Richard III and the
Parson of Blokesworth

For most of his life, before Fortune showered him with favor, John Morton, future bishop, archbishop, cardinal, chancellor, and friend to kings, was commonly known as the Parson of Blokesworth. In Edward IV's Act of attainder after the Battle of Towton in 1460, when he was around forty or fifty years old, he was described as ‘John Morton, late Parson of Blokesworth, in the shire of Dorset, clerk.’ Little did Edward guess at the time what a large role ‘John Morton, clerk,’ would play in his life, and in the events following his death that brought about the fall of the House of York.
John Morton was the eldest of five sons born to Richard Morton of Millborne St. Andrew and his wife, Cecilia Beauchamp in either 1410, or 1420. His parentage has been described as mean, though his family owned land and boasted an ancestor who had been Sherriff of Nottingham under Edward III. Morton received his education at the Benedictine Abbey of Cerne, where his uncle was most likely prior, and he went on to study at Oxford’s Balliol College. His lot there was probably not a happy one. Students slept four to five in a room on lumpy straw mattresses crawling with lice, and were served rotten meat and fish. Riots over the food were common. No doubt he was glad when, as Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University in 1446, he could enjoy a more luxurious lifestyle.
In 1451, Morton received his doctorate in both canon and civil law, with great distinction. Legal degrees have been described as the golden road to a miter in 15-century England, and in London’s ecclesiastical courts, such as the Court of Arches, opportunity for fame and riches abounded. Possessed of great talent, and even greater ambition, Morton lost no time getting himself to London where he could win the notice, and secure the patronage, of the mighty. With his formidable mind and eloquent tongue, he quickly achieved his purpose and came to the attention of Cardinal Bourchier, who in turn, introduced him to King Henry. He was appointed chancellor of the household of the young Prince of Wales, played a role in the infamous ‘Parliament of Devils’ that attainted the Yorkist leaders, and soon became one of Queen Margaret’s most trusted advisors. It was at this point in his life that the rich living of Blokesworth was bestowed upon him. In 1460, the Battle of Towton brought his rising star to an abrupt halt.
His biographer, Woodhouse, says he was most certainly in attendance upon King Henry at the fatal defeat of the Lancastrians at Towton, and that he probably defended his life with his sword. We are told by the historian, Grafton, that ‘The parson of Blokesworth fled the realm with the queen and the prince and never returned but to the field of Barnet.’ Morton appears to have been one of Margaret of Anjou’s two hundred attendants in Bruges, where they were well-treated by the kind and generous Phillip the Good. Their circumstances deteriorated later, however, when Queen Margaret moved to France and she was subject to deprivations at the court of Louis XI. This must have left Morton with a bitter taste for future exile, and may have influenced his decision to submit to Edward IV after Tewkesbury.
Under the Yorkist Sun, Morton’s star shot into ascendancy again. He rose to prominence as Master of the Rolls, and for a short while during the illness of Lord Chancellor Stillington, was entrusted with the Great Seal. Edward also dispatched him on embassies from Hungary to France, a sure mark of royal favor. The devious mind and lack of scruples that was to serve him so well under Henry VII, first displayed itself during this period. The historian Hook credits Morton with devising the underhanded, and hated, system of benevolences which Edward used to finance his invasion of France, and which he later developed into his infamous ‘Morton’s Fork’ argument of Henry’s reign, enabling Tudor to extract money from rich and poor alike.
In 1476, when Edward found himself in France and abandoned by his allies, he made a treaty with Louis XI that paid him a substantial sum to return to England. Edward may have seen the payment as akin to Roman tribute, but in the general view it was a bribe, and the treaty was considered shameful at the time. The Parson of Blokesworth, now ‘Doctor Morton,’ was one of only three royal officers Edward sent to negotiate its terms, and certainly this ingenious instrument of statecraft that cloaked Edward’s failure as triumph is sly enough to be worthy of crafty Morton, whose brainchild it may have been. Later, when Louis, in gratitude, paid Edward’s royal officers for their help with the treaty, Morton was high on the list and rode away from Picquigny not only with Louis’ money in his purse, but with Louis’ amity, from which he would one day reap astounding dividends.
In sharp contrast, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, preserved his integrity by condemning the Treaty of Picquigny and refusing Louis’ gold. Even though Richard had no way of knowing at the time that the long-term consequences of his action would prove fatal to him, he was no fool. He had to be fully aware that a king’s enmity was not without its dangers, yet he would not compromise his principles. Louis was never to forgive Richard for his refusal, delivered bluntly at a private dinner that Richard departed in such haste as to border on an insult. As a result, Richard incurred an enmity that would one day finance an invasion against him and win the throne for Tudor.
In his biography, Hook says that although Morton was “munificent on great occasions, yet he was avaricious and grasping.” Woodhouse states that Morton’s “munificence was great and untainted by the vice of avarice, which disgraced the sovereign.” However, Woodhouse then refers to Morton’s “raising of early strawberries” as an example of this ‘munificence,’ which proves to what startling lengths biographers are prepared to go in order to paint their subjects in the best light.
The truth is that Morton's ‘munificence’ was self-directed. He beautified the Bishop’s Palace, where he lived. He spent extravagantly on his own installation as bishop. He drained the marshy fens and cut a canal through to the sea at his own expense—which at first glance may seem an act of generosity. But Morton, a calculating character and far-sighted, may have simply been looking ahead to the day when his fortunes might change and he would be in need of an escape route.
In his grasping for money and power, and in his Lancastrian sympathies and disregard for justice, Morton had much in common with the Woodville Queen and her family.  Like them, he was low-born and a former Lancastrian who didn’t harmonise well with the old Yorkist families, since they had no sympathy for Lancastrians who had become loyal to Edward for lack of a Lancastrian pretender in the field, and resented seeing them elevated to the peerage.
In 1479, after he was consecrated as Bishop of Ely, Morton retired to private life and his gardens at Holborn, where he concerned himself with the discharge of his ecclesiastical duties. Either Morton’s ambitions had been realized at this point in his life—at least temporarily—or he didn’t anticipate any greater honors under Edward.
In 1483, he attended King Edward in his last illness and was appointed one of the executors of his will. Ever the politician, however, Morton refused to implement the will that named Richard as Protector and deprived the Woodvilles of their dream of seizing power for themselves. Shortly afterwards, he master-minded Buckingham’s rebellion and made his escape by means of the canal he himself had dug in the Fens. He has been named by many as Prime Suspect in the murder of the Princes, which helped to bring down Richard and secure the throne for Tudor. His involvement in the plots speaks volumes about the relationship between the two men.
After Richard’s death at Bosworth, Henry Tudor raised him to Archbishop of Canterbury, procured him a cardinal’s hat and made him Lord Chancellor. Under Henry, Morton reached his full flowering and gave Englishmen the taste of his quality.  He had the ear of the king, and Henry’s unabated trust, and is generally regarded as the author of his important legislation.
Whereas Richard had labored hard to secure justice for the poor, both by edict and by personally presiding over courts of appeal, Morton extended the jurisdiction of the Star Chamber and converted it into a terrifying instrument of oppressive government under the Tudors. Whereas Richard enacted statutes to protect the buyers of land from unscrupulous sellers who had sold the same property many times over, Morton enacted a law that made possession the deciding criteria. Whereas Richard “dampned and annulled forever” the right of the King to taxation without authority of Parliament, Morton devised a clever dilemma, known as Morton’s Fork, that allowed no man an escape. By this argument, royal commissioners told those who lived frugally that, obviously, they could afford the tax, because their parsimony had made them rich. Those who lived comfortably were told that, obviously, they were rich and could afford it.
Henry dated his reign from the day before the battle of Bosworth so he could hang for treason those who had fought for King Richard. Though it fits with Morton’s character, this edict has not been attributed to him. Much later, however, Morton is connected to a similar, very important piece of legislation—a statute that protects from treason all who fight for a sitting king. As Woodhouse, puts it:

“ . . .a belief had become very prevalent among the people that the Duke of York, younger son of Edward IV, still survived, and the apprehension that if he were restored those who fought for the present king, whose title was so defective, might be tried for treason… deterred many from joining the royal standard.”

Sir Thomas More has left us a slightly more flattering portrait of Morton, but according to Francis Bacon, he was a stern and haughty man, much hated at court, and even more so throughout the country.  In their rebellion against Tudor, the Cornish men raged against him, along with Reginald Bray, another of Henry VII’s advisors, “as parricides and vultures praying upon the poore and oppressed.”  Morton was so hated, in fact, that he feared for his life and came up with a legal means of providing for his own safety. Bacon imputes to Morton the passage of an act in Henry’s first Parliament that made it a capital crime for anyone to conspire the death of any lord of the realm or member of the king’s council, and gave the Star Chamber full jurisdiction. Now, merely on a word, Morton could make short shift of anyone he considered a threat to himself.
Like Napoleon, this “man of mean stature” also believed in absolute power. Not even the Church was exempt from his autocratic rule. According to the biographer, Budden, whom Woodhouse quotes, Morton’s object was to “give to the Pope despotic authority in things spiritual, and in things temporal, to concede the same despotisms to the king.”
His will is particularly enlightening. He left to the Church of Ely his silver cross weighing over 200 ounces, set with precious stones. In exchange for this, and also in gratitude for many other favors conferred, both while he sat as bishop, and afterwards, the Prior and Convent of Ely were expected to “find at their own expense” a monk to say daily masses for his soul, and the souls of his family, friends, and benefactors for twenty years.  This contrasts with the prevailing custom of leaving a bequest to fund services. What we have here is a man who kept book and never gave something away for nothing. A despot, attempting to direct men even from the grave.
In assessing Morton’s accomplishments and legacy, Woodhouse seems to accept Buck's assertion that More’s History of Richard III was probably originally written in Latin by Morton, and translated into English by Sir Thomas More, and he concludes that “His (Morton’s) literary attainments reflect still greater splendour upon him, and he is to be considered the author of the first prose composition in our language.”  Even if More had written it, Woodhouse says, “We have the story from the highest authority—Morton himself, who narrated it to Sir Thomas More.”
Far from casting ‘splendour’ on Morton, Morton's authorship of the History reveals some of the man's worse traits. Richard had no withered arm, otherwise he could not have performed so valiantly on the field of battle, unhorsing massive Cheyney at Bosworth, and killing Tudor’s champion, William Brandon. Clearly, Morton had no difficulty twisting the truth when it was expedient for him to do so, and no qualms defiling the honor of the dead. Perhaps the task of rewriting history, and destroying documents that conflicted with the truth, which Henry VII undertook after Morton’s death, was one of the ideas crafty Morton left his pupil.
In their aims, philosophy, and character, Richard and Morton could not have been more dissimilar. The way they lived their lives illustrates the differences between them and suggests what their personal relationship may have been like. The Treaty of Picquigny certainly highlights a dramatic difference: Richard lived by the rules, while Morton thrived by bending them. To Richard, principles, honor, integrity, meant everything; to Morton, besides money and power, only expediency mattered.
The two had little in common and were divided by a lengthy list of differences. On one side stands a man of honor; on the other an opportunist. It is probably safe to assume that Richard and the low-born Parson of Blokesworth who wiled his way to dizzy heights of power as Cardinal, and Lord Chancellor, and the confidante of kings, rarely saw eye to eye and probably disliked one another intensely.
‘Morton’s Fork’ has become the little bishop’s epitaph in history, but perhaps we should pause now to consider what the Chronicle of London and the antiquarian, Guthrie, have to say of him:

“in our tyme was no man lyke to be compared to hym in all thynges; Albeit that he lyved not without the great disdaynes and greate haterede of the commons of this lande.”

Guthrie  is more explicit. He says that Morton died of the plague and delivered the nation from a pestilence; that he neither inclined to, nor practiced, any moderation; and that there is no vestige on record of any virtue of humanity into which he deviated.
Contrast this with the cry of the heart from the men of York on learning of Richard’s death at Bosworth Field.



This article is based on the following works:
Walter Farquhar Hook’s Lives of the Archbishops
Woodhouse’s The Life of John Morton
Desmond Seward’s Wars of the Roses

i. Grafton, Richard, History of England, (London, 1809) p. 122
ii. So-called from the church in which it was held, St. Mary le Bow. The Court of Arches is a court of appeal in ecclesiastical cases under the direct jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
iii. With the possible exception of her brother, Anthony Woodville. See Worth, Sandra, Richard and the Queen’s Brother, Ricardian Register, Spring, 2001.
iv. The question whether they were murdered or survived remains open to debate. Our own Geoffrey Richardson is one who argues that they were done away with, and probably by Morton and Margaret Beaufort.(See The Deceivers.) For a fascinating discussion of the possible survival of at least one of the princes, see Audrey Williamson’s The Mystery of the Princes, and Diana Kleyn’s Richard of England
v. According to Woodhouse, “Although he appeared merely to execute the measures of the king, he was in reality the chief author of the system for controlling the power of the great feudal barons. . .  ” pp. 78-79
vi. Woodhouse, The Life of John Morton, 1885, pp. 82-83
vii. More says in Utopia that the doctor often adopted a caustic manner when talking to stranger in order to test their reaction, but that normally he was ‘lacking in no wise to win favor’
viii. Francis Bacon’s Life of Henry VII
ix. Williamson, Audrey, The Mystery of the Princes; Alan Sutton, 1981; p.157
x. More’s description.
xi. Budden, John, Life of John Morton, as quoted by Woodhouse, p. 95
xii. Bentham, James, M.A. History and Antiquities of the Conventual and Cathedral Church of Ely, 1771.
xiii. Woodhouse, Life of John Morton, p. 102
xiv. Cotton MS.Vitellius A. xvi. F.181 b. Chronicle of London, 1225-1509, in English, written temp. Hen VII and beginning Hen. VIII.
xv. William Guthrie’s History of England to 1688, 3 folio volumes, pub. 1744-1751.
xvi. As to be expected, Seward paints a more sympathetic portrait of Morton than even Woodhouse.

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