would be released. " She was tormented in prison,"
says Mr. Gairdner, "by the severity of the weather
and the insufficiency of her clothing."^ She had;
Majesty to interfere by stopping all intercourse of trade between
England and his dominions. "The King of England," he said,
"went on with his wicked doings and cruelties. Lately he had
sentenced to death the mother of Cardinal Pole, and your Majesty,
as head of the other Christian princes, under the circumstances
was bound to obey the commands of the Apostolic See." But,
whether it was that Charles would not or could not, he certainly
did not take any active measures.
1 It seems that Henry added to the cruelty of his holy cousin's
imprisonment neglect even of her personal requirements, and
especially that she had not necessary warm clothing, at least for
the greater part of her imprisonment, and a petition is extant from
one of her jailors begging that her grave needs may be attended to.
(M. A. E. Wood, Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies, iii. 93.) The
council books of the latter part of Henry's reign are destroyed.
Among the Stow Papers, however, in the British Museum is a copy,
as it would appear, of entries from the loth of August, 1540, to
the 7th of October, 1544, and on the 28th of February, 1541, the
following entry :
"A letter written to furnish clothes for Lord Lisle; a like
letter was written to Shute, the Queen's taylor, to provide and
make meet for the late Countess of Sarum, being a prisoner in the
Tower, the parcelles of apparell and other necessaries ensuinge.
" Imprimis, a nyght gownd furred, a kyrtel of worsted and a
peticote furred.
" Item, another gownd of the facon of a nyght gownd of sage
lyned with satten of Cypres and faced wt satten.
" Item, a bonnet and a frontelet.
" Item, fower paire of hose.
" Item, fower paire of shoues and one paire of slippers."
It is true she had been at this time nearly two years a prisoner,
and even the things ordered may never have reached her.
532 BLESSED MARGARET POLE
thus to languish for nearly two years before the hour
of final release dawned. The merits of God's servant
were to be increased and her preparation for the
grace of martyrdom perfected by these weary months
of imprisonment.^
"In April, 1541, there was another insurrection
in Yorkshire under Sir John Neville, and on this
account apparently it was resolved to put the
Countess to death, without any further process,
under the Act of Attainder passed two years
before."- It may also have been that the cause of
Henry's sudden determination was some circum-
stance in Cardinal Pole's career which irritated the
King. She was to be the victim of his hatred
against the Cardinal, and that hatred was a hatred
of fidelity to God and His Church. The cause
of her death was the vindictive fur\' of a bad man
because his wicked will was thwarted in the working
out of its schemes against the Church's faith and
unity. This is indeed equally true, whether the
immediate occasion of her death were one or the
other circumstance.
1 The Blessed Margaret is frequently mentioned in Cromwell's
Remembrances. Thus, "What the King will have done with the
Lady of Salisbury." "The diets of young Courtenay and Pole and
the Countess of Sarum, and to know the King's pleasure therein."
" For the diets of the children in the Tower and also for the
Countess of Sarum." "To remember specially the Lady of Sarum,"
are some of these ominous notes which even now by their business-
like brevity strike the reader with a kind of horror. Blessed
Margaret was specially e.xcepted from the King's general pardon of
the i6th of July, 1540.
- Gairdner, Dictionary of National Biography.
BLESSED MARGARET POLE 533
Early in the morning of May the 27th ^ the news
was brought to the venerable lady that she was to
die that very hour. It was totally unexpected, for
it must be remembered that she had never been put
to trial. She could hardly believe the news at first,
and protested that no crime had been imputed to
her, but soon, resigning herself to what she saw was
the divine will, she walked with a firm step from
her prison cell to the place of execution. This was
not the usual public one on Tower Hill, but on East
Smithfield Green, which was within the precincts of
the Tower. The Lord Mayor and a small company
were present to witness the martyrdom. No scaffold
had been erected ; there was but a low block or log
of wood. The Countess devoutly commended her
soul to God, and asked the bystanders to pray for
the King and Queen, Prince Edward, and the
Princess Mary. She desired to be commended
to them all, but especially to her beloved god-
child, Princess Mary, to whom she sent her last
blessing.
She was then commanded to make haste
and lay her head upon the block, which she
did.
The regular executioner being busy in the north,
" a wretched and blundering youth {garconneau)
had been chosen to take his place, who literally
^ So Gairdner, followinc; Wriothesley, Stow, &c. The former
chronicler says it was on "the seven and twentieth day of May,
1541, being Friday and the morrow after Ascension day." On the
other hand, the Grey Friars Cltronicle agrees with de Marillac (vide
infra) that the execution took place on May the 28th.
534 BLESSED MARGARET POLE
hacked her head and shoulders to pieces in the
most pitiful manner."^
Her last words were, " Blessed are they who
suffer persecution for righteousness' sake."
The Blessed Margaret thus won a crown more
brilliant than those of earth. It was a grand end
for a kingly race ; for Margaret was the last in
direct descent of the line of Plantagenet. Her cruel
martyrdom caused universal sorrow, and a feeling
of horror and dismay at the King's unbridled and
savage tyranny.
Chapuys wrote to the Queen of Hungary (June
10, 1541) :- " Since my last of the 26th of May, the
news of this place is, that on the 27th following
three of the chief promoters of the last con-
spiracy in the northern counties — an Abbot and two
gentlemen — were hung and quartered. About the
same time the very strange and lamentable execution
i This is Chapuys' account. Mr. Gairdner says it is evidently
more trustworthy than that of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who is
responsible for the well-known story that when told to lay her head
on the block, the Countess replied, " So should traitors do, and I
am none." The executioner still insisting, she still refused, and
" turning her grey head every way she bid him if he would have her
head to get at it as he could, and thus she was literally hacked to
death." [Life of Henry VIIL, by Lord Herbert, p. 532.) Though
Lord Herbert professes to derive his account from an eye-witness,
it is no doubt a mistaken one. Probably the terrible scene of
butchery that must have so shocked the witnesses was afterwards
attributed to the obstinate refusal of the sufferer to lay her neck on
the block, whereas it was in reality due to the blundering incompe-
tence of the executioner.
I think it will be generally felt that the true story is more in
accordance with the calm dignity of the royal martyr than the
fictitious one.
- Spanish Calendar, p. 331.
BLESSED MARGARET POLE 535
of Madame de Salisbury, the daughter of the Duke
of Clarence and mother of Cardinal Pole, took place
at the Tower, in the presence of the Lord ]Ma3'or
of London and about 150 persons more. At first
â– when this sentence of death was made known to
her, she found the thing ver}- strange, not knowing
of what crime she was accused nor how she had
been sentenced ; but at last, perceiving that there
w^as no remedy, and that die she must, she went
out of the dungeon where she was detained and
walked towards the midst of the space in front of
the Tower. . . . May God in His high mercy
pardon her soul, for certainly she was a most
virtuous and honourable lady, and there was no
need for haste to bring so ignominious a death upon
her, considering that as she was then nearly ninety
years old, she could not,^ in the ordinary course
of nature, live long. When her death had been
resolved upon, her grandson, the son of Mr. de
Montagu [Sir Henry Pole] , who had occasionally
permission to go about within the precincts of the
Tower, was placed in close confinement, and it is
supposed he will soon follow his father and grand-
mother. May God help him ! "
Marillac, the French Ambassador, wrote as
follows to Francis L (May 29, 1541) :- "To begin
with a case more worthy of compassion than
of long letters, the Countess of Salisbury, was
yesterday morning, about seven o'clock, beheaded
in a corner of the Tower, in presence of so few
1 She was in reality only about seventy.
"^ Letters and Papers, vol. xiv. pt. ii. n. 868.
536 BLESSED MARGARET POLE
people that until evening the truth was still doubted.
It was the more difficult to believe, as she had been
long prisoner, was of noble lineage, was above
eighty years old, and had been punished by the
loss of one son and the attainder of the other,
and the total ruin of her house. The manner of
proceeding in her case . . . seems to argue that
those here are afraid to put to death publicly
those whom they execute in secret. It may be
added that yesterday all the heads which were
fixed on the bridge of the river which passes
by this city were taken down, in order that the
people may forget those whose heads keep their
memory fresh. Perhaps, however, the place will now
be peopled anew, for I hear that before St. John's
tide they reckon to empty the Tower of the
prisoners now there for treason."
But if the martyrdom of Blessed Margaret
caused so much compassion and indignation among
strangers, how will it have affected the noble son,
for whose loyalty to God's Church his mother had
to pay so cruel a penalty ? The Cardinal was at
Viterbo, as Governor of the Province of the Patri-
mony of St. Peter, when the news reached him. His
secretary, Beccatelli, has described the scene. " He
had received," he writes, " several letters from
France, Spain, and Flanders, and having read them,
he called me, as his custom was, to return the
answers. As I was putting them together I per-
ceived one to be in English, and told him I need
not take that with me, as I did not understand the
language. To which he replied, without the least
BLESSED MARGARET POLE 537
emotion, ' I could wish you did, that you might
read the good news it contains; ' and on my replying,
' I hope your Excellence will make me partaker
of it,' ' Hitherto,' he said, ' I have thought myself
indebted to the divine goodness for having received
my birth from one of the most noble and virtuous
women in England ; but from henceforward my
obligation will be much greater, for I understand
that I am now the son of a martyr. . . . May
God's will be done, and may He in all events be
thanked and praised.' And on my being seized
with surprise and horror at this relation, ' Be of
good courage,' he said, 'we have now one patron
more added to those we already had in Heaven.'"^
The Cardinal naturally received many expres-
sions of sympathy from his friends, and specially
from his brethren in the Sacred College. To the
Cardinal of Burgos he wrote (August i, 1541) ^ that
the more remote natural remedies were, the nearer
was the aid of God, and this he had felt specially
in his mother's death. He would have grieved for
her had she died in the course of nature, but when
she met with such a violent death, at the hands of
him whom it least became — (who thus slew the cousin
of his own mother, and one whom for her piety, in
which she had grown old, he once venerated no less
than his mother) — his consolation was that there was
nothing left in nature to console him. The manner
of death might be thought base, but all who knew
her would impute the baseness to him who slew her.
It could not be base to suffer as Christ Himself,
' Beccatelli, Vita Poli, p. 44. - Epistola; Poli, iii. 35.
538 BLESSED MARGARET POLE
the Apostles, Martyrs, and Virgins had suffered, but
to act as the Herods, Neros, Caligulas had acted, was
shameful, and their guilt was exceeded b}' that of this
man, who, with much less show of justice, had slain
a most innocent woman, allied to him in blood,
aged and feeble, but renowned for her virtue. He
adds that he will never fear to call himself the son of
a martyr, and that this is more glorious than any
royal birth.
The Cardinal of S. Marcellus wrote to urge him
"to pray for the conversion of the doer of this
wickedness." Pole replied that such advice was
worthy of him who held the office of Grand Peni-
tentiary. He would indeed pray for him, though
it was almost to be feared that he was past the
benefit of prayer. Nevertheless, Pole protested,
that if his own death would bring about the King's
salvation, he w^as willing to be slain forthwith.
Of the Blessed Martyr's descendants, the male
line seems to have died out early in the seventeenth
century. She has, however, many descendants at
the present day. Her grandchild, Catharine, Lord
Montague's eldest daughter, married Francis
Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon, and after a direct
descent as far as the ninth Earl, Elizabeth, sur-
viving heiress of this line, married John, first Earl
of Moira, and, as Baroness Hastings in her own
right, transmitted the martyr's blood to the present
Earl of Loudoun, and his brothers and sisters,
who are thus the representatives in the senior line
of the Blessed Margaret.
Before her attainder the mart3T had built a
BLESSED MARGARET POLE 539
chantry chapel on the north side of the chancel
of the Priory Church, Christchurch, Hants, in which
she intended to be buried. Henry \'III. ordered
Cromwell to destroy the badges of the Plantagenets
which ornamented it. But the religious emblems,
among which appear the Five Wounds, Cromwell's
solitary pretext for her attainder, have been left
uninjured.^
The martyr's relics lie in the gloomy chapel of
St. Peter ad Vincula, within the precincts of the
Tower. Here they were found at the restoration
of the chapel in 1877, ^^^^^l they now rest in front
of the communion-table in company with the
remains of Anne Boleyn, Katharine Howard, and
many other victims of Henry VIII., though none
of them so noble and so innocent as the Blessed
Margaret Plantagenet. The bones are of almost
1 The commissioners who suppressed the Priory (Robert South-
well, John London, &c.), report to Cromwell (December 2, 1539),
" In this church we found a chapel and monument curiously made
of Caen stone, prepared by the late mother of Raynold Pole for
her burial [the Countess was still alive, but after her attainder was
accounted as dead], which we have caused to be defaced and all the
arms and badges clearly to be delete." (Wright's Suppression 0/ the
Monasteries, Camden Society, p. 231.) Christchurch seems to have
been the martyr's favourite place of residence. Her splendid
chantry is still the chief glory of the grand old Priory Church. One
of the mutilated bosses of the fan-tracery of its roof is a represen-
tation of the coronation of our Lady. Over the space left for the
altar is a shield bearing the Five Wounds. The whole chapel is in
the richest Perpendicular Gothic, and resembles in style the chapel
of Henry VH. in Westminster Abbey. Some of the exquisitely
carved details are not Gothic, but of the style of the early
Renaissance, and it would seem likely that Italian workmen had
a hand in the decoration. This lovely shrine has unfortunately
never contained the treasure for which it was built.
540 BLESSED MARGARET POLE
gigantic size, thus confirming the tradition as to the
martyr's lofty stature. Unfortunatel}' this has
caused them to attract special attention, and with
a painful lack of reverence the thighbone of Blessed
Margaret \\as lately shown as a curiosity to an
Oriental Potentate who was visiting this country.
It may be permitted to express an earnest hope
that at some not far-distant date these sacred relics
may be given up to Catholic guardianship, so that
translated to a more fitting shrine, they may receive
that public veneration which is due to them.
" Blessed are they that suffer persecution for
justice' sake ; for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."
E. S. K.
Ed.
Portrait. — A portrait of Blessed Margaret Pole exists.
It belongs to Lord Loudoun.
Authorities. — Letters and Papers contain many papers
relating to our martyrs, especially relative to her arrest, for
which space could not be found in this paper. There are
other papers in Mary Anne Everett Green, Letters of Royal
and Illustrious Ladies.
Pole's letters, Epistolce Reginald! Poll, et aliorum ad ipsuni,
Brixiae 1744 — 57, are of prime importance for the illustration
of the cause for which Blessed Margaret suffered — copies of a
considerable number of still inedited letters from him may now
be found among the Roman Transcripts at the Record Office.
There is a life by James Gairdner in the Dictionary of
National Biography, xlvi. p. 28, and another by G. Ambrose Lee.
(C.T.S. 1887.) The latter contains a chart of her descendants.
In the Loiivain Chronicle (now being printed at Chudleigh,
Devon, in the Poor Souls' Friend), will be found a notice of
Mary, grand-daughter of Sir Geoffrey Pole, in which some
interesting family traditions about the Martyr and her son
Sir Geoffrey are briefly recorded. (July, 1903, p. 121.)
XV.
THE BLESSED JOHN LARKE,
SECULAR PRIEST:
AND THE BLESSED GERMAN GARDINER,
LAYMAN.
Tyburn, 7 March, 1545.
The Blessed John Larke must have been far
advanced in years when, in reward of his lon^ and
faithful service in the priesthood, he was permitted
to sacrifice his life for the faith.
So early as the year 1504 he was presented to
the small rectory of St. Ethelburga, Bishopsgate, a
benefice which he retained until a few years before
his death. In 1526 he was presented to the rectory
of Woodford in Essex, but this he resigned when
Sir Thomas More nominated him to that of
Chelsea in 1530. Sir Thomas was at that time
Lgrd Chancellor, and in that capacity had the right
of appointment by a grant from the Abbot and
Convent of \\^estminster.
By some writers the Blessed John has been called
the chaplain of the Blessed Thomas More, but this
seems rather to mean that he was the parish priest
of the place of his ordinary residence, and that
542 BB.JOHN LARKE AND GERMAN GARDINER
it was in his church that he was accustomed to
attend the divine offices.
In default of all details as to the life and
ministry of the future martyr, the patronage of the
Blessed Thomas may be considered as a sufficient
attestation to his merits. Most assuredly he would
never willingly have been the means of promoting-
to the care of souls any one whom he deemed un-
worthv of such an office, and his experience of
human nature was too great to allow him to be
deceived by mere outward appearance of virtue.
It is evident that the esteem which the two
martyrs had for one another, was perfectly recip-
rocal, and that Larke held his illustrious parishioner
in the highest veneration. In the life of the latter
it is said that " his death so wrought on the mind
of Doctor Larke, his own parish priest, that he,
following the example of his own sheep, afterwards
suffered a most famous martyrdom, for the same
cause of the Supremacy." ^
Nevertheless a considerable interval elapsed
between the two martyrdoms, and it was not until
the year 1545 that the final test was offered to the
Blessed John Larke.- It appears that he was tried at
the same time with the Blessed German Gardiner
and the Venerable John Ireland, priest. According
to the indictment they were charged with treason
against the King, in respect of his dignity, title and
name of Supreme Head of the Church of England
and Ireland, by their words, writings and acts.
1 Cresacre More's Life 0/ Mote (1726), p. 278.
- Coram Rege Roll, 36 Henry VIII. rot. ii. quoted below.
BB.JOHN LARKE AND GERMAN GARDINER 543
The condemnation followed after the usual
manner, but the Blessed John Larke consummated
his martyrdom at Tyburn on the 7th of March,
1544-5, in company with the Blessed German
Gardiner and the Venerable John Ireland.
II. Blessed German Gardiner.
The Blessed German, or Jermyn, Gardiner was
a secretar}' of Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Win-
chester, whose relative he probably was. By some
writers he is called a priest ; but this seems to be an
error, as those who are likely to be better informed,
speak of him as a layman.
He was a zealous adherent of the ancient faith,
and wrote a letter ^ against the heresies of John
Frith, which was published by W. Rastall, and
is dated from Ashare [? Esher] , the ist of August,
1534. The title was " A letter of a young gentleman
named Master German Gardiner, wherein men ma}'
see the demeanour and heresy of John Frith, late
burned ; and also the disputations and reasonings
upon the same, between the same German Gardiner
and him."'
The following extract tells us something of his
aversion to the nascent heresies of those days. " Ye
have heard how John Fryth, sometime scholar in
that College whereof ye were after his departing
master, was afterwards among other at Oxenford
found busy in setting abroad these heresies, which
lately sprung in xAlemayne, by the help of such folk
^ Letters and Papers, vol. vii. n. 1606. (From Greville Library, 11,990.)
544 BB.JOHN LARKE AND GERMAN GARDINER
be spread abroad into sundry parts of Christendom,
tending to nothing else but to the division and
rending asunder of Christ's mystical body, His
Church, the pulling down of all power and utter
subversion of all common-wealths. He was punished
and fled beyond sea to the Fathers of that religion,
but came again into England, encouraged others to
stand stiff in heresy, and was imprisoned in the
Tower. Yet he wrote against the doctrine of the
Sacrament of the Altar, and though advised to
abstain from such high matters, the advice came too
late."i
At a later date (1543), he was employed in
preparing or copying the articles alleged against
Cranmer,^ and himself gave evidence against him,
though those proceedings had no result in con-
sequence of another change in the mind of the
capricious King.
Though years elapsed before the Blessed German's
fidelity was put to the final test, there is no reason
to suppose that his constancy ever failed. He had
meanwhile fortified his principles and his courage
with the example of the many sufferers in the holy
cause who had preceded him. Of all these, the
Blessed Thomas More was the martyr who especially
won his admiration, and whose steps he most desired
to follow, as being, like himself, a layman.^
1 Bishop Tanner [Bibliotheca, 1748, p. 308) refers to H. Stabrydge
(probably an alias for John Bale, Protestant Bishop of Ossory),
Epistel exhortatorye . . . agaynst the poiupouse popysh bishops (Basyle,
1544), as having controverted Gardiner's book.
- Strype's Cranmer, pp. 163 — 168.
^ Cresacre More's Life of More (1726), p. 278.
BB. JOHN LARKE AND GERMAN GARDINER 545
In the Life of that holy man it is said, " German
Gardiner, an excellent, learned and holy layman,
coming to suffer death for the same supremacy some
eight years after, avouched at his end before all the
people that the holy simplicity of the Blessed
Carthusians, the wonderful learning of the Bishop
of Rochester, and the singular wisdom of Sir Thomas
More, had stirred him up to that courage ; but the
rest seemed not so much to be imitated of laymen,
being all belonging to the clergy, as this famous
man, being clogged with a wife and children."
In God's good time the day came on which the
Blessed German was to witness his good confession.
He was required to take the oath of the Royal
Supremacy, and on his refusal was indicted, together
with the Blessed John Larke and others, for
attempting treason against the King in the matter
of his dignity, title, and name of Supreme Head of
the Church of England and Ireland, by words,
writings, and acts. The record runs as follows :^
" [After reciting the Royal Commission of oyer
and terminer] . The sessions were held at West-
minster, on Wednesday, the 15th day of February,
in the 35th year of King Henry VTII. (1545), &c.
" The Jury say upon their oath that John
Heywood, late of London, gentleman, John Ireland,
late of Eltham in the county of Kent, clerk, John
Larke, late of Chelsea in the county of Middlesex,
clerk, and German Gardiner, late of Southwark in
the county of Surrey, gentleman, not weighing the