M O R 



713 



M O R 



S'orsy. See Pennant's Tour. The Statistical Account of Scot- 



*hir ,</. R ev M r Leslie's General Vien of the Agricul- 



,. S t* re( if '** Countiet of Nairn and Moray. Account of 



Thomas '** Antiquities, iff. in the Province of Moray. A 



_,- -j_- Survey >.J the Pruiincc of Moray, Historical, G>'ogra- 



/>/<i. at, and Political. Dr. Shaw's Account of Moray- 



tkire. Chalmers's Caledonia. See NAIRN. 



MORBIHAN, one of the departments of the north- 

 west regon of France. It was formed out of the 

 Bishopric of Vannes, and is bounded on the north by 

 the department of the Cotes du Nord, on the east by 

 that of the Lower Loire and the I He and Vilaine, on 

 the south- west by the Ser, and on the west by the de- 

 partment of Fini.'terre. The department is water- 

 ed by the rivers Vilaine and Blavet, and produces rye, 

 cattle, horses, fi*h of all kinds, and has mines of 

 lead and coal. The fertile island of Belleisle contains 

 5569 inhabitants. The whole department contains 

 358 square leagues, and 425,485 inhabitants. The 

 following are the principal places : 



Population. 

 Vannct, the capital .... 8.728 



t 10,9** 



Ploennel ...... 4,512 



Ponriry 30,90 



The forests occupy from 37 to 38 thousand acres, 

 the greater part of which belong to individual:. The 

 contributions in 1803 were 2,327,248 franc-. 

 MOKDANl S. See DYEINO, vol. viii. p. 201. 

 MORE, SIR THOMAS, Lord High Chancellor of Eng- 

 land, was the son of Sir John More, Knight, one of 

 the Judge* of the King's Bench. He was born in Lon- 

 don, in the year 1480, and educated first at a school at 

 St. Anthony's in Threadneedle Street, and afterwards 

 at Oxford where he soon acquired a considerable pro- 

 ficiency in clusical learning ; and being destined for 

 the profession of the law, he came to New Inn in Lon- 

 don, from whence, -after some time, he removed to 

 Lincoln's Inn, of which his father was a member. 

 Having obtained a seat in parliament, he distinguished 

 himself, in the year 1 503. by his opposition to the mo- 

 tion for granting a subaidy and three fifteenths for the 

 marriage of Henry V II's eldest daughter Margaret, to 

 the King of Scotland The motion was rejected; and 

 the king was so violently offended at this opposition, 

 that, in revenge, he sent Mr. More'* father, on a fri- 

 volous pretence, to the Tower, and obliged him to pay 

 100 for his liberty. After being called to the bar, 

 he was appointed faw reader at Fumival's Inn, which 

 place he held alxjut three years ; and about the same 

 time, he also read a public lecture in the church of 

 I-awrence, Old Jewry, u|xjti St. Austin's treatise 

 De Civilaie Dei. At one time he seems to have formed 

 the design of becoming a Franciscan friar ; but he was 

 afterwards d'ssuaded from it, and married Jane, the 

 eldeat daughter of John Colt, Esq. of New hall in Essex. 

 In the year 1508, he was appointed judge of the 

 Sheriffs Court in the rity of Lonilon, was made a jus- 

 tice of the peace, and attained great eminence at the 

 bar. In 1 5 1 6'. he went to Flanders in the retinue of 

 Bishop Tonstal and Dr. Knight, who were sent by King 

 Henry VII I. to renew the alliance with the Archduke 

 of Austria, afterwards Charles V. On his return to 

 England, Cardinal Wolsey wished to engage Mr More 

 in the ervicc of the crown, and offered him a pension, 

 which he declined . t was not long, however, before 

 he accepted the place of master of the requests He 

 was also created a knight, admitted a member of the 

 pnvy council, and, in 1520, made treasurer of the ex. 



VOL. XIV. FAKT II. 



chequer. About this time he built a house on the banks 

 of the Thames, at Chelsea, and married a second wife. 

 In the 14th year of Henry VIII. Sir Thomas More 

 was appointed Speaker of the House of Commons, in 

 which capacity he had the courage to oppose Wolsey, 

 in his demand of an oppressive subsidy. Soon after- 

 wards, however, he was made chancellor of the duchy 

 of Lancaster, and treated with great familiarity by the 

 king. In the year 1526, he was sent, with Cardinal 

 U'olsey and others, on a joint embassy to France ; and, 

 in 1529, with Bishop Tonstal to Cambray. Notwith- 

 standing his opposition to the measures of the court, 

 he was appointed chancellor in the folio wing year, after 

 the disgrace of Wolsey. In 1533, however, he re- 

 signed the seals, probably to avoid the danger of re- 

 fusing his sanction to the king's divorce. He now re- 

 tired to his house at Chelsea ; dismissed many of his 

 servants ; sent his children, with their families, whom 

 he seems to have maintained in his own house, to their 

 respective homes ; and spent his time in study and de- 

 votion. But he was not long permitted to enjoy tran- 

 quillity. Though now reduced to a private station, 

 and even to indigence, his opinion of the legality of 

 the king's marriage with Anne Boleyn, was deemed of 

 so much importance, that various attempts were made 

 to procure his approbation ; but these having proved 

 ineffectual, he was, along wiih some others, included 

 in a bill of attainder in the House of Lords, for mis- 

 prision of treason, by encouraging Klizabeth Barton, 

 the nun of Kent, in her treasonable practices. His 

 innocence in this affair, however, appeared so clearly, 

 that they were obliged to strike his name out of the 

 bill. He was then accused of other crimes, but with 

 tne same effect ; until, upon refusing to take the oath 

 enjoined by the act of supremacy, he was committed 

 to the Tower ; and, afier fifteen months imprisonment, 

 wa tried at the bar of the King's Bench for high trea- 

 son. The proof rested on the single evidence of Rich, 

 thx solicitor-general, whom Sir Thomas, in his defence, 

 sufficiently discredited. The jury, however, brought 

 him in guilty ; he was condemned to suffer as a traitor, 

 and was accordingly beheaded on Tower Hill on the 

 5th of July, 1535. His body was first interred in the 

 Tower, but was afterwards begged and obtained by his 

 daughter Margaret, and deposited in the chancel of 

 the church at Chelsea, where a monument, with an in. 

 scription written by himself, had been some time be- 

 fore erected, and is still to be seen. The same daugh- 

 ter also procured his head, after it had remained four- 

 teen days upon London-bridge, and placed it in a 

 vault belonging to the Itoper family, under a chapel 

 adjoining to St. Dunstan's church in Canterbury. 



Sir Thomas More was a man of considerable learn 

 ing, eminent talents, and inflexible integrity. Al- 

 though possessed of great sagacity in other matters, 

 his religious bigotry exposed him to superstition and 

 credulity. When only twenty years old, he was so de- 

 voted to monkish discipline, that he wore a hair shirt 

 next his skin, frequently fasted, and slept upon a bare 

 plank. Yet his disposition was cheerful, and he had 

 au affectation of wit, which he could not restrain even 

 upon the most serious occasions. He was the author 

 of various books, chiefly of a polemical nature. His 

 Utopia is the only performance tliat has survived in 

 the esteem of the world. Hume says of him, that of 

 all the writers of that age in England, Sir Thomas 

 More seems to come the nearest to the character of a 

 classical author. His English works were collected 

 and published by order of Queen Mary, in 1557; his 

 to 



.More, Sir 

 Thomas. 



