John More, Detail of Study for portrait of the More family, by Hans Holbein the Younger

Sir John More ( – 1530) was an English lawyer and judge. He was the father of

Sir Thomas More Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lord ...

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...

Lord Chancellor The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. The ...

Family

Rowland Lockey Thomas More and Descendents

More was the son of William More (d. 1467), a London

baker A baker is a tradesperson who bakes and sometimes sells breads and other products made of flour by using an oven or other concentrated heat source. The place where a baker works is called a bakery. History Ancient history Since grains ha ...

, and Joanna Joye, daughter and heir of a London

brewer Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains, the most popular of which is barley) in water and fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with yeast. It may be done in a brewery by a commercial brewer, ...

, John Joye, and granddaughter and heir of a London Chancery clerk, John Leycester.

Career

More entered

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...

in either 1470 or 1475, was called to be a

Serjeant-at-law A Serjeant-at-Law (SL), commonly known simply as a Serjeant, was a member of an order of barristers at the English and Irish Bar. The position of Serjeant-at-Law (''servientes ad legem''), or Sergeant-Counter, was centuries old; there are writ ...

in 1503, a

Justice of Assize The courts of assize, or assizes (), were periodic courts held around England and Wales until 1972, when together with the quarter sessions they were abolished by the Courts Act 1971 and replaced by a single permanent Crown Court. The assizes ...

in 1513, a

Justice of the Common Pleas Justice of the Common Pleas was a puisne judicial position within the Court of Common Pleas of England and Wales, under the Chief Justice. The Common Pleas was the primary court of common law within England and Wales, dealing with "common" pleas ...

in 1518, and finally to the

King's Bench The King's Bench (), or, during the reign of a female monarch, the Queen's Bench ('), refers to several contemporary and historical courts in some Commonwealth jurisdictions. * Court of King's Bench (England), a historic court court of commo ...

in 1520, where he remained until his death. More inherited the manor of Gobions in

North Mymms North Mymms is a civil parish in the English county of Hertfordshire. At the 2011 Census the civil parish had a population of 8,921. The village itself is an enclosure. North Mymms Park and Brookmans Park enclose large areas of the parish. Even th ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

, and tenements in London, and also purchased more land in Hertfordshire. He was granted a

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central ele ...

during

Edward IV Edward IV (28 April 1442 – 9 April 1483) was King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, then again from 11 April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in England ...

's reign. He also helped to fund his son-in-law

John Rastell John Rastell (or Rastall) (c. 1475 – 1536) was an English printer, author, member of parliament, and barrister. Life Born in Coventry, he is vaguely reported by Anthony à Wood to have been "educated for a time in grammaticals and philosophi ...

's attempt to reach and settle the New World in 1517, which got only as far as

Waterford "Waterford remains the untaken city" , mapsize = 220px , pushpin_map = Ireland#Europe , pushpin_map_caption = Location within Ireland##Location within Europe , pushpin_relief = 1 , coordinates ...

before the sailors abandoned Rastell and sold his cargo. More made his will on 26 February 1527, naming his son,

, as one of his executors and asking for his remains to be buried in the City of London church of

St Lawrence Jewry St Lawrence Jewry next Guildhall is a Church of England guild church in the City of London on Gresham Street, next to Guildhall. It was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, and rebuilt to the designs of Sir Christopher Wren. It is the ...

. The will, proved on 5 November 1530, included provision for prayers for the souls of family members and for the soul of

King Edward IV Edward IV (28 April 1442 – 9 April 1483) was King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, then again from 11 April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in Englan ...

Marriages and issue

On 24 April 1474, at

St Giles-without-Cripplegate St Giles-without-Cripplegate is an Anglican church in the City of London, located on Fore Street within the modern Barbican complex. When built it stood without (that is, outside) the city wall, near the Cripplegate. The church is dedicated to S ...

, More married Agnes Graunger (d.1499), the daughter of Thomas Graunger, a London tallow-chandler and

alderman An alderman is a member of a Municipal government, municipal assembly or council in many Jurisdiction, jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council membe ...

, by whom he had three sons and three daughters: *Joanna More, born 11 March 1475, who married Richard Staverton, a lawyer of Lincoln's Inn. *

(6/7 February 1478 - 6 July 1535). *Agatha More, born 1479, died young. *John More, born 6 June 1480, died young. *Edward More, born 1481, died young. *Elizabeth More, born 22 September 1482, who married the printer,

(1475-1536). After his first wife's death in about 1499, More married secondly, Joan (d. 1505), the widow of John Marshall, mercer; thirdly Joan (d. 1520), the widow of another London mercer, Thomas Bowes; and fourthly Alice More, the sister of Sir Christopher More of Loseley,

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

, and widow of William Huntingdon of

Exeter Exeter () is a city in Devon, South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter was established as the base of Legio II Augusta under the personal comm ...

and of John Clerke. Alice survived him and died at North Mymms in 1545.;

Footnotes

References

* * * * * *

External links

''Principal Line of Descendants Through Thomas More’s One Son, John'', Centre for Thomas More Studies Will of Sir John More, National Archives ‘’More Hall, Brookmans Park, North Mymms, Hertfordshire’’, Richard III Society
* {{DEFAULTSORT:More, John 1450s births 1530 deaths 15th-century English lawyers English Roman Catholics Justices of the Common Pleas Justices of the King's Bench 15th-century English people 16th-century English judges More family English knights Lawyers from London 16th-century English lawyers Serjeants-at-law (England)