Thomas More

Thomas de la More (or Delamore; 1395–1460/1461) was a fifteenth-century Sheriff of Cumberland. Little is known of his early life, but he was a loyal royal official in Cumberland and Westmorland for all his adult life, serving as Member of Parliament, Escheator and Justice of the Peace on multiple occasions. A man of social and political significance in the area, he eventually became involved in the struggle for local supremacy in the 1450s between the Neville and Percy families. This led to him and his men being beaten and threatened by Thomas Percy, Lord Egremont, over which he petitioned the royal council in 1455. De la More played no active part in the Wars of the Roses which broke out the same year. He is known to have married twice. His first wife, called either Idione or Maud, died first, but his second, Margaret, survived him. Early life and marriage Little is known of de la More's early life; according to his own testimony, he was born in 1395. The Parliamentary historian J. C. Wedgwood suggests that he may have been the son of a namesake who attended the 1420 parliament. According to the medievalist Carole Rawcliffe, however, Wedgwood is in error, "mistakenly assum[ing] that two different men, father and son, must have sat for Cumberland in 1420 and 1450, whereas they were one and the same". In 1415, de la More was arrested by officers of the Warden of the East March for breaking the truce with Scotland after he was discovered leading raiding parties across the border. At some point, de la More inherited a patrimony, based around Cumcatch, from his parents. He later augmented his estates by purchasing other properties in Branthwaite and took out a 20-year lease on the manors of West Farlam and Sebergham, then owned by the Crown. By July 1419 de la More had married a woman named either Idione or Maud, who was the widow of William Sandford. She brought de la More the manor of Little Asby by jointure. Rawcliffe suggests that the marriage brought de la More "powerful connections", as her feoffees included Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland and Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland. De la More's armorial was A cross flory, with a scallop in dexter chief.