Reginald Pole | |
|---|---|
| CardinalArchbishop of Canterbury andPrimate of All England | |
 | |
| Church | Catholic Church |
| Installed | 22 March 1556 |
| Term ended | 17 November 1558 |
| Predecessor | Thomas Cranmer |
| Successor | Matthew Parker |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | 20 March 1556 |
| Consecration | 22 March 1556 by Nicholas Heath |
| Created cardinal | 22 December 1536 byPaul III |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1500-03-12)12 March 1500 |
| Died | 17 November 1558(1558-11-17) (aged 58) London, Kingdom of England |
| Buried | The Corona, Canterbury Cathedral, Kent 51°16′48″N1°04′57″E / 51.27995°N 1.08248°E /51.27995; 1.08248 |
| Parents | Sir Richard Pole Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury |
| Signature |  |
| Coat of arms |  |
Reginald Pole (12 March 1500 – 17 November 1558) was an Englishcardinal and the last CatholicArchbishop of Canterbury, holding the office from 1556 to 1558 during theMarian Restoration of Catholicism.
Pole was born atStourton Castle,Staffordshire, on 12 March 1500,[1] the third son ofSir Richard Pole andMargaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury. He was named after the nowbeatifiedReginald of Orleans,O.P. His maternal grandparents wereGeorge Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence,[2] andIsabel Neville, Duchess of Clarence; thus he was a great-nephew of kingsEdward IV andRichard III and a great-grandson ofRichard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick.
Accounts vary as to where Pole received his early education: eitherSheen Priory,Christchurch orCanterbury.[3][4] Shortly thereafter, hematriculated atMagdalen College, Oxford, in 1512. At Oxford he was taught byWilliam Latimer, his principal tutor,[4] andThomas Linacre, who taught him at some point between 1518 and 1520. In 1512,Henry VIII had paid him a pension of £12, renewed the following year; intended to go towards his education.[4] Pole graduated with aBA degree on 27 June 1515. In February 1518, King Henry granted him thedeanery ofWimborne Minster,Dorset. He went on to bePrebendary ofSalisbury, andDean of Exeter in 1527.[5] On 19 March 1518 he was appointed prebend ofRuscombe Southbury, Salisbury,[6] only to exchange that on 10 April 1519 forYetminster secunda.[6][4] He was also acanon inYork, and had several other livings, albeit not yet ordained apriest. Assisted by BishopEdward Foxe, he represented Henry VIII inParis in 1529, probing general opinion among theologians of theSorbonne on theannulment of Henry's marriage withCatherine of Aragon.[7]
In 1521, with a £100 stipend from King Henry VIII, Pole went to theUniversity of Padua. It was here that he met leadingRenaissance figures, includingPietro Bembo,Gianmatteo Giberti (formerlyPope Leo X'sdatary and chief minister),Jacopo Sadoleto, Gianpietro Carafa (the futurePope Paul IV),Rodolfo Pio,Otto Truchsess,Stanislaus Hosius,Cristoforo Madruzzo,Giovanni Morone,Pier Paolo Vergerio the younger,Peter Martyr Vermigli and Vettor Soranzo. The last three were eventually to be condemned asheretics by the Catholic Church. As a widely knownProtestant theologian, Vermigli contributed significantly to theReformation in Pole's native England.
Pole's studies inPadua were partly financed by his election as afellow ofCorpus Christi College, Oxford. More than half of the cost was met by Henry VIII himself,[8] on 14 February 1523. This allowed him to study abroad for three years.
While in Padua, Reginald's brother,Henry Pole, 1st Baron Montagu, presented to him the living of South Harting, Sussex on 10 April 1526.[clarification needed][citation needed] Three months later, Pole returned home, arriving from France escorted byThomas Lupset. He was appointed prebend ofKnaresborough inYork Minster on 22 April 1527. On 25 July 1527, Pole was presented acanonry inExeter Cathedral, to be declared Dean just four days later.[4] Pole was sent to Paris in October 1529, but returned home in the summer of 1530. For some of his time in England he lived inJohn Colet's former house at Sheen.[4]
Pole had most probably arrived back in England in 1527, but whatever political influence he had acquired was not documented until November 1528.[4] By the following October, his being sent to Paris had been expressly to liberate from the university doctors an agreeable opinion on Henry VIII’s annulment.[4] It is possible that Pole started learning Hebrew from Robert Wakefield after he returned home from France, which would suggest that Henry might have wanted to deploy Pole in the annulment project.[4] Henry offered him theArchbishopric of York or theDiocese of Winchester if he would support the annulment of his marriage toCatherine of Aragon. It is likely that in May or June 1531 Pole furnished Henry with an analysis of the political difficulties with regard to a divorce, particularly the dangers this would bring to the succession.[4] Pole withheld his support and went into self-imposed exile in France and Italy in 1532, where he continued his studies in Padua andParis. After his return, he held thebenefice ofvicar ofPiddletown, Dorset, between 20 December 1532 and sometime around January 1536.[9]
In May 1536, Reginald Pole finally and decisively broke with the King. Five years earlier, he had warned of the dangers of the Boleyn marriage; he had returned to Padua in 1532 and received a last English benefice that December.Eustace Chapuys, the imperialambassador to England, had suggested toEmperor Charles V that Pole marry Henry's daughterMary and combine their dynastic claims; Chapuys also communicated with Reginald through his brotherGeoffrey. At this time Pole was not definitively in Holy Orders.
The final break between Pole and Henry followed uponThomas Cromwell,Cuthbert Tunstall,Thomas Starkey and others addressing questions to Pole on behalf of Henry. He answered by sending the King a copy of his publishedtreatisePro ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione, which, besides being a theological reply to the questions, was a strong denunciation of the King's policies, refuting Henry's position on marrying his brotherArthur's widow and denying the royal supremacy. Pole also urged the princes of Europe to depose Henry immediately. Henry wrote to Pole's mother, theCountess of Salisbury, who in turn sent her son a letter reproving him for his "folly".[10]
On 22 December 1536, Pole, already a deacon, was created acardinal[11][12] over Pole's own objections.[13] He was the fourth of the five English cardinals of the first half of the sixteenth century.[14][note 1] He also becamepapal legate to England in February 1536/1537.Pope Paul III put him in charge of organising assistance for thePilgrimage of Grace (and related movements), an effort to organise a march on London to demand Henry replace his ‘reformist’ advisers with more traditional, Catholic minds; neitherFrancis I of France nor the Emperor supported this effort, and the English government tried to have Pole assassinated. In 1539, Pole was sent to the Emperor to organise an embargo against England – the sort of countermeasure he had himself warned Henry was possible.[7]
The King, with Pole himself out of his reach, took revenge on Pole's family for engaging in treason by word against the King. This later became known as theExeter Conspiracy. The leading members were arrested, and all their properties seized. This destroyed the Pole family.[15] SirGeoffrey Pole was arrested in August 1538; he had been corresponding with Reginald. The investigation ofHenry Courtenay, 1st Marquess of Exeter (Henry VIII's first cousin and the Countess of Salisbury's first cousin once removed) had turned up his name. Sir Geoffrey appealed to Thomas Cromwell, who had him arrested and interrogated. Under interrogation, Sir Geoffrey admitted thatHenry Pole, 1st Baron Montagu, and Exeter had both been parties to his correspondence with Reginald. Montagu, Exeter, and Lady Salisbury were arrested in November 1538, together with Henry Pole and other family members, on charges oftreason. This was despite Cromwell having previously written that they had "little offended save that he [Reginald Pole] is of their kin". They were committed to theTower of London and, apart from Geoffrey Pole, they were all eventually executed.
In January 1539, Sir Geoffrey was pardoned. Montagu and Exeter were tried and executed for treason. Reginald Pole wasattaintedin absentia. In May 1539, Montagu, Exeter, Lady Salisbury, and others were also attainted, as her father had been; this meant that they lost their lands – mostly in the South of England, conveniently located (alleged the crown) to assist any invasion – and titles. Those still alive in the Tower were also sentenced to death, and so could be executed at the King's will. As part of the evidence given in support of the Bill of Attainder, Cromwell produced a tunic bearing theFive Wounds of Christ, purported to show Lady Salisbury's support of traditional Catholicism. This, supposedly, came to light six months after her house and effects had already been searched when she was arrested. It is likely to have been planted there.
Margaret Pole was held in the Tower of London for two and a half years under severe conditions; she, her grandson (Montagu's son), and Exeter's son were held together on orders of the King. In 1540, Cromwell himself fell from favour and was himself attainted and executed. Margaret was finally executed in 1541, protesting her innocence until the last – a highly publicised case considered a grave miscarriage of justice both at the time and later. Her execution was gruesome, botched by an inexperienced executioner, who delivered nearly a dozen blows before she was finally killed. Pole is known to have said that he would "never fear to call himself the son of a martyr". Some 350 years later, in 1886, Margaret wasbeatified byPope Leo XIII.[16] Aside from the hostile treatisePro ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione, another contribution fuelling King Henry's brutality towards the Pole family might have been that Pole's mother, Margaret, was one of the last surviving members of theHouse of Plantagenet. Under some circumstances, that line of descent could have made Reginald – until he definitely entered the clergy – a possible contender for the throne itself.
In 1542 Reginald Pole was appointed as one of the three papal legates to preside over theCouncil of Trent. In the1549–1550 papal conclave which followed the death of Pope Paul III in 1549, Pole, at one point, had 26 out of the 28 votes he needed to become pope himself.[7] His personal belief injustification by faith alone over works had caused him problems atTrent and accusations of heretical crypto-Lutheranism at the conclave.Thomas Hoby, visiting Rome so as to be present in the city during the conclave, recorded that Pole failed to be elected "by theCardinall of Ferrara his meanes the voice of manie cardinalls of the French partie, persuading them that Cardinall Pole was both Imperiall and also a verie Lutheran".[17]
The death ofEdward VI on 6 July 1553 and the accession ofMary I to the throne of England hastened Pole's return from exile, as a papal legate to England (which he remained until 1557) with a view to receiving the kingdom back into the Catholic fold. However, Queen Mary I and Emperor Charles V delayed his arrival in the country until 20 November 1554, due to concerns that Pole might oppose Mary's forthcoming marriage to Charles's son,Philip of Spain.[18] It was only after the marriage was safely out of the way, that theEnglish parliament finally set about repealing his attainder on November 22, 1554. Pole opened his papal commission and presented his legatine credentials before Philip & Mary and the assembled members of Parliament at thePalace of Whitehall on November 27, 1554, delivering a notable oration before them.[19] Among the dignitaries in attendance wasStephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester andLord Chancellor of England, the most prominent Catholic minister in England, who would steer the restoration of Catholicism through parliament in January 1555.
As papal legate, Pole negotiated apapal dispensation allowing the new owners ofconfiscated former monastic lands to retain these. In return for this concession, Parliament then enabled theRevival of the Heresy Acts in January 1555.[20] This revived former measures against heresy: theletters patent of 1382 ofRichard II, theSuppression of Heresy Act 1400 (2 Hen. 4. c. 15) ofHenry IV, and theSuppression of Heresy Act 1414 (2 Hen. 5. Stat. 1. c. 7) ofHenry V. All of these had been repealed under Henry VIII and Edward VI.[21] On 13 November 1555,Thomas Cranmer was officially deprived of the See of Canterbury.[22] The Pope promoted Pole to the rank ofcardinal-priest and made himadministrator of the See of Canterbury on 11 December 1555.[23]
Pole was finally ordained a priest on 20 March 1556 and consecrated a bishop two days later, becomingarchbishop of Canterbury.[7][24] an office he would hold until his death. In 1555 and 1555/1556 respectively he also became chancellor of bothOxford andCambridge universities.[25] As well as his religious duties, he was in effect the Queen's chief minister and adviser. Many former enemies, including Cranmer, signed recantations affirming their religious belief intransubstantiation andpapal supremacy.[26] Despite this, which should have absolved them under Mary's own Revival of the Heresy Acts, the Queen could not forget their responsibility for the annulment of her mother's marriage.[27]
In 1555, Queen Mary began permitting the burning of Protestants forheresy, and some 220 men and 60 women were executed before her death in 1558. In the view of some historians, theseMarian persecutions contributed to the ultimate victory of theEnglish Reformation,[28] though Pole's involvement in these heresy trials is disputed.[29] Pole was in failing health during the worst period of persecution, and there is some evidence that he favoured a more lenient approach: "Three condemned heretics from Bonner's diocese were pardoned on an appeal to him; he merely enjoined a penance and gave them absolution."[11] As the reign wore on, an increasing number of people turned against Mary and her government,[30] and some people who had been indifferent to the English Reformation began turning against Catholicism.[31][32] Writings such asJohn Foxe's 1568Book of Martyrs, which emphasised the sufferings of the reformers under Mary, helped shape popular opinion against Catholicism in England for generations.[30][32]
Despite being a lifelong devout Catholic, Pole had a long-running dispute withPope Paul IV, dating from before the latter's election as Pope. Elected in 1555, Paul IV had a distaste for Catholic humanism and men like Pole who pushed a softer version of Catholicism to win over Protestants, as well as being fiercely anti-Spanish and against Mary's marriage toPhilip II of Spain and heavily against Pole's support for it. Because of this disagreement Paul first cancelled Pole's legatine authority, and then sought to recall Pole toRome to face investigation for heresy in his early writings. Mary refused to send Pole to Rome, yet accepted his suspension from office.[33] In the will of SirRobert Acton dated 24 September 1558 he is named as one of the Executors, despite the fact that Sir Robert expressed himself in terms consistent with his dying in the Protestant faith.[34]
Pole died in London, during aninfluenza epidemic, on 17 November 1558, at about 7:00 pm, nearly 12 hours after Queen Mary's death.[35] He was buried on the north side of theCorona atCanterbury Cathedral.
Pole was the author ofDe Concilio, of a treatise on the authority of thepope and of a set of measures introduced by him to restore Catholic practice in England. He was also the author of many important letters, full of interest for the history of the time, edited byAngelo Maria Quirini.[36]
Pole is known for his strong condemnation ofMachiavelli's bookThe Prince, which he read in Italy, and on which he commented: "I found this type of book to be written by an enemy of the human race. It explains every means whereby religion, justice and any inclination toward virtue could be destroyed".[37]
Cardinal Pole is an 1863 novel byWilliam Harrison Ainsworth. Cardinal Pole is a major character in the historical novelsThe Time Before You Die by Lucy Beckett,The Courier's Tale by Peter Walker andThe Trusted Servant by Alison Macleod,[38] and features inHilary Mantel's novelThe Mirror & the Light, the third and last of her novels on the life ofThomas Cromwell.
In Season 3 ofShowtime's seriesThe Tudors, Cardinal Pole is portrayed by Canadian actorMark Hildreth. In the mini-seriesThe Virgin Queen he is played byMichael Feast; he is last seen leading Mary's servants out ofGreenwich Palace asElizabeth I arrives as queen.
Reginald Pole is a major character inQueen of Martyrs: The Story of Mary I by Samantha Wilcoxson.
Reginald Pole, along with his brothers, sister, and mother, are the central family inPhilippa Gregory's historical novelThe King's Curse.
Cardinal Reginald Pole is a major supporting character in Rosamund Gravelle's playThree Queens,[39][40] with the role first played by Les Kenny-Green.
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913)."Mary Tudor".Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.Pole is usually not blamed for the campaign of heresy trials and burnings that is such a blot on the reign of 'Bloody Mary'. Known for his gentleness and patience with those suspected of heresy, he regarded them as sinners rather than traitors, urging leniency, conversion, and forgiveness.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Thurston, Herbert (1911). "Reginald Pole". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.).Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
| Catholic Church titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Archbishop of Canterbury 1556–1558 | Succeeded by |
| Academic offices | ||
| Preceded by | Chancellor of the University of Oxford 1556–1558 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chancellor of the University of Cambridge 1556–1558 | Succeeded by |
