Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury

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Margaret Pole
Countess of Salisbury
Spouse Sir Richard Pole
Issue
Henry Pole, 1st Baron Montagu
Reginald Cardinal Pole
Sir Geoffrey Pole
Sir Arthur Pole
Ursula Pole
Titles and styles
HRH The Countess of Salisbury
Royal house House of York
Father George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence
Mother Isabella Neville
Born 14 August 1473(1473-08-14)
Farleigh Castle, Somerset
Died 5 March 1541 (aged 68)
Tower of London, London

Margaret Pole (née Plantaganet) (14 August 1473 – 27 May 1541), Countess of Salisbury, was the daughter of George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence and Isabella Neville. Her father was a brother of both Kings Edward IV and Richard III of England. She was the last member of the Plantagenet dynasty, executed in 1541 at the command of the then-king Henry VIII, who was her cousin's son.

Contents

[edit] Life

Born at Farleigh Castle in the English county of Somerset, on 14 August 1473, she was the daughter of George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence and Isabella Neville. Her mother was the elder daughter of the 'Kingmaker' Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick and Anne Neville, 16th Countess of Warwick.

Margaret's brother was Edward, Earl of Warwick, who as the last male representative of the Yorkist line, was seen as a danger to the new Tudor dynasty and was executed on the orders of King Henry VII on 28 November 1499. Around 1491, Henry VII had given Margaret in marriage to Sir Richard Pole, whose mother was the half-sister of the King's mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort. At her husband's death in 1505, Margaret was left with five children, of whom the fourth, Reginald Pole, was to become Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury.

The family fortunes were various. On his accession, King Henry VIII reversed her brother's attainder; and, in 1513, made her Countess of Salisbury in her own right. An Act of Restitution was also passed by which she came into possession of her ancestral domains. Her chief residence was Warblington Castle in Hampshire. After the birth of Princess Mary, later Queen Mary I, Margaret became her godmother and sponsor in confirmation and was afterwards appointed Governess of the Princess and her Household. As the years passed there was talk of a marriage between the Princess and the Countess's son (Reginald), who was still a layman. However, when the matter of the King's divorce from Catherine of Aragon began to be talked of, Reginald Pole boldly spoke out his mind in the affair and shortly afterwards withdrew from England. The Princess was still in the Countess's charge when Henry married Anne Boleyn, but when he was opposed in his efforts to have his daughter treated as illegitimate, he removed the Countess from her post, though she begged to be allowed to follow and serve Mary at her own charge. She returned to Court after the fall of Anne, but in 1530 Reginald Pole sent Henry a copy of his published treatise Pro ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione, in answer to questions put to him on the king's behalf by Thomas Cromwell, Cuthbert Tunstall, Thomas Starkey, and others. Besides being a theological reply to the questions, the book was a denunciation of the King's policies. Henry was enraged, and though the Countess and her eldest son had written to Reginald in reproof of his attitude and action, determined that the family should pay for the insult.

In November, 1538, her eldest son, Henry Pole, Baron Montagu, another son and other relatives were arrested on a charge of treason, though Thomas Cromwell had previously written that they had "little offended save that he [the Cardinal] is of their kin", they were committed to the Tower, and in January, with the exception of Geoffrey Pole, they were executed. Ten days after the arrest of her sons, Margaret herself, despite her age, was arrested and examined by William FitzWilliam, Earl of Southampton, and Thomas Goodrich, Bishop of Ely, but these reported to Thomas Cromwell that although they had "travailed with her" for many hours she would "nothing utter", and they were forced to conclude that either her sons had not made her a sharer in their "treason", or else she was "the most arrant traitress that ever lived". In Southampton's custody, she was committed to Cowdray Park, near Midhurst, and there subjected to all manner of indignity. In May Cromwell introduced against her a Bill of Attainder, the readings of which were hurriedly got over, and at the third reading Cromwell produced a white silk tunic found in one of her coffers, which was embroidered on the back with the Five Wounds, and for this, which was held to connect her with the Northern Uprising, she was "attainted to die by Act of Parliament" and also lost her titles. The other charges against her, to which she was never permitted to reply, had to do with the escape from England of her chaplain and the conveying of messages abroad. After the passage of the Act, she was removed to the Tower and there, for nearly two years, she was "tormented by the severity of the weather and insufficient clothing". In April, 1541, there was another insurrection in Yorkshire, and it was then determined to enforce without any further procedure the Act of Attainder passed in 1539. In some sense her execution was the continuation by Henry VIII of his father's programme of eliminating possible contenders for the throne.

[edit] Execution

Blessed Margaret Pole
Blessed Margaret Pole
8th Countess of Salisbury
Born 14 August 1473, Farleigh Castle , Somerset, England
Died 27 May 1541, Tower of London, City of London, England
Venerated by Roman Catholic Church
Beatified 29 December 1886 by Pope Leo XIII
Feast 28 May

She refused to the end to acknowledge that she was a traitor. A popular ballad at the time reads:

For traitors on the block should die,
I am no traitor, no, not I!
My faithfulness stands fast and so,
Towards the block I shall not go!
Nor make on step, as you shall see,
Christ in Thy Mercy, save Thou me!

On the morning of May 27, 1541 Margaret was told she was to die within the hour. She answered that no crime had been imputed to her; nevertheless she was taken from her cell to the place within the precincts of the Tower of London, where a low wooden block had been prepared. As Margaret was of noble birth, she was not executed before the populace, though there were about 150 witnesses.

According to some accounts, the countess, who was 67 years old, frail and ill, was dragged to the block, but refused to lay her head on it, having to be forced down. As she struggled, the inexperienced executioner's first blow made a gash in her shoulder rather than her neck. Several additional blows were required to complete the execution. A less reputable account states that Margaret leapt from the block after the first clumsy blow and ran, pursued by the executioner, being struck eleven times before she died.

[edit] Legacy

Her son, Reginald Cardinal Pole said that he would "...never fear to call himself the son of a martyr". She was later regarded by Catholics as such and was beatified in 1886 by Pope Leo XIII.

[edit] Issue

She and her husband were parents to five children:

[edit] Fictional portrayals

The character of Lady Salisbury, played by Kate O'Toole in the Showtime series The Tudors is loosely inspired by Margaret Pole.

[edit] Further reading

  • Hazel Pierce, March 2003, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, 1473–1541 - Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership, University of Wales Press, ISBN 0-7083-1783-9
Peerage of England
Preceded by
Edward, Earl of Warwick		 Countess of Salisbury
1513–1539		 Succeeded by
Forfeit

This article incorporates text from the entry Blessed Margaret Pole in the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.