# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/More, Henry (1586-1661)

​MORE, HENRY (1586–1661), Jesuit, was son of Edward More [see under More, Edward, 1479-1541], and great-grandson of Sir Thomas More [q. v.], lord chancellor of England. He must not be confused with his cousin, Henry More (b. 1567), who was son of Thomas More and Mary Scrope (cf. Hunter's Preface to Cresacre More's Life of Sir T. More). More was born in 1586 in Essex, according to the majority of the provincial catalogues, though a few of them give Cambridgeshire as the county of his birth. He made his humanity studies in the college of the English Jesuits at St. Omer, and entered the novitiate of St. John's, Louvain, 19 Nov. 1607. His higher studies were probably made in Spain. In 1614 he filled the office of minister in the English college of St. Alban at Valladolid; he held the same office in the college at St. Omer in 1621; and he was professed of the four vows 12 May 1622. From the latter year till 1632 he was a missioner in the London district, and he was one of the Jesuits arrested at the Clerkenwell residence by the officers of the privy council in March 1628. In 1632 he was in confinement in the New Prison, London, and was released in December 1633. He then became chaplain to Lord Petre at Ingatestone and Thorndon Hall, Essex. In 1635 he was declared provincial of his order. Again imprisoned, he was set free in July 1640. In 1642 he was vice-provincial of the order, residing in London, and acting for Father Matthew Wilson, alias Edward Knott [q. v.], the provincial, who was absent in Belgium. In 1645 he was rector of the college of St. Ignatius, which comprised the London district. He became rector of the college at St. Omer, and in 1655 he was again residing in Essex. In 1657 he was for the second time rector of the college at St. Omer, and he died at Watten, near that city, on 8 Dec. 1661.
His works are : 1. 'A Manual of Devout Meditations and Exercises, instructing how to pray mentally, translated from the Latin of Thomas Villa-Castin,' St. Omer, 1618 and 1624, 16mo. 2. 'The Happiness of a Religious State,' from the Latin of Father Jerome Platus, a Milanese Jesuit, Rouen, 1632, 4to. 3. 'Vita et Doctrina Christi Domini notationibus, quæ quotidianam divina meditantibus materiam suggerere possunt, explicata; juxta quatuor partes anni Ecclesiastici in capita distributa,' Antwerp, 1649, 12mo. This work appeared also in English, Ghent, 1656, 8vo; reprinted London, 1880, 8vo, ed. Charles Henry Bowden. 4. 'Historia Missionis Anglicanæ Societatis Jesu ab anno salutis mdlxxx. ad dc.lix. et vice-provinciæ primum, tum provinciæ ad ejusdem sæculi annum xxxv,' St. Omer, 1660, fol. pp. 518, a valuable historical work. 5. 'Dix-huit Sermons de M. Morus sur le huitieme chapitre de 1'Épitre de Saint Paul aux Romains,' Lausanne, 1691, 8vo.
His brother, Thomas More, also a Jesuit (1587-1623 ?), entered the Society of Jesus in 1611, and laboured many years among the English poor until he was arrested, tried, and condemned to banishment, probably in 1618; he retired to Flanders, and died at Ghent on 2 Jan. 1623. He published : 1. 'Guilielmi Watfordi Institutio Brevis,' St. Omer, 1617. 2. 'Joannis Floydi Dialogus inscriptus Deus et Rex,' Cologne, 1620. Both are translations from the English (Foley, Records, xii. 702-3).
[De Backer's Bibl. de la Compagnie de Jésus, ii. 1376; Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 120; Foley's Records, ii. 416-28, v. 702, vii. 518; Cresacre More's Life of Sir T. More, ed. Hunter, 1828, Pref. p. liii; Oliver's Jesuit Collections, p. 143; Southwell's Bibl. Scriptorum Soc. Jesu, p. 329; Alegambé's Bibliotheca Scriptt. Soc. Jesu, pp. 329-30, 764. Wood's notices of the More family in the Athenæ are very inaccurate.]
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