Margarets aunt, Anne Neville, thus became queen. Even as he secretly wore a hair shirt, he openly and consistently fasted, prayed, and maintained a relatively modest household. His desire for an annulment was now not merely to secure a legitimate heir; it was also spurred by his desire to marry Anne. Managed all schedules for company and . Perhaps the contrast with the quiet, gentle Jane was too striking. Towards the block I shall not go! Margaret would have had a claim to the Earldom of Warwick, but the earldom was forfeited on the attainder of her brother Edward.[4]. The date of the marriage is uncertain; 1487 is likely. Henry VIII was a Catholic ruler, and enjoyed friendly relations with the papacy until he sought to divorce Katharine. Joan, wife of Roger Swillington. Please include name, address and a telephone number. There are only glimpses of her in these years: my lady Margaret of Clarence. Her mother died after giving birth to a fourth child; that brother died ten days after their mother. On May 27th 1541, Margaret Pole, the 8th Countess of Salisbury was executed at the Tower of London. Henry was wise enough to state his case and let it go, for a little while at least. There is an apocryphal story that Morton predicted his bright and lively page would grow into a marvelous man. With Margarets female peers, there is a gap between what they say and what they do, what they are and what they appear to be. He was a half-cousin of the first Tudor king, Henry VII; Richard Poles mother was a half-sister of, Reginald Pole, a cardinal and papal diplomat, last Roman Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Pole, who went into exile in Europe when accused of conspiracy by Henry VIII. Henry still hoped for Mores support. And as his own reputation grew in London, he attracted the notice of the all-powerful Cardinal Wolsey. For Mores part, he undoubtedly appreciated his second wifes superb housekeeping skills for they allowed him the freedom to pursue his increasingly successful career. She was a patron of the New Learning, like many Renaissance noblewomen; Gentian Hervet had translated Erasmus' de immensa misericordia Dei (The Great Mercy of God) into English for her. A possible portrait of Margaret Pole (c. 1535). First I went on the Internet to find some ways of measuring wind speed. As Englands premier intellectual, Mores opinion mattered. Ironically, it was his own honesty and probity which ensured his continued service to Henry. Reginald replied to books Henry sent him with his own pamphlet, pro ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione, or de unitate, which denied Henry's position on the marriage of a brother's wife and denied royal supremacy. (Along with Margaret her sister-in-law Eleanor Pole was also a lady-in-waiting to Katherine. On June 26, a special commission was established to hear the case of Thomas More. Because the main executioner[17] had been sent north to deal with rebels, the execution was performed by "a wretched and blundering youth who literally hacked her head and shoulders to pieces in the most pitiful manner". Or was there, as she claimed, nothing worth burning? In 1537, after the split from the Roman Catholic Church proclaimed by Henry VIII, Pope Paul II created Reginald Pole who, though he had studied theology extensively and served the church, had not been ordained a priest Archbishop of Canterbury, and assigned Pole to organize efforts to replace Henry VIII with a Roman Catholic government. The Editor Born 14 August 1473, Margaret was one of the few Plantagenets who had survived the Wars of the Roses She was the mother of . It was More's execution - far more than those of Anne Boleyn or Thomas Cromwell or Margaret Pole - which established the king's reputation for capricious cruelty. Thomas More was born on 7 February 1478 in London, the son of a successful lawyer. Richard Pole was appointed to the household of Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII and Prince of Wales, heir apparent. Later, he would castigate her in the accents of a hurt child for what seemed to him abandonment, telling her that as she had given him up when he was so young, she should not interfere between him and his conscience. John More was a successful lawyer who was later knighted and made a judge of the Kings Bench; he was prosperous enough to send his son to Londons best school, St Anthonys at Threadneedle Street. Despite such evidence of royal favor, it is likely that More chafed at his service to the king. He returned to Padua in 1532 and received a last English benefice in December of that same year. His father recalled him to London and he trained as a law student at New Inn and later Lincolns Inn. Mores eldest daughter Margaret would become the first non-royal Englishwoman to publish a work in translation. Quite the opposite. And More determined that their daughters would receive the same education as their son. "Pole, Margaret Plantagenet, Bl." Thomas More (1478-1535), lawyer and moral philosopher, is still regarded by many Catholics as the quintessential good man. Margaret, warned of the threat he represented to her own interests and life, said: I trow he is not so unhappy that he will hurt his mother, and yet I care neither for him, nor for any other, for I am true to my Prince., At this point she was questioned rigorously by Henrys councillor William Fitzwilliam. This is Aalto. letters@lrb.co.uk Birth date: February 7, 1478. And he was well-connected enough to later secure his sons appointment as household page to John Morton, the archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor of England. To ease the situation, Margaret devoted her third son, Reginald Pole, to the Church; he was to have an eventful career as a papal Legate and later as Archbishop of Canterbury. The reasons were various, but the most important was Katharines position as aunt to the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. Charles would not let his aunt be cast aside (he was also considering the dynastic appeal of her daughter with Henry), and he pressured the pope to deny Henrys petition. Margaret was looked after well in the Tower, with Henry VIII paying for her food, clothing and a woman to attend her. It seems Margaret was questioned about her contacts with Barton, but she came to no harm as a result and, unlike Gertrude, she escaped without grovelling. Henry and others were executed, though Geoffrey was not. He grew up cultivated and cosmopolitan, sensitive, lively-minded. It is painted on a dateable oak panel, and the dates suit the presumed subject, but the artist is anonymous. The Imperial Ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, suggested two years later that Mary be handed over to Margaret, but Henry refused, calling her "a fool, of no experience". It was children who caused him a problem. And the king was now newly enamored of a young noblewoman called Anne Boleyn. Cardinal Wolsey and the king needed no further reason to bring More into the kings service. In 1512, Parliament, with Henrys assent, restored to her some of the lands that had been held by Henry VII for her brother while he was imprisoned, and then had been confiscated when he was executed. Henry VIII married Catherine of Aragon in 1509 and Margaret was again appointed as one of her ladies-in-waiting. The kings mother, Margaret Beaufort, was protective of young brides; her own body had been wrecked by a pregnancy at 13. Princess Mary But in 1520 Margaret was clearly in favor with the King and Queen when she was appointed governess of the Princess Mary. Margaret Poles death, notoriously, was not a clean end. That was clear to Cromwell almost from the first, and perhaps to More, too. In May 1515, More was sent to Bruges as part of a delegation arranged by Wolsey to revise an Anglo-Flemish commercial treaty. Her fiction is stiff and chary, as if she is too constrained by her knowledge of the pitfalls to turn her characters loose in their own lives. [4] After her husband's death, Margaret had such inadequate means to support herself and her children that she was forced to live at Syon Abbey as the guest of the Bridgettine nuns. She managed her lands quite well, and became one of the five or six wealthiest peers in England. A pearl necklace is just a shadow now. When Catherine of Aragon gave birth to a daughter, Mary, Margaret Pole was asked to be one of the godmothers. Lewis, Jone Johnson. Edward IV declared that Margaret's younger brother, Edward, should be known as Earl of Warwick as a courtesy title, but no peerage was ever created for him. [10], When Mary was declared a bastard in 1533, Margaret refused to give Mary's gold plate and jewels back to Henry. Besides Ursula, four of Margarets children lived to adulthood. ODNB, which argues that the restoration was a tacit admission of her brother's innocence; however, lands and titles had been restored to the heirs of guilty peers during the previous century. The threat seemed even greater by 1538, when the two great powers, France and the emperor, signed a peace treaty which left them free to turn their attention to the pariah nation. The accounts differ slightly; Marillac's report, dispatched two days afterwards, recorded that the execution took place in a corner of the Tower with so few people present that, in the evening, news of her execution was doubted. Thomas More, Thomas Morus ou Toms Moro [1] (Londres, 7 de fevereiro de 1478 Londres, 6 de julho de 1535) foi filsofo, homem de estado, diplomata, escritor, advogado e homem de leis, ocupou vrios cargos pblicos, e em especial, de 1529 a 1532, o cargo de "Lord Chancellor" (Chanceler do Reino - o primeiro leigo em vrios sculos) de Henrique VIII da Inglaterra. Credit: PjrWindows / Alamy Stock Photo. Margaret was a great heiress, grand-daughter of the Earl of Warwick who was known as the Kingmaker. Six months later, Cromwell produced a tunic marked with the wounds of Christ, claiming it had been found in that search, and used that to arrest Margaret, though most doubt that. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. He could now only write to his wife and favorite daughter Margaret with a piece of coal or burnt stick on scraps of paper. But and of course this clause was added simply to trap More the Act also required a repudiation of any foreign authority, prince or potentate. More could recognize Anne as the crowned queen of England. In April 1523, he was elected speaker of the House of Commons. Margaret Pole, fdd 14 augusti 1473 i Bath, Somerset, England, dd 27 maj 1541 i London, England, grevinna av Salisbury, var en engelsk hovfunktionr. Later in life, he bitterly resented her abandonment of him. On the 27th May 1541, the elderly Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury, godmother and former governess to Henry VIII's daughter Mary, was executed at the Tower of London. In an effort to force their co-operation, Henry separated his wife and child, and Margaret who was Marys godmother offered to serve the young girl at her own expense. Margaret Pole, Tudor Matriarch and Martyr. The next year, when her sons were mixed up with Buckingham, she was removed from that appointment, but later restored to it by 1525. It gave the king pause, and More was allowed to return home. England became an embattled nation. * Walter Stafford (about 1539-after 1571 . Margarets husband Richard died in 1504, leaving her with five young children and very little land or money. It was not a bloodbath, but a selective cull, carried through by process of law. Whatever her private feelings at this point, in public she was pragmatic and circumspect. (We should note, however, that More brilliant and perceptive was never especially comfortable in his kings good graces. Here is where it gets complicated. She was the Spanish princess, Katharine of Aragon, one of the daughters of the Catholic rulers of Spain. She was executed in 1541, the act of attainder rendering a trial unnecessary. Margaret was not executed with her eldest son, but was held in the Tower for the last years of her life the king paying her bills, outfitting her as became a great lady in furred petticoats and a satin nightgown. It stated that all who were called upon must take an oath acknowledging Anne as Henrys wife and their future children as legitimate heirs to the throne. But if the weather turns nasty you up with an anchor and let it down where there's less wind, and the fishing's better. The picture was cleaned in 1973, and study suggested that some original features have almost vanished. Her life, marked by stunning reversals of fortune, is an irresistible subject, but it presents a familiar difficulty for the historian. Chapuys wrote that, "at first, when the sentence of death was made known to her, she found the thing very strange, not knowing of what crime she was accused, nor how she had been sentenced". Such was his reputation that the the great universities Oxford and Cambridge made him high steward. Ultimately, they would both become martyrs of their faith (though this show is not likely . Margarets youngest son, Geoffrey, probably under threat of torture, denounced not only his own family but the Courtenay clan and other prominent members of the old families. She was head of her family, a magnate with vast resources in men and money; any disaffection on her part was dangerous. More suffered a sharp chest pain, possibly angina, and begged the king to release him from his duties. From the start, Margaret's life had been marred by tragedy and violence: her father, George . Mores only communication with Barton had been to warn her against meddling in affairs of state. Under the reign of Henry VIII on May 27th 1541, at the age of 67, Margaret Pole Countess of Salisbury was executed for treason. And when the English clergy were forced to acknowledge Henry as the supreme head of their church, More attempted to resign his office. We come now to the great event of Henrys reign. Likewise, Henry became understandably angry at the papacys refusal to repudiate Charles. Get the best results here. The sitter might as well be carved, for all she suggests flesh or circulating blood. Her mother, Isabel, daughter of the above-mentioned "King-maker," died 22nd December, 1476, and her father in the Tower nearly two years later. During her time in prison, Cromwell himself was executed. Art and science The German artist Hans Holbein the Younger paints King Henry VIII. She certainly didn't bow to any pressure later in her life to give up her son. When Henry gave the nod for the execution to take place, no one was give. Sir Thomas Pole was a member of the aristocracy in England. Their destruction came with a wave of arrests in the autumn of 1538. St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Bridge Gate, Derby, Our Lady and the English Martyrs' church in Cambridge. The skeleton was not complete, but part of the skull had survived, and certain other bones. To my principles!". BORN: 1473. Sir Thomas having continued a Prisoner in the Tower somewhere more than a Twelvemonth, for he was committed about the middle of April 1534, and was brought to his Trial on the 7th of May, 1535. he went into the Court leaning on his Staff, because he was much weakened by his Imprisonment, but appeared with a cheerful and composed Countenance. ThoughtCo. Margaret's own favour at Court varied. Annes personal religious feeling was unimportant. Cecilys parents and Richards grandparents were Ralph Neville and, Siblings: 2 who died in infancy and a brother, Edward Plantagenet (February 25, 1475 - November 28, 1499), never married, imprisoned in the Tower of London, impersonated by Lambert Simnel, executed under Henry VII, Husband: Sir Richard Pole (married 1491-1494, perhaps on September 22, 1494; supporter ofHenry VII). geralmente . But they have never been proven, and in fact they seem pretty far fetched. Later that year, Reginald was summoned to Rome, made a cardinal and put in charge of organising a crusade against England economic sanctions first, war if need be. Together, they had five children, but she was widowed in 1505. After bearing More three daughters (Margaret, Elizabeth, Cicely) and one son (John), Jane died in 1511. More had already begun writing his History of King Richard III as well; it is considered the first masterpiece of English history and is wholly pro-Tudor. But by then Lord Montagu was dead, executed along with the Marquis of Exeter and other opponents of the regime. It was Mores execution far more than those of Anne Boleyn or Thomas Cromwell or Margaret Pole which established the kings reputation for capricious cruelty. The National Archives, minsters' accounts, SC6/HENVIII. Those two could only get along for short while before things got heated. Susan Higginbotham. Margarets daughter Ursula would have 13 children, and three of her four sons would marry heiresses and have large families. A devoted Catholic, More refuses to sign Parliament's Act of Supremacy, which declares King Henry, and not the Pope, the Supreme Head of the new Church of England. His father was not supportive, but More was fully prepared to be disowned rather than disobey Gods will. But he himself did not sign the letter in which most of Englands nobles and prelates petitioned the pope to declare the marriage unlawful. He has been held up to schoolchildren for centuries as the most. She answered that no crime had been imputed to her. Margaret Pole was a pretty tough and clinical woman. He died on 8 August 1420. [2] His heir was his son Thomas. "Margaret Pole, Tudor Matriarch and Martyr." Wolsey, for all his brilliance and cunning, could not compete with that influence. It was sumptuously furnished and built of brick a modern material but moated, crenellated, archaic in form. https://www.thoughtco.com/margaret-pole-tudor-matriarch-and-martyr-3530618 (accessed March 1, 2023). If, however, the subject lives a life of great extravagance, tell him he, too, can afford to give largely, the proof of his opulence being evident in his expenditure.. Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots. What a contemporary described as her nobility and goodness soon put her back in royal favour. The new pretender, Ralph Wilford, was arrested and killed before the conspiracy bred any action. As Countess of Salisbury, Margaret managed her lands well and by 1538 she was the fifth richest peer in England. She was later regarded by Catholics as such and was beatified on 29 December 1886 by Pope Leo XIII. The French ambassador said she was above eighty years old when Henry VIII had her beheaded, while the Imperial ambassador said she was nearly ninety. The chronology defeated observers, as if her life stretched back into a fabulous era when dragons roamed. She was cousin to Henry VIII's mother, and well trusted by the king for years. Margaret Pole. The new king married Margaret's cousin, Elizabeth of York, Edward IV's daughter, and Margaret and her brother were taken into their care. Tragedy throws her into poverty and rebellion against the new royal family, luck restores her to her place at court where she becomes the chief lady-in-waiting to Queen Katherine and watches the dominance of the Spanish queen over her husband, and her fall. In 1509, when Henry VIII came to the throne after his fathers death, he married his brothers widow, Catherine of Aragon. More was thus in his early thirties, successful, happily married, when the tax collectors Dudley and Empson were beheaded on Tower Hill at the command of the new king, Henry VIII. Elizabeth Throckmorton. Afterwards, More's head was displayed on a pike at London Bridge for a month. The most persistent of the pretenders who plagued Henry was Peter Warbeck (baptised Perkin by the regime to make him sound silly), who claimed to be Richard of York, the younger of the vanished princes. Ursula Pole, Baroness Stafford the daughter of Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury and Sir Richard Pole. Birth City: London, England. But Reginald stayed in Italy through the reign of Anne Boleyn supposedly preparing a learned statement on the kings case. For highlights from the latest issue, our archive and the blog, as well as news, events and exclusive promotions. Margaret Pole was one of only two women in the 16th century to hold a peerage in her own right. One of her children, Reginald Pole, would go on to become a cardinal, and then . Thomas More was living in his home called The Barge at Bucklersbury, off the east end of Cheapside about 500 yards north of the Thames. More would stand trial for his life. It was the beginning of a fertile new line. [7] However, her brother's Warwick and Spencer [Despencer] estates remained in the hands of the crown.[8]. And while this reasoning worked to replenish the royal treasury for Henry VII, it also provided the second Tudor king with a chance to curry popular favor when he in one of his first acts as Henry VIII imprisoned and later executed Edmund Dudley and Richard Empson, who were Mortons (and his fathers) tax collectors. Eustace Chapuys, the imperial ambassador, recorded the Countess's execution in a letter to the Queen of Hungary: The next year, the late king's marriage was declared invalid by the statute Titulus Regius of 1484, making his children illegitimate. In 1886, Margaret would be beatified by Pope Leo XIII as a martyr to Henrys regime. ), St. Marie's Church in New Bilton, Rugby, England. In practice, pre-nuptial agreements, trusts and the legally sanctioned breach of entails created some flexibility. We can't imagine how Margaret was feeling, she was 65 years of age when brought to the tower in 1539, an advanced age by the standards of the day. As widows, or as deputies to living husbands, they handled complex legal and financial affairs with aplomb, while assenting outwardly at least to their status as irrational and inferior beings. If the great Sir Thomas More believed the kings marriage to be unlawful, why, it must be so! Margaret Pole was one of only two women in the 16 th century to hold a peerage in her own right. For these reasons, More had no cause to suspect his monarch of anything less than fealty to their shared faith. Thomas came from wealthy families, from trade (his father was a wealthy baker) and the law. She was beatified by the Roman Catholic Church in 1886 as a martyr.Occupation:Lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon, manager of her estates as Countess of Salisbury.Dates:August 14, 1473 May 27, 1541Also known as: Margaret of York, Margaret Plantagenet, Margaret de la Pole, Countess of Salisbury, Margaret Pole the Blessed. His brother came to the throne in 1509 as Henry VIII, married the widowed Catherine, and in a first flush of goodwill began to repair the damage to Margarets fortunes. Contemporary chroniclers often referred to him as a friend of the poor. He was made knight of the Garter, and appointed chamberlain to the young Prince of Wales. Hilary Mantel. More would have to either acknowledge the kings spiritual supremacy and marriage to Anne Boleyn, or he would die. But he knew what was coming. EXECUTED: 27 MAY 1541. [18][19][20][21][22] Margaret was buried in the chapel of St Peter ad Vincula within the Tower of London. The sons of Edward IV, 11 and 13 years old, had been held in the Tower by their uncle Richard III, and last been seen by Londoners in the summer of 1483. Margaret's relationship with Henry VIII, must have been good. Gaily agreeing that the chief female virtues are meekness and self-effacement, they managed estates, signed off accounts, bought wardships and brokered marriage settlements, all the while keeping up a steady output of needlework. (1) By 1520, as an indication of the trust placed in her, she had been appointed lady governor to the Princess Mary, born in 1516 and the only child of the royal marriage to survive for more than a few weeks. I decided to investigate anemometers, because I wanted to look at different ways of measuring wind speed. But his older brother perished and the younger brother was crowned at 18 years old, and quickly wed his brothers widow. Her maternal grandfather was killed fighting against her uncle, Edward IV, at the Battle of Barnet. It was perfectly clear to any objective observer that the marriage was unlawful before God! She was by necessity hostile to the Catholic church. London, WC1A 2HN She was a decade and a half younger than he was, and he never seems to have felt anything more than a brotherly affection for her.
