MORTUAKE 



5544 



MORVAN 



Mortlake Ware. Enamelled 

 delft and stoneware. It was manu- 

 factured at Mortlake between 1764 

 and 1820. Under Wagstaffe, and 

 then Wisker, fine landscape and fig- 

 ure painting was applied to punch- 

 bowls, panels, etc. See Pottery. 



Mortmain (Fr. mort, dead ; 

 main, hand). Term used for land 

 that cannot be alienated owing to 

 the fact that it is in a dead hand. 

 In England in early times a great 

 deal of land was given by the kings 

 to religious corporations. This pro- 

 cess was disliked by the great 

 nobles, and was inequitable, mainly 

 because, as the corporations never 

 died, the land in question never 

 paid the dues, which were the 

 medieval equivalent of the modern 

 death duties. Consequently, in 

 1279, a law called the statute of 

 mortmain prohibited " any person 

 whatsoever, religious or other, to 

 buy or sell, or under colour of any 

 gift, term,' or other title, to receive 

 from anyone any lands or tene- 

 ments in such a way that such 

 lands and tenements should come 

 into mortmain." 



This law was designed to check 

 the growing wealth of the church, 

 for a practice had grown up of con- 

 veying lands to the church, the con- 

 veyance being accompanied by a 

 private bargain allowing control to 

 remain with the grantor and his 

 heirs, who thus avoided feudal dues. 

 Later statutes of mortmain were 

 designed to close the loopholes of 

 evasion in the original enactment. 



Under the Mortmain and Charit- 

 able Uses Act, 1888, which re- 

 pealed all the old statutes and 

 partly re-enacted them, no land or 

 interest in land may be acquired 

 by a corporation except under 

 specific licence from the crown or 

 by virtue of some statute. See 

 Land Laws. 



Morton, EARL OF. Scottish 

 title borne since 1458 by a branch of 

 the family of Douglas. One of the 

 family, James (d. 1430), was called 

 lord of Dalkeith, and his descend- 

 ant, another James, was made 

 Lord Aberdour and earl of Morton 

 in 1458, the year when he married 

 Joan, daughter of King James I. 

 The 3rd earl had no sons, but his 

 daughter married a Douglas who 

 became the 4th earl and figures in 

 history as the regent Morton. Upon 

 his execution the earldom was given 

 to a Maxwell, but before long the 

 earldom was restored to a Douglas. 

 William, earl of Morton in 

 the time of Charles I, was lord 

 treasurer of Scotland. To obtain 

 funds for the king's cause, he sold 

 Dalkeith to the Scott family, ob- 

 taining a grant of the islands of 

 Orkney and Shetland. This was 

 contested, but the islands were 



~ 



Earl of Morton, 

 Scottish statesman 



kept by the earls until about 1750, 

 when they were sold to Baron 

 Dundas, ancestor of the marquess 

 of Zetland. James (d. 1768) 

 became president of the Royal 

 Society. The earl still retains 

 Aberdour, in Fifeshire, for cen- 

 turies the property of the family, 

 and his eldest son is known as Lord 

 Aberdour. The numbering of the 

 earls is uncertain. See Douglas. 



Morton, JAMES DOUGLAS, 4TH 

 EARL OF (c. 1526-81). Scottish 

 statesman. A son of Sir George 

 Douglas, he 

 owed his earl- 

 dom to his 

 wife, Eliza- 

 beth, daugh- 

 ter of the 3rd 

 earl. In 1553 

 he succeeded 

 to the title 

 and estates, 

 and was soon 

 a prominent 

 figure in that stormy time. He was 

 made lord chancellor, and was one 

 of those who arranged tho murder 

 of Eizzio ; later, too, he was 

 among the queen's enemies, and 

 was largely responsible for her 

 defeat at Langside. In 1572 he 

 was made regent of Scotland, and 

 crushed the last efforts of Mary's 

 friends. After a short period of 

 enforced retirement, he recovered 

 his influence over the young king, 

 and retained power until 1580, 

 when he was arrested on a charge 

 of having shared in the murder of 

 Darnley. Found guilty he was put 

 to death by the maiden (q.v.), his 

 own invention, June 2, 1581. 



Morton, JOHN (c. 1420-1500). 

 English prelate. Born in Dorset, 

 he wan educated at Cerne Abbey, 

 in that county, and at Balliol Col- 

 lege, Oxford. He became an eccle- 

 siastical lawyer, and was active on 

 the Lancastrian side in the Wars 

 of the Roses. After the battle of 

 Tewkesbury, Morton submitted to 

 Edward IV, and thenceforward his 

 rise was rapid. In 1473 he was 

 made master of the rolls, and in 

 1479 bishop of Ely. On Edward's 

 death he was imprisoned by 

 Richard III, but he escaped 

 from Brecon and joined the exiled 

 Richmond, the future Henry VII, 

 in Flanders. After Henry obtained 

 the crown, he made Morton arch- 

 bishop of Canterbury and lord 

 chancellor. Created a cardinal in 

 1493, he remained the king's chief 

 counsellor until his death at Knole, 

 in Kent, Sept. 15, 1500. His name 

 is perpetuated by Morton's Dyke, 

 which he built from Wisbech to 

 Peterborough, and by Morton's 

 Fork, a fiscal device for extracting 

 money from both rich and poor. 

 See Life, R. I. Woodhouse, 1895. 



Morton, JOHN CHALMERS (1821- 

 88). British agriculturist. Born 

 July 1, 1821, the son of John 

 Morton, agriculturist, he was edu- 

 cated at Edinburgh. In 1838 he 

 assisted his father on the Whitfield 

 example farm, Glos., and from 

 1844 until his death was editor of 

 The Agricultural Gazette. For a 

 time, in 1854, he conducted the 

 classes in agriculture in Edinburgh 

 University, and was an inspector 

 under the land commissioners. He 

 died at Harrow, May 3, 1888. 

 Morton's works include A Cyclo- 

 paedia of Agriculture ed. ] 855, and 

 Handbook of Farm Labour, 1861. 

 He edited Arthur Young's Farmer's 

 Calendar, 1861-62, reissued as The 

 Farmer's Calendar, 1870. 



Morton, WILLIAM THOMAS 

 GREEN (1819-68). American den- 

 tist. Born at Charlton, Massachu- 

 setts, he qualified as a dentist at 

 the Baltimore College of Dental 

 Surgery, and also studied medicine 

 at Harvard. He invented a new 

 way of attaching artificial teeth to 

 plates, but his chief claim to fame 

 lay in his use of sulphuric ether as a 

 local anaesthetic for the extraction 

 of teeth and other dental opera- 

 tions. Morton received the Mont- 

 yon prize in 1852 for his discovery, 

 which was first used in 1846, and 

 was offered 20,000 by the Ameri- 

 can government for the patent. 

 Morton refused the offer and spent 

 the greater part of the remainder 

 of his life in litigation. 



Mortuary (late Lat. morlmrium, 

 from mortuus, dead). In the 

 modern meaning of the word, a 

 place for the reception of dead 

 bodies, pending burial. In Great 

 Britain and Ireland, under various 

 Public Health Acts of 1875, 1878, 

 and 1897. local authorities can be 

 required by the local government 

 board to provide mortuaries where 

 dead bodies can be received for 

 purposes of identification, inquest, 

 or post-mortem examination. In 

 the metropolis mortuaries are pro- 

 vided by the metropolitan borough 

 councils and the city corporation. 



In ecclesiastical law a mortuary 

 was a fee customarily paid out of 

 the estate of a deceased person to 

 the parson of the parish in which 

 he had resided. A statute of Henry 

 VIII, 1530, still unrepealed, fixed 

 the amount of mortuaries, the 

 maximum sum payable being 10s. 

 on estates exceeding 40 in value. 

 Morvan, LE. Mountain dist. of 

 France, lying in the depts. of 

 Nievre, Cote-d'Or, Yonne and 

 Saone-et-Loire. The chain of hills, 

 with Bois-du-Roi (2,960 ft.) and 

 Mt. Beuvray (2,690 ft. ) as its chief 

 points, is mostly of gneiss and 

 granite formations, and is covered 

 with beech and chestnut forests. 



