Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/419

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More
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More

Peinture Flamande; information from Dr. C. Hofstede de Groot and George Scharf, esq., C.B.]

L. C.

MORE, EDWARD (1479–1541), divine, described as of Havant, was born in 1479, and was elected a scholar of Winchester College in 1492. He seems to have afterwards proceeded to New College, Oxford, and supplicated for the degree of B.D. in 1518. From 1498 to 1502 he held a fellowship at Winchester, and was head-master from 1508 to 1517. He was at a later date appointed canon of Chichester, was instituted vicar of Isleworth on 3 March 1514-15, and on resigning that living in August 1521 became rector of Cranford (Newcourt, Repertorium, i. 595, 675). On 29 Oct. 1526 he was admitted the eighth warden of Winchester College, and held that office, together with the rectory of Cranford, till his death. From 1528 to 1531 he was also archdeacon of Lewes (Le Neve, i. 263). As a schoolmaster he was reckoned a stern disciplinarian. In the Latin poem descriptive of the wardens of Winchester (in Willes's 'Poemata,' 1573), Christopher Johnson [q. v.], the author, writes:

Qui legit hic Morum, qui non et sensit eundem,
   Gaudeat, et secum molliter esse putet.

More died in 1541, and was buried in the choir of Winchester College Chapel.

Another Edward More (1537?–1620), born about 1537, was third son (by his wife Anne Cresacre) of John More, the only son of Sir Thomas More [q. v.] He wrote a poem in rhyming ballad metre, entitled 'A lytle and bryefe treatyse called the Defence of Women, and especially of Englyshe women, made agaynst "The Schole House" [i.e. a published denunciation of women by Edward Gosynhyll, q. v.],' London, by John Kynge, 1560, 4to. More's book was licensed for publication in 1557-8. Copies are in the Bodleian and British Museum libraries. The dedication, dated 20 July 1557, from Hambledon, Buckinghamshire, is addressed to Sir Philip Hoby [q. v.] Hambledon was the seat of John Scrope, whose daughter married Edward More's eldest brother, Thomas. More describes himself at the time as twenty years old. Wood states that he wrote 'several little things ' besides (Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 249-52). More's work was again licensed for publication to John Tisdale in 1563. Cresacre More, a nephew of Edward More, wrote of his uncle about 1600 that he was 'endowed with excellent gifts of nature, has a ready wit, tongue at will, and his pen glib, yet God knows he hath drowned all his talents in self-conceit in no worthy qualities.' He was buried at Barnborough, Yorkshire, on 2 May 1620. His sons Henry and Thomas, the jesuits, are noticed under Henry More, 1586-1661.

[Kirby's Winchester Scholars; Wood's Fasti Oxon.; H. C. Adams's Wykehamica, p. 75; Hazlitt's Bibliographical Collections; Ritson's Bibl.Poetica; Cresacre More's Life of Sir Thomas More, ed. Hunter, p. xlviii; cf. Foley's Records of Jesuits, xii. 702 sq.]

S. L.

MORE or MOORE, Sir GEORGE (1553–1632), lieutenant of the Tower of London, eldest son of Sir William More, sheriff and vice-admiral of Surrey, was born on 28 Nov. 1553 at Loseley, near Guildford. A letter to his father from William Cole [q. v.], the president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, proves that he was sent to study there in the summer of 1570 (1578 is an evident misprint), and was placed under the president's personal supervision (Loseley MSS. ed. Kempe). He was created M.A. on James's visit to Oxford on 30 Aug. 1605. Another George More matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, on 3 Dec. 1575, aged 20, and took no degree (Wood, Athenæ Oxon.ii.354). And yet another graduated B.A. 20 Feb. 1571-2 and M.A. 21 Jan. 1572-3. In 1574 the future lieutenant became a student at the Inner Temple (ib.) In 1604 he presented to the Bodleian some manuscripts and 40l. to buy books. More first entered parliament as member for Guildford in 1584-5, and represented that place in four parliaments of Elizabeth (1586-7, 1588-9, and 1593), and three of James I (1604-11, 1624-5). But he sat for Surrey in 1597-8, in 1614, and 1621-1622, and in the first two parliaments of Charles I's reign (1625 and 1626) (cf.Foster, Alumni Oxon. loc. cit.; Official Returns of Members of Parliament, passim). He is spoken of in Elizabeth's time as a frequent speaker, 'much esteemed for his excellent parts,' and his name constantly recurs in the debates under James I and Charles I,though he took no very prominent share in them. Wood says he was beloved of Elizabeth for his many services to the commonwealth. She knighted him in 1597, and at the same time he was made sheriff of Surrey and Sussex for the next year. About this time More obtained the wardship of young Edward Herbert, afterwards first Lord Herbert of Cherbury [q. v.], by the payment of 800l. to his guardian, Sir Francis Newport.

On his father's death in 1600 More succeeded to the Loseley estate, where the queen had previously paid the family four visits; on 3 Nov. 1601 he received a grant of the lordship and hundred of Godalming, and in 1602-3, shortly before the queen's death, was made one of the chamberlains of receipt of the