MORE, Sir George (1553-1632), of Loseley, nr. Guildford, Surr. and Blackfriars, London

With six Elizabethan parliaments behind him, More was one of the most experienced Members to return to the Commons in 1604. A natural leader of the Lower House, he was the latest in a family of wealthy Surrey landowners who had long held offices in both local and central government, and served in Parliament. His grandfather, an Exchequer official of Derbyshire origin, acquired Loseley, two miles from Guildford, in the early sixteenth century. Manning and Bray, i. 92. More himself maintained the Exchequer connection, as well as the parliamentary interest, which he strengthened by the purchase of Haslemere manor in 1601. VCH Surr. iii. 1, 7; Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/1623. At his son’s marriage in the same year he estimated that his income from rents amounted to more than £1,000. Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/1418. In many respects, More was typical of his generation, ‘the very model of an Elizabethan godly magistrate’. P. Collinson, ‘Servants and citizens: Robert Beale and other Elizabethans’, Joan Henderson Lecture, 2004, p. 7. For example, in 1597 he published a small pamphlet expressing his fervent belief that England, having found true religion, would prove ‘famous above all nations’. A Demonstration of God in His Workes (1597), STC 18071. An embattled Protestant outlook informs many of his parliamentary speeches. One of his sons-in-law, Sir John Oglander*, described him as ‘the ablest, most understanding gentleman that ever I knew and, withal, the most active in business’. All that Oglander found to blame in him was ‘that he much neglected his own affairs’, being ‘ever more ready and willing to do courtesies for others than for himself’. He also observed that More was ‘by nature very passionate; yet in his wisdom he conquered that passion so much that you would think him to be of a mild disposition’. Bamford, 166-7. This appraisal is borne out by More’s treatment of another son-in-law, John Donne*, who scandalously eloped with More’s daughter Anne in 1601. More’s initial reaction to the news of the marriage was to have Donne thrown into the Fleet, but the two men were eventually reconciled, and remained close after Anne’s death in 1617. HMC 7th Rep. 659a; Kempe, 321-44. Over several generations the More family amassed a vast archive at Loseley, documenting their role in local government as well as the management of their estates. Of particular interest are More’s parliamentary papers, including various petitions submitted to the privileges committee, draft bills, copies of royal speeches, and his extensive correspondence.

Elizabeth had been a regular visitor to Loseley, and More was an official mourner at her funeral. LC2/4/4, f. 46v. Shortly after James’s accession he enlarged the house, and in August 1603 he entertained the new king and queen there. Nichols, Progs. of Jas. I, i. 250; HMC 7th Rep. 667b. At around the same time he pressed his claim to the office of usher of the chamber, urging his rights as the landlord of Catteshall in Surrey. However, though (as Oglander later observed) More thought that ‘his merits would have advanced him to some high place, as no man better deserved it’, he had to settle for a reversion to the post of treasurer and receiver to Prince Henry. SP14/2/76; Oglander Mems. 140; Glanville, 125; T. Birch, Life of Prince Henry (1760), pp. 218, 229. Disillusioned, perhaps, he may have considered retiring from politics altogether. His former ward, Sir Edward Herbert*, certainly hinted at this, and also observed that More had once ‘seemed to be weary of being of the House’. Kempe, 359. He was nevertheless returned for Guildford in 1604, and supported the election of his eldest son Sir Robert, for Surrey. According to Oglander, he was already well accustomed ‘to work[ing] the Parliament House’ in the interests of the Crown, Oglander Mems. 140. and not surprisingly therefore he emerged as one of the few Members who regularly spoke for the Crown in the first Jacobean Parliament. He was a diligent attender; on one day during the first session it was remarked that the Speaker had begun prayers before the arrival of any Member, ‘and Sir George More was the first’. CJ, i. 982a (30 May 1604). His talents as a speaker may have been rather limited, however, for Donne was told by Tobie Matthew* that More ‘speaks as ill as ever he did, saving that he speaks not so much’. G.R. Elton, Studies in Govt., ii. 178; W. Notestein, Commons 1604-10, p. 28; R.C. Bald, John Donne, 145. Three years later the ‘Parliament Fart’ poem accurately lampooned the fact that ‘in his wonted order’, he would often ‘speak against the House’s disorder’. Add. 34218, f. 20. It has not been ascertained when he began the habit, referred to after his death by George Garrett*, of interrupting the proceedings every morning just before lunch to ‘make repetition of all that had been spoken that day’, nor, indeed, how far the complaint was justified. Strafforde Letters (1739) ed. W. Knowler, i. 178.

One of More’s most longlasting contributions to Parliament’s development was the motion he made in 1593 which led to the establishment of a standing committee for privileges and returns. S. D’ Ewes, Journals (1682), p. 471. In most of the subsequent parliaments that he attended he moved on the opening day of business for such a committee to be appointed, and on three separate occasions he chaired this committee himself. By virtue of the longevity of his service he became an upholder of the House’s traditions, especially with regard to committee procedure. In 1614 he complained when only 12 of the 70-strong privileges committee attended to consider the disputed Cambridgeshire election, and a few days later he expressed concern that bill committees were becoming too large and dominated by ‘those that sit about the chair’. In 1621 he maintained that, while any Member who wished was entitled to attend committee meetings, it was ‘the ancient and best course’ that only a committee’s named Members were entitled to ‘have voice’. CJ, i. 468b, 471b, Procs. 1614 (Commons), 135; CD 1621, iii. 221. The extent to which More himself regularly attended committees is open to debate. We know of at least five bill committees to which he was appointed but failed to attend. On the other hand, in 1626 he attended two of the three meetings of the committee ‘to consider of an indifferent course for the naming of committees’. C.R. Kyle, ‘Attendance Lists’, PPE 1604-48 ed. Kyle, 232. Moreover, his presence, presumably as a silent observer, is occasionally noted in committees to which he had not been named. Ibid. 192, 194, 195, 224, 225, 229.

In 1604 More was one of a dozen experienced Parliament-men appointed by the lord high steward, the earl of Nottingham (Charles Howard†), his neighbour, to administer the oath of supremacy to arriving Members. CJ, i. 140b. On 22 Mar. More moved for the appointment of a committee for privileges and returns, and was named one of its members. Ibid. 149b, 934a. The following day he was appointed to both committees of grievances. Ibid. 935a. Four days later he moved for a committee in behalf of clothiers and the cloth trade, ‘in particular remembering the great decay he hath of late found, by his own experience, in the county of Surrey’. Ibid. 154b-155a; CD 1604-7, p. 35. However, the House rejected this motion, thinking it better that those interested should bring in a bill ‘against transporting of woollen cloths undressed, and for setting a-work the poor commons of this realm’. This was duly done, and at the second reading on 4 Apr. More was the first Member to be named to the committee. CJ, i. 165b.

If, in 1593, More had believed that the Commons should have authority to settle disputed elections itself, he seems to have changed his mind to comply with the views of his brother-in-law, the lord keeper, Sir Thomas Egerton†, with whom he sided when a conflict over the issuing of by-election writs arose in 1601. Procs. in Parls. of Eliz. ed. T.E. Hartley, iii. 346. Although his sister had died in 1600, More maintained a close lifelong friendship with Egerton, frequently sending him gifts such as venison. Surr. Hist. Cent. 6729/2/26, 28; Egerton Pprs. ed. J.P. Collier (Cam. Soc. xii), 350. In 1604 it was probably loyalty to Egerton, now lord chancellor Ellesmere, that motivated More’s response to the Buckinghamshire election controversy, which escalated in the opening weeks of the first session into a bitter feud between Chancery and the Commons for jurisdiction over elections. When James caused outrage by referring the case to the judges rather than allowing the Commons to resolve it themselves, More worked hard to calm the situation, arguing on 30 Mar. that a conference with the judges would ‘break the ice’, and that Members risked a serious breach between king and Parliament if they refused to comply with James’s wishes. Having the previous day spoken ‘with great liking and approbation’ of the bill to confirm James I’s title to the English throne, which he helped to hurry through three readings within an hour, More urged the Commons to go along with ‘the king’s project ... first to advise among ourselves, and then to confer with the judges, not as Parliament-men but as counsellors’. Warning the House ‘deeply to consider the consequence if this pique be bruited in the country abroad or beyond the seas’, he concluded with the suggestion that a bill be framed ‘for the banishing of all outlaws hereafter from Parliament’, and a desire ‘that we may hereafter hold all privileges entire’. CJ, i. 159a, 939a, CD 1604-7, pp. 35, 48; Notestein, 69. An outlaws bill was indeed drafted, but never passed.

In the same vein More was a hearty supporter of James’s cherished project to unite England and Scotland, in the king’s view one of the main reasons for summoning the Parliament. On 18 Apr. More reminded the House of the ‘expectation of horror and confusion’ on Elizabeth’s death, and the joy and relief with which the Scottish king had been welcomed as ‘the star that came from the north’. CJ, i. 949b. Two days later he urged the ‘benefit of both’ kingdoms by the Union, and ‘the greater mischief, by continuing disjointed and divided’. He glossed over the sticking point of James’s unpopular proposed name of Great Britain, and drew upon Latin aphorisms and biblical citations to demonstrate that the Union was both necessary and profitable for England as well as Scotland. Ibid. 952b. He was appointed to attend two conferences with the Lords on the Union (14 Apr., 5 May), and was employed as a messenger to ask the Lords for a further conference on 16 May. Ibid. 172a, 199a, 211b, 973b. He was also appointed on 1 June to prepare for a conference to discuss Bishop Thornborough’s book accusing the Commons of thwarting James’s plans for the Union. Ibid. 230a.

More’s own principal legislative concern was with the reform of purveyance, one of the grievances that had been earmarked for attention early in the session. He was a veteran of the purveyance debates of 1589 and undoubtedly took special interest in the matter because Surrey was subjected to a particularly heavy burden. He was ordered to take charge of the bill against purveyors on 12 Apr., and when it was debated on 11 May he offered a proviso which suggests that he favoured a scheme of composition, to spread the cost of supplying the royal Household more fairly across the country. Ibid. 202a, 944b, 969b; Notestein, 103-4. He clarified this further on 18 May, when he came out in full support of composition, though he thought this should not be achieved by statute but by local commissions. CJ, i. 975a. On 23 May he moved for a report, and three days later again called for purveyance to be debated in full. Ibid. 223a, 226b. When this took place on 2 June, he proposed ‘that it might be well considered by the House whether it were not the fittest and best for the subject to give an annual composition to His Majesty, and not to continue longer subject to purveyance’, and offered a new bill to that effect. He also linked the question of purveyance with subsidies, another area of parliamentary business which he believed to be in need of reform, asserting that ‘the subject, to be freed of purveyors, would be content to give two subsidies’. Ibid. 231a, 984b; P. Croft, ‘Parl., Purveyance and the City of London 1589-1608’, PH, iv. 18. This produced heated debate in which there was little agreement, even among those who were favourable towards some kind of composition, and it was finally resolved that the issue would be deferred until the next session.

With his reputation as a prolific and experienced Parliament-man, More was appointed to many more bill committees than he could possibly have attended. He remained vigilant in respect of the Commons’ privileges, calling on 14 May for a bill to free Sir Thomas Shirley I*, who had been imprisoned for debt before the opening of the session, and for a reprimand to be issued to the lieutenant of the Tower for not executing the House’s command. CJ, i. 971b-972a. On 16 May More was ordered to take care of the bill for the separation of Blindley from the Surrey parish of Godstone, and on 5 June a bill ‘for confirmation of letters patents’ was also delivered to him. Ibid. 973b, 985b. The following day he reported a bill to provide a godly and learned ministry. Ibid. 233a. More spoke up twice, on 10 and 19 May in support of a bill concerning shooting, perhaps because it was one of the king’s personal interests, and he likewise backed a measure against unlawful hunting on 21 June. Ibid. 205b, 975b, 996a. His arguments against a bill for poor relief on 14 June were sufficient to see it dashed, Ibid. 992a. and he also opposed a proviso to facilitate exports of grain in the bill for the continuance of expiring statutes when it was debated on 19 June. Ibid. 232b, 994b. He was a member of the committee to draft the Commons’ Form of Apology and Satisfaction, and may have had some influence in dissuading the House from actually presenting it to the king. Ibid. 242a; Notestein, 131. When a letter was received from James on 26 June declaring that he did not expect to receive any subsidies in this session, More was one of the first Members to stand and offer thanks in fulsome terms, suggesting that the message ‘be recorded here, for an everlasting memory’. CJ, i. 998a.

After the prorogation More donated books and £40 to the Bodleian Library, and he was awarded an honorary MA when he accompanied the king to Oxford in 1605. HMC 7th Rep. 667b. At the start of the second session, on 5 Nov. 1605, More was appointed chairman of the privileges committee, and he reported several of its cases four days later, before proceedings were suspended as a result of the Gunpowder Plot. CJ, i. 256a, 257a. As soon as the House reassembled, he was the first to move (21 Jan. 1606) how best ‘to settle the safety of the king and prevent the danger of papistical practices’. Ibid. 257b. The case of Sir Edwin Sandys’s coachman, who had been arrested on charges of assault, was referred to the privileges committee upon More’s motion on 18 Feb., and resolved four days later. Ibid. 270a, 272b, 273a. Business was briefly interrupted on 22 Mar. when More brought in ‘news abroad’, which turned out to be unfounded, of another attempt to assassinate James. Clearly haunted by the fear of further attacks, he called for the immediate attainder of the Gunpowder plotters on 4 April. Ibid. 293b, Bowyer Diary, 88-9, 101.

As in the previous session, More’s main concern was to reform purveyance, and he was one of those sent to the Lords on 12 Feb. 1606 to ask for a conference following James’s promise to remove ‘the oppression of purveyors’. CJ, i. 267a. Despite maintaining his vigorous support for composition, More was keen that the Commons quickly ‘right ourselves’ after John Hare*, who had proposed a radical bill to abolish purveyance, offended the Lords. Ibid. 272a, 274a, 278a. On 7 Mar. More’s desire to speak a second time in the debate raised a question of procedure, one which the king himself noted with irritation when he summoned the Speaker. Ibid. 280a, Bowyer Diary, 66, 69, 72. When it was finally agreed to let him speak again the following day, More recommended that a message be sent to the Lords ‘to yield a reason of leaving composition’. CJ, i. 281a. It is striking that purveyance was so important to More that he risked annoying James twice, first by defending Hare and then by insisting on making a second speech. This perhaps indicates that, notwithstanding his habitual willingness to do the king’s bidding, he believed, above all, in upholding the liberties of the House.

More made speeches on a wide range of other topics. In the debate of 14 Mar. on an addition to the subsidy, More defended the granting of fifteenths, saying that only the corporate towns opposed them. He also went further than most Members in excusing James’s extravagance, arguing that for a king to retain ‘the love of the people, [he] must allow them panem et circenses; bread and sports’. Eleven days later he urged speed in the payment of what had been granted, for ‘the king’s honour’. Ibid. 266a, 284b, 289a; Notestein, 206. On 3 Mar. he opposed a bill to prevent fellows of colleges from marrying, CJ, i. 276b. and on 15 Mar. he questioned including the restoration of deprived ministers among the grievances, wishing ‘to see first whether they be justly deprived’. Ibid. 285b. He reported a bill on petty constables on 17 Mar., and a private bill concerning the sale of the estate of William Waller on 5 Apr., both of which were left to sleep. Ibid. 285b, 294a. He moved for a call of the House on 2 April. Ibid. 292b. Eight days later he requested to be excused from his accustomed duty of being treasurer of the collection, which was granted. Ibid. 296a; Bowyer Diary, 115. As the second session drew to a close he was one of those appointed to attend James with a petition of grievances on 14 May, which, upon More’s motion, was read by Sir Francis Bacon. CJ, i. 309a; Bowyer Diary, 159. On 22 May he carried the New River bill up to the Lords; and the following day he tendered a written proviso, framed on an agreement between the parties, to the bill to attaint the 11th Lord Cobham (Henry Brooke alias Cobham†). CJ, i. 311a, 312a. During the summer More again entertained the Court at Loseley. According to Oglander, he was at this time ‘a great housekeeper’, keeping 50 liveried retainers. His household also consumed every week ‘an ox and twelve sheep’. Manning and Bray, i. 95; Bamford, 167.

When the third session assembled, More proved anxious to revert to his earlier willingness to do the Crown’s bidding, and emerged as an ardent proponent of the Union, which he described on 26 Nov. 1606 as ‘the work of God’. Bowyer Diary, 193, CJ, i. 1005a. On that occasion More’s proposal for a conference after consideration by a committee was ‘disliked’, but he was appointed to help prepare or manage several later conferences (11 Dec., 25 Feb., 7 Mar. and 14 March). CJ, i. 324b, 329b, 340a, 350a, 351b. He objected to Richard Martin’s inclusion of escuage as a hostile law on 15 Dec., and moved for it to be considered separately. Ibid. 1011a. In response to a bitter invective against the Scots by (Sir) Christopher Pigott*, More insisted that Pigott must be sent for and censured (16 Feb. 1607). Ibid. 1014a; CD 1604-7, p. 130. He himself preferred to ‘look upon the whole island’, arguing on 20 Feb. that the Scots, already ‘more than strangers’, must now be regarded as ‘brethren and friends’. CJ, i. 1018a, 1024b. With Sir Anthony Cope he was given responsibility at the conference on 7 Mar. for elucidating the attitude of the Lords on the appointment of Scots to offices requiring a knowledge of the common law. Bowyer Diary, 224, 228, 232. On 28 Mar. More argued in favour of a further conference to address the question of naturalization. CJ, i. 1034b, Bowyer Diary, 250.

The Union debate took another turn after Easter, when Sir Edwin Sandys proposed the adoption of a ‘perfect’ Union, a clearly impossible goal to achieve. More immediately countered that the ‘unperfect’ must come first, as it would, in the long run, offer ‘no impediment to the perfect’. He also urged the Commons to continue negotiating with the Lords over naturalization. CJ, i. 1036b, Bowyer Diary, 262; Notestein, 247, 461. However, the Commons warmed to Sandys’s idea, whereupon the king furiously denounced Sandys’s wrecking motion. This in turn sparked off a debate about free speech in which More, despite his support for the Union, was forced to defend the liberties of the House. On 6 May the Commons resolved to tell James that if he took exception to any speeches, the Members in question must be allowed to defend themselves and explain their meaning. More reiterated this point the following day, promising that if any Member spoke out of turn the House would censure him itself, as it had in Pigott’s case. He concluded by recommending that the Speaker be instructed to approach the king at the end of the session with a demand ‘for the conservation of the liberty of the House’, which ‘he never saw ... less abridged than in this Parliament’. CJ, i. 370b, 1042a, Bowyer Diary, 376, 378-9.

Sandys’s motion effectively killed off the Union, but there remained the matter of the bill to abolish the hostile laws. On 26 June More undermined Nicholas Fuller’s objection to the Lords’ exemption of treason from the list of offences for which the remanding of prisoners from one kingdom to the other would apply, remarking that ‘the intent appeareth as Mr. Fuller saith, and yet we did not put in witchcraft, buggery, et alia, and as the Lords have put in more therein then we did so they may take away some others’. Bowyer Diary, 352. Three days later he defended another clause in the bill, which allowed jurors, as in the Scottish legal system, to chose or veto witnesses. Ibid. 359-60, CJ, i. 1055a.

Although he held the Union to be the most important business before the Commons that session, More found time to report from the privileges committee on 22 Nov. 1606 concerning absentee Members, and was appointed to consider numerous other bills. CJ, i. 323b, Bowyer Diary, 188. The problem of absenteeism was raised again on 27 Feb. 1607, whereupon More moved for a call of the House, ‘then a punishment to be inflicted’. CJ, i. 1022a. When the Speaker, Sir Edward Phelips was himself absent through illness on 23 Mar., More’s advice, based on his long parliamentary experience, was that there was no precedent to elect a replacement without royal leave. To remedy this deficiency he proposed that ‘indeed it were fit to choose committees to consider what course in after-times we might hold’. Ibid. 1031b-32a. He perhaps remained in London over the Easter recess, for in early April he received a letter from his wife complaining that she wished the Parliament would soon end so that he could return to Loseley. Surr. Hist. Cent. 6729/3/139. On 28 May he recommended from the privileges committee that the House should be called again, and a bill for better attendance expedited. CJ, i. 376a, Bowyer Diary, 299.

One issue in which More showed particular interest was the reform of the Marshalsea Court. He was the first named Member when the bill was committed on 10 Dec. 1606, and on 9 May 1607 he offered a new bill, apparently on behalf of the knight-marshal, Sir Thomas Vavasour*, ‘with protestation that he did it, not to cross the proceeding of the bill in the House, but of a mere desire to work a reformation of abuses’. CJ, i. 329a, 371b, 1015b; Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/1889. He also lent his support to a bill concerning the woollen cloth trade on 11 May. CJ, i. 372a. He acted as teller three times: on 25 Feb. for a bill to confirm the king’s grant of Soham manor to Sir Roger Aston* in exchange for other lands; Ibid. 340b. for a bill to regulate building in London on 15 May; Ibid. 374a, 1008b, 1053b. and for a private bill to settle the 6th earl of Derby’s estate, on 23 June. Ibid. 387a. More quickly steered the latter measure through committee, no doubt in the interest of his former brother-in-law Ellesmere, whose second wife was the dowager countess of Derby; after he reported it on 25 June, the bill was immediately engrossed. Bowyer Diary, 349-50. More’s final appointment of the session, on 3 July, was to receive the account of the treasurers of the collection for the poor. The next day the Parliament was prorogued. Ibid. 368.

During the summer of 1607 More was engaged at the request of his ‘very loving cousin and assured friend’ the 1st earl of Dorset in negotiating the marriage between Dorset’s grandson and Lady Anne Clifford. Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/COR/4/22. In 1608 More shared with his son Sir Robert in the grant of a Crown pension of £100, which was issued as compensation for the surrender of their offices at Farnham, held of the bishop of Winchester. CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 437. In the following year he wrote to the chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Julius Caesar*, and the lord treasurer, the 1st earl of Salisbury (Robert Cecil†), that ‘being entered into the winter of mine age’, he wished, ‘out of a natural desire of mine own good, fearing shame more than death’, to receive some mark of royal favour. Lansd. 160, f. 6; Surr. Hist. Cent. 6729/10/120. Far from obtaining any such token, he was shortly afterwards sent notice via Sir Gervase Clifton† that he must surrender his farm of the alnage in Surrey and Sussex to the duke of Lennox. Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/COR/4/27. In 1609 he sold his Blackfriars property for £1,300, and invested £75 in the Virginia Company. Anon. Site of the Office of The Times, 35, 50; Kingsbury, iii. 85; iv. 363.

In the fourth session More again took the chair in the committee for privileges, reporting on 14 Feb. 1610 that although 30 Members had died since the last meeting or were too ill to attend, ‘privileges and liberties must live when we are dead’. Procs. 1610 ed. E.R. Foster, ii. 5-7; Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/1331/15. More objected to the outcome of a by-election to replace the deceased Member Sir Henry Constable at Hedon in Yorkshire, at which the courtier Sir John Digby was returned, and persuaded the House to issue a new writ on 26 March. Digby had been nominated by the earl of Salisbury, and the objection was probably due to the suspected use of a blank indenture, rather than to Digby himself, who was immediately re-elected and allowed to take up his seat. CJ, i. 414b. During the remainder of the session More handled three privilege cases concerning Members or their attendants who were threatened with arrest. Ibid. 413a, 438b, 441b. He also successfully repeated his motion of the first session, for a committee ‘touching the decay of clothing and clothiers’, on 21 February. Ibid. 398a. However, he opposed a bill later in the session against ‘deceits in wools’, and it was rejected on 23 May. Ibid. 431a. More served as a teller in favour of motions to reject bills concerning fen drainage (15 Mar.) and brewing in victual houses (21 March). He again discharged this office on 31 Mar., when he favoured summoning one Mr. Crawford, who had been caught interloping in the House though not a Member. Ibid. 411b, 413b, 417b. He came out in favour of a bill to protect deer and conies on 21 Apr., and the same day reported naturalization bills for several Scottish courtiers, including his friend John Murray*, and three servants of Prince Henry. Ibid. 419b.

Most of More’s speeches in 1610 were on the subjects of supply and the Great Contract. His first appointment was to a conference with the Lords on 15 Feb. to hear lord treasurer Salisbury set out the extent of the king’s want of money. Ibid. 393b. In the grievances debate on 19 Feb., More offered a biblical analogy with ancient Israel to show the need for supply, in which there was an implicit assurance that redress of grievances would follow. Ibid. 397a. Five days later he stressed the need for reform of tenures to be one of the points upon which the offer of subsidies would be based. Ibid. 399b. On 28 Feb. he maintained that the king must have money ‘either by sale of his land or advantage of penal laws’, and he adjured the House ‘not to stay our offer, as though we lingered upon a bargain’. Ibid. 402a. By 14 Mar. James had agreed that wardship and tenures were to be included in the Contract negotiations, whereupon More proposed a message of thanks. Ibid. 411a. However, in the matter of impositions, James was less willing to negotiate, for when the Commons broached this subject in May 1610 it was ordered to desist. The House was immediately suspicious concerning the source of this instruction, for although it purported to come from the king, James was then absent from the capital. On 11 May, just as More advised the Commons not to ‘bring His Majesty’s proceeding in question’, there were frantic consultations between various councillors in the House, who finally admitted that the message had not come directly from the king. Ibid. 427b; Procs. 1610, ii. 84. Three days later, when Sir Robert Harley proposed to accept orders only from James, More again tried to calm the situation but was shouted down. Procs. 1610, ii. 91. After James held an audience at Whitehall on the subject of impositions on 21 May, More called for ‘the gentlemen that took notes, to set down His Majesty’s speech’. CJ, i. 430b; Procs. 1610, ii. 107.

In the great subsidy bill debate on 13 June, More moved for ‘the grievances to be put into a readiness’, and recommended the grant of ‘a subsidy or two’, to be deferred ‘until the grievances be ready in the king’s hands’. CJ, i. 438a, Parl. Debates 1610 ed. S.R. Gardiner, 55; Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/1331/16. By 11 July he had revised this offer upwards to two subsidies and four fifteenths, to be collected within two years. CJ, i. 448a. Two days later he again warned that, should the Contract collapse, the king would be forced ‘to seek some other means for his support’ and urged Members to offer a permanent revenue of ‘£100,000 upon land, the rest by some other course’. Ibid. 449a. He took the chair in the committee to prepare for the Contract conference of 19 July, and on the following day offered ‘a project in writing’, which was twice read and referred to the grand committee. Procs. 1610, ii. 287, 289-90, CJ, i. 453a. Clearly disappointed to have failed to agree the details of the Contract before the end of the session, More’s final speech was to propose on 23 July that the articles of the Contract so far agreed should ‘be published at the time of the subsidy, to give the people satisfaction’. Procs. 1610, ii. 292, CJ, i. 453b.

More’s preoccupation with the Contract continued in the short fifth session. On 27 Oct. 1610 he tried to persuade the House to put supply before grievances, claiming ‘that no grievance was so great to the people as the want of the king’. Procs. 1610, ii. 305. In committee of the whole House six days later, as it became obvious that no agreement on the Contract was going to be reached, More counselled that the Commons must inform James what was happening, so as ‘not to dwell long in the ill-conceit of His Majesty’. Ibid. ii. 394. On 16 Nov. Samuel Lewknor spoke on the difficulties of supply and, by cautious classical analogy, advised the king to live more economically. After a long pause More replied, ‘if silence should fall upon us all, I know not how we shall proceed, or how the king will receive courage to call us hither again, or our countries have comfort to send us hither’. On the failure of the ‘great and fair Contract’, he declared simply that ‘I am sorry for it. I will not examine the cause, because I protest I am utterly ignorant of it’. Although he conceded that the Commons had some valid grievances, and ‘many trades I know are decayed’, he concluded with a final appeal for subsidies: ‘God forbid we should be so poor as not to be able in a convenient proportion to supply the king’. Ibid. ii. 335-6; Parl. Debates 1610, p. 135.

In the summer of 1610 More’s reversion to the post of treasurer and receiver-general to Prince Henry fell in and he took up the appointment, which necessitated a two-year absence from the Surrey magistrates bench, the only hiatus during 50 years’ service. His second son and a nephew were also of the prince’s Household. Nichols, Progs. Jas. I, ii. 374. His desire for advancement at Court did not end there, and in 1611 he acquired the chancellorship of the Order of the Garter, an office once held by his brother-in-law Sir John Wolley†, but for which he had to pay ‘at a dear rate’. HMC 7th Rep. 674a. He was also a suitor for the mastership of the Wards in the summer of 1612, but was pipped to the post by Sir Walter Cope*, HMC 7th Rep. 670b; HMC Downshire, iii. 314; Chamberlain Letters, i. 357, 392. and briefly sought appointment as secretary of state with the assistance of his former Surrey neighbour Archbishop Abbot. Chamberlain Letters, i. 385. At around the same time he was one of those sub-commissioners to the treasury commissioners appointed to improve the Crown’s revenue, whose members, John Chamberlain observed sardonically, were ‘noted for not husbanding and well-governing their own estate’. Ibid. 374, 377.

More invested in the North-West Passage Company when it was founded, and was noted by Francis Dodd as a potential surety ‘sufficient for great sums’. Brown, 953; Univ. Chicago Lib., Bacon Pprs. ms 4213. He continued to seek ‘some high place’, and persevered despite the hostility of the Scottish favourite, Viscount Rochester. However, the unexpected death of the heir to the throne in 1612 proved fatal. Bamford, 167. More subsequently lost his Household office and, to make matters worse, a shortfall of £300 was discovered in his accounts, which the king remitted as an allowance for ‘diet’. AO1/2021/1A; Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/COR/4/32. In 1613 he sold his Exchequer post to his former son-in-law Sir Nicholas Carew*, paying £50 to Murray to secure the king’s consent. Berks. RO, D/ELL/C1/36, 37.

At the 1614 general election More sat for Surrey and his son for Guildford, while his son-in-law, Sir Thomas Crymes, was elected on his recommendation at Haslemere. On the opening day (8 Apr.) he again moved for a privileges committee, but although he was appointed to the committee immediately after the privy councillors he was not re-elected to the chair, which went instead to Nicholas Fuller. Procs. 1614 (Commons), 30. On 9 Apr. he advised against sending for the sheriff of Durham for interrogation about the disputed Northumberland election. Ibid. 40. Five days later, however, he argued in favour of expelling Robert Berry*, the bailiff of Ludlow, for returning himself. Ibid. 80. Showing his impatience on 12 Apr. with those who wished to dwell on the question of ‘undertaking’, More urged that equal priority be given to grievances and supply, without further delay. He especially recommended that the bills of grace offered by James should be considered. Ibid. 64. However, he himself was responsible for holding up the proceedings three days later; when Sir Jerome Horsey moved that More should bring the grievances into the House, he had to confess that as yet he only had an unofficial list ‘not under the clerk’s hand’. Ibid. 87. On 20 Apr. he repeated his call for supply and the grace bills to proceed ‘pari passu, in equal steps’, although he thought the latter should take precedence over the former. Ibid. 110; Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/1900. The same day he applied for his Surrey colleague, Sir Edmund Bowyer, to have leave to go to Bath to cure the palsy, which was granted. Procs. 1614 (Commons), 109.

More again moved for supply on 5 May, and the following day suggested that ‘for expedition sake’ all the bills of grace should be considered by one committee. Ibid. 146, 156, 166. Despite his desire to minister swiftly to the king’s needs, on 10 May he shared the general indignation at the ‘great wrong both to the state and commonwealth’ in the Stockbridge election, when it was learned that officers of the duchy of Lancaster had used force in order to secure the return of a nominee. More was inclined to spare the chancellor of the duchy, Sir Thomas Parry*, begging ‘consideration of his age and former service’, but called for Parry’s servants ‘to be questioned who thus mislead him’. Ibid. 188, 193, 195, 198. He was similarly lenient towards Richard Martin*, who caused great offence when, speaking as counsel for the Virginia Company on 17 May, he strayed off his topic to berate the Commons for its unco-operative behaviour. Whereas some called for Martin to be punished, More preferred ‘not to take advantage of this error but to remember his [Martin’s] former good service’, and suggested that there should be no attempt to record or analyse the speech, ‘which is fitter to be buried’. Ibid. 272, 277. By contrast, More considered that the proceedings of the House against another maligner, Bishop Neile, were justifiable, remarking on 25 May that ‘he that will endure the tax of disloyalty easily cannot but be disloyal’. Ibid. 342, 350. Two days later More added that ‘the offence great ... our proceedings [are] warranted by gravity’. He was named to a committee to draft a letter about Neile to James, and attended the king to present it on 28 May. Ibid. 365, 367, 371, 377.

With exemplary but fruitless industry, More examined the text of much of the legislation before the House, which covered a wide range of business. He criticized a bill against false bail on 16 Apr., and was appointed to its committee. Ibid. 90, 91. On the bill against impositions, which remained just as controversial as it had in 1610, More spoke against the commitment at its second reading on 18 Apr., reminding the Commons, as befitted a former Exchequer official, that James’s right to impose had been confirmed by a judgement in the Exchequer. He also objected that it was ‘against the orders of this court to commit a bill before there was something alleged against it’, but was countered by Fuller, who pointed out that ten days had been spent debating impositions in the last Parliament. Ibid. 94, 100; Wentworth Pprs. ed. J.P. Cooper (Cam. Soc. ser. 4. xii), 66. More was then appointed to a committee to prepare for a conference with the Lords on impositions (5 May). Procs. 1614 (Commons), 151. His attendance was recorded at the Charterhouse hospital bill committee appointed on 9 May. Ibid. 176, 180; LMA, Acc/1876/G/01/16/1. In support of the bill against nonresidence and pluralism, he desired a conference with the bishops, and suggested on 12 May that a prohibition of clerical justices should be added. He was also concerned to keep brewers off the bench, and supported a bill to this end on 31 May. Procs. 1614 (Commons), 217, 221, 223, 394. He commented on bills for the Sackville College at East Grinstead (16 May), for the preservation of salmon (21 May), againt deceits in the dyeing of silk (23 May), against fraudulent bankruptcies (25 May), for the enfranchisement of Durham (31 May), and for restraining the increase of London’s population (1 June). Ibid. 258, 263, 309, 330, 339, 342, 347, 353, 389, 397, 401.

On 3 June, after the king had threatened dissolution within the week if the Commons did not grant supply, More lamented the state of the country: ‘His Majesty’s wants and the subjects’ grievances; in both the commonwealth interested; which the ship, wherein we all sail, and must live or die’. He therefore moved for a committee ‘to consider both of the business of the kingdom, and to relieve the king’s wants’. Ibid. 414, 419. On the penultimate day before the abrupt end of the Parliament, he moved ‘to have the question put for the purging of any that might hereafter be called in question’ and to ask the king for more time. Ibid. 427-8. He was sent on 6 June to the Lords to announce that the Lower House was entering into consideration of supply. Ibid. 434; LJ, ii. 716a; HMC Hastings, iv. 281. The following day he advised against Sir Edwin Sandys’s bid to send another message to James, seeing ‘no hope to prevail by it, no continuance of the Parliament or ease of our grievances’. Procs. 1614 (Commons), 437.

During the Addled Parliament More purchased the Surrey manor of Chobham from the Crown for £890. C66/2030; VCH Surr. iii. 415. In 1615 he was chosen lieutenant of the Tower by James himself, ‘as one of the trustiest and ablest he could find out’ to take charge of the fallen and disgraced favourite, Somerset, who, as Viscount Rochester, had impeded More’s efforts to gain high office. Bamford, 166; Kempe, 400-5; CSP Dom. 1611-18, pp. 330, 377, 385; Archaeologia, xviii. 352-8; Carew Letters ed. J. Maclean (Cam. Soc. lxxvi), 19. Early in 1617 Chamberlain reported that More was about to sell the lieutenancy for £2,400, and had offered Lord Wotton £5,000 for the treasurership or comptrollership of the Household. However, neither More nor his rival Sir Percival Hart† managed to secure the post, inviting the comment that ‘we see how ambition makes men many times strain themselves beyond their reach’. Chamberlain Letters, ii. 50, 58. More’s admission to the king that he suffered from ‘the incurable disease of old age’ can hardly have furthered his chances. He received his discharge in March and was awarded £2,400 ‘for good service’. Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/COR/4/40; HMC 7th Rep. 673a.

More was re-elected for Surrey to the third Jacobean Parliament, while his son again sat for Guildford, together with their friend, Murray. Advancing years put no check on the senior More’s parliamentary activity. On the first day of business, 5 Feb. 1621, he made the standard motion for a committee for privileges and returns, and offered a petition from the Surrey borough of Gatton, where the election had produced a double return. CJ, i. 507b. Appointed chairman of the privileges committee, he saw to it that the question of Gatton was resolved within two days. Ibid. 511b. He seconded Sir William Cope’s motion on 6 Feb. for good attendance, ‘and showed that it had been the order to send the serjeant for such as were wanting’. CD 1621, ii. 28; Nicholas Procs. 1621, i. 166; CJ, i. 510b. As one of the Members deputed to administer the oath to his colleagues, he refused on 10 Feb. to swear in Sir John Leedes*, because Leedes had already taken his seat unsworn; the House supported More’s decision, and it was agreed that Leedes should be expelled. CD 1621, ii. 53; CJ, i. 516b. Disputed elections in several other boroughs were reported by More in coming weeks, including that for Yorkshire on 23 March. CJ, i. 513b, 515a, 536b, 556b, 570b, 572a; Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/1331/24, 25, 26. The most complicated case was that of the Westminster election, in which William Man had been substituted in the original return following the death of the electors’ first choice, Edmund Doubleday. On 26 Feb. More informed the House that many inhabitants of the constituency had complained. After counsel had been heard and several long debates held, More reported the case from the privileges committee on 22 Mar., and later that day acted as teller against the return in a close division that Man narrowly won. CJ, i. 529a, 568b, 569a; Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/1989, LM/1331/27. The final case, of Lewis Powell’s return for Pembroke, was not reported to the House until 18 May, when More recommended that the election should be declared void and a new writ issued. This advice was ignored, however, as the session was adjourned before a final resolution had been reached. CJ, i. 624a.

On 5 Feb. More was among the first to speak in favour of voting immediate subsidies. Stating his belief that ‘the chief ends of parliaments are the grievances of the commonwealth and the king’s supply’, he argued that these, ‘like twins, as Jacob and Esau, should go hand in hand, for though grievances go first, yet the blessing may be upon subsidies’. Ibid. 509b; CD 1621, ii. 21, 25. However, he acknowledged the widespread concern to safeguard the privileges of the House in the wake of the Addled Parliament, and in the free speech debate of 12 Feb. More declared that ‘liberty and freedom of speech ... ought to be more dear to us than our inheritances’. While urging the Commons ‘not to run back to what passed at the end of last Parliament’, he accepted the need for an address to the king, ‘submissively, and to express the care of our privileges’, and was among those appointed to draft a suitable petition. CD 1621, ii. 59; CJ, i. 517b, 518a; Nicholas, i. 32. In the committee of the whole House three days later he re-opened the debate on supply by asking ‘what greater grievances can there be than the king’s wants?’. He also mentioned the state of the Palatinate, which he described as a ‘cause of religion’, and confidently declared that ‘I am persuaded everyone here is willing to give’. CD 1621, ii. 84-85; Nicholas, i. 48. He was among those appointed to draft the subsidy bill (16 February). CJ, i. 523b.

In debate on the bill for free trade in wool on 14 Feb., More joined in the attack on monopolies and demonstrated his continued concern for the Surrey clothiers, deploring the low pay prevalent in the industry and observing that ‘if any patent bear show of good ground, if experience show it to be hurtful to the commonwealth, the private patent must give place’. Ibid. 520b; CD 1621, ii. 78, iv. 50; Russell, PEP, 94. His attitude towards particular patentees, such as (Sir) Giles Mompesson*, was nevertheless tempered by his sense of fairness and moderation; he argued on 28 Feb. that there was no need to force Mompesson to kneel at the bar, CJ, i. 530a, 532b. and again on 9 Mar. that his punishment should be referred to a committee to consider precedents. Ibid. 547b; Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/1816. He was himself named to it, though he had been teller against ‘augmentation, collection and repetition’ of the charges on 6 March. CJ, i. 530b, 541a. He thought the lighthouse patents should be suspended pending further investigation, and he called on 26 Mar. to send the matter to committee; although not named to this himself, he probably attended its deliberations as his papers include several submissions against these patents. Ibid. 573b; Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/1810, 1830-1; LM/1331/37. He thought it inappropriate to take further action against the alehouse patent, which James had already revoked, and suggested on 21 Apr. ‘to move this to the king, to know his pleasure’. Three days later, as the outrage against this particularly offensive monopoly continued to grow, More agreed there was ‘no doubt but the mis-execution of the patent great’; but his weariness of the whole debate was apparent by 11 May, when he reminded the Commons that the patent had been condemned ‘by both the king and us’, and that for the king’s honour they should leave it to James, ‘whose care [is] great’, to handle the punishment of the projectors and to reform the abuses of alehouse keepers. Ibid. 586a, 589b, 617b-618a. More provided evidence in defence of the glass patent held by Sir Robert Mansell*, on 14 May. He was well qualified to do so, living near the industry’s traditional centre at Chiddingfold and having conducted several inquiries into its working, but he drew back in committee, saying only that ‘there were devices to spoil the glass, and that made him (it being certified him) to certify as he did’. CD 1621, iii. 256; Kempe, 493; E.S. Godfrey, Development of Eng. Glassmaking, 69, 88, 112, 216. He spoke against a bill concerning the wool trade again on 18 May, because it threatened the privileges of clothiers, saying ‘the clothiers of Surrey complain, if they have not pre-emption, they will be undone’. CJ, i. 609a, 624b-625a.

When the monopolies debate turned to the question of censuring the referees such as the lord chancellor (Francis Bacon*) who, inter alia, had allowed corrupt patents to be granted, More’s response on 17 Mar. was to call for a fair trial, saying ‘were the lord chancellor never so great, never so dear unto him, yet the commonwealth (the mother of us all) is to be preferred before all’. Nicholas, i. 186. Corruption charges were also laid against Sir John Bennett*, one of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury judges, but More moved on 20 Apr. ‘to hear Sir John ... not to condemn him unheard’. CJ, i. 583b. He argued five days later that the Commons lacked the authority to discipline one of the registrars in Chancery, against whom a petition had been received in connection with the case against Bacon. Ibid. 591a. More was clearly uncomfortable during the debate on (Sir) George Marshall’s* sale of a knighthood of the Bath on 27 Apr., and said he ‘wisheth that this cause were taken off the file’. Nicholas, i. 342. He made no further comment on these subjects until 28 May, when he attempted to divert attention back towards the business of legislation: he moved ‘the principal end of parliaments [is] to relieve mischiefs, which to particular men; and grievances, which general’, and called ‘to have a calendar made of the state of all the bills, as they stand’. CJ, i. 629b.

More had something to say about most measures and issues, and was prepared, as he himself admitted on 8 Feb., to speak against a bill which he favoured lest it be too hurriedly engrossed and then questioned for some minor flaw. Nicholas, i. 27; CJ, i. 514a. He regarded Thomas Sheppard’s outburst against the Sabbath bill as ‘not sufferable’, and observed on 15 Feb. that there had been bills for Sunday observance ‘in every Parliament sithence he served’, an assertion which contradicted the impression conveyed by Sheppard, who claimed that the Sabbath bill was evidence of a puritan conspiracy. He therefore recommended that Sheppard be sequestered and called to the bar. CJ, i. 522a, 524b. Speaking from more than 40 years’ experience as an officer of the Surrey militia, on 7 Mar. he judged the bill ‘for making the arms of this kingdom more servicable’ a necessary measure, ‘for nothing certain but the muster-master’s fee’. He was one of those named to the committee to consider the bill and also instructed to draw up another ‘for finding of arms and for muster-masters’ (7 March). Ibid. 543a. Two days later More reported unfavourably on the first lighthouses bill, which was rejected. Ibid. 546a. When this measure resurfaced in a slightly altered condition, More protested (5 May) that he had never known it to be the case that a bill, once thrown out, should be reintroduced to the Commons except via the Lords. CD 1621, iii. 173; CJ, i. 610a. On 21 Apr., in prompt obedience to the king’s warning against over-elaborate drafting, he condemned the grace bill against purveyance as ‘too much clogged’, adding, ‘we must as well take care the king be served as to be eased ourselves’. CJ, i. 585b; CD 1621, v. 86-7; Nicholas, i. 291.

On the grounds that the weighty matters debated in this Parliament required special treatment, More defended the appointment of larger committees against a motion to the contrary on 13 February. CJ, i. 518b. With his usual vigilance for procedural correctness, on 20 Mar. he countered a motion by Edward Alford, who alleged ‘that when divers stand up to speak, the House, and not the Speaker, are to determine it’. More maintained that tradition required the Speaker to allow each man to speak in turn. Ibid. 564a. He gave his support, four days later, to the proposal that committees be allowed to sit during the Easter recess, but only to hear petitions, and ‘not to meet upon bills: that not fit, nor ever, to his knowledge, used’. Ibid. 572a. He thought the bill against secret inquisitions post mortem ‘a good bill, yet short’, and moved a proviso on 30 April. Ibid. 596b; Nicholas, i. 353. On 7 May he countered Sir Charles Montagu’s attack on the proposal to reduce the legal rate of interest to eight per cent by claiming that it laid ‘a penalty upon excessive usury’, and he was the first named to the committee to consider the bill. CJ, i. 611a; CD 1621, v. 148.

It was becoming increasingly typical of many of More’s interjections in debates that he referred to the longevity of his service as an MP. On 30 Apr., for example, after James instructed the Commons not to delve into the state of Ireland, More recalled that ‘in Queen Elizabeth’s time, upon Her Majesty’s message to this House once concerning a business which was here against a great person, the House did desist and gave it over ... and therefore he desireth that we should do the like in this business’. Nicholas, i. 357. On the other hand, he was not averse to setting new precedents ‘upon extraordinary causes’, as he demonstrated in the case of the Catholic lawyer Floyd, whom he described as ‘this incomparably wicked man’. More wished to see Floyd punished on the sole authority of the House for slandering the king’s daughter, Elizabeth of Bohemia, and joined in wholeheartedly in the bloodthirsty calls on 1 May ‘to whip him back to the Fleet’. Ibid. i. 371, ii. 20, 27; CJ, i. 601a, 604b, 605a, 608a, 610b; CD 1621, iii. 123; R. Zaller, Parl. of 1621, p. 105.

On 16 Mar., at the second reading of a bill to establish a new trust for the Catholic peer Viscount Montagu, Richard Weston very reasonably asked that More and Sir John Walter*, who were named as trustees, should declare their willingness to accept the responsibility, ‘else the Act will be to no purpose’. More replied that they had already undertaken the trust, remarking that he owed much to Montagu ‘for benefits and alliance’. CJ, i. 556b. He signed Guildford’s petition in favour of the Wey navigation bill and steered the bill through committee, from which he reported on 17 March. Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/1331/30-2; CJ, i. 539b, 560a, 561a. On 20 Mar. he offered a bill against the erection of cottages in and around London, but it was never read. CJ, i. 563b. The following day he acted as teller for the London tithes bill, which was rejected. Ibid. 565a. When Sir Dudley Digges presented a petition for greater care in the selection of justices of the peace, More complained on 25 Apr. that there had lately been a sevenfold inflation of the Surrey bench. Nicholas, i. 315; CJ, i. 590b. In debate on expiring laws on 29 May he maintained that one justice alone ought not to have the power to imprison ‘a disorderly person ... for a gentleman of good fashion may have a son who is disorderly sometimes’. Nicholas, ii. 119-20. Although an acquaintance of the Scottish courtier the earl of Holdernesse, who had been given lands forfeited by a Kentish recusant, More was not named to the committee for confirming the grant, but acted as teller for the bill on 29 May. CJ, i. 631a. As the sitting drew to a close, More moved on 30 May for the House to meet morning and afternoon to expedite as much legislation as possible. For those bills that remained unresolved, he proposed that ‘notwithstanding this sessions doth end, yet the bills may continue in the same forwardness which they are now in’. Nicholas, ii. 122-3; CJ, i. 631b. He also moved, on 2 June, for the protection of Members’ privileges during the adjournment, ‘to have now a general clearing’. CJ, i. 636a.

More’s first important speech after the recess, delivered ‘with much gravity’ on 26 Nov. 1621, was a plea for further supply, since ‘we have already made a declaration that our hearts are ready to assist for the recovery of the Palatinate ... if we do nothing it will be a scandal to our religion’. Nicholas, ii. 214. In typical fashion he referred back to the past, comparing James with his predecessor Elizabeth, who had ‘opposed both Rome and Spain; assisted France, and the Low Countries’. However, mindful of the poverty of the country, he tempered his enthusiasm for a war with caution over the manner of the grant. It was ‘rare, in one Parliament, to grant subsidies more than once’, he declared, and therefore the House should restrict itself to granting fifteenths ‘for a present supply’, which ‘will be easily borne’. In return for its generosity, the Commons should ‘move His Majesty, to pass some bills, and have a liberal pardon’. CJ, i. 646b. More repeated these same points the next day, when he called for a committee of the whole House on supply, and again the day after that. Ibid. 649a; Nicholas, ii. 225-6, 243.

On several bills, More reiterated points he had made before the adjournment. On 22 Nov., for instance, he suggested (as he had previously on 29 May) that the rogues’ and vagabonds’ bill be amended to require more than one magistrate’s authority to commit offenders to the house of correction, ‘for the son of a good man may be disordered’. CJ, i. 641b; Nicholas, ii. 191. He also suggested an amendment to the electoral reform bill on 28 Nov., that no Member could be pricked as a sheriff during a Parliament, as he himself had been in 1597, a point he would later repeat. CJ, i. 649b; Nicholas, ii. 227. After the second reading of a bill concerning administrations the following day, it was resolved upon More’s motion, ‘that when a bill is committed, one of the committee shall be still, at the commitment of it, particularly named to take such a bill’. Nicholas, ii. 247. On 30 Nov. he commented on a petition from various London brewers concerning an imposition on malt; it is possible that More was motivated to speak by Vavasour, one of the projectors behind this impost, on whose behalf he had advanced a bill for reform of the Marshalsea Court in 1607. CJ, i. 652b; CD 1621, vi. 215-17; ii. 480-1.

From this point onwards the session began to unravel. During the debate of 1 Dec. on Sir Edwin Sandys’ imprisonment after the first sitting, More cautiously observed that he ‘never, in all his time, knew greater care to preserve their liberties, than this assembly’. Ibid. 654b; Russell, 141. More favoured the address to the king on the prince’s marriage, declaring on 3 Dec. ‘it belongeth to us as Parliament-men to put the king in mind what are the causes, as we conceive, that do or may increase the danger of our religion’. Nicholas, ii. 271; CJ, i. 656a. When James reacted angrily, More maintained on 5 Dec. that, like the woman in the Gospel, the Commons had ‘but touched the hem of the garment of the prerogative’. He then moved that a petition explaining the House’s motives be sent to the king. CD 1621, ii. 501; Nicholas, ii. 282, 288. As the Parliament moved towards its close, More supported James’s efforts to persuade the House to proceed with legislation, though he disliked any infringement of the Commons’ liberties, which he again described as ‘our inheritance’, and as ‘the life and blood of the commonwealth’. CJ, i. 658b. He argued on 10 Dec. that ‘we shall not discharge our duties to God, the king and our country, if we sit here and do nothing, or rise as soon as we come’. Ibid. 661a; Nicholas, ii. 300. However, the crisis continued to deepen. Upon receipt of another angry message from James two days later the Commons were immobilized, despite More’s exhortations to carry on with business, ‘wherein in duty we are bound to proceed’. CJ, i. 662a; Nicholas, ii. 312-13. By 14 Dec. the House began to empty, whereupon More counselled ‘there is an Act of Parliament that none of the House of Commons can depart into the country unless he hath leave of the House, under the Speaker’s hand’. Nicholas, ii. 329-30. Believing that James must have been misinformed of what was happening, More defended the position of the Commons on 15 Dec., and moved for ‘a recollection of all our proceedings this Parliament and of the king’s answers, that they may remain to posterity’. CD 1621, ii. 521; CJ, i. 664a; Nicholas, ii. 330. When an adjournment was announced two days later, More protested that ‘the justice of the country suffereth’, and yet again moved to go on with bills. CJ, i. 666b-667a; Nicholas, ii. 343-44, Zaller, 164, 168, 174. Striving to maintain a semblance of normality amid the chaos, More’s final contribution was to call on 18 Dec. for a penalty to be imposed on those arriving after prayers. CJ, i. 667b.

Early in 1622 More appealed to lord keeper Williams to help him to some further office, expressing his chagrin at having held the chancellorship of the Garter for so long ‘with less grace than ever any before me hath done (the same, in regard of the attendances required, having usually been joined to some extraordinary place of honour)’. Williams, failing with the king, pressed ‘upon the only door which openeth (as I think) to preferment’, but the royal favourite the duke of Buckingham was equally unresponsive. HMC 7th Rep. 674a. More’s electoral interest reached its apogee in 1624. He was himself returned for Guildford to the last Jacobean Parliament, while his son Sir Robert and son-in-law Sir Thomas Crymes served as Surrey’s two knights of the shire. With two of More’s grandsons, Poynings More and Francis Carew II, sitting for Haslemere, this was one of the largest family groups in the House. R. Ruigh, Parl. of 1624, pp. 112-13. More again helped to swear in the Members on 12 Feb. 1624. Hawarde 1624, p. 143. On 23 Feb. he approved Sir Edward Cecil’s motion for a general fast, citing a precedent from his own first Parliament. ‘Nicholas 1624’, f. 2v. Unlike earlier parliaments in which he had sat, he did not move for a privileges committee, but was appointed on 23 Feb. as one of its members. Although the chair was taken by the more radically minded John Glanville, CJ, i. 671b; D. Hirst, Representative of the People?, 77. More nevertheless retained a keen interest in electoral matters, and lent the benefit of his long experience to the debate on whether Sir Francis Popham’s election for Chippenham upon the return of the bailiff, rather than the sheriff, was valid. In Popham’s favour More cited the precedent of Sir Thomas Beaumont’s election in 1621, and argued on 25 Feb. that nothing could be objected against the return unless the town’s inhabitants complained. Rich 1624, p. 11; ‘Spring 1624’, p. 22; CJ, i. 673a. He also intervened in debates concerning disputed elections in Cambridge (16 Mar.), Norfolk (24 Mar.), and Pontefract (1 Apr.), the latter being one of the constituencies newly re-enfranchised with More’s help in 1621. ‘Holland 1624’, i. f. 56v; ‘Spring 1624’, p. 161; CJ, i. 749a, 751a; Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/1331/29. On 4 Mar. he delivered the petitions presented to the previous parliament by various other boroughs seeking re-enfranchisement. CJ, i. 673a; ‘Earle 1624’, f. 49v. He maintained the pressure on behalf of the Buckinghamshire towns of Amersham, Wendover and Marlow, all of which desired to become constituencies, and supported the enfranchisement of Durham, speaking in favour of both matters on 4 May. CJ, i. 697b.

The main business of the Parliament, summoned in the wake of the failure of the Spanish Match, was foreign policy. More was appointed to the committee to justify Buckingham’s conduct of the marriage negotiations (27 Feb.), and on 1 Mar. he spoke against continuing the treaty negotiations with Spain, which he believed were ‘the cause of the greatest consequence he ever knew here’. Ibid. 675a, 722a; ‘Pym 1624’, f. 10. In this lengthy speech, which was widely reported, More questioned how so wise a king as James could have been so long deluded, and warned the House to proceed slowly. He clearly remained, as he had been in 1621, keenly in favour of war to save the Palatinate. Rich 1624, p. 25; ‘Earle 1624’, f. 36; ‘Pym 1624’, f. 11v; ‘Holland 1624’, i. f. 12v; Ferrar 1624, pp. 38-9; ‘Hawarde 1624’, p. 159. He was interrupted ‘with noise of some that misliked his tediousness’, but this may have been uneasiness at the implication of differences between James and Charles. ‘Spring 1624’, p. 43; ‘Lowther 1624’, f. 16; Russell, 173. Two days after the joint conference of 3 Mar. he protested at the production of the earl of Southampton’s paper which advised Members to offer their ‘persons and estates’ for the war effort, saying there should be ‘no motion of supply but from this House’. CJ, i. 683a, 729b; Rich 1624, p. 43; ‘Holland 1624’, i. f. 32v. Although, as he argued on 11 Mar., he thought the proposal for a Council of War unseasonable until the king’s mind had been ascertained, ‘Holland 1624’, i. f. 44-v; Russell, 184. he was appointed to a further conference to hear Prince Charles speak on the country’s readiness for war, and was named to the committee to draft a message of thanks the following day. CJ, i. 683a, 684a, 734b; ‘Hawarde 1624’, p. 204. In the debate of 19 Mar. on supply for maintaining a war against Spain, More added his voice to the general feeling that the king’s demands had been pitched too high, but ‘would have us follow His Majesty as Peter followed Christ, afar off’. He suggested a conference with the Lords ‘to know what will fit the present occasions, which he thinketh two subsidies and four fifteenths will very well supply’. With characteristic harking back to the funding of military campaigns abroad during Elizabeth’s reign, More concluded ‘if the king please to continue the body of this House together, more may after be given upon just occasion’. CJ, i. 740b-741a; ‘Pym 1624’, f. 33v; ‘Nicholas 1624’, f. 90v-91; ‘Holland 1624’, i. f. 61; ‘Hawarde 1624’, p. 214; Holles 1624, p. 40; ‘Spring 1624’, p. 125; ‘Earle 1624’, f. 94v; ‘Jervoise 1624’, f. 71; ‘Lowther 1624’, f. 35.

National security motivated calls for increased vigilance against recusancy in this Parliament, and More was appointed to help draft a request to the Lords for a conference on the subject and to serve as one of the conference managers (25 February). CJ, i. 676b. With reference to the Armada he called for the disarming of recusants on 1 Apr., ‘Holland 1624’, i. f. 74v; Holles 1624, p. 57; ‘Spring 1624’, p. 166. and two days later suggested a bill for the education of papists’ children. ‘Holland 1624’, i. f. 77v. On 7 Apr. he voiced his support for a Proclamation to enforce the laws against Catholics, so ‘that the Papists cannot take exceptions of sudden surprisal or want of warning’. ‘Spring 1624’, p. 183; Holles 1624, p. 64. As one of those keen to secure defence at home, More was authorized to bring in the revived bill of arms on 15 Mar. but it was rejected on first reading; he was later named to the committee to draft a replacement after a second similar bill had also been thrown out (16 April). ‘Spring 1624’, p. 116; ‘Holland 1624’, i. f. 53; CJ, i. 686a, 768a. The latter would have increased the powers of deputy lieutenants and their appointees, an objective which More supported, as there was only ‘an imperfect law of Queen Mary’ in force for the provision of local militias. ‘Nicholas 1624’, f. 156v; Holles 1624, p. 83; Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/1331/35.

More also contributed to debates on a wide range of other business, frequently pointing out precedents or correcting failures to follow traditional procedure. In the case of several bills revived from 1621, which were read without comment or debate, he suggested that they need not be committed but might instead be engrossed straight away. CJ, i. 716b; ‘Nicholas 1624’, ff. 4, 7v; Holles 1624, p. 2. He supported Sir Edward Coke’s motion of 24 Feb. for a select committee on trade, only stipulating that some of those ‘that have already taken pains in it’ be named. By this he meant the trade commissioners of 1621 and 1622, of which he himself was one; but the House chose to entrust so important a matter to a grand committee. CJ, i. 717a; Rich 1624, p. 3; ‘Spring 1624’, p. 14; ‘Earle 1624’, f. 14v. In the committee for courts of justice on 25 Feb., More helped quash the proposal for a sub-committee for petitions, ‘saying it was never used until the last time’. ‘Spring 1624’, p. 27. On 2 Mar. More defended those who wished to speak after the usury bill received its first reading, citing a precedent from 1584, and reinforced his point the following day in defiance of the Speaker, Sir Thomas Crewe. ‘Spring 1624’, p. 65; Holles 1624, p. 16. One week later he served as teller for a bill to restrict the power of Chancery and King’s Bench to overrule local courts. CJ, i. 680b. On 1 Apr. he opposed a bill giving magistrates authority to close inns, because it would deprive men of their inheritance. Holles 1624, p. 55. He was appointed to the committee for the revived Montagu trust bill (5 Apr.), and confirmed a week later that an interested party, Sir Francis Englefield, had given it his consent. CJ, i. 724a, 755a, 764b. He was named to, but did not attend, the committee for the restitution in blood of his distant kinsman Carew Ralegh†, and when it was objected on 6 Apr. that such bills should be first introduced in the Lords he recommended a search for precedents. Ibid. 755b, 758a; ‘Spring 1624’, p. 176; Kyle, 225. More urged caution when charges were brought against lord treasurer Middlesex (Sir Lionel Cranfield*) on 5 Apr., for ‘matters of money ever carry jealousy in those that have the managing of them’. CJ, i. 755b; ‘Holland 1624’, i. f. 80v. He remained uneasy about the impeachment proceedings, and as he argued on 1 May, preferred to leave it to the Lords. CJ, i. 696a. In response to a motion from Sir Guy Palmes on 29 Apr. that a committee should be appointed to review all the engrossed bills in order to ‘keep those not passed for the next session’, More argued that such a committee went ‘against all former precedents’. He added that ‘neither is it certain that we shall all live until the next session’, and expressed concern that those newly elected would lack the expertise to handle half-baked bills. He was supported by Coke, one of the few remaining Members older than More, who called it a dangerous innovation. Ibid. 779a; ‘Holland 1624’, ii. f. 60v-61. At the end of the session, on 29 May, More reported on the Benevolence contributed by Members for the relief of the poor. CJ, i. 715a, 796b; ‘Hawarde 1624’, p. 304; ‘Earle 1624’, f. 198.

Among More’s papers is an undated draft of a petition to James for a sign of royal bounty or favour, ‘to the end he may not rest contemptible in the eyes of the world, and close his eyes with shame’. However, apart from a grant of properties to the value of £80, including the Unicorn in Southwark, which he leased to his lawyer William Holt* in July 1624, his pleas fell on deaf ears. Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/1594, n.d.; CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 290. He attended James’s funeral in the following year as chancellor of the Garter, ‘but because he was weak of body he was assisted by Colonel Ogle’. Lansd. 885, f. 119. He nonetheless stood for election again, and was returned to the first Caroline Parliament as Surrey’s senior knight of the shire. He moved for the committee of privileges on 21 June 1625, and took the chair for the last time. Procs. 1625, pp. 205, 208. He reported the following day concerning disputed elections, particularly that for Yorkshire, which was finally judged void on 4 July. Ibid. 217, 218, 221, 295, 300, 301, 306, 314-6. More’s first concern, as he moved on 22 June, was to enforce the laws against Jesuits and recusants. Ibid. 216. A third of his committee appointments were on religious matters, including bills for the Sabbath observance (22 June), recusancy (23 June), and the framing of an address to Charles on religion (24 June). Ibid. 215, 226, 240. On 22 June when Sir Edward Coke spoke against appointing standing committees for grievances and courts of justice, More confirmed that the establishment of these bodies was ‘a custom of a late beginning, and that in Queen Elizabeth’s time no such committees were appointed but upon particular occasions’. Ibid. 220. Later the same day More acted as teller against a motion calling upon the House to join with the Lords to petition for a fast, but his side was defeated and he was appointed to attend the conference. Ibid. 228. In the supply debate of 30 June, More countered Sir Edward Giles’s claim that the country was too poor to be taxed again so soon, but himself suggested only two subsidies and two fifteenths. Ibid. 275. A week later, as the Parliament moved towards adjournment under the threat of plague in London, he reported from the privileges committee that he had over 20 petitions in hand and was ordered to deliver them to the clerk. Ibid. 350.

During the brief Oxford sitting More joined in the attack on the Arminian Richard Montagu (2 Aug. 1625), and was the first named to the committee on the bill to require public accounts to be taken on oath (6 August). Ibid. 380, 411. More remained committed to the war, which he believed that Parliament was ‘engaged by duty’ to support, and on 5 Aug. he came out in favour of capitulating to Buckingham’s demand for additional supply. He also objected that a proposal to ask the Lords to explain the government’s military preparations was ‘against privilege and order’, and warned against launching an inquiry ‘into the errors of former times’. Ibid. 391, 393, 402, 407. On 10 Aug. he asked that supply be put to the question, and on the following day, in grand committee, he adduced a precedent for giving a second time. Ibid. 445, 451. The example could cut both ways, since he explained that when the Commons had offered Elizabeth extra money, she had ‘royally refused’ saying ‘she would search the bottom of her own coffers before she would draw any more from the subjects’. More nevertheless expressed his confidence that the fleet was ‘set out upon mature and good deliberation ... because the king hath said it’. Ibid. 462, 465, 467, 469. Such arguments were insufficient to convince the majority of the Commons, however, and the session was disharmoniously dissolved. More may have hoped by his declarations of loyalty to Charles to secure the favour at Court that had eluded him hitherto, and shortly before Christmas 1625 he petitioned for some post of greater honour in attendance upon the king, since he felt ‘through age and infirmities disabled to do His Majesty’s service both in the country where I dwell and in the office of the order [of the Garter]’. However, as More wryly commented afterwards, Charles’s answer was ‘he would think of it, which being the same that le roy s’avisera was to me, an old Parliament-man, no great comfort to hear’. Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/COR/4/57.

At the general election in 1626, More’s son Sir Robert was too ill to stand, and died soon afterwards. More, however, now aged 72 and suffering from ‘bad legs’, was returned for Surrey, while his grandon Poynings was re-elected for Haslemere. On 9 Feb. More again moved for a committee for privileges, but although one was appointed it was now chaired by (Sir) John Finch II. Procs. 1626 ii. 7, 10. On 11 Feb. More supported the revived accounts bill, which empowered magistrates to administer an oath to tax collectors, and was the first named to the committee. Ibid. ii. 21, 23. He was able to offer a precedent based on his own experience in the debate of 14 Feb. on Sir Edward Coke’s election for Norfolk. Coke was at the time sheriff of Buckinghamshire and hence ineligible to sit in the Commons, but since the shrievalty was an obvious ploy to exclude him from the House, many Members, including More, were inclined to argue that he should be admitted, saying ‘divers sheriffs have sat here’, as he himself had done in 1597. Ibid. 36, 40.

More showed a greater degree of concern about religion in this than in previous parliaments, beginning with a motion to ‘amend the livings of ministers’, on 13 February. He was named to the simony bill committee the following day, and gave his support to a bill against scandalous ministers on 15 February. Ibid. 28, 32, 46, 48. He was also appointed to consider various measures against recusancy (23 Feb., 24 Mar.), and was among those ordered on 20 Mar. to draft a petition for the presentation of prominent recusants to the king. Ibid. 102, 321, 356. Although a member of High Commission, he claimed to have been absent in March 1625 when this body decided to excommunicate Sir Robert Howard*, a Member of the 1624 Parliament, which had not yet been dissolved. Howard’s crime had been to conduct an adulterous affair with the duke of Buckingham’s sister-in-law, and although the matter had gone unmentioned in the brief 1625 assembly, resentment of Buckingham in this Parliament added greater sympathy to Howard’s renewed petition against the excommunication which he denounced as ‘a great fault and breach of privilege’, on 21 March. More informed the House (10 June) that the High Commission’s proceedings against Howard had been declared void in his presence. Ibid. 332; iii. 149, 414. On 17 Apr. he joined in the condemnation of Montagu’s latest book, an Arminian manifesto which attacked puritans as hypocrites. Ibid. iii. 9. More took the allegations of Buckingham’s support for Arminianism very seriously, although he was generally sympathetic towards the duke, stating on 4 May that ‘if we make slight matters of religion we should show ourselves not to be religious at all’.

In committee of the whole House on 24 Feb. 1626, More approached the question of supply by appealing to the Commons not ‘to rip up now errors past’, and pointed to the ongoing problem of ‘the enemy on our coast’. Ibid. ii. 116, 122. Four days later he urged caution upon those who would condemn Buckingham for his conduct as lord admiral, and expressed the vague hope that ‘the counsel of Parliament being followed we shall recover our honour’. Ibid. 149-50, 152, 155. Although appointed to the conferences on the Commons’ message to Buckingham (4 Mar.) and defence (7 Mar.), More played little part in debate over the charges against Buckingham, evidently wishing that the matter could be dropped, as he asked on 11 Mar. after hearing the Council of War’s answers, ‘that this should be no more stirred. That satisfaction is given’. Ibid. 190, 195, 216, 260. The same day he acted as teller against including the stay of the French vessel St. Peter as a grievance against Buckingham, in a vote which the ‘noes’ narrowly won. Ibid. 257. On 14 Mar. he showed his concern for defence at home as well as abroad by seconding the motion of Thomas Wentworth I for an arms bill, which More proposed should be drafted by lawyers and soldiers; and despite being neither he was then named to the committee. Ibid. 279, 283.

In response to messages from the king ordering the Commons to expedite supply, More declared on 13 Mar. that ‘I will not speak of any dissolution for I fear it not’, but pressed for subsidies to be voted rapidly, for ‘the delay of every day strengthens our enemies and weakens ourselves’. Ibid. 250, 273. On 27 Mar. he defended the granting of fifteenths, which he considered fairer than subjectively rated subsidies, and proposed to vote three subsidies and three fifteenths, to be collected within a year. Ibid. 376, 383. Four days later he opposed Sir John Eliot’s motion for a Remonstrance in defence of the Commons’ proceedings against Buckingham. He was nevertheless appointed to attend the king with the Remonstrance on 5 Apr., and later that day acted as teller in support of Charles’s command for a week’s adjournment. Ibid. 415, 430. By 25 Apr. More was convinced that his earlier subsidy offer was ‘much too short’, and tried to persuade the Commons to raise it to four of each. Ibid. iii. 22, 61, 65. After an amount had finally been agreed, More served on the committee which he had himself proposed to draft the preamble to the subsidy bill brought in by Sir Robert Hitcham (5 May). Ibid. 168.

On 1 May More again defended Buckingham’s embargo of the St. Peter. While conceding that it had been ‘unlegal’, he thought that it was ‘not such a grievance as should be presented’. He acted as teller for a second time, but was unable to prevent the matter from being included in the impeachment charges. Ibid. 114-15. Perhaps surprisingly, he countered (Sir) Humphrey May’s claim that the proposal to ask for the commitment of Buckingham was unprecedented by declaring on 9 May that the House should not be afraid to make new precedents. Despite this, he advised that they should ‘stay the further prosecution’. Ibid. 203, 208, 214; Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/1331/10, 48, 52. After the arrest of Sir Dudley Digges and (Sir) John Eliot*, he recalled on 17 May that several Members, such as Sir Anthony Cope*, had been imprisoned for their speeches in Elizabeth’s parliaments. Procs. 1626, iii. 271, 276, 279, 280-1. On 3 June he called for the expulsion of John More II (who was no relation) for accusing Charles of tyranny, citing Sir Thomas Parry* as an example of a Member rusticated for a lighter offence. Ibid. 360. Three days later he complained of Walter Long’s strictures on Buckingham, and on 7 June defended the decision of Cambridge University to appoint the duke as their chancellor. Ibid. 379, 384, 386. More’s final duties as the Parliament came to an end were to help collect the Commons’ Benevolence (13 June) and to request access to the king for presentation of the second Remonstrance (14 June). Ibid. 432, 445.

More finally surrendered the chancellorship of the Garter in August 1626, without compensation but in expectation of ‘a better reward than of loss and disgrace; and thereof above all to be made a spectacle’. Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/COR/4/57, 84. He did not stand for Parliament again, perhaps as a result of declining health and financial embarrassment incurred through the ‘unthrifty and careless courses’ of his grandson and heir Poynings. Donne, whom More outlived by a few months, commented that he had become ‘useful and comfortable to my good father-in-law ... whose patience God hath been pleased to exercise with many temporal concerns’. Bald, 527. More remained an influential figure in county politics, although accused of ill-usage by one of his neighbours, Sir Ambrose Browne, who was returned as a knight of the shire for Surrey in 1628. Croke Reps. (1669), ii. 65; HMC 7th Rep. 676b. Early in 1630, as tardy compensation for the chancellorship, More was granted half the sum of £2,400, to be recovered by himself out of debts due to the Crown; and shortly before his death he made the patent over to his son William. CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 164; Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/350/41. He died intestate on 16 Oct. 1632, and was buried in the Loseley chapel in St. Nicholas’, Guildford. Administration of his estates was granted to a creditor. His goods were valued at only £200. PROB 6/14A, f. 147; Surr. Hist. Cent. LM/1105. His portrait, dating from around 1608, remains at Loseley Park. J. More-Molyneux, Loseley Park Official Guide, unpag.