“ He succeeded Bourchier as archbishop of Canterbury in 1486 and Alcock as lord chancellor in 1487; and he was responsible for much of the diplomatic, if not also of the financial, work of the reign, though the ingenious method of extortion popularly known as “Morton’s fork” seems really to have been the invention of Richard Fox (q.v.) , who succeeded to a large part of Morton’s influence. Morton no doubt impressed Lancastrian traditions upon Henry VII., but he cannot be credited with any great originality as a statesman, and Henry’s policy was as much Yorkist as Lancastrian. ”

“ He lived with the exiled court of Margaret of Anjou at Bar until 1470, and took an active part in the diplomacy which led to the coalition of Warwick and Clarence with the Lancastrians and Louis XI., and indirectly to Edward IV.’s expulsion from the throne. Morton landed with Warwick at Dartmouth on the 13th of September 1470, but the battle of Tewkesbury finally shattered the Lancastrian hopes, and Morton made his peace with Edward IV., probably through the mediation of Archbishop Bourchier. ”

“ Nat. Biogr, see the recently published calendar of Patent Rolls, 1461–1485, passim; W. Busch, England under the Tudors (1892) ; J. Gairdner, Henry VII. (1889) and Lollardy and the Reformation (1908) , and Political History of England, vols. ”