In Milk Street, Cheapside, lived Sir John More, judge in the Court of
King's Bench; and in Milk street, A.D. 1480, was born Sir John's famous
son Thomas, the Chancellor, who was at the same time learned and simple,
witty and pious, notable for gentle meekness and firm resolve, abounding
with tenderness and hot with courage. Richard Rich--who beyond Scroggs
or Jeffreys deserves to be remembered as the arch-scoundrel of the legal
profession--was one of Thomas More's playmates and boon companions for
several years of their boyhood and youth. Richard's father was an
opulent mercer, and one of Sir John's near neighbors; so the youngsters
were intimate until Master Dick, exhibiting at an early age his vicious
propensities, came to be "esteemed very light of his tongue, a great
dicer and gamester, and not of any commendable fame."
On marrying his first wife Sir Thomas More settled in a house in
Bucklersbury, the City being the proper quarter for his residence, as he
was an under-sheriff of the city of London, in which character he both
sat in the Court of the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, and presided over a
separate court on the Thursday of each week. Whilst living in
Bucklersbury he had chambers in Lincoln's Inn. On leaving Bucklersbury
he took a house in Crosby Place, from which he moved, in 1523, to
Chelsea, in which parish he built the house that was eventually pulled
down by Sir Hans Sloane in the year 1740.
A generation later, Sir Nicholas Bacon was living in Noble Street,
Foster Lane, where he had built the mansion known as Bacon House, in
which he resided till, as Lord Keeper, he took possession of York House.
Chief Justice Bramston lived, at different parts of his career, in
Whitechapel; in Philip Lane, Aldermanbury; and (after his removal from
Bosworth Court) in Warwick Lane, Sir John Bramston (the autobiographer)
married into a house in Charterhouse Yard, where his father, the Chief
Justice, resided with him for a short time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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