the nun of Kent, whom he believed to be inspired, he was yet in the investigation treated leniently. When at length in 1534 he was required to swear allegiance to the act of succession for securing the throne to the off- spring of Anne Boleyn, he refused, and was committed to the tower for misprision of trea- son, where he remained more than a year, with permission to receive his relatives and corre- spond with his friends. A deputation then waited on him to urge his acknowledgment of the royal supremacy, but he declined to an- swer. The council interrogated him again and again in subsequent interviews ; but finally (July 1, 1535) he was brought to the bar of the high commission charged with traitorously imagining and attempting to deprive the king of his title as supreme head of the church. He was condemned, and returned to the tower. On the morning of his execution he dressed in his most elaborate costume, preserved his com- posure to the last, and, as the fatal stroke was MOREAU 823 about to fall, signed for a moment's delay while he moved aside his beard, murmuring : 'Pity that should be cut; that has not com- mitted treason." There is little information concerning the style of More's oratory. In his prose writings, but a very small part of his vo- cabulary has become superannuated. His frag- mentary "History of Richard III." (1641) is the first example of classical English prose. The work by which he is chiefly known is his Utopia, published in Latin (Louvain, 1516 ; Basel, 1518), and soon translated into English, French, Dutch, and Italian. It is an account of an imaginary commonwealth in the island of Utopia, feigned to have been discovered by a companion of Amerigo Vespucci, from whom More learns the tale. Society there is represented as free from indolence and ava- rice, luxury and want, oppression and intoler- ance; and the ideas that pervade the account are in advance of the age of the author. The best English translation is by Bishop Burnet. A collection of More's Latin works was pub- lished at Louvain in 1556, and of his English works at London in 1557. There are biogra- phies by his son-in-law Roper (1626), Hoddes- den (1652), his great-grandson Thomas More (1726), and Sir James Mackintosh (" Cabinet Cyclopaedia," 1831). MOREA. See PELOPONNESUS. MOREAU, Jean Victor, a French general, born at Morlaix, Aug. 11, 1763, died at Laun, Bohe- mia, Sept. 2, 1813. He studied law at Rennes, and in 1787 was made provost of the school. He supported the parliament of Brittany in its opposition to the crown, but afterward exerted his influence against it, and became the leader of the revolutionary party at Rennes. In 1792, at the head of a battalion of volunteers, he joined the army of the north, was made a brigadier general in 1793, and general of divi- sion in 1794. Commanding the right wing of the army under Pichegru, he had an important share in the conquest of Holland. In the campaign of 1796 he was commander-in-chief of the army of the Rhine and Moselle, defeated the Austrians under the archduke Charles at Neresheim, Aug. 11, and penetrated to the centre of Bavaria; but hearing of Jourdan's defeat at Wurzburg, and being aware that the archduke with all the Austrian forces in Ger- many was falling upon him, he made a mas- terly retreat in the face of two powerful armies, so that on arriving in Alsace after an orderly march of 26 days, his own force was unimpaired, and he had 18 guns and 2 standards taken from the enemy, and nearly 7,000 prison- ers. In the following year he recrossed the Rhine and took the fortress of Kehl, but was stopped by the news of the preliminaries of Leoben. He was suspected on account of his friendship for Pichegru, and for 18 months remained out of service. The directorial gov- ernment recalled him in the day of danger. Sent to northern Italy under Scherer, who left aim in command of the French troops when