The king’s cousin – Sir Richard Pole

Posted on July 6, 2022 by JuliaH

Portrait purported to be Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury

The Poles owned land in Cheshire and Buckinghamshire. Richard’s father, a Welshman, was buried in Bisham Abbey, the mausoleum of the Montagu Earls of Salisbury in 1479. Richard Neville, the Kingmaker’s father was reinterred there along with his wife Alice, the last of the direct Montagu line, in 1463. Richard’s mother was called Edith St John. Her mother Margaret Beauchamp of Bletso married three times – firstly to Oliver St John, secondly to the Duke of Somerset and finally to Lionel Lord Welles. Edith’s younger half sister from her mother’s second marriage was Lady Margaret Beaufort – making Richard Henry Tudor’s cousin.

When Henry became Henry VII returned to his family for support. Pole fought at the Battle of Stoke and was knighted in its aftermath. Richard was so trusted that Henry married him off in 1494 to George Duke of Clarence’s daughter Margaret. Whilst he might trust Richard the king had also married off a prospective source of opposition to his rule to someone without status or power themselves effectively nullifying Margaret’s Plantagenet blood and removing the prospect of her becoming a figure head for rebellion. Her brother Edward the young Earl of Warwick would spend most of his short life as a prisoner in the Tower of London before being executed on trumped up charges of treason.

Dugdale recorded that Richard served Henry when the king went to war with Scotland over the matter of the pretender Perkin Warbeck and that he received assorted offices in Wales. In time became the Chief Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to Henry’s son Arthur. Pole and his wife were sent to Ludlow with Arthur when the prince went to Wales to learn how to be a king. Arthur was given the role of President of the Council of Wales and the Marches but Henry expected his cousin to mentor the boy.

So what does a gentleman of the privy chamber do? For a start it was a very influential posting as it gave access to all areas of private life from the bed chamber to the lavatory. Some servants, because that’s what Richard effectively was, were only allowed into the outer or presence chamber. If you wanted real influence you needed to get behind the closed doors of the privy chamber. Richard had his cousin’s favour and could execute any verbal commands without handing over an order in writing first. Just being Richard Pole was enough to get people to do what he wanted!

Richard found himself with the uncomfortable job of telling Henry that his beloved son died on 2 April 1502. he didn’t live much longer himself being dead before the end of 1505. King Henry VII, noted for his parsimony, paid for his cousin’s funeral. Margaret, with her five young children, was forced to live in near poverty at Syon Abbey where she would remain for the next three and a half years until Henry died and was replaced by his younger son King Henry VIII. Margaret who became a friend of Katherine of Aragon during their time together at Ludlow was restored to favour when the princess became Henry’s queen.

Note: Richard owned manors at Medmanham and Ellesbrough in Buckinghamshire. His main residence apparels to have been Bockmer which was part of the manor of Medmanham and which had been much restored by his father.

Reginald Pole – White Rose and Cardinal

Posted on October 5, 2016 by JuliaH

reginald pole.jpg The Pole family descended from Margaret, Countess of Salisbury (the daughter of the duke of Clarence who was allegedly executed in a vat of malmsey and Isobel Neville – elder daughter of the earl of Warwick a.k.a. The Kingmaker). She had four sons; Henry (Lord Montagu), Arthur, Reginald and Geoffrey. There was also a daughter called Ursula. Had Richard III won the Battle of Bosworth and remained childless and Margaret’s brother the young earl of Warwick been deemed unfit to rule then his heirs would have been the Poles.

Young Reginald was born in about 1500. He was educated by the Carthusians in Sheen and from there studied at the universities of Oxford and Padua and from there to Paris; all at the expense of his royal cousin King Henry VIII. There is a note in Henry’s accounts describing him as “Mr Pole, the king’s scholar.”

In the summer of 1530 he became caught up in the King’s Great Matter. In addition to using the Leviticus 20:21 and checking with Jewish communities in Europe as to their interpretation of the Old Testament in order to undermine Catherine of Aragon’s countering Deuteronomy argument, Henry also sent messengers to the great university to elicit their opinions on the matter. On May 1 Henry asked the University of Paris for an opinion and made Reginald his “dearest relative” the chief correspondent on the matter.

Reginald seems initially to have backed his cousin. His letters record that Paris found in Henry’s favour but that the other faction were looking for a counter-opinion. (Bernard: 214). By the end of the year, however, Reginald appears to have been having second thoughts. It was perhaps his concern over the divorce that led him to turn down Henry’s offer of the archbishopric of York following Wolsey’s demise. Henry must have thought that Reginald would be in favour of the divorce to offer him the post. He needed as many bishops on his side as possible. Henry offered the post to Reginald for a second time and saw him in person to discuss the matter. Apparently the sight of Henry was enough to convince Pole that he couldn’t go agains this own heart on the matter. He even sent a lengthy apology on the subject which no longer exists. In it he warned of the dispute that might arise if Princess Mary was disinherited and reminded Henry of the Wars of the Roses – which was perhaps not an entirely sensible thing to do as it reminded Henry about who had the Plantagenet blood flowing through their veins and who might have been monarchs in other circumstances.

In January 1532 Pole went off to Europe to continue with his academic studies and to keep a low profile which he did until 1535 when Henry demanded that he wanted Reginald’s opinion on the subject of Henry’s supremacy, the divorce and the break with Rome. Henry helpfully sent him some books on the subject. By the time Henry had his answer Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher were dead as were the Carthusian monks of the Charter House in Sheen who’d taught him as a boy. Reginald described Henry as a ‘wild beast’; being like a dirty barrel and incestuous (perhaps a reaction to the fact that Henry had an affair with Anne Boleyn’s sister Mary). It was perhaps not a response designed to win friends and influence people nor was it a very private response as it was soon published all over Europe; later Reginald would claim that it was without his consent.

Henry politely suggested that Reginald return home for a face to face discussion.

By now Pope Paul III was in charge and he suggested that perhaps Reginald’s welcome would be rather too warm if he set foot on English shores. It can’t have helped that the Imperial Ambassador, Chapuys, had suggested that perhaps Reginald might be able to marry the Princess Mary and take the crown from Henry in 1534. The small matter of Pole’s religious orders seems not to have worried the ambassador unduly (though Pole didn’t celebrate his first mass until Queen Mary was on the throne). Chapuys had already told the Pole family to keep Reginald in Europe rather than at home where he’d most likely have ended up in the Tower at the very least.

On 22nd of December 1536 Reginald was made a cardinal having made a name for himself in Rome where his humanist education leant itself to the reform of the Catholic Church from within. To add insult to Henry VIII’s injury Reginald was made papal legate of England in February 1537.

Reginald’s actions reminded Henry that there was such a thing as a ‘white rose faction’. The Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536 was ultimately used to round up Reginald’s mother and brothers following the Exeter Conspiracy. It hadn’t helped Lord Montagu that he’d sent a letter to Reginald berating him for the contents of his book on the subject of Henry’s supremacy and the break from Rome. The poor man must have squirmed horribly when Thomas Cromwell turned up to visit him especially to read chunks of his brother’s rebuttal of Henry’s actions. Even the Countess of Salisbury had written to Reginald demanding that he come home and face the music. Both these letters had been seen by the King’s council before they were sent to Reginald (Seward: 295). By 1539 Geoffrey was in the Tower and he in his turned implicated the rest of his family. He, his brother and his mother would be executed.

Reginald, in Europe, found himself facing assassination attempts that would continue throughout Henry’s life was increasingly disturbed by the extent to which the Church in England faced destruction. Ultimately he sought the help of Francis I of France and also Catherine of Aragon’s nephew, Charles V, arguing that Henry was worse than the Turkish threat. Charles chose not to invade England and Reginald’s name found its way onto a bill of attainder in 1539. Henry VIII had come to hate his Plantagenet cousin. For Englishmen who didn’t want to lose their catholicism he became an alternative to the Tudors.

It was only when Henry VIII’s daughter Mary took the throne after the brief reigns of her half brother Edward VI and the nine days queen Lady Jane Grey that Pole returned to England after a long career as a papal diplomat. He’d even been suggested as pope. Mary wrote to her cousin asking for spiritual guidance, his attainder was reversed and despite a lack of concord with Mary’s spouse Philip II of Spain he stepped foot on English soil once more at Dover in 1554. The country was Catholic once more. He sought now to heal the breach with Rome – notable amongst the victims of Mary’s determination to wipe Protestantism from English thoughts included the burning of Thomas Cranmer who Pole replaced as Archbishop of Canterbury.

Reginald Pole died on the 17th November 1558 on the same day as Queen Mary. Their plan to return England and Wales to Catholicism bound to fail as Protestant Princess Elizabeth was now hailed Queen Elizabeth I.

The portrait of Pole pictured at the start of this post may be found at Hardwick Hall, a National Trust property, in Derbyshire.

Bernard, G.W. (2005) The King’s Reformation. New Haven and London: Yale University Press

Seward, Desmond. (2010) The Last White Rose: The Secret Wars of the Tudors. London: Constable

Margaret Beaufort’s other family part 2

Posted on August 4, 2016 by JuliaH

478px-Lady_Margaret_Beaufort_from_NPG Margaret Beauchamp of Bletsoe, Margaret Beaufort’s (pictured at the start of this paragraph) mother, was married in the first instance to Sir Oliver St John who died in 1437. From this union Margaret Beaufort had seven siblings; two brothers and five sisters.

The eldest of the five daughters was called Edith and she married Geoffrey Pole who owned land in Cheshire. Edith, about whom not much appears to be known, died in 1459. She had a daughter called Eleanor Pole who served as one of Katherine of Aragon’s ladies-in-waiting (double click on the link to open a new window with my post about Eleanor). And that might have been that apart from the fact that her son Sir Richard Pole, a loyal supporter of the Tudors married the daughter of the Duke of Clarence, the one who was allegedly drowned in a vat of Malmsey.

Just so we’re clear, Sir Richard Pole a Lancastrian of Welsh descent via his father Geoffrey was Henry VII’s cousin because Richard’s mother Edith was Henry VII’s aunt. Margaret Beaufort had fond memories of her all to short childhood growing up with her St John kin. She took an interest in her extended family and it is perhaps not surprising that they lurk in the background of Tudor history.

As family Sir Richard Pole was trusted by Henry VII. He was married off to Margaret Plantagent the niece of Edward IV and Richard III and whose brother the you margaret salisbury.jpg ng Earl of Warwick was kept locked up in the Tower until he was executed –. Henry VII was satisfied with letting the blood of Margaret’s brother and marrying her to a minor member of his own family. Even Shakespeare, the Tudor spin doctor, said of this union; “His daughter (the Duke of Clarence’s) meanly have I match’d in marriage.” They went on to have five children and must have thought that they had weathered the Wars of the Roses storm.

It cannot, sadly, be said that Henry VIII trusted the Poles. The Poles were doubly his cousins – through their relationship to Margaret Beaufort and through the fact of their descent from George Duke of Clarence. Despite Sir Richard Pole’s loyal service to two generations of Tudors, his wife and sons were rounded up and executed on account of their Plantagenet blood and their Catholicism– an irony for the Pole children given their Lancastrian heritage and links to Margaret Beaufort.