MORTON, William (1605-72), of Winchcombe, Glos. and Hampden manor, Kidlington, Oxon.

Clifton is a hamlet in Severn Stoke parish, and Morton’s origins there were those of a parish gentleman, despite the fact that his great-great-grandfather had been a master of requests under Henry VIII. James Morton, William’s father, had a small estate at Clifton, but William’s mother, Jane, was of the more prominent Cookes family of Tardebigge.51VCH Worcs. iv. 195. Neither parental background was particularly advantageous, but Clifton’s situation, two miles from Croome Court, the seat of the Coventry family, probably was. Whether Sir Thomas Coventry† was active in promoting Morton’s dual university career cannot be ascertained, but certainly he was treasurer of the Inner Temple in 1621 when Morton, his young neighbour, was admitted.52HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Sir Thomas Coventry’. Whatever Morton’s relations with Coventry, he was an able lawyer, and by the end of the 1620s was poised for a successful career as a barrister and judge. His marriage to Anne Smith of Oxford brought with it the promise of an estate in Kidlington, but Morton’s legal career needed to be nurtured, and by 1633 he was established at Winchcombe, probably as secretary to the Brydges, barons Chandos, family of Sudeley castle.53C181/4, f.147.

Through the 1630s Morton developed his legal interests, both at his inn, where he was called to the bar and served as auditor of accounts, and in Gloucestershire, where he achieved a modest standing as a steward of the hundred of Slaughter, a crown appointment.54C181/4, f.147; C231/5, p. 109. He seems also to have made contact with the corporation of Haverfordwest at this time.55Cal. Recs. Haverfordwest, 64. His standing at Evesham in elections for the Short Parliament was part of his upward mobility, and here he was indebted to the Coventry interest which ensured his acceptability to the mayor, aldermen and burgesses. In this Parliament he was elected to the committee for privileges (16 Apr. 1640), and seems also to have been a member of the committee for religion.56CJ ii. 4a. On 20 April he spoke in favour of allowing John Farmery, chancellor of the diocese of Lincoln and an agent of Archbishop Laud’s against Bishop John Williams, time to prepare himself for examination by the committee.57Aston’s Diary, 149. On 28 April at the committee for privileges he spoke in the case of the disputed election of Sir Robert Tracy for Gloucestershire. The committee was discussing whether it would be appropriate for it to pronounce in a case when allegations were being made against individuals not present. Morton offered a cautious legal opinion against general charges.58Aston’s Diary, 154.

Morton did not find a seat in the Long Parliament, being squeezed out of Evesham by a three-sided contest between Richard Cresheld, William Sandys and John Coventry. At the outbreak of civil war his links with the Coventry family and his enjoyment of office under the crown, both of which gave him the precarious status he had, are probably enough to account for his siding with the king. His legal training fitted him for the task of reviewing offices: in February 1643 he was named to a commission to examine which officers of the court of wards and liveries had abandoned their posts.59Bodl. Dugdale 19, f. 2v; Docquets of Letters Patent ed. Black, 2. He was not named to any commission of array, but by August 1643 Morton was supplying Prince Rupert with military intelligence, evidently holding the military rank of lieutenant-colonel in the horse regiment of Lord Chandos, and in Clarendon’s view distinguishing himself on the battlefield.60Add. 18980, ff. 100, 156; Clarendon, Hist. iii. 357. In Gloucestershire the king relied heavily on traditional offices and court appointments to staff his war effort, and Charles found Morton’s tenure of the shrievalty to be a useful means of stiffening local resolve. Sudeley castle was a royalist stronghold in an area of otherwise variegated loyalties, which Charles had used as his headquarters in September 1643 in the hope of surprising the army of the 3rd earl of Essex (Robert Devereux).61Clarendon, Hist. iii. 169. On the eve of his time as high sheriff of Gloucestershire, on 8 September 1643, Morton was knighted at Sudeley by the king.62Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 216. This must have helped cement Morton’s commitment; from December 1643 to the summer of 1644 Morton was receiving commissions to press soldiers and seize the estates of rebels in the county.63Bodl. Dugdale 19, ff. 45v, 46v, 50, 67v, 85v.

As part of the royalist strategy to maintain the blockade of Gloucester, in the spring of 1644 it was decided to garrison Sudeley castle. George Brydges, 6th Baron Chandos, as the owner of the house and the leading resident peer in the county, was the natural choice of governor. Morton, as sheriff, was to raise two troops of horse, each of 100 men.64Harl. 6802, f. 84. Chandos’s commitment to the king had not formerly been in doubt, but in June he left Sudeley in Morton’s hands while he went to London, in the view of Sir Edward Hyde*, simply to enjoy himself. Surrounded by the army of Sir William Waller*, Morton decided to surrender: when a random shot decapitated a Sudeley gunner, according to parliamentarian commentators; after betrayal by one of his officers, according to Hyde. Another theory was that Chandos had gone over to the enemy, and that the cause of the surrender was an act of treachery beyond discovery.65CSP Dom. 1644, p. 219; Corbet, ‘Historicall Relation’, 104; Clarendon, Hist. iii. 357; B. Stapleton, Three Oxfordshire Parishes (Oxford Hist. Soc. xxiv), 95; E. Walker, Historical Collections (1707), 22.

After the fall of Sudeley, Morton was taken to the Tower of London, where he spent at least a year. The fine he paid on his estate was modest; a recognition that his means were actually quite slender. In August 1648 he was re-arrested for alleged plotting, and in January 1649 he compounded for his military service, paying a fine of £100.66CCC 1887; CCAM 483, 660.

By 1655 he had inherited Hampden manor through his wife, and made it his residence. This was the beginning of a renascence for Morton, as the civil war had destroyed his career and the small estate he had. He was noted in Major-general James Berry’s* lists of individuals to be watched, but seems to have remained inactive politically until the Restoration.67Add. 34013, f. 136.

In 1660 he reactivated his connections in Wales, and served as a judge there. He was created serjeant-at-law in October 1660, his sponsors being the duke of Albemarle (George Monck*) and James Butler, marquess of Ormond [I], proof of his high standing among the former royalists.68Baker, Serjeants at Law, 444. In 1661 he stood for election for Haverfordwest, but was unsuccessful. Morton appealed, the election was declared void on 23 May 1663, and he was returned in the subsequent by-election. In the Oxford session of the Cavalier Parliament, Morton was named to 12 committees on a range of topics. On being named as a high court judge, Morton vacated his seat, and on the bench maintained his reputation as a staunch supporter of the Church of England and the monarchy. In Gloucester, he worked as recorder to place the city government in the hands of those loyal to the crown.69HP Commons 1669-1690, ‘William Morton’. When he drew up his will in March 1672, he lamented the smallness of his estate, after his ‘great and manifold expenses of blood, sufferings and losses for the duty of and mine allegiance to his late majesty, King Charles the First’.70PROB11/342, f. 366. He died on 23 September that year, and was buried at the Temple Church, London.71Temple Church MI; Register of Burials, Temple Church 1628-1853 (1905), 21.