Richard More (Parliamentarian)

Richard More (c. 1576 – 6 December 1643) was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1643. He supported the Parliamentary cause in the English Civil War.

More was the son of Robert More of Linley in Shropshire. In the early sixteenth century Richard More's grandfather had moved south to make his fortune at King Henry's court, but, in 1583, the family moved back to Shropshire. Richard More's birth date in not known, but is thought to be 1576, when the family had an estate in Barby, Northamptonshire.

At ten years old Richard More could read the Old Testament in Hebrew. Despite this academic promise Richard did not go on to university, possibly because he married early, in 1592, to Sara Harris, daughter of a Shrewsbury merchant. In 1602 Richard More was already master of the More estates, and in 1603 he added the manor of Downton, a significant estate just over the border in Herefordshire. His father Robert died in 1604

Richard More’s eldest son, Samuel, married a cousin, Katherine, in 1611. The marriage settlement was unusual in that Richard paid £600 sum to Katherine’s father, and took control of the family’s estate, at Larden near Much Wenlock, immediately after the marriage. At some time after this marriage, Samuel More became secretary to Edward, Lord Zouche, one of the commissioners of the Virginia Company., During this time a rift developed between Samuel More and his wife with allegations of adultery by him stating that she had conceived four children with a longtime lover. What followed was four rancorous years and twelve court appearances from 1616-1620 in which Samuel’s father Richard played a part, with him keeping the four children from their mother pending disposition of this case. By 1620, upon counsel from Lord Zouche among others, it was decided to place the children as indentured servants bound for Virginia - and they were placed about the ship Mayflower. This all took place without the knowledge of their mother. As it happened, winter weather drove the ship north to Cape Cod Harbor where three of the four children perished that first winter. Of the More children sent on the Mayflower, only five-year-old Richard More survived.

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