grants (cf. App. ii. 10th Rep. Dep.-Keeper Public Records, p. 241).
In 1546 Morison went as ambassador to the Hanse towns. On Henry's death he was furnished with credentials to the king of Denmark, and ordered by the council to announce Edward's accession. He had a pension of 20l. a year throughout the reign. On 8 May 1549 he was made a commissioner to visit the university of Oxford, and before June 1550 was knighted; in July he went as ambassador to Charles V, Roger Ascham going with him, and the two reading Greek every day together. His despatches to the council were usually very long, but Morison found time to travel about Germany with his secretary, Ascham, who published in 1553 an account of their experiences in ‘A Report of the Affaires of Germany.’ The emperor, who was frequently remonstrating through Morison about the treatment of the Princess Mary, did not altogether like him; he was in the habit, as he said, of ‘reading Ochino's Sermons or Machiavelli’ to his household ‘for the sake of the language,’ and his friendship with the leading reformers must have made negotiations difficult. On 5 Aug. 1553 he and Sir Philip Hoby [q. v.] were recalled (they had alluded to Guilford Dudley as king in a letter to the council), but the next year Morison withdrew to Strasburg with Sir John Cheke [q. v.] and Cook, and spent his time in study under Peter Martyr, whose patron he had been at Oxford (Churton, Life of Nowell, p. 23). He was at Brussels early in 1555, and is said also to have passed into Italy, but he died at Strasburg on 17 March 1555–6. He had married Bridget, daughter of John, lord Hussey, who remarried in 1561 Henry Manners, earl of Rutland [q. v.]. By her he had a son Charles, afterwards Sir Charles, kt., and three daughters: Jane married to Edward, lord Russell, Elizabeth to William Norreys, and Mary to Bartholomew Hales. Morison died very rich, and had begun to build the mansion of Cashiobury in Hertfordshire, which his son completed, and which passed into the Capel family by the marriage of Sir Charles's daughter Elizabeth with Arthur, lord Capel of Hadham [q. v.], and is now the property of the Earl of Essex. According to Wood, Morison left illegitimate children.
Morison wrote:
- ‘Apomaxis Calumniarum,’ London, 1537, 8vo, an attack on Cochlæus, who had written against Henry VIII, and who retorted in ‘Scopa in Araneas Ricardi Morison Angli,’ Leipzig, 1538.
- A translation of the ‘Epistle’ of Sturmius, London, 1538, 8vo.
- ‘An Invective ayenste the great detestable vice, Treason,’ London, 1539, 8vo.
- ‘The Strategemes, Sleyghtes, and Policies of Warre, gathered together by S. Julius Frontinus,’ London, 1539, 8vo.
- A translation of the ‘Introduction to Wisdom’ by Vives, London, 1540 and 1544, dedicated to Gregory Cromwell.
He is also said to have written ‘Comfortable Consolation for the Birth of Prince Edward, rather than Sorrow for the Death of Queen Jane,’ after the death of Jane Seymour on 24 Oct. 1537. ‘A Defence of Priests' Marriages’ is sometimes assigned to him. It is dated by some 1562, but more probably appeared between 1549 and 1553. In manuscript are ‘Maxims and Sayings,’ Sloane MS. 1523; ‘A Treatise of Faith and Justification,’ Harl. MS. 423 (4); ‘Account of Mary's Persecution under Edward VI,’ Harl. MS. 353.
[Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, ed. Gairdner, vols. vi. and seq. passim; Cal. of State Papers, For. Ser. 1547–53; Rymer's Fœdera, xiv. 671, xv. 183; Acts of the Privy Council, 1547–56, passim; Katterfeld's Roger Ascham, sein Leben und seine Werke, note to pp. 91 and 92; Ascham's Epistles, Oxford, 1703, passim; Ascham's English Works, 1815, xvii. 383; Lloyd's State Worthies; Fuller's Worthies, p. 227; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 532; Clutterbuck's Herts, i. 237; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 239; Fasti Oxon. i. 29; Dixon's Hist. of the Church of England, vol. iii. passim; Narratives of the Reformation (Camd. Soc.), p. 146; Trevelyan Papers (Camd. Soc.), ii. 25; Chron. of Queen Jane and of two years of Queen Mary (Camd. Soc.), pp. 108–9; Troubles connected with the Prayer-book of 1549 (Camd. Soc.), p. 104; Strype's Memorials, i. i. 64, &c., ii. i. 576, &c., ii. ii. 18, &c., iii. i. vi., &c.; Grindal, p. 12; Parker, ii. 446; Cranmer, pp. 1009, 1015; Cheke, pp. 19, 48; Annals, ii. ii. 498; Lodge's Illustrations of Brit. Hist. i. 196, &c.; Lansd. MS. 980, 137; Thomas's Historical Notes, i. 218, 219.]
MORISON, ROBERT (1620–1683), botanist, son of John Morison by his wife Anna Gray, was born at Aberdeen in 1620. He was educated at the university of that city, and in 1638 graduated as M.A. and Ph.D. He devoted himself at first to mathematics, and studied Hebrew, being intended by his parents for the ministry; but his attachment to the royalist cause led him to bear arms, and at the battle at the Brigg of Dee, when Middleton, the covenanter, was victorious, he received a dangerous wound in the head. Upon his recovery he, like so many of his royalist countrymen, went to Paris, where he became tutor to the son of a counsellor, named Bizet. Meanwhile he applied himself to the study of anatomy, zoology, botany, mineralogy, and chemistry, studying Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and the best commentators, and in 1648 took the
