Chapter XXV: Appendix: C

ON THE DATE OF MORE’S BIRTH.

The following correspondence in ‘Notes and Queries’ (Oct. 1868) may be considered, I think, to set at rest the date of Sir Thomas More’s birth.

No. 1 (Oct. 17, 1868).

‘Some months ago I found the following entries, relating to a family of the name of More, on two blank leaves of a MS. in the Gale collection, in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. The class mark of the volume is “O. 2. 21.” Its contents are very miscellaneous. Among other things is a copy of the poem of Walter de Biblesworth, printed by Mr. Thomas Wright in his volume of _Vocabularies_ from the Arundel MS. The date of this is early fourteenth century. The names of former possessors of the volume are “Le: Fludd” and “G. Carew;” the latter being probably Sir George Carew, afterwards Earl of Totness. The entries which I have copied are on the last leaf and the last leaf but one of the volume. I have added the dates in square brackets, and expanded the contractions:

‘“M{d} quod die dominica in vigilia Sancti Marce Evangeliste Anno Regni Regis Edwardi quarti post conquestum Anglie quartodecimo Johannes More Gent. maritatus fuit Agneti filie Thome Graunger in parochia sancti Egidij extra Crepylgate london. [24 April, 1474.]

‘“M{ed} quod die sabbati in vigilia sancti gregorij pape inter horam primam & horam secundam post Meridiem eiusdem diei Anno Regni Regis Edwardi quarti post conquestum Anglie xv{o} nata fuit Johanna More filia Johannis More Gent. [11 March, 1474-5.]

‘“M{d} quod die veneris proximo post Festum purificacionis beate Marie virginis videlicet septimo die Februarij inter horam secundam et horam terciam in Mane natus fuit Thomas More filius Johannis More Gent. Anno Regni Regis Edwardi quarti post conquestum Anglie decimo septimo. [7 Feb. 1477-8.]

‘“M{d} quod die dominica videlicet vltimo die Januarij inter horam septimam et horam octauam ante Meridiem Anno regni Regis Edwardi quarti decimo octauo nata fuit Agatha filia Johannis More Gentilman. [31 Jan. 1478-9.]

‘“M{d} quod die Martis videlicet vj{to} die Junij inter horam decimam & horam vndecimam ante Meridiem natus fuit Johannes More filius Johannis More Gent. Anno regni Regis Edwardi quarti vicesimo. [6 June, 1480.]

‘“Me{d} quod die lune viz. tercio die Septembris inter horam secundam & horam terciam in Mane natus fuit Edwardus Moore filius Johannis More Gent. Anno regni regis Edwardi iiij{ti} post conquestum xxj{o}. [3 Sept. 1481.]

‘“M{d} quod die dominica videlicet xxij{o} die Septembris anno regni regis Edwardi iiij{ti} xxij{o} inter horam quartam & quintam in Mane nata fuit Elizabeth More filia Johannis More Gent.” [22 Sept. 1482.]

‘It will be seen that these entries record the marriage of a John More, gent., in the parish church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, and the births of his six children, Johanna, Thomas, Agatha, John, Edward, and Elizabeth.

‘Now it is known that Sir Thomas More was born, his biographers vaguely say, _about_ 1480 in Milk Street, Cheapside, which is in the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate; that he was the son of Sir John More, afterwards Lord Chief Justice, who, at the time of his son’s birth, was a barrister, and would be described as “John More, gent.”; and that he had two sisters, Jane or Joane (Wordsworth’s _Eccl. Biog._ ii. 49), married to Richard Stafferton, and Elizabeth, wife to John Rastall the printer, and mother of Sir William Rastall (born 1508), afterwards Lord Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench.

‘The third entry above given records the birth of Thomas, son of John More, who had been married in the church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, and may be presumed to have lived in the parish. The date of his birth is Feb. 7, 1477-8; that is, according to modern reckoning, 1478, and therefore “_about_ 1480.” Oddly enough, the day of the week in this entry is wrong. It is Friday, which in 1477-8 was Feb. 6. But Thomas was born between two and three in the morning of Saturday, Feb. 7. The confusion is obvious and natural.

‘The second and last entries record the births of his sisters Johanna and Elizabeth. The former of these names appears to have been a favourite in the family of Sir John More, and was the name of his grandmother, the daughter of John Leycester.

‘I may add, that the entries are all in a contemporary hand, and their formal character favours the supposition that they were made by some one familiar with legal documents, and probably by a lawyer.

‘This remarkable series of coincidences led me at first to believe that I had discovered the entry of the birth of Sir Thomas More. But, upon investigation, I was met by a difficulty which at present I have been unable to solve. In the life of the Chancellor by Cresacre More, his great-grandson, the name of Sir Thomas More’s mother is said to have been “Handcombe of Holliwell in Bedfordshire.” This fact is not mentioned by Roper, who lived many years in his house, and married his favourite daughter, or by any other of his biographers. The question, therefore, is whether the authority of Cresacre More on this point is to be admitted as absolute. He was not born till nearly forty years after Sir Thomas More’s death, and his book was not written till between eighty and ninety years after it. We must take into consideration these facts in estimating the amount of weight to be attached to his evidence as to the name of his great-great-grandmother.

‘Were there then two John Mores of the rank of gentlemen, both apparently lawyers, living at the same time, in the same parish, and both having three children bearing the same names; or was John More, who married Agnes Graunger, the future Chief Justice and father of the future Chancellor? To these questions, in the absence of Cresacre More’s statement, the accumulation of coincidences would have made it easy to give a very positive answer. Is his authority to be weighed against them?

‘Stapylton’s assertion that Sir Thomas More had no brothers presents no difficulty, as they may have died in infancy. The entries which I have quoted would explain why he was called Thomas, after his maternal grandfather.

‘If any heraldic readers of “Notes and Queries” could find what are the arms quartered with those of More upon the Chancellor’s tomb at Chelsea, they would probably throw some light upon the question. Mr. Hunter describes them as “three bezants on a chevron between three unicorns’ heads.”

‘WILLIAM ALDIS WRIGHT.

‘Trinity College, Cambridge.’

No. 2 (Oct. 31, 1868).

‘There can, I think, be no reasonable doubt that Mr. Wright’s discovery has set at rest the perplexing question of the true date of Sir Thomas More’s birth. In the note in the Appendix to my “Oxford Reformers” I was obliged to leave the question undecided, whilst inclined to believe that the weight of evidence preponderated in favour of the received date--1480. What appeared almost incontrovertible evidence in favour of 1480 was the evidence of the pictures of Sir Thomas More’s family by Holbein. The most certainly authentic of these is the original pen-and-ink sketch in the Basle Museum. Upon Mechel’s engraving of this (dated 1787), Sir Thomas’s age is marked “50,” and at the bottom of the picture is the inscription, “Johannes Holbein ad Vivum delin.: Londini: 1530.” This seemed to be almost conclusive evidence that he was born in 1480. If Sir Thomas was born in Feb. 1478, according to the newly discovered entries, and was fifty when the picture was sketched by Holbein, the sketch obviously cannot have been made in 1530, but two or three years earlier.

‘Now if it may be supposed that the sketch was made during the summer or autumn of 1527, I think it will be found that all other chronological difficulties will vanish before the newly discovered date.

‘1. More himself would be in his fiftieth year in 1527.

‘2. Ann Cresacre, marked on the sketch as “15,” would have only recently completed her fifteenth year, as, according to her tombstone, she was in her sixty-sixth year in Dec. 1577; and according to the inscription on the Burford picture she was born in 3 Henry VIII.

‘3. Margaret Roper, marked on the sketch “22,” would be born in 1505 or 1506, and this would allow of More’s marriage having taken place in 20 Henry VII. 1505, as stated on the Burford picture.

‘4. Sir Thomas would be forty-one in July, 1519, and this accords with Erasmus’s statement in his letter to Hutten of that date (_Epist._ ccccxlvii.)--“ipse novi hominem, non majorem annis _viginti tribus_, nam _nunc non multum excessit quadragesimum_.” He would be only one year past forty. Erasmus first became acquainted with More probably in the course of 1498, when (being born in February) he was in his twentieth year. The “viginti tribus” must in any case be an error.

‘5. John More, jun., marked “19” in the sketch, would be “more or less than thirteen” as reported by Erasmus in 1521. (_Epist._ dcv.)

‘6. More’s epigram, which speaks of “quinque lustra” (_i.e._ twenty-five years), having passed since he was “quater quatuor” (sixteen), and thus makes him forty-one when he wrote it, would (if he was born in 1478) give 1519 as the date of the epigram; and this corresponds with the fact, that the Basle edition of 1518 (_Mori Epigrammata_, Froben) did not contain it, while it was inserted in the second edition of 1520.

‘7. There is a passage in More’s “History of Richard III.,” in which the writer speaks of having himself overheard a conversation which took place in 1483.

‘Mr. Gairdner, in his “Letters, &c. of Richard III. and Henry VII.” (vol. ii. preface, p. xxi), rightly points out that, if born in 1480, More, being then only three years old, could not have remembered overhearing a conversation. But if born in Feb. 1478, he would be in his sixth year, and could easily do so.

‘On the whole, therefore, the newly discovered date dispels all the apparent difficulties with which the received date is beset, if only it may be assumed that the true date of the Basle sketch was 1527, and not (as inscribed upon Mechel’s engraving and upon the English pictures of the family of Sir Thomas More) 1530.

‘Since I published my “Oxford Reformers” I have obtained a photograph of the Basle sketch itself, which dispels this difficulty also, as it bears upon it _no date at all_.

‘The date, 1530, on the pictures appears to rest upon no good authority. Holbein, in fact, had left England the year before. I therefore have little doubt that the remarkable document discovered by Mr. Wright is perfectly genuine.

‘Should the arms quartered with those of More upon the Chancellor’s tomb at Chelsea prove to be the arms of “Graunger,” the evidence would indeed be complete.

‘FREDERIC SEEBOHM.

‘Hitchin.’

No. 3 (Oct. 31, 1868).

‘Mr. Wright will find the lineage of Sir Thomas More and his father discussed at some length in my “Judges of England,” vol. v. pp. 190-206; and I have very little doubt that the John More whose marriage is recorded in the first entry was the person who afterwards became a Judge (not Chief Justice, as Mr. Wright by mistake calls him), and that Thomas More, whose birth is recorded in the third entry, was the illustrious Lord Chancellor. The only difficulty arises from John More’s wife being named “Agnes daughter of Thomas Graunger;” but this difficulty is easily discarded, since Cresacre More, who wrote between eighty and ninety years after the Chancellor’s death, is the only author who gives another name, and his other biographer, who wrote immediately after his death, gives the lady no name at all.

‘John More married three times; and he must have been a very young man on his first marriage with Agnes Graunger (supposing that to be the name of his first wife), by whom only he had children.

‘I have stated in my account that there were two John Mores who were contemporaries at a period considerably earlier, one of Lincoln’s Inn and the other of the Middle Temple. Of the lineage of the latter there is no account; but of the former I have stated my conviction that he was the father of the John More whose marriage is here recorded, and consequently the grandfather of Sir Thomas More; and thus, as both the John Mores had originally filled dependent employment in Lincoln’s Inn, the modest description of his origin given by Sir Thomas in his epitaph, “familiâ non celebri, sed honestâ natus,” is at once accounted for.

‘EDWARD FOSS.’

No. 4 (Oct. 31, 1868).

‘Permit me to set your correspondent right in a minor particular, which he looks to as confirming his theory, though I trust he may be able to substantiate it otherwise. Mr. Wright says--“Milk Street, Cheapside ... is in the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate:” it is not so, as several parishes intervene; Milk Street is _within_ the walls, whereas St. Giles’s is _without_. Mr. Wright might have seen this by the wording of his first quotation:--“in parochia Egidij extra Crepylgate;” the word “extra” implies beyond the walls. Milk Street is in the _ward_ of Cripplegate Within, not in the _parish_ of St. Giles Without, Cripplegate--a distinction not obvious to strangers.

‘A great part of the district now called Cripplegate _Without_ was originally moor or fen: we have a Moorfields, now fields no more; and a “More” or Moor Lane. I cannot suppose the latter to have been named after the author of “Utopia;” but as he really emanated from this locality, possibly his family was named from the neighbouring moor. The Chancellor bore for his crest “a Moor’s head affrontée sable.” I would not wish to affront his memory by adding more, but your readers will find something on this subject _antè_, 3rd S. xii. 199, 238.

‘A. H.’

No. 5 (Nov. 5, 1868).

‘I am indebted to your correspondents, Mr. Foss and A. H., for their corrections of two inaccuracies in my paper on Sir Thomas More. Fortunately, neither of these affects the strength of my case. It is sufficient that Milk Street and the church of St. Giles’, Cripplegate, are so near as to render it probable that a resident in the one might be married at the other. If, therefore, for “the same parish” I substitute “the same ward,” my case remains substantially as strong as before. My mistake arose from not observing that the map in Strype’s edition of Stow’s _Survey_, which I consulted, was a map of Cripplegate Ward, and not of the parish of St. Giles’.

‘Before writing to you, I had, of course, consulted Mr. Foss’s _Judges of England_, but found nothing there bearing upon the point on which I wanted assistance, viz., the name and arms of Sir Thomas More’s mother.

‘WILLIAM ALDIS WRIGHT.

‘Trinity College, Cambridge.’