Mortons were middle or upper middle in the gentry. He seems to have
been obsessed with increasing the family's wealth, the Rolls are full
of documents concerning his mania for real estate acqusition. By the
1490s the family had a huge real estate portfolio. One story tells you
all you need to know about him. Young Margaret Woodford, a major
Leicestershire heiress, married John Turvill who promptly died. She
married his brother and then applied for the dispensation, which came
before Dr. John as Archbishop of Canterbury. He rejected it and
annulled the marriage, and persuaded (forced?) her to marry his nephew
Thomas, a widower triple her age.
Dr. John's designated heir was John of Sturminster Marshall, son of his
brother Richard. From his earliest youth he was trained for the family
patriarchy, working side by side with Dr. John on land acquisition,
litigation, etc. Okay, you'd expect him to marry a woman from the top
level of the gentry, with lots of property, right?
Dr. John had gotten involved with the Delamare manor of Aldermanston as
a trustee of sorts. This evidently brought him into contact with the
Delamare heiresses, Elizabeth already married and tweener Frideswide.
John of Sturminster married Frideswide and got the manor for the
family, and he had to prove his wife's age because she was so young.
(The girls had split the inheritance, and Aldermanston was Frideswide's
lot. Incidently, she soon died, and the manor seems to have gone to
Elizabeth because Frideswide had produced no progeny.)
So here's my question. Why on earth did Dr. John encourage or permit
such a marriage. The girl had one solitary manor, Dr. John now had a
mind-boggling real estate portfolio for a gentry family. Did he say to
John "she seems like a nice girl and is an orphan now, I feel sorry for
her -- so I want you to marry her". That would be hard to imagine of
any gentry, and least of all Dr. John Morton. A girl like that would
be barely suitable for one of the younger sons of Richard or the
collateral lines. How on earth did she come to marry John of
Sturminster? If Dr. John wanted Aldermanston, he could have bought it
with pocket change -- he didn't need to use his heir to acquire one
manor.
I'm completely befuddled. Comments?
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