Birth of Reginald Pole

Birth of Reginald Pole

Reginald Pole, generally known as Cardinal Pole, was born at Stourton Castle – Staffordshire, on 3rd March 1500.

He was the son of Sir Richard Pole and Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury.

Margaret Pole was the last Plantagenet Princess, daughter of George Duke of Clarence – drowned in a butt of malmsey wine in the Tower of London, for treason.

This made Reginald dangerously close to the throne of England.
Reginald and his brothers had as good a claim to the throne as Henry VIII.

Margaret Pole’s children married well, except for Reginald, who was destined for a clerical and academic career.

Reginald was designed for the church, in his early youth.
He was educated in the Carthusian monastery at Sheen, and at Magdalen College, Oxford.

Through the generosity of Henry VIII, Reginald Pole
studied at the University of Padua from 1521 to 1526.

When Pole returned to England in 1526, Henry offered to make Pole the Archbishop of York after the death of Thomas Wolsey, his former Chancellor – on one condition….

Pole would support Henry’s desire to have his marriage to Katharine of Aragon annulled, so he could marry Anne Boleyn.

After some hesitation, he refused the offer, finally expressed his concern for Henry VIII’s soul if he continued to pursue the annulment, enraging the king.

In 1532 Pole left England for Padua.
This was a wise move, as Henry VIII was King and Thomas Cromwell, Henry’s chief adviser and Minister, did not want Roman Catholics with a valid claim to the throne around, or even alive!

Pole was increasingly seen as a threat to Henry’s regime, and had to evade several plots of assassination.

Pole watched Henry’s usurpation of papal authority and control of the Church in England, while studying theology and making friends with Renaissance scholars.

In 1536, Pole was made a Cardinal.
He urged France and Spain to go to war with England on behalf of Catholicism.

Cardinal Pole outlined his reasons against Henry’s supremacy over the Church in England and called upon Henry to save his soul by returning to the Catholic Church.

When this news was brought to Henry he was overcome by a typical Tudor tantrum.

While Cardinal Pole was out of his immediate reach in Italy, Pole’s family was in England and vulnerable.

Pole was attainted a traitor by Parliament and Thomas Cromwell sent assassins to Italy.
Pole’s brothers Sir Geoffrey and Henry, Lord Montague were arrested.

Henry was exEcuted, while Geoffrey was released, possibly because he helped the Crown support its flimsy case.

Pole’s elderly mother Margaret, was also arrested and held in the Tower of London for more than two years.
On 27th May 1541, she was given an hour to prepare for her exEcution, without being charged with any crime, tried by any jury, or found guilty by any court.

When he heard that his mother had been exEcuted, Cardinal Pole proclaimed that he would

“never fear to call himself the son of a martyr.”

For upwards of twenty years, Pole lived abroad, a declared and active enemy of the Protestant movement in his own country.

After Henry VIII died in 1547, Pole waited until the Lady Jane Grey incident provoked by the Duke of Northumberland was over.

The teenage couple Jane and Guildford b-headed, Northumberland himself b-headed, and Henry’s daughter by Katharine of Aragon, Mary Tudor, was installed as Queen Mary I.

In 1554 therefore, he returned to England where he was made welcome by the new Catholic administration.
A marriage between Queen Mary and Pole was briefly considered, but deemed impossible.

However, although Pole shared Mary’s catholic faith, he thoroughly disapproved of Mary’s persecution of Protestants – and the acrid smell of burning flesh everywhere.

Pole was known for his gentleness and patience with those suspected of heresy, he regarded them as sinners rather than traitors – urging leniency, conversion, and forgiveness.

On 20th March 1556 Pole received the Sacrament of Holy Orders, and offered his first Mass on 21st March – the same day that Thomas Cranmer, the former Archbishop of Canterbury was burned alive at the stake in Oxford.

Pole was consecrated as the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury on 22nd March 1556.

His Eminence Reginald Pole Cardinal Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of All England, died in London, during an influenza epidemic, on 17th November 1558, at about 7:00 pm.

This was nearly 12 hours after Queen Mary’s death!
He was buried on the north side of the Corona at Canterbury Cathedral.

Queen Mary and Pole’s work to restore Catholicism was unfinished and unsustainable.
Mary’s heir was her half-sister Elizabeth, who had definite Protestant convictions.

Reginald Pole was one of those few survivors in the sixteenth century, who rose to great power without losing his life.
Thomases More and Cromwell, for example, each became Lord Chancellor, second only to the King, but both were shortened by a head.

The Duke of Norfolk managed to stay by Henry VIII through thick and thin, but even he would have been exEcuted if Henry had not died while Norfolk awaited death in the Tower.

Cardinal Pole deserves to be well remembered for his devotion to Church reform, loyalty to the Papacy, and sympathy for the English martyrs – among whom was his own mother.