Edward More (MP)

Sir Edward More (c.1555–1623) was an English Member of Parliament. He was Justice of the Peace for Surrey and Sussex from c.1582 to c.1587, and for Hampshire from c.1584. He succeeded his father in 1581 and was knighted in 1600.

He was the son of the John More (d. 1581), of Cannon Row, Westminster, and of Crabbet, Worth, Sussex, who was MP for Winchelsea, by Agnes (d. 1557), daughter and heiress of John Moulton, of Lancashire and Westminster.

More entered the Middle Temple, bound with his father and Richard Inkpen, but his name disappears from Temple records after a fine for absence from readings and a pardon for another on grounds of ill health. It shortly reappears among the gentlemen pensioners at court. Between the late 1570s and the death of the Queen, at whose funeral he was an official attendant, he divided his time between the court and his country estates in Sussex and later Hampshire. He corresponded at length with Robert Cecil over the will of Lady Dacre (widow of the 10th Lord Dacre), who died in 1595 leaving a large part of her estates in Sussex and London to the Cecil family. More was one of the executors of the will.

Family

More married, firstly, Mary (d. 29 October 1591), daughter and co-heiress of Sir Adrian Poynings, of Wherwell, Hampshire, by whom he had five sons (all of whom predeceased him) and one daughter,

• Elizabeth, who married Sir Thomas Drewe, of the Grange, Broadhembury, Devon, son of Edward Drew.

He married, secondly, Lady Stourton, formerly the Hon. Frances Brooke, widow of John Stourton, 9th Baron Stourton, and daughter of William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham, by whom he had one daughter,

• Frances (d. 5 January 1662), who married William Stourton, 11th Baron Stourton.

More also had several illegitimate children.

References

• More, Edward (c.1555–1623), of Crabbet, Worth, Sussex, Canon Row, Westminster, and Odiham, Hampshire, History of Parliament Retrieved 16 March 2016.