Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury

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Possibly Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury

Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury , actually Margaret Plantagenet (born August 14, 1473 in Bath / Somerset , † May 28, 1541 in London ), was an English noblewoman and member of the royal dynasty of the Plantagenets and a martyr . With her death, the Plantagenet house died out. As the daughter of George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence , Margaret was the niece of Kings Edward IV and Richard III. as well as a cousin of the future Queen Elizabeth of York . Alongside Anne Boleyn , she was the only woman in 16th century England to hold an earliest title in her own right.

Due to her descent from the House of Plantagenet , Margaret had a claim to the English throne, which made her an involuntary focus for intrigues again and again. In the later reign of King Henry VIII , the resistance of her son Reginald Pole against Heinrich culminated in the arrest of Margaret and her family. Her son Henry Pole, Lord Montague , was executed in the course of the Exeter Conspiracy in 1539, and Margaret followed him to the scaffold after nearly three years in the Tower of London . On December 29, 1886 she was by Pope Leo XIII. beatified as a martyr.

Life

The first years

Margaret was born on August 14, 1473 as the eldest daughter of George Plantagenet and Isabella Neville in Farley Caste near Bath . At the time of her birth, her father was third in line to the throne, and Margaret grew up a princess in the early years of her life. Her brother Edward Plantagenet was the only other surviving child from her parents. At the age of five, Margaret lost her father, who was accused of high treason and executed by his brother Edward . Her uncle Richard later took advantage of this fact to exclude Margaret and her brother Edward from the line of succession. Since they moved up in line to the throne after the bastardization of their cousins, including Elizabeth of York and Katherine of York , Richard declared that the execution of their father as a traitor would also forfeit Margaret and Edward's claim to the throne. He sent the children to Yorkshire in September 1483 , where they lived in Sheriff Hutton Castle on his orders .

After Henry VII's victory and accession to the throne in 1485, the new king was primarily interested in neutralizing rivals for his throne. Margaret's brother Edward, who posed the greater dynastic threat, was imprisoned in the Tower of London . Margaret, however, was married to Henry's cousin Richard Pole, who was loyal to the king. The marriage probably took place in November 1487. Her husband was of less ancestry than she was, but Margaret was completely destitute at the time and would have had no way of raising a princely dowry anyway to find a higher-ranking partner. Her new place of residence was initially Bockmer in Medmenham. Richard Pole was eventually hired as steward in the household of young Arthur Tudor , after which Margaret moved to Stourton Castle in Staffordshire to be with her husband. Here she gave birth to her son Reginald Pole .

Friendship with Catherine of Aragón

Catherine of Aragón as a young girl

Margaret's brother Edward Plantagenet was executed in 1499 on the orders of the king together with the pretender Perkin Warbeck , allegedly for an attempt to escape and the attempted murder of a guard. It may also have been done to reassure the worried parents of Katharina von Aragon . The rulers of Spain did not want to send their youngest daughter, the fiancee of the heir to the throne Arthur Tudor , to a contested kingdom. According to some sources, Ferdinand of Aragón explicitly demanded Edward's death, as he "saw no security in the line of succession as long as the Earl of Warwick was alive". From December 1501, when Arthur and Catherine moved to Wales together, Margaret Pole was part of the young princess's household. Although Katharina's marriage and arrival in England may have come about after the death of Margaret's brother, Margaret did not blame her openly. A lifelong friendship developed between the two highborn women.

After Arthur Tudor's death, Margaret was dismissed from Katharina's service. Her husband was still in the service of the king and led his daughter Margaret Tudor to Scotland in 1503 . He died in 1504, leaving Margaret alone in custody of five children. Although King Henry paid for part of the funeral expenses, the loss of the deceased husband's salary forced Margaret to send her son Reginald Pole into the church service in order to no longer have to provide for his maintenance. Reginald himself angrily accused his mother in 1536: "You never bothered to provide for my livelihood or in any other way for me, as you did for others." As long-time friend Catherine of Aragón in 1509, after all, Queen of England Margarets social and financial situation improved suddenly.

Shortly after the coronation, Margaret was appointed lady-in-waiting to the new queen. On August 4, 1509, King Henry VIII gave her an annual pension of 100 pounds. He described Margaret as the "most pious woman in all of England" and on October 14, 1513 bestowed on her the hereditary earliest dignity of the Countess of Salisbury in her own right. Her brother had previously carried this title; Heinrich probably tried to make up for his father's injustice to Margaret's family. Margaret became the only woman alongside Anne Boleyn who received an earl dignity in her own right in the 16th century. She also got her previous family property back by parliamentary resolution. Like most nobles, however, she had to pay a fee for it. She received lands in 17 English counties as well as isolated estates in Wales and Calais . By 1538 Margaret Pole's annual income was the stately £ 2,311; thus she was one of the five richest and most powerful nobles in England. Heinrich also actively supported her son Reginald's studies.

Governess of the princess

On February 21, 1516 Margaret Pole became the godmother of Princess Maria . During Katharina's and Heinrich's trip to Camp du Drap d'Or , she was appointed governess of Mary. The princess later referred to her as her "second mother". In 1521 Margaret's sons were suspected of colluding with Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham , which is why she was removed from Mary's household by 1525. It was not until the Princess was sent to Wales to her own household that Margaret Pole got her job back. Since she was related to kings herself, it became her job to prepare the princess for her role as queen. From 1530 she also took care of Maria's almost same age cousin, Lady Margaret Douglas .

When King Henry decided to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragón, Margaret took a firm stand on the Queen's side and became one of her strongest advocates, as did Henry's sister Mary Tudor , María de Salinas , Elizabeth Howard, wife of Thomas Howard , 3rd Duke of Norfolk , and Gertrude Courtenay, wife of Henry Courtenay, 1st Marquess of Exeter , were. She also stood by her protégé, Heinrich's daughter Maria, with advice and action when her rank as princess was in question. When Mary was due to hand over her tableware and her jewels in 1533, Margaret Pole refused to hand them over, whereupon Lord Hussey wrote to Minister Thomas Cromwell : "I wish by God you and the King would know and see what I had to do here the other day."

In December 1533 Maria was stripped of the title of royal princess after the birth of Anne Boleyn's daughter , Elisabeth , and she herself was brought into Elisabeth's household as a lady- in- waiting . Margaret then offered to continue serving Mary at her own expense. However, she was strictly forbidden to do so, as she has meanwhile been suspected of having supported Gertrude Courtenay in her affair with Elizabeth Barton . In addition, Margaret tried to prevent Minister Cromwell from becoming head of Bisham in Berkshire , which deepened tensions between them. The Spanish ambassador Eustace Chapuys asked King Henry in 1535 to return his daughter Maria to Margaret Poles' care, but Heinrich angrily refused and described Margaret as "a fool without any experience."

In conflict with the king

A first conflict with Heinrich had already emerged in 1513. William Compton , an influential friend of the king and his chief valet, was always interested in expanding his property and tried, according to Margaret, to persuade her to marry. When that didn't work, he pointed out to the king that the Canford lands really belonged to the Duchy of Somerset . Margaret was ordered to withdraw from Canford until ownership was clearly resolved. Through his influence Compton managed to secure the office of administrator of Canford and in this way to sneak the lands. Although Compton's methods were legally at least as questionable as Margaret's claims to the lands, the king stood behind his friend. He disliked Margaret's stubbornness, especially since he himself had the stronger claim under current law.

Margaret Poles son Reginald Cardinal Pole

During Heinrich's marriage to Anne Boleyn , Margaret Pole did not appear at court because she was still supporting Maria and she had fallen out of favor. It was only after Anne Boleyn's execution, and after Maria Heinrich had officially recognized herself as head of the English Church and herself as a bastard, that Margaret was called back to court. But now a new conflict was brewing, this time between Heinrich and Margaret's son Reginald. He had not set foot in England for a long time and had now written a treatise on the unity of the church in 1536 . In this he declared Henry's claim to the title of head of the English Church as null and void and also settled accounts with the king regarding his divorce from Catherine of Aragón. Heinrich was furious because he had supported Reginald Pole financially during his studies and had expected his backing. Margaret then wrote her son a stern letter in which she described his actions as madness. She called him a traitor to her servants and that she regretted ever giving birth to him. Historians suspect, however, that Margaret made these statements with the sole intention of appeasing Heinrich.

Since Reginald Pole meanwhile met with Henry's declared enemies and tried, on behalf of the Pope, to persuade Mary's cousin Charles V to invade England, the pressure on Margaret and her children grew enormously. Henry Pole, Lord Montagu, and Geoffrey Pole, in particular, were targeted by Thomas Cromwell, who suspected that despite all the protests, they were both still in contact with their brother. In August 1538, Geoffrey Pole was arrested. Within the next two months, he made statements that seriously incriminated his brother and her 2nd cousin Henry Courtenay . His statements were exaggerated into the so-called " Exeter Conspiracy ". In early November the Poles and Courtenays were arrested and Margaret was interrogated for a full day in Warblington by William Fitzwilliam, Earl of Southampton . Everything was also searched for compromising letters. Margaret was not guilty of anything and gave clear and firm answers. Fitzwilliam finally declared with grudging respect:

“We were dealing with someone who has probably never been seen before. We should call her a strong, steadfast man rather than a woman. We assume that no one has seen or heard such a woman before, so serious in her demeanor and so precise in gestures and words that it is a real miracle. "

In mid-November 1538, King Henry had Margaret Pole arrested and locked in the Tower of London . In early December her son Henry was executed for high treason , her son Geoffrey remained in custody, as did Margaret's old friend Gertrude Courtenay . Heinrich may have hoped to use her as a hostage to deter Reginald Pole from further actions against England and himself. Given the danger that England threatened from a possible invasion, Margaret was additionally burdened by the fact that her lands were strategically located on the coast and could thus be viewed as a stepping stone for a possible invasion. Reginald Pole was still not seen in England. In May 1539, Margaret and her surviving children were officially stripped of all their titles by a Bill of Attainder . Since Margaret could not be proven guilty of justifying the act, Cromwell showed Parliament a tunic that had allegedly been found in Margaret's chest. It featured a coat of arms from the Pilgrimage of Grace , and the embroidered symbolism was interpreted as a planned marriage between Princess Maria and Reginald Pole. Historians agree that it was a fake, as Margaret's belongings had been thoroughly searched beforehand.

death

Margaret Pole spent the next two years in the Tower. Their conditions of detention were somewhat easier than those of other prisoners. Heinrich paid for her meals and those of her grandson and allowed her to have a maid with her. For a time it was even thought that she should be released in 1540. Also, for March 1541, money for her clothing is recorded in his expenses. Hence, historians assume that her execution two months later was a spontaneous decision by Heinrich. It may have been implicated once more when Thomas Wyatt allegedly dealt with Reginald Pole. In addition, Sir John Neville had organized a riot in Yorkshire in April, mainly directed against Henry's claim to be head of the Church. Since Margaret was also of royal descent, she involuntarily became an alternative to Heinrich.

On May 27, 1541, Margaret was taken to the scaffold on East Smithfield Green within the tower at seven in the morning . She said she had not committed a crime and asked those in attendance to pray for the royal family and that Princess Maria should remember them. To the horror of the bystanders, the hangman was unable to kill her quickly and painlessly. According to eyewitness accounts, he was "a wretched, bumbling boy who literally hacked her head and shoulder to pieces in the most terrible way." When Reginald Pole heard of her death, he told his secretary that he was proud to be the son of a martyr. He locked himself in for an hour and then came back “as cheerful as before”. Margaret Pole was buried in the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula within the walls of the tower. Her remains were found there in 1876, which suggests that she was unusually large for the 16th century.

The hereditary earliest dignity that Henry VIII had bestowed on Margaret Pole and her descendants in 1513 had been revoked by the 1539 Bill of Attainder. In 1605 the title of Earl of Salisbury was conferred on statesman Robert Cecil .

In 1886 Margaret Pole was named by Pope Leo XIII. beatified as a martyr for having given her life together with many others for the Holy See and “for the truth of the Orthodox faith” (that is, the Roman Catholic faith ). Her feast day is May 28th.

progeny

The marriage to Richard Pole resulted in a total of five surviving children:

Representation in books and films

In Philippa Gregory's historical novel The Boleyn Inheritance (German title: The legacy of the queen ) Margaret Pole appears as a minor character. In the novel, The King's Curse is the main character.

In the television series The Tudors , Kate O'Toole played Lady Salisbury, a fictionalized version of Margaret Pole, in the first and third seasons.

In the television series The White Princess , based on the novel of the same name by Philippa Gregory , she is played by Rebecca Benson.

She is portrayed by Laura Carmichael in the television series The Spanish Princess (2019) .

literature

  • Margaret Pole, 1473-1541 by Hazel Pierce, University of Wales Press, 2003, ISBN 0-7083-1783-9

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Hazel Pierce: Pole, Margaret . In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Volume 44 Phelps - Poston . Oxford University Press 2004
  2. ^ Charles Knight: The Popular History of England: An illustrated History of Society and Government from the earliest Period to our own Times. Volume 2. Bradbury and Evans 1857, London, p. 232, online version
  3. ↑ a b c d e England under the Tudors - Margaret Pole
  4. ^ Anna Whitelock: Mary Tudor. England's first queen. Bloomsbury Publishing 2010, p. 21
  5. ^ GW Bernard: The Rise of Sir William Compton, Early Tudor Courtier. In: The English Historical Review , Volume 96, No. 381 (Oct. 1981), Oxford University Press
predecessor Office successor
Edward Plantagenet Countess of Salisbury
1513-1539 		Title forfeited
personal data
SURNAME Pole, Margaret, 8th Countess of Salisbury
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English nobleman and martyr
DATE OF BIRTH August 14, 1473
PLACE OF BIRTH Bath
DATE OF DEATH May 28, 1541
Place of death London