More seems to have shared more or less the same vantage points as the City chronicler; certainly he reports the same events. But they are transmuted from hobbling prose into the ringing encomia of Latin verse. For More – normally so cool in his reading of human nature, so sceptical of the motives of those in power, especially kings, and so little inclined to be carried away by the sweaty emotions of the mob – responded to Henry’s coronation with an uninhibited enthusiasm that makes Mountjoy’s own outpourings look almost staid. It was not the first time that the advent of a young, able, good-looking and charismatic leader had provoked an outbreak of messianic joy. Nor would it be the last. Nevertheless, that Henry-mania included such cheerleaders as More suggests that it had real substance. How real, of course, only events would tell. More’s tribute to Henry consisted of five Latin poems: four short, each making a single point, and one longer and more substantial.
