MOKTLAKE 



MORVERN 



Mortlaltr. a jMU-icli of Surrey, on tin- south 



bank <>f the Thames, 2 mi!.- KN'K. of Kid >n.l 



and 8 W. b> S. ,,t London. From 1619 to 17'>:t it 

 was famous for iUt ta]>cstry works; now malting 

 and brewing are the leading industries. It is also 

 a great boating-place, '! "Moid and OkmbrUM 

 race being rowed from Putney to Mortlake. It 

 has associations with Archbishops Anwlin ami 

 Cranmer. the astrologers l)r Deo and Jnhn Part- 

 ridge, Cromwell, Swift and St.-lla, Sir Philip 

 Francis, Sir Pochard Owen, and Sir Richard 

 Bnrum. 1W ( IS.11 ) 3110; ( 1881 ) 15330. See John 

 E. Andersons Hittory of Mortlukt (priv. printed, 

 1888). 



Mortmain (Fr. morte main) signifies in law 

 the dead hand of a corporation. At an early 

 period (1279) the English parliament took note 

 of the mischief which resulted from the transfer of 

 land to religious corporations; statutes were passed 

 restricting the right of corporations generally to 

 hold land. At the present day a corporation, 

 whether it l>e a college or a railway company, can- 

 not acquire and dispose of land, except in so far as 

 its charter or act of parliament authorises it to 

 do so. The statutes of mortmain were directed 

 against corporations generally ; the no-called Mort- 

 main Act of 1730 was apparently intended to guard 

 against improvident gifts of land by will for chari- 

 table purposes. The Mortmain and Charitable 

 Uses Act, 1891, allows land to be. left by will ; but 

 it must be sold within a year or oilier period 

 fixed by the High Court or Charity Commis- 

 sioners. Money given to purchase' land, and 

 moneys charged upon land, are w ithin the provisions. 

 Land situated in Scotland, in the colonies, or in 

 foreign countries is not within the policy of the 

 English statutes. In Scotland the common law 

 put a somewhat similar check on deathbed aliena- 

 tions of land ; but this check has been abolished by 

 statute. In the I'nited States the laws of several 

 states limit the amount of real estate which may 

 I* held by religious lx>dics and charitable societies; 

 and the laws of the United States impose a limit 

 in the Territories. 



Morton. JAMES DOUGLAS, EARL OF, regent of 

 Scotland, was Ixirn in the first quarter of the 16th 

 century, the younger son of Sir Qeorge Dnnglas of 

 I'ittendricch. near Edinburgh. In 15.>3, in right 

 of his wife Elizabeth, daughter of the third Earl of 

 Morton, he succeeded to the title and estates of 

 that earldom. He joined the KI formers in l.V>7 : 

 in 1561 was sworn a privy-councillor ; and in l.Mi.'l 

 was made Lord High Chancellor. Having Wne 

 a foremost part in Ki//.io's assassination { \~M\), he 

 lied with lux associates to England, but, through 

 Bothwell's interest, in eight months obtained bis 

 pardon from the queen. He was privy to the 

 design for Darnley's murder, but was puri>osely 

 absent from Edinburgh on the night of the tragedy 

 (1567); and, on Uothwell's abduction of Mary, he 

 joined the confederacy of the nobles against them. 

 He figured prominently at Carl>erry Hill ; dis- 

 covered the ' Casket Letters ; ' led ' the van at 

 Langside (1568); and, after the brief regencies of 

 Moray, Lennox, and Mar, in Noveml>cr l.~>7'2 was 

 himself elected regent. His whole policy was 

 directed in favour of Kli/.al>ctli,from whom in if>71 he 

 was receiving bril>es; and his high-handed treatment 

 alike of the nobles and of the Presbyterian clergy, 

 his attempts to restore episcopacy, and the a-vaiii > 

 and rap.-iciiy imputed to him, daily swelled the 

 number of bis enemies, who already included all 

 Mary's adherents. He seemed to have retrieved 

 his temporary downfall by the seizure two months 

 later of Stirling Castle *( May I578); but Esme 

 Stuart in 1980 completely supplanted him in young 

 King James's favour ; and on 2d June 1581, as ' art 



and part ' in Darnley's murder, he w a- lieheaded 

 with bis own 'Maiden' in the Edinburgh <iran- 

 market. ' lie died proudly, said his enemies, ami 

 K. .nun like, as he had lived : constantly, humbly, 

 and Christian like, said the pastors who were 

 baboUm.' 



See Doroi.As, MART QDKEK op SCOTS, and JAMES VI., 

 with works there cited ; aln> Mr T. F. Henderson's article 

 in vol. xv. of the Diet, of Kat. Biug. (1888). 



Morton. JOHN, Cardinal, and Archbishop of 

 Canterbury, was born at Milbntne Si Andrew, in 

 Dorsetshire, about 1420, studied nt Cerne Ablx-y 

 and Kalliol College, and practised as advocate in 

 the Court of Arches. Holder of various ecclesias- 

 tical preferments and a member of Privy. council, 

 he adhered with great fidelity to Henry VI., yet 

 by Edward IV. wits made Master of the Itolls and 

 Bishop of Ely. Richard III. imprisoned him, but 

 he escaped, and joining Henry VII. was by him 

 made Archbishop of Canterbury and chancellor 

 (1486). In I l'.i:i he became a 'cardinal ; and he 

 died 15th September 1500. Sir Thomas More was 

 a page in his house. See Hook's Lire* of the Arr/i- 

 6i*%>* (1867), and Gainlncr's Henry VII. (1889). 



Morton. LEVI PARSONS, vice-president of the 

 United States, was Ixirn at Shorehiim, Vermont. 

 16th May 1824, was first a country storekeeper's 

 assistant, then partner in a llo-ion iirm of 

 merchants, and in 1863 founded banking-houses in 

 New York and London. In 1878 and 1880 he was 

 returned to congress as a Republican ; in 1881-85 he 

 was minister to Fiance ; and in 1888 he was elected 

 vice-president of the I'nited States. 



Morton. SAMIKI, CKURCE, an American 

 sician, born in Philadelphia, January 26, 1,! 

 studied medicine there and at Edinburgh, and in 

 1839 was appointed professor of Anatomy in the 

 Pennsylvania Medical College. He died May !.">, 

 1851. Morton may be regarded as the first Ameri- 

 can who endeavoured to place the doctrine of the 

 original diversity of mankind on a scientific basis. 

 His great works are Crania Ameriraiui ( Is. 1 !!)) and 

 Crania Egt/jitica (4 vols. 1844); anil his museum 

 of comparative craniology, preserved at Phila- 

 delphia, contains some 1500 skulls 900 of them 

 human, 



Morton, THOMAS, dramatist, was bom in 1764 

 in the county of Durham, but, left an orphan, was 

 brought up by an uncle in London. Ho entered 

 Lincoln's Inn,' but soon quitted law for play- writ- 

 ing, and produced ,X)K.</ tin I'/,,,,,//, (\1W, with its 

 invisible 'Mrs Grundy'l, '/'/,. JS/,',,,1 (i.rl (1801), 

 Town iiml Ciiiinli-ii i 1SO7). Krliiiiil fur llrmrii I'liil- 

 tii<-ii ( 1828), &c. For thirty five years he lived at 

 I'angliourne, near Reading, till in 1828 he removed 

 to London, where he died. 28th March 1838. His 

 son, JOHN MADISON MOIMHN, the author of Box 

 mill Cox, was lx>m at Pangl>ourne, 3d January 

 1811, and was educated in Paris and Germany 

 (1817-20), and then at Claplmm under I)r Kichard- 

 son ( 1820-27). From 1832 to 1840 he held a clerk- 

 ship in Chelsea Hospital, and letween ls:t.~> and 

 1885 wrote close on a hundred farces, of which fiox 

 mill Cus ( 1847) alone is said to have brought him 

 7000. lint the rise of burlesque was bis ruin, and 

 in 1H.S1 he became a 'poor brother' of the Charter- 

 house. He dieil December 10, 1891. See memoir 

 by Clement Scott prefixed to Plays for 



Morviin. LE, a barren district of France, a 

 north -easterly extension of the central plateau (see 

 FIIAN'I.. Vol. IV. p. 770), is mainly in the depait- 

 ment of Nii-vre (q.v.). 



Morvcrn, a |>eninMiIa of north-west Argyll- 

 shire, between Lochs Sunart and Linnhe. It ia 

 the ' Highland parish ' of Norman Macleod. 



