Margaret Pole

This article first appeared in the March 2012 Ricardian Register Vol. 43 No. 1

Margaret Pole: Countess of Salisbury, Edward IV and Richard III’s Niece
by Elizabeth Dorsey Hatle

Lady Margaret Plantagenet was born into a turbulent century on August 14, 1473 at Farleigh Castle in Somerset. Margaret was only a few months younger than her first cousin, Richard III and Anne Neville’s only child, Edward of Middleham. Margaret’s mother, Isabella Neville, died when she was three, and her father, George, 1st Duke of Clarence, was executed when she was four. Margaret’s father was put to death on the orders of her uncle, King Edward IV, in 1478. “He was arrested in June 1477 and privately executed at the Tower of London on 18 February 1478. In just over a year Margaret’s parents had both died, and from the security and honour of being the daughter of the ‘right noble Prince my Lord of Clarence,’ she was now the daughter of an executed traitor.”[1] After Clarence’s death, Edward IV made his orphaned niece and nephew his wards. He created Clarence’s son Edward the Earl of Warwick and Margaret’s name is seen in Edward IV’s household accounts as our “dear and well-beloved niece, Margaret, daughter unto our late brother, the late Duke of Clarence.”,

Even at a young age, Margaret was able to survive politically in what must have been trying circumstances. “In September 1486 ‘my lady Margaret of Clarence’ headed the list of ladies attending the christening of the Henry’s first-born son, Prince Arthur, and in November 1487 she viewed the coronation of Elizabeth of York on a specially erected stage between the pulpit and the high altar of Westminster Abby in the company of Henry VII and his mother.”[2] Margaret is referred to as ‘my Lady Margaret Pole’ at the christening, indicating that her marriage to Sir Richard Pole had already taken place. King Henry had given Margaret in marriage to Sir Richard Pole, whose mother was the half-sister of the King’s mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort. Margaret Pole earned some criticism for marrying a man considered beneath her station, but she was most likely relieved to be out from under Henry VII and his mother’s direct control. “At the time of her marriage Margaret was only fourteen, but Richard was twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old. Intelligent, prudent and reliable, he provided his wife with the safe haven not only which Henry VII required, but which she herself must have desired after a somewhat tumultuous childhood. After 1488 when Richard’s royal duties in Wales increased, Margaret eschewed her place at court in order to remain close to him, and Henry VII granted them the use of Stourton Castle in Staffordshire.”[3]

Margaret’s was ten years old when her uncle Richard succeeded to the throne. Richard III kept his brother Clarence’s children protected and safe during his reign. Upon Henry VII’s accession to the throne in 1485, Margaret was brought to court where her first cousin Elizabeth reigned as Henry’s wife and queen. “With this in mind, Henry ordered Warwick and his sister should be conducted to the household of his mother, Margaret Beaufort. Fellow ‘guests’ of the king’s mother included Elizabeth of York and her sisters.”[4] Henry VII put her brother into the Tower. Her brother Edward had been allowed by his uncle Edward IV to succeed as 17th Earl of Warwick and 7th Earl of Salisbury, but as the last male representative of the Yorkist line, was seen as a danger to the new Tudor dynasty. Her brother Warwick’s execution for treason shattered Margaret’s new found stability. In September 1497, a man named Perkin Warbeck, who claimed to be Margaret’s missing first cousin, Richard, Duke of York, son of Edward IV, rebelled against Henry VII. The uprising was quelled but it allowed Henry VII an excuse to eliminate Margaret’s brother.

Within days of the Perkin Warbeck rebellion, “the court of the lord high steward (John de Vere, earl of Oxford, for the occasion) in Westminster Hall considered the findings of a grand jury returned against Edward, Earl of Warwick, found him guilty of treason, which he admitted. A week later he was beheaded on Tower Hill. The most innocent sprig of the white rose was thus lopped off. Tudor reason of State had claimed the first of its many victims.”[5] On the coming of his age in 1496, Edward was legally entitled to inherit a rich manor called Ware through his mother Isabella Neville’s estate. The king’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, “had shown an immediate interest in Ware, on 22 September 1485 securing the right to appoint a steward there.”[6] With his execution, Warwick succeeding to his property or to the throne were no longer possibilities. At the time of her brother’s execution Margaret was three months pregnant with Reginald and “her feelings must have been a mixture of grief and fear. Grief for a brother who should have been one of the great magnates in England but also loss at his losing his liberty at the age of eleven and his life at the age of twenty-four simply because he was Clarence’s son, and fear for the fate of Clarence’s grandsons, her own children.”[7]

After her husband’s death in 1505, Margaret was left with five children, of whom the fourth, Reginald Pole, was to become a Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury. Her chief residence was Warblington Castle in Hampshire. Her husband’s death was a huge loss to Margaret. “If Margaret was to ensure that her children received the best start in life through their connections at court, there was only one man to whom she could look,”[8] but he was Henry VIII, who still considered her and members of her family an inconvenient liability, as they had been to his father in 1485. Margaret managed again to survive in a new regime, and in 1513, four years into his reign, King Henry VIII reversed her brother’s attainder, allowing Margaret to succeed as 8th Countess of Salisbury. An Act of Restitution was also passed by which she came into possession of her ancestral domains. Margaret Pole and Catherine of Aragon were close and possibly at his wife’s request, Henry VIII granted Margaret her petition for the restoration of the earldom of Salisbury, becoming a countess in her own right. Her estates covered seventeen counties and it has been estimated that this placed her among the top five wealthiest nobles in early 16th century England. She had four main residences in the south of England, and her London home stood on the site of what is now Cannon Street station. As the disgraced Duke of Clarence’s daughter, Margaret had grown up in perilous times, seeing terrible things happen to her family. With her family background, and as Edward IV and Richard III’s niece, Margaret had made some ambitious moves to improve her family’s status. She was now one of the most important women in the country.

Margaret had given birth to five children who survived into adulthood: Henry Pole, 1st Baron Montagu, John Bourchier, Cardinal Reginald Pole, Sir Geoffrey Pole, Sir Arthur Pole and Ursula Pole who married the 1st Baron Stafford. Not unlike her grandmother, Cecily Neville, Margaret had as many of her children escape the typical dangers of childhood and survive into adulthood. At the age of forty-seven, her children grown and married, Margret became governess to Mary, Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon’s only child. When the countess of Salisbury entered into Mary’s life she was, “Tall, thin and elegant, she boasted the auburn hair of the Plantagenets, and the pale skin which accompanied such colouring. No stain attached to her person or behavior and she had the considerable advantage of knowing the court and its etiquette inside and out. A better choice for Mary’s welfare or role as a princess could not have been made.”[9] Considering that Margaret was the niece of kings, Mary Tudor’s grandmother’s first cousin and cousin of royal Plantagenet princesses and princes, Margaret's bloodline was impeccable, and it was a significant tribute to her to be Mary Tudor’s governess.

Margaret’s influence was strong upon Mary, and the princess quickly became attached to her. The Countess and Queen Catherine were confidantes. Margaret’s son Reginald, the future Cardinal Pole, had committed his life to the church. Katherine knew that her daughter’s spiritual health would be in good hands with the Countess of Salisbury. “The countess of Salisbury, a devout woman herself, did not need to be told her duty. The princess' spiritual development might be guided by her chaplains but behind them was Margaret Pole, the epitome of a Christian woman.”[10] Margaret requested a translation of Erasmus’ De Immensa Misericordia Dei from Gentian Hervet for Mary. When Henry and Catherine were in France to attend what is now known as the Field of Cloth of Gold between Henry and France’s king Francis I, Henry’s counselors wrote to him that Mary was “daily exercising herself in virtuous pastimes and occupation.”[11] But life at court was changing, and Margaret, who must have felt for the first time in her life that she had some security for her family, was about to lose everything once again.

When Anne Boleyn came between Henry and Catherine, the Boleyn family most likely felt that Mary should be separated from the Countess of Salisbury, as she was a close friend of Catherine’s. Margaret was temporarily removed from Mary’s presence, but for other reason. First, as lady governess because Margaret’s daughter’s father-in-law, the Duke of Buckingham, had crossed Wolsey, who had been accused of conspiring against Henry and had been executed. Margaret had “found herself, not for the first time, mistrusted,”[12] by association. In 1525 she was once again Mary’s governess. With no more children from Henry and Catherine’s union, King Henry decided it was time for Mary to do what generations of princes of Wales had done before, gain some practical experience of government. Margaret could be counted upon with Mary Tudor to “keep quiet about the real reasons for her absence. Failure to do otherwise would have put her in great peril.”[13] Margaret knew from first hand experience how to keep quiet, having survived her Uncle King Richard III’s overthrow by Henry VII and survivied in a Tudor court afterwards. Living under suspicious kings was a way of life for Margaret. Keeping Mary Tudor away from court was necessary, as the conflict between Henry VIII and Catherine over Anne Boleyn heated up.

Margaret knew which way the wind was blowing at court and kept Mary’s life as stable as she could in Wales when Mary’s parents separated. Mary at that time was still allowed to correspond with her mother, which most likely meant Catherine was still in communication with Margaret as well. When Mary turned seventeen, her household was dismantled and the countess of Salisbury was dismissed. “Her offers to continue with Mary at her own expense were rebuffed. The king believed that the countess and others of those around Mary were responsible for encouraging her stance and he wanted her separated from them.”[14] Margaret’s fall from grace over being Queen Catherine’s friend affected her financial circumstances. Her oldest son was not welcomed at court. “The precariousness of the succession, compounded by Henry VIII’s unpopularity, meant that he did not wish to make too much of Henry Pole; he did not want him to come to court, where he might make strategic alliances and possibly offer an alternative to those disenchanted with the Tudor regime.”[15] Margaret was a substantial landowner, with a respectable claim to the throne and four politically active adult sons. It was inevitable that Margaret’s family would be drawn into Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine.

Reginald Pole had once been Henry VIII’s favored choice for the archbishopric of York. Reginald, now living in exile, had betrayed Henry, happy to encourage a foreign-led invasion to restore traditional Catholicism to England. Reginald’s family paid the price for being within Henry VIII’s easy reach. The Cardinal’s brothers were arrested, brought to the Tower, and stood trial for treason. Margaret returned to Court after the fall of Anne, but in 1530 Reginald Pole sent King 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. King Henry was enraged, and though lady Salisbury and her eldest son had written to Reginald in reproof of his attitude and action, Reginald Pole did not retract what he had said about Henry publicly. That left his family in England to pay for the insult done to the king.

In November, 1538, Margaret’s eldest son, the 1st 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 her son Geoffrey Pole, they were executed. Ten days after the arrest of her sons, lady Salisbury, despite her age, was arrested and examined by the Earl of Southampton and Thomas Goodrick, the Bishop of Ely. They reported to Cromwell that although they had interrogated her for many hours she would utter nothing, and they were forced to conclude that her sons had not made her a sharer in their treason. The brutal coming end of Margaret’s life brought with it the execution of one of her sons, the attempted suicide and nervous breakdown of another son and permanent exile of a third son.

The following May, Cromwell introduced a Bill of Attainder against her, which was hurriedly read. At the third reading Cromwell produced a white silk tunic found in one of her coffers, embroidered on the back with the Five Wounds. This connected 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. Margaret’s only chance of survival was utter submission to Henry’s will. “In addition, her dogged determination in the face of Henry’s growing disapproval might have been a manifestation of the resentment she felt, but never openly expressed,over the fate of her brother and her own impecunious circumstances following the death of her husband. Naturally, when she found herself in a position to regain her family’s lands, she felt justified, even duty-bound, to try and retain everything to which she believed was entitled.”[16] As she had done all her life before, putting common sense before emotional reasoning, this time she didn’t. Margaret had also underestimated the king. A bond of kinship meant nothing to a Tudor. After the passage of the Act of Attainder, the elderly Margaret was removed to the Tower, and for nearly two years was tormented by the severity of the weather and insufficient clothing. She remained stanch in the defense of herself and her sons, declaring, “that if ever it be found and proved, that she is culpable in any of those things, that she hath denied, that she is content to be blasmed in the rest of all the articles laid against her.”[17] Margaret’s long battle, was now lost and the earldom of Salisbury, was forfeited to the crown. Everything she had worked so hard to achieve was destroyed. 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 in1539. In some sense her 1541 execution was the continuation by King Henry of his father’s program of eliminating possible contenders to the throne. Her son, Reginald Cardinal Pole, said that he would “…never fear to call himself the son of a martyr”. Margaret was the last victim of the Wars of the Roses to be executed at the command of a Tudor, by King Henry VIII, her first cousin’s son.

Endnotes:
[1] Piece, Hazel, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, Great Britain, 2003, pg. 6
[2] Piece, Hazel, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, Great Britain, 2003, pg. 13
[3] Piece, Hazel, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, Great Britain, 2003, pg. 17
[4] Piece, Hazel, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, Great Britain, 2003, pg. 12
[5] Chrimes, S. B., Henry VII, University of California Press, Berkeley and Lost Angeles, 1972, pg. 92
[6] Jones, Michael K. and Underwood, Malcolm G. The King’s Mother-Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, Cambridge University Press, New York, New York, 1992, Pg. 102-103
[7] Pierce, Hazel, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, Great Britain, 2003, pg. 25
[8] Pierce, Hazel, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, Great Britain, 2003, pg. 27
[9] Porter, Linda, The First Queen of England, St. Martin’s Press, New York, New York, 2007, pg. 17
[10] Porter, Linda, The First Queen of England, St. Martin’s Press, New York, New York, 2007, pg. 41
[11] Porter, Linda, The First Queen of England, St. Martin’s Press, New York, New York, 2007, pg. 18
[12] Porter, Linda, The First Queen of England, St. Martin’s Press, New York, New York, 2007, pg. 25
[13] Porter, Linda, The First Queen of England, St. Martin’s Press, New York, New York, 2007, pg. 26
[14] Porter, Linda, The First Queen of England, St. Martin’s Press, New York, New York, 2007, pg. 92
[15] Pierce, Hazel, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, Great Britain, 2003, Pg. 31
[16] Pierce, Hazel, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, Great Britain, 2003, pg. 97
[17] Pierce, Hazel, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership, University of Wales Press, Cardiff, Great Britain, 2003, pg. 137-138