Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/More, Thomas (d.1685)
MORE, THOMAS (d. 1685), author, was son of John More of Paynes Farm in the parish of Teynton, near Burford, Oxfordshire. On 22 June 1632 he matriculated from Merton College, Oxford, of which he became postmaster, and is said to have graduated B.A. He afterwards emigrated to St. Alban Hall. In 1642 he was called to the bar from Gray's Inn (cf. Reg. ed. Foster, p. 213). He joined the parliamentary army, took the covenant, and became in succession a gentleman of the guard to the Earl of Essex, lieutenant to a troop of horse belonging to Captain Richard Aylworth under the command of Colonel Edward Massey [q. v.], and cornet to the life guard of Sir Thomas Fairfax. Habitual indulgence in drink aggravated an hereditary tendency to insanity, and he failed both as a lawyer and a soldier. Dr. Skinner, bishop of Worcester, in ignorance of his real character, conferred holy orders on him. In one of his mad fits More fell downstairs at Burford, and died from his injuries ‘about Michaelmas’ 1685. He was buried at Teynton.
More was author of: 1. ‘The English Catholike Christian; or, the Saints' Utopia: a treatise consisting of four sections— i. Josuah's Resolution; ii. Of the Common Law; iii. Of Physick; iv. Of Divinity,' 4to, London, 1649. This eccentric farrago was written in 1641 and dedicated in a grotesque epistle, dated in February 1646, to Charles I. In the title-page the author calls himself 'Thomas de Eschallers De la More,' as having been descended from the Eschallers of Whaddon, near Royston, Cambridgeshire. 2. 'True old News, as it may appeare by several papers and certificates,' 4to, London, 1649, a rambling pamphlet, partly autobiographical. He also translated, but did not publish, the ‘Vita et More Edwardi II’ of Thomas de la More [q. v.]
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 179; Brit. Mus. Cat. under ‘Delamore.’]