MORE, Thomas II

More’s early life is obscure but he was evidently a local man, who trained to be a lawyer in London, perhaps at Thavies Inn. No evidence has been found relating to his election as a burgess for Rochester in the Parliament of 1450, but a year later, in November 1451 and described as ‘of Rochester, gentleman’, he acted as mainpernor at the Exchequer for the prior of Leeds on his acquisition of a lease of the manor of Leeds.3 CFR, xviii. 241.

By the mid 1450s More appears to have moved more permanently to London. In June 1455 John Saxcy, a London tallow-chandler, made a gift of goods and chattels to him and others, and it was as ‘of London, gentleman’, that in the winter of 1456-7 he took on a similar responsibility for members of the Mongeham family of Rochester. Later in 1457 he was also the recipient of such gifts made by a vintner and two ironmongers of the City. Such transactions brought him into contact with the London aldermen, William Marowe* and Stephen Forster*,4 Cal. P. and M. London, 1437-57, pp. 182, 184; CCR, 1454-61, pp. 183, 195, 206, 253. and in the years that followed he continued to provide professional services to a variety of citizens. On one occasion he acted with William, Lord Hastings, as a co-feoffee of London property.5 CCR, 1454-61, pp. 281, 383; 1461-8, pp. 137, 140-1, 184; Cal. P. and M. London, 1458-82, pp. 153, 155. Nevertheless, he continued a connexion with Rochester. Early in 1458 John Soneman* and William Alexander of Northfleet, Kent, demised land in Clive to Thomas More ‘of Rochester’, along with Richard Glover, the London tailor, and Richard Ford, the treasurer’s remembrancer in the Exchequer.6 E326/1119. In August 1463 the wardens of Rochester bridge paid 6d. for wine given to him and John Rowe, both men being described as ‘skilled in the law’. That same year a London grocer named Richard Whitby made a gift of goods and chattels to More in company with John Lambourne, gentleman, and William Cardemaker, grocer, but two years later Lambourne and Cardemaker alone were responsible for delivering silverware, once belonging to Whitby, to another London grocer, the two men reporting that the grantor and More were both now dead.7 Corp. London RO, jnl. 7, f. 93.8 Rochester Bridge Trust, wardens’ accts. 1463-4, F 1/59.

Being ‘seke of body’ More made a final testament on 19 Aug. 1464. He asked his wife Elizabeth to make the decision as to where he should be buried, instructing her that there should be only six torches at his burial, and no ‘month’s mind’, although he left Doctor Ely of the Austin Friary in London ten marks to sing daily masses for for his soul and those of his ancestors and ‘good doers’ for a period of two years. His bequests to the London church of St. Andrew Cornhill, amounting to £1 10s., focussed on the provision of lights. To his ‘servant’ Thomas More and the latter’s brother John a More he left five marks each, and to Robert a More of Derbyshire, presumably another kinsman, the sum of £1. The only beneficiary from Rochester was a man called Thomas Broke. The residue of More’s estate was bequeathed to his wife ‘to the sustentacon of her children’, and she was appointed executor with James Bradman and John Rympyngdon, who were to be recompensed by her for their trouble. The date of More’s death is not known, although probate was not granted until more than a year later, on 5 Dec. 1465.9 PCC 11 Godyn.

Little is recorded of More’s private life, and save for her first name the identity of the wife who bore him two daughters is not known. In May 1480 one of the daughters, Alice Base, released any right she might have to land in Higham, Kent, in which her father had been enfeoffed by Richard Glover (the tailor with whom he had acted in 1458), and the other daughter, Elizabeth, who had married Henry Bulstrode, a London mercer, made a similar release at the end of the year.10 CCR, 1476-85, nos. 652, 721, 750. Elizabeth appears to have inherited their father’s property in London: in June 1484 she and Bulstrode granted William Andrews, another mercer, an annual rent from the same until Andrews should be satisfied of a substantial debt of £93 4s. 8d.11 Cal. P. and M. London, 1458-82, p. 147.