MORTON, CARDINAL JOHN, was born at Bere in Dorsetshire in 1410. He was educated at Bally College, Oxford, and became principal of Peckwater Inn, now merged in Christ Church. His learning and talents introduced him to Cardinal Bourchier, and thus set him on the path to preferment. He was recommended to the notice of Henry VI., and was appointed a member of the Privy Council. Not less successful in the reign of Edward IV., he was nominated Bishop of Ely and Lord Chancellor of England in 1478, and was finally appointed one of the King's executors. His tried probity, however, did not fit him for the lawless service of the next King, Richard III., and he was imprisoned in the Castle of Brecknock. But contriving to escape, he fled to the Earl of Richmond on the Continent, and is said to have been the first who proposed a marriage between that prince and Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Edward IV. At the death of Richard III., and the accession of Henry VII., a succession of preferments awaited Morton. He was appointed a privy-councillor; he was raised to the see of Canterbury in
1486; the chancellorship was again conferred upon him in 1487; and Pope Alexander VI. created him a cardinal in 1493. His death took place in September 1500.