He is known to have been in Rome by 31 January 1485, when he signed the register of the Santo Spirito fraternity, and he was still there in April, when he secured a papal brief for the reform of Peterhouse, and probably on 7 May, when a papal indulgence was secured, the proceeds of which were to go to the repair of the dykes of the Isle of Ely and Ely Cathedral, damaged in recent floods. His real mission, however, may have been to secure papal dispensation for Richmond’s intended marriage to Edward IV’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York, which was necessary because both were descended from John of Gaunt. Service under Henry VII Henry VII summoned Morton back to England immediately after his victory at the Battle of Bosworth and he was probably present at Henry’s coronation at Westminster on 30 October 1485. On 6 March 1486 he was made Lord Chancellor. This was a judicial office, presiding over the equitable jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery which continued to expand during his tenure. He was Henry VII’s most trusted adviser, being present at nearly every meeting of the king’s council for which records survive. The overall direction of policy in domestic and international affairs remained in the king’s hands, advised by his councillors, but Morton and other royal clerks carried out the administrative work of putting his decisions into effect. In the seventeenth century Francis Bacon, Viscount St Alban, attributed to Morton the device known as Morton’s Fork, whereby those who were lavish in their manner of living were told by the tax commissioners that they could obviously afford to give more to the king while those who were frugal were likewise told that they should contribute more because they must have put aside savings. However, this was Bacon’s invention. It is true that the king’s councillors, in particular Morton and Reginald Bray, were blamed by the Cornish rebels in 1497 for the level of taxation, but it was only after the deaths of Morton in 1500 and Bray in 1503 that Henry’s financial exactions, in particular his imposition of bonds on many of his subjects and his exploitation of his prerogative rights, became more burdensome. The historian Polydore Vergil wrote that Morton and Bray were the two councillors who could reprove Henry VII when necessary and that it became obvious after their deaths that they had been