Henry's hands. " Pity," said Cromwell in the
same letter, "that the folly of one brainsick Poole,
or to say better of one witless fool, should be the
ruin of so great a family. Let him reign and follow
ambition as fast as he can ! These that have little
offended (saving that he is of their kin), were it
not [for] the great mercy and benignity of the
Prince, should and might feel what it is to have
such a traitor for their kinsman."
This avowal is significant. Early in 1537 the
Cardinal was sent by Paul III. as Legate to the Low
Countries to bring about a peace between France and
the Empire. The effort was made with a view to a
General Council and, at the same time, with the
hope of exerting an influence on Henry, alarmed by
the formidable risings in the North, and of inducing
him to make his peace with Church and people.
The King and his party believed, or affected to
believe, that it was intended to combine a warlike
league against him. But Pole always declared ^
that he had none but pacific intentions, and accepted
the legation on that basis. Lingard affirms that
"the charges against him are satisfactorily refuted
by his official and confidential correspondence." -
Cromwell now declared that he would make him
1 Epistola Poll, ii. p. 33, iv. p. 306.
^ The angry King saw hostility in every act of his kinsman. He
made the members of the two Houses of ParHament address a
severe reproof to him for accepting the Cardinalate and so
declaring himself the King's enemy ! {Apologia ad Parliamentum
Anglia, Ibid. i. 179.)
5i8 BLESSED MARGARET POLE
for vexation "eat his heart." The French King was
invited, in defiance of the laws of all nations, to
deliver him up a prisoner to England, and the King
proclaimed him a traitor and set a prize of fifty
thousand crowns on his head.
Next year the negotiations with a view to the
publication of a bull of excommunication against
Henry brought about the long-threatened crisis.
These negotiations were protracted through the
year 1538, and on November the 3rd of that year
the Cardinal's brothers, Henry Lord Montague and
Sir Geoffrey Pole, Sir Edmund Neville, Lady
Montague's brother, the Marquis of Exeter, grand-
son of Edward IV., with Sir Nicholas Carew, were
seized and committed to the Tower on the charge of
treason.
When Reginald sent the King his book, De
Unitate, both his mother and Lord Montague had
written to him in strong language of reproof.^ The
aged Countess had even denounced him to her
servants as a traitor. The letters, however, as
Mr. Gairdner observes, " were written to be shown to
the King's Council,^ by whom they were despatched
to Reginald in Italy. Though the Countess's
alarm was quite genuine, her disapproval of
Reginald's proceedings was not equally sincere.
The King well knew that his policy was disliked
by the whole family."^ Indeed he had some time
1 Letters and Papers, vol. xi. n. 93; xiii. ii. nn. 818, 819, p. 328.
^ Letters ajid Papers, vol. xiii. pt. ii. n. 822.
* Dictionary of National Biography, \oc. cit. In her examination in
the Tower, Blessed Margaret thus represented her attitude towards
the Cardinal and his book: "She said when she spoke with the
BLESSED MARGARET POLE
519
before this privately told Castillon, the French
Ambassador, that he intended to exterminate the
whole family. " It seems," writes the horrified
envoy, " that he seeks every imaginable occasion
King's Grace, he showed her how her son had written against
him. ' Alas,' said she, ' what grief is this to me to see him whom I
bore, set up to be so ungracious and unhappy.' And upon this, when
her son Montacute came home to her, she said to him : ' What hath
the King showed me of my son ? Alas ! son,' said she, ' what a
child have I in him ! ' And then my Lord Montacute counselled
her to declare him a traitor to their servants, that they might so
report him when they came into their countries. And so she called
her servants, and declared unto them accordingly to take her son
for a traitor for now and ever, and that she would never take him
other." (Letters and Papers, loc. cit.)
The late Father Morris, S.J., in an interesting article on
" Blessed Margaret Pole and her Sons " (The Month, vol. Ixv. 1889,
pp. 515 — 528), has pointed out that the emphatic language used by
the Cardinal against Henry VIII. was a duty in him considering his
ecclesiastical position. He felt that the time for soft words was
past, and that it was necessary to speak out boldly and to say the
truth and the whole truth, at whatever cost ; and Pole well knew
what pledges he had in England, and how suffering far harder to
bear than the loss of his own life would be the result of his plain-
speaking. At the same time it is clear that another judgment
might easily be formed by those who were in Henry's power.
" Those living in England, in the midst of the infatuation about the
royal authority that prevailed under the Tudors, would be apt to
call those words treason which, in virtue of new-fangled Acts of
Parliament, would be treated as treason by the courts. Words are
differently chosen by those in durance and those in freedom.
Blessed Margaret would never have herself used her son's denuncia-
tions of Henry, when all her surroundings urged upon her the
supremest caution ; and from her point of view, that which he said
honestly, and indeed honestly could not leave unsaid, she might
condemn, in so far as it went beyond what she was herself bound
to say or do in order to keep clear of all participation of the
King's misdeeds. . . . The one was a great ecclesiastic, in whom
silence or half-hearted condemnation would have been the betrayal
of God's cause; the other was one of the simple faithful, in whom
520 BLESSED MARGARET POLE
to work ruin and destruction. I think few lords
feel safe in this country." ^
These innocent victims of Henry's baffled fury
were arraigned the 3rd of January, 1539, and of
course found guilty, and (with the exception of Sir
Geoffrey Pole, who was said to have made his
peace at the expense of his kindred ") were all
to have said what her son was bound to say would have been
rashly to throw away her life." This is one view, with which many
will agree, even though they think that the martyr cannot be
defended for having gone so far as " to take her son for a traitor."
Abbot Gasquet, on the other hand, considers Pole's strong language
to have been most indiscreet, so that his fiery denunciations simply
resulted in hardening Henry in evil. {Henry VIH. and the English
Monasteries, ii. p. 8.) But the reasons alleged {ibid. p. 5) for suppos-
ing that Henry might have improved if Pole had not written, seem
very slight when set against the overwhelming proofs before us of
the Tudor's perversity and malice.
It was, we may be sure, inevitable that there should have
been some difference of opinion with regard to certain proceedings
of Rome at this period, when the authorities there had to take
action in spite of the interruption of communications with England.
The excommunication of Elizabeth is a parallel case, where a
decision of great importance had to be taken, although certainty as
to the position of affairs in England was not obtainable.
It was not Pole's fault that he was cut off from intercourse
with Henry and his victims. Had he been in touch both with
the persecutor and the persecuted, his words might have been
differently chosen and timed. But however this may be, the real
question in these cases was whether God's cause in the world
would profit or suffer, if the Church was to look on in absolute
silence while Europe was outraged with the sight of such gross
crimes passing unrebuked. Even if some of the circumstances
of Pole's words turned out to be unfortunate, they were, when
broadly considered, only what the situation demanded.
1 Letters and Papers, vol. xiii. pt. ii. n. 753.
■•^ According to Garzias' Chronicle (which, however, is often at
fault) Sir Geoffrey did not in the least intend to betray his brother,
and was in despair when he found that his incautious admission
BLESSED MARGARET POLE 521
barbarously executed. The King did not even
spare children, Edward Courtenay, the little son of
Lord Exeter, and Henry Pole, the child of Lord
Montague, were thrown into the Tower of London.
The grief inflicted on the aged Countess by the
murder of her eldest son and other relatives was
not enough to satisfy Henry's vengeance. It might
have seemed impossible to touch this venerable lady
herself. She was venerable for her age, she was a
royal princess, she was revered for her virtues ; " a
lady of virtue and honour, if there be one in
England," as Chapuys said, and the King himself,
" used often," Pole records, " to say that the kingdom
did not contain a nobler woman," ^ but nothing was
sacred to this " Western Turk," and within a short
time she too was consigned to captivity.
The King commissioned Fitzwilliam, Earl of
Southampton, and Goodrich, Bishop of Ely, to
examine her.
She was living at the time at Warblington, near
Havant, in Hampshire.- There the Bishop and
the Earl went to arrest her on the 13th of
November, 153S, ten days after the apprehension of
her sons. Next day they reported to Cromwell as
follows :
that Lord Montague had, at the Cardinal's advice, sought absolu-
tion from the Holy See for having taken the oath of supremacy,
had brought his brother to the block. This would certainly make
his death unmistakably for his religion. (Chronicle ofKingHenry VIII.
of England, edited by Major Martin Hume.)
1 Epistola Poll, ii. 197.
'^ Some small ruins of her mansion still remain. It was originally
a square pile of about two hundred feet surrounding a quadrangle,
moated ; and had been the seat of the Montacutes.
522 BLESSED MARGARET POLE
" Please it your good Lordship to be advertised
that as by our other letters we signified to the same
we would, so yesterday, the 13th of this November,
we travailed with the Lady of Salisbury all day both
before and after noon, till almost night. Albeit for
all that we could do, though we used her diversely,
she would utter and confess little or nothing more
than the first day she did, but still stood and
persisted in the denial of all together. And this day
between viii and ix in the morning, having received
your Lordship's letters dated from Westminster, the
said xiii'h, we forthwith upon receipt of the same
eftsoons repaired unto the said lady. And first afore
we came to her sight, calling her men-servants afore
us, according to the continew of your said letters, we
apprehended Standish, and that done went in hand
with her. And although we then entreated her in
both sorts, some time with doulx and mild words,
now roughly and asperly, by traitoring her and her
sons to the ix^^ degree, yet will she nothing utter,
but making herself clear and as unspotted, utterly
denieth all that is object unto her; and that with
most stiff and earnest words, saying that if ever it
be found and proved in her that she is culpable in
any of those things that she hath denied, that she
is content to be blazoned in the rest of all the
articles laid against her. Surely if it like your
Lordship we suppose that there hath not been
seen or [heard of] a woman so earnest, ... so
manlike in continuance, . . . and so precise as
well in gesture as in words, that wonder is to behold.
For in her answer and declaration she behaveth
BLESSED MARGARET POLE 523
herself SO, ... all things sincere, pure and upright
on her part, that we have conceived and must needs
deem and think the one of two things in her. That
either her sons have not made her privy nor partici-
pant of the bottom and pit of their stomachs, or
else that she is the most arrant traitress that ever
lived. And now that we have seized her goods, and
given her notice that the King's pleasure is she shall
go, she seemeth thereat to be somewhat appalled.
And therefore we deem that if it may so be, she
will then utter somewhat when she is removed.
This we intend shall be to-morrow, so that we have
caused inventories to be made of her said goods,
and of such things as may be easily carried, as
plate and other . . . charge. Our purpose is to
take them with us. For the rest and for the
ordering of her household we have appointed
John Chadreton and . . . Steward of Household,
whom we take for an honest man, and they shall
see to the order and rule thereof: and . . . wait
and attend continually thereon, till such time as the
King's pleasure be further known from your Lord-
ship therein : but also we have required one White
who is farmer of the late priory of Southwyke,
Maistre Waite, and Talke, who be* all gentlemen
and neighbours there, with other the King's servants
and faithful subjects to have vigilant eye to the
same, that if any stirring or misorder chance or
befall, the same by their good means, powers and
discretions may be stayed and put in quietness.
As for Standish, we shall bring him safe up with
us ; for being examined nothing can we get him to
524 BLESSED MARGARET POLE
confess. Thus the holy Trinity preserve your
Lordship. From the Manor of Warblington, the
xiiii^h day of November, late in the night.
"Your Lordship's assured,
"W. Southampton.
"Thomas Elien."^
Two days later, a further report is sent to
Cromwell from Lord Southampton's seat, Cowdray
Park, near Midhurst, to which they have carried the
Countess.
" According to the purport of our letters of
the xiiii"^ of this November, we have now removed
the Lady of Salisbury, and this last night arrived
with the same at Cowdray. And where in the same
our letters we touched our opinions that being
removed she would perhaps utter something more
than already she had done, so this shall be to
advertise you that since our arrival here, travailing
sundry times and after sundry sorts with her,
somewhat else of new have we gotten of her which
we deem material. And likewise labouring with
Standish, have picked out of him more than in the
beginning we could, and shall as well thereof as of
all other our proceedings, and specially of her gesture
and precise answers and declarations to the matters
object against her, make your Lordship true report
' This letter is printed literatim in Ellis's Letters, Series II. ii.
p. no, and in ample analysis in Letters and Papers, vol. xiii. (2), n. 835.
The original MS. is partially burnt, but in the above text the
obvious corrections have been inserted without the use of square
brackets.
BLESSED MARGARET POLE 525
at our return. We assure your Lordship we have
dealed with such a one as men have not dealed
withal to fore us. We may call her rather a strong
and constant man than a woman. For in all
behaviour, howsoever we have used her, she hath
showed herself so earnest, vehement and precise
that more could not be : so that we, thinking
though we used all industry and diligence to
press her to utter more, if any more lay in her
stomach, we should but spend time, and not much or
nothing prevail, agreed to depart hence towards the
King's Majesty and no further to travail at this
time. And so being in readiness to take our journey
between one and ii. at afternoon, this xvi*'^ of
November, and even at point to take leave of her,
John Chadreton and Whyte whom we appointed
with others to take order of her household till the
King's pleasure were further known sent us letters
wherein were inclosed certain bulls granted by a
bishop of Rome which were found in Standish'
chamber, with a copy of a letter found in a gentle-
woman's chest, made, as it appeareth by tenour
thereof, by the said Lady unto the Lord Montague.
And forasmuch as the matter comprised therein
seemed , . . we have stopped our journey this day
to the King, and shall spend the same in . . .
eftsoons with her, so that we have examined
whether, wherefore, and when she made . . ., and
by her examination have tried out [who] wrote the
same, and have sent for the . . ., aboutes whose
examination we intend to . . . this next day till noon,
and so to make no further demore here, but —
526 BLESSED MARGARET POLE
putting her in such order and surety here, as the
King's pleasure is she should be left in, — with con-
venient speed to come . . ., and then give you
advertisement of all together. Thus the holy
Trinity have j^our Lordship . . . keeping. From
Cowdray, the xvi''^ of Novem.
" Your Lordship's assured,
" W. Southampton.
"Thomas Elien.
" To our singular good Lord the Lord Privy
Seal, his good Lordship." ^
At Cowdray the persecuted lady continued for
some months. Here she was subjected to the
grossest indignities by her gaoler Southampton,
who treated her, as Mr. Gairdner observes, "with
barbarous incivility." This we learn from his own
mouth, for in a letter written to Cromwell, March 14,
1539, this man recounts an interview with his
prisoner in which he insulted her in the most
shocking manner. Neither his wife nor he had
been to see the venerable lady since her first coming
to Cowdray nearly four months before. She there-
fore sent a gentleman of the household with an
urgent message beseeching the Earl to come and
speak with her. He accordingly went and rudely
told her that neither his wife nor he could find it
in their hearts to see her, when that arrant traitor
the Cardinal went about from prince to prince to
^ Ellis, Letters, Series II. ii. p. 114, Letters and Papers, vol. xiii. (2),
n. 855.
BLESSED MARGARET POLE 527
work trouble to the King and realm. ^ Besides
calling the Cardinal a traitor, Southampton applied
to him an unquotable epithet which was a direct
insult to his mother's virtue. The noble lady thus
grossly outraged replied with dignity and meekness.
" I beg you," concludes this boorish Earl, " to rid
me of her company, for she is both chargeable and
troubleth my mind."-
Cromwell seems to have replied that she would
not trouble him long, for the Earl writes again from
Portsmouth : ^ " My wife is proud to hear that your
lordship will help to deliver her of the lady of
Sarum. I was fain to take her with me to
Portsmouth, for in no wise would she tarry behind
me, the said lady being in my house."
During Blessed Margaret's imprisonment at
Cowdray her rooms and trunks were searched more
than once, and in one of her coffers was found the
embroidered vestment which was to play such a
prominent part in the final tragedy. Nevertheless,
she remained so constant that nothing material
could be wrung from her, nor could she be entrapped
into confessing an imaginary guilt. On April the
1 2th Cromwell had to write to his master to say
that all his examinations had been unsuccessful in
eliciting any matter of accusation. He had proved
the truth of his own admission that "these . . . have
little offended save that he (the Cardinal) is of their
kin."
' This was Henry's view of Pole's action as Legate.
' Letters and Papers, vol. xiv. pt. i. n. 520.
3 Ibid. n. 573.
528 BLESSED MARGARET POLE
In this difficulty "Cromwell," says Lingard,
" consulted the judges whether a person accused
of treason might not be attainted without a previous
trial or confession." This shameless proposal met
with a mild remonstrance even from Henry's servile
judges; they replied that it would form a dangerous
precedent ; that no inferior tribunal would venture
on so illegal a proceeding, but that the Court of
Parliament was supreme and an attainder by
Parliament would be good in law. This iniquitous
course was decided on.
On May the loth the bill of attainder was
introduced in the House of Lords by Cromwell.
The slight delay seems to have arisen from a desire
to include in the bill fresh names. The bill in fact
contained the names of sixteen persons, some of
whom had already been murdered ; among them
were the Blessed Adrian Fortescue, the Venerable
\l Thomas Dingley, three Irish priests " for carrying
letters to the Pope," two gentlemen, a Dominican
friar and a yeoman who had " named and pro-
mulged that venomous serpent the Bishop of
Rome as Supreme Head of the Church of England,"
besides Blessed Margaret, her eldest son, and the
Marchioness of Exeter.^
The first and second readings were got over the
same day and the third on the next. The accused
had no opportunity of defence nor were any
witnesses examined, but on the third reading
Cromwell displayed a tunic of white silk, said to
have been found among the Countess's clothes, on
^ Letters and Papers, vol. xiv. pt. i. Preface.
BLESSED MARGARET POLE 529
which were embroidered the Five Wounds of our^
Blessed Lord, and which the Kin^e: affected to
beh'eve connected her with the northern risings.^
This is Lord Herbert's account, and he also tells us
that it was stated that "bulls from the Pope were
found in the Countess's house, that she kept
correspondence with her son (the Cardinal), and
that she forbade her tenants to have the New
Testament in English or any other of the books that
had been published by the King's authority."
On such evidence was the Blessed Martyr
condemned by her peers !
From the Lords the bill passed to the Commons,
who showed themselves as ready as the Lords to
1 As to this " tunic " all kinds of different accounts have been
given. Some call it a picture, others a dalmatic. A letter in the
Public Record Office seems to clear up the matter. It is from
John Worth to Lord Lisle, and was written on the i8th of May,
1539, just as the bill of attainder was passing through Parliament,
and but a few days after Cromwell's theatrical display of the tunic
in the House of Lords. {Letters and Papers, vol. xiv. pt. i. n. gSo.)
" Pleaseth your Lordship so it is there was a coat armour found
in the Duchess of Salisbury's coffer, and by the one side of the
coat, there was the King's Grace his arms of England, that is the
lions without the Jleiir de lys, and about the whole arms was made
pansies for Pole and marygolds for my Lady Mary. This was about
the coat armour. And betwixt the marygold and the pansy was
made a tree to rise in the midst, and on the tree a coat of purple
hanging on a bough, in token of the coat of Christ, and on the
other side of the coat all the Passion of Christ. Pole intended to
have married my Lady Mary, and betwixt them both should again
arise the old doctrine of Christ. This was the intent that the coat
was made, as it is openly known in the Parliament House, as
Master Sir George Speke showed me. And this my Lady Marquess,
my Lady Salisbury, Sir Adrian Forskew, Sir Thomas Dingley, with
divers others are attainted to die by Act of Parliament. At
London, May 18, 1539."
II
53° BLESSED MARGARET POLE
gratify the King's thirst for blood, and the attainder
was finally passed the 28th of June, 1539, and on
this day the Countess was removed from Cowdray
to the gloomy dungeons of the Tower of London.
Thus a piece of iniquity was perpetrated which it
would be difficult to match in the annals of this
country, even in those of this blood-stained period.
Cardinal Pole, on hearing of his mother's con-
demnation, wrote as follows to Cardinal Contarini,
the 22nd of September, 1539:^
" You have heard, I believe, of my mother being
condemned by public council to death, or rather to
eternal life. Not only has he who condemned her
condemned to death a woman of seventy, than
whom he has no nearer relation except his daughter,
and of whom he used to say there was no holier
woman in his kingdom, but at the same time, her
grandson, son of my brother, a child, the remaining
hope of our race. See how far this tyranny has gone,
which began with priests, in whose order it only con-
sumed the best, then [went on] to nobles, and there
too destroyed the best. At length it has come to-
women and innocent children ; for not only my mother
is condemned, but the wife of that marquis who was
slain with m}^ brother, whose goodness was famous,
and whose little son is to follow her. Comparing
these things with what the Turk has done in the
East, there is no doubt but that Christians can
suffer worse under this Western Turk."-
^ EpistolcB Poll, ii. igi.
- The Pope himself was moved by this last outrage. The
Marquis of Aguilar wrote to the Emperor on the 20th of July, 1539'
(Spanish Calendar, p. 174), that his Holiness urged his Imperial
BLESSED MARGARET POLE 531
Meanwhile the aged Countess was kept a close
prisoner, the Act which condemned her not being
put into force at once. It was even supposed that
the King would shrink from the last extremity, and
that after a period of detention, the innocent lady