Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Morgan, Richard
MORGAN, Sir RICHARD (d. 1556), judge, was admitted at Lincoln's Inn 31 July 1523, called to the bar in 1529, was twice reader, in 1542 and 1546, became a serjeant-at-law in the latter year, and was elected recorder of Gloucester; he was also member of parliament for Gloucester in 1545-7 and 1553. A Roman catholic in religion, he was committed to the Fleet prison on 24 March 1551 (Burnet, Hist. of the Reformation, Oxford edit. 1865, v. 33) for hearing mass in the Princess Mary's chapel, but was discharged by the privy council with a caution on 4 May (Acts of the Privy Council, new ser. iii. 270). Immediately after King Edward's death he joined the Princess Mary and her adherents at Kenningham Castle, Norfolk, 1553. Though he does not seem to have been a well-known lawyer, he was at once promoted in his profession. He was a commissioner to hear Bishop Tunstall's appeal against his conviction in June, was created chief justice of the common pleas in September, and was knighted on 2 Oct. He was in the commission for the trial of Lady Jane Grey on 13 Nov. and passed sentence upon her, but two years later, says Foxe (Martyrs, iii. 30), he 'fell mad, and in his raving cried out continually to have the Lady Jane taken away from him.' Accordingly, he quitted the bench in October 1555, and died in the early summer of the next year, being buried on 2 June at St. Magnus Church, near London Bridge.
[Foss's Lives of the Judges; Lincoln's Inn books ; Dugdale's Origines, pp. 1 1 8, 1 52 ; Strype's Eccl. Mem. i. 78, 493, ii. 181 ; Rymer, xv 334 Holmshed, ed. 1808, iv. 23, 45 ; Machyn's Diary' pp. 106, 335; Fourth Report, Public Record Commission, App. ii. 238.]