Richard Morrison (ambassador) - Works

Works

Morison said:

• ‘Apomaxis Calumniarum,’ London, 2990, an attack on Cochlæus, who had written against Henry VIII, and who retorted in ‘Scopa in Araneas Ricardi Morison Angli,’ Leipzig, 1538.
• A translation of the ‘Epistle’ of Sturmius, London, 1538.
• ‘An Invective ayenste the great detestable vice, Treason,’ London, 1539.
• ‘The Strategemes, Sleyghtes, and Policies of Warre, gathered together by S. Julius Frontinus,’ London, 1539; translation of a work on tactics by Sextus Julius Frontinus.
• A translation of the ‘Introduction to Wisdom’ by Juan Luis Vives, London, 1540 and 1544, dedicated to Gregory Cromwell.

He is also said to have written ‘Comfortable Consolation for the Birth of Prince Edward, rather than Sorrow for the Death of Queen Jane,’ after the death of Jane Seymour on 24 October 1537. ‘A Defence of Priests' Marriages’ is sometimes assigned to him (probably appeared between 1549 and 1553).

In manuscript are ‘Maxims and Sayings,’ Sloane MS. 1523; ‘A Treatise of Faith and Justification,’ Harl. MS. 423 (4); ‘Account of Mary's Persecution under Edward VI,’ Harl. MS. 353. Morison suggested to king Henry VIII that the popular Robin Hood plays should be suppressed in favour of anti-papist propaganda. His attitude is clear in a Cottonian manuscript entitled A Discourse Touching the Reformation of the Lawes of England (1535):

Howmoche better is it that those plaies shulde be forbodden and deleted and others dyvysed to set forthe and declare lyvely before the peoples eies the abhomynation and wickedness of the bishop of Rome, monks, friers, nuns, and suche like ... Into the commen people thynges sooner enter by the eies, then by the eares: remembryng more better that they see then that they here.