John Danvers on the site of the present Danvers Street (Faulkner, Chelsea, 2nd ed. i. 118; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. ii. 324, 516, iii. 317, 495-7; Gent. Mag. 1829, i. 497).
To the parish church of Chelsea More, probably in 1528, added a chapel, at the southern side of ‘the lower chancel,’ and it now forms part of the south aisle. The ‘More Chapel’ was apparently built for the accommodation of his large household during divine service, and the right to the pew there was sold with More House until 1629. In the tomb in the chancel, built in 1532, he deposited the remains of his first wife, intending that he himself and his second wife should be also buried there; but that intention was frustrated. The epitaph written by himself and the armorial bearings of himself and his wives were engraved on the tomb (Notes and Queries, 4th ser. iv. 611). It was restored before 1638, and again in 1833, when the slab containing the epitaph was removed to another site near at hand, and the words attesting his severity to heretics erased (Gent. Mag. 1833, ii. 481-6).
Strict in his religious observances, and always wearing a hair shirt next his skin, More encouraged in his parish church at Chelsea very simple forms of worship, and was once found by his friend the Duke of Norfolk, to the duke's disgust, wearing a surplice and singing in the choir.
But, like all the scholars of the new learning, More had strong artistic tastes. He filled his house with curious furniture and plate. He was fond of music, and, according to Richard Pace, he induced his wife, who had no claims to culture, to learn the flute with him (Pace, De Fructu qui ex doctrinâ percipitur, Basle, 1517).
Of painting, More was both a critic and a patron, and his relations with Holbein give him a place in the history of art. To the 1518 edition of the ‘Utopia’ Holbein contributed, at the request of Froben and Erasmus, besides the map, a genre picture of More and his friends listening to Raphael's narration, and he permitted engraved borders already issued in other books to reappear there. In 1526 Holbein first came to England on a visit to More, to whom Erasmus had introduced him, and it is said he stayed at Chelsea for three years. Holbein is not known to have undertaken any work for Henry VIII until 1536, but the king doubtless met him at More's house for the first time. Holbein returned More's hospitality by painting portraits of him and his family.
Erasmus described More in 1519 as of middle height, a complexion not very highly coloured, dark brown hair, and greyish blue, eyes. While in the Tower he let his beard grow, but through life he was almost clean shaven. It is thus that Holbein painted him. His expression in the pictures is always serious and penetrating, but the eyes look capable of a humorous twinkle. The earliest of Holbein's portraits of More is doubtless that painted in 1527, and now belonging to Edward Huth, esq. Two studies for it are in the royal collection at Windsor, along with sketches of More's father, his son, and daughter-in-law, and his daughters, Cecilia and Elizabeth; these were reproduced by Bartolozzi in Chamberlain's ‘Heads’ (1792). Another portrait, dated 1532, belongs to T. L. Thurlow, esq. More and his father were also painted together by Holbein in a picture belonging to Sir Henry Vane. A portrait, said to be by a pupil of Holbein, from the Windsor sketch is in the National Portrait Gallery. A half-length of uncertain authorship belongs to Baroness Burdett-Coutts, and another is at Knole House, Sevenoaks. A genuine Holbein in the Louvre, usually said to represent More, is a portrait of Sir Henry Wyatt; and a spurious Holbein in the Brussels Gallery, which was engraved by Vorsterman, and is reproduced in Le Clerc's edition of Erasmus's correspondence as a portrait of More, is by the French artist Clouet, and does not tally with any authentic picture of More. The face is bearded, and a dog lies before the figure.
Holbein also painted a large group of More's household. The original sketch, which More sent to Erasmus, is now in the Basle Museum, and supplies the names and ages, in More's handwriting, of all the persons depicted, with some suggestions for alterations in Holbein's autograph. It was engraved by Mechel in 1787, with the added inscription, ‘Johannes Holbein ad vivum delin. Londini, 1530’—a date probably three years too late (Seebohm, pp. 525-6). A second engraving, by Mechel, of More's family, ‘Ex tabula Joh. Holbenii in Anglia adservata,' was a fanciful exercise of the engraver (Woltmann, Holbein, p. 321, note). The Basle sketch includes More, his father, his second wife, three daughters, his son John More and his son's future wife, Anne Cresacre, his ward Mrs. Clements, and Henry Pattenson, his jester, with two servants in a room behind. The finished picture is lost. In 1530 it was in the collection of Andreas de Loo in London, whence it passed to William Roper at Well Hall, Eltham, and soon after his death in 1578 to a grandson of the chancellor. An authentic sixteenth-century copy is now at Nostell Priory, the property of Lord St. Oswald, to whose an-
