MORTON

Cardinal Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor, temp. Henry VII., was probably a descendant of the Norman knight. Of this celebrated prelate, Anthony Wood states, "that he was a wise and eloquent man, but in his nature harsh and haughty - that he was much accepted by the king, but envied by the nobility and hated by the people. He won the king's mind with secrecy and diligence, chiefly because he was his old servant in his less fortunes, and for that also he was in his affections not without an inveterate malice against the house of York, under which he had been in trouble." From the Cardinal's brother, Richard, descended the Mortons of Milbourne St. Andrew, co. Dorset, raised to the degree of baronets in 1619, and now represented by the Pleydells.

--(This name appears on the Battle Abbey Roll).