The Last Plantagenet Princess: Blessed Margaret Pole

Matt Swaim and I will talk about Blessed Margaret Pole this morning on the Son Rise Morning Show in my usual time slot, after the 6:45 a.m. Central time (7:45 a.m. Eastern) news brief. Please listen live here.

EWTN posts this biography from Father Alban Butler:

The life of Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, was tragic from her cradle to her grave.l Nay, even before she was born, death in its most violent or dreaded forms had been long busy with her family—hastening to extinction a line that had swayed the destinies of England for nearly four centuries and a half. Her grandfather was that splendid Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, the mighty King-maker, who as the "last of the Barons," so fittingly died on the stricken field of garnet, and whose soldier's passing gave to Shakespeare a theme worthy of some of his most affecting lines. Her father was the George, Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV, whose death in the Tower in January, 1478, has been attributed to so many causes. The murdered "Princes in the Tower," Edward V and his little brother, the Duke of York, were her first cousins, while her only brother, Edward, Earl of Warwick, was judicially murdered by Henry VII to ensure his own possession of the Crown. The list of tragedies in the family of the Blessed Margaret is still far from complete, but sufficient instances have been given to justify the description we have given of her whole career. . . .

The Countess of Salisbury was taken to East Smithfield early in the morning of 28th May, 1541, and there beheaded on a low block or log in the presence of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and a few other spectators. The regular headsman was away from London at the time, and his deputy, an unskilful lout, hacked at the blessed Martyr in such a way as to give some foundation to the story afterwards made current by Lord Herbert of Cherbury, that she had refused to lay her head on the block and was, therefore, struck repeatedly by the executioner till she fell dead. Before her death, she prayed for the King, Queen (Catherine Howard), Prince of Wales (later Edward VI), and the Princess Mary Her last words were: "Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice' sake for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."

The body of the Blessed Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, was interred in the Tower, in that Chapel dedicated to St. Peter's Chains, whose illustrious dead and historic associations are enshrined in Macaulay's memorable lines. She was declared Blessed with many of the rest of the English Martyrs by Leo XIII, 29th December, 1886. Others than her co-religionists, no doubt, like to reflect that a life, so marked by piety, and so full of griefs ever heroically borne, has after the lapse of nearly four centuries been thus honoured, and that the last direct descendant of the Plantagenet line has her place in the Hagiography of the Church so long associated with their sway.

There is a new biography of Blessed Margaret Pole, written by Susan Higginbotham and published by Amberley (due out on August 15 this year):

Of the many executions ordered by Henry VIII, surely the most horrifying was that of sixty-seven-year-old Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, hacked to pieces on the scaffold by a blundering headsman. From the start, Margaret’s life had been marred by tragedy and violence: her father, George, Duke of Clarence, had been executed at the order of his own brother, Edward IV, and her naïve young brother, Edward, Earl of Warwick, had spent most of his life in the Tower before being executed on the orders of Henry VII. Yet Margaret, friend to Catherine of Aragon and the beloved governess of her daughter Mary, had seemed destined for a happier fate, until religious upheaval and rebellion caused Margaret and her family to fall from grace. From Margaret’s birth as the daughter of a royal duke to her beatification centuries after her death, Margaret Pole: The Countess in the Tower tells the story of one of the fortress’s most unlikely prisoners.

Book Review: The Last White Rose

As Kirkus Reviews describes this book:

The Tudors have been written about ad nauseam, but historian Seward (Eugenie: The Empress and Her Empire, 2004, etc.) opens another branch of study harkening back to their beginnings at the Battle of Bosworth of 1485.

The defeat of King Richard III did not eliminate all claimants to the crown. After his victory, Henry VII spent his reign ruthlessly quashing one after another. The genealogical tables at the front of Seward’s book are indispensable for this and any English history, as authors must carefully refer to characters by one name only. For instance, John de la Pole, the Duke of Suffolk, and his sons, John, Earl of Lincoln, and Edmund, Earl of Suffolk, had claim to the crown, and all suffered for it. Choosing a single moniker for each character is preferred, except, of course, that Henry VII and his son, Henry VIII, tended to bestow and take away titles according to whim or worry. The paranoia of Henry VII was actually justified, as the Yorkist family had many eligible candidates, and popular support for restoring their reign was widespread. Challengers found support from Margaret of Burgundy, sister to kings Richard III and Edward IV, the French, who were always ready to stir things up, and the Irish, firmly in the Yorkist camp. By far the most interesting pretender was Richard de la Pole, who was educated at Henry VIII’s expense, created a cardinal by the pope without ordination and considered as a mate for Princess Mary. (sic!)* Henry VIII was pathologically suspicious and saw conspiracies in every shadow, and the cream of England’s aristocracy paid the price. The story of the descendants of the White Rose adds yet another black mark against the first two Tudors, as if they needed more.

A fresh look at a well-worn field of study, appropriate for general readers.

*That's a strange error: I'm sure the reviewer meant to cite Reginald Cardinal Pole as "the most interesting pretender", although there was a pretender named Richard de la Pole who died at the Battle of Pavia in 1525, fighting alongside King Francis I of France. After the battle, Richard de la Pole was buried in the Basilica of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro--where St. Augustine of Hippo is also buried. Henry VIII rejoiced greatly when he heard that Richard de la Pole had died: one fewer White Rose or rival to get rid of by assassination or execution!

One thing that Seward does very well here is tell his story without too many digressions--he tells enough of what is going on outside of these rebellions and pretenders for necessary context--but not so much that he writes another book about Henry VIII, his six wives and four children, the English Reformation, the Dissolution of the Monasteries, or the Pilgrimage of Grace. In The Last White Rose: The Secret Wars of the Tudors, he depicts both Henry VII and Henry VIII as most uneasy monarchs, fearful of and vindictive toward anyone who had a claim upon the crown the Tudors plucked from the House of York. Any noble family, like the Howards, the de la Poles, the York/Poles (Margaret of York and her grown children), the Courtenays, the Staffords, etc., had much to fear from the Tudors, whether or not they really were plotting to supplant or succeed their monarch. Seward notes that the White Rose faction missed their one great chance when they did not get behind--or rather, take leadership of--the Pilgrimage of Grace. With an army of 30 to 40 thousand behind them, the House of York could have taken England back from the Tudors, stopped the English Reformation and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. 

Blessed Margaret Pole in "The Tablet"

In 1941, The Tablet published this article about Blessed Margaret Pole, executed on May 28, 1541, four hundred years before:

The sixteenth century seems to hive been the era in excelsis of the English Matriarch, and we see her no less in the fiery Bess of Hardwick and the sweet Anne Dacres and a host of supernumeraries than in the widely divergent characters of Mary and Elizabeth. Certainly we have her at her best in the dogged and noble character of the Blessed Countess of Salisbury, who was "prepared to swear by her damnation when it was necessary to enforce a serious point." She has frequently been compared with the Mother of the Machabees, and the parallel is a close one. She saw the physical or mental suffering of many of her children and crowned her endurance with a bloody martyrdom.

This week brings us to the fourth centenary of the execution of this courageous woman. As one of the Henrician martyrs she stands in the same category as the Blessed Carthusians and S. John Fisher and S. Thomas More. By 1541 it seemed that nothing could stem the ruthless drive against those who stood loyal to the Apostolic See ; and she who in his better days had been praised by Henry for her exalted virtues was now abandoned by him in the depth of his depravity to a death so ignominious that the contemporary ambassadorial despatches are eloquent with righteous indignation. . . .

The greatest offence of Blessed Margaret was that she was the mother of the Cardinal, and for that reason she met her death. In November 1538, ten days after the apprehension of two of her sons, Lord Montague of Buckmere and Sir Geoffrey Pole, and others of her kindred who Were executed, the Venerable Countess was herself arrested. Bishop Goodrich of Ely and Admiral Fitzwilliam, later Earl of Southampton and a cousin of Anne Boleyn, were sent to examine her at her own house at Warblington in Hampshire, which was searched from cellar to attic. She had there a considerable establishment, with three chaplains in residence. A few undated Papal Bulls were found on the premises. Her neighbours and tenants were closely questioned, and it was alleged that she had forbidden the latter to read the Bible in English. However, the inquisitors reported to Cromwell that although they had "travailed with her" for many hours she would "nothing utter," and they were forced to conclude that either her sons had left her out of their "treacherous" counsels or else that she was "the most arrant traitress that ever lived." For some time she was a prisoner at Cowdray Park, Sussex, where she suffered many indignities and was constantly invigilated by the Admiral. Finally, she was sent to the Tower which she never again left, and despite her seventy summers managed to endure two years of deprivation in which lack of clothing and nourishment were her chief trials. It was quite suddenly that she was led out to execution, on May 28th, 1541. A splendid Torrigiano tomb had been prepared to receive her mortal remains at Christ Church, but they were not suffered to be placed there and the tomb itself was ruthlessly defaced by Cromwell's own orders.

Beccadelli, later Archbishop of Ragusa and the Boswell of the Cardinal wrote as follows : "I was with Cardinal Pole when he heard of his Mother's death. To me he said 'Hitherto I thought God had given me the grace to be the son of the best and most honourable lady in England, and I gloried in the fact and thanked God for it. Now however he has honoured me still more, and increased my debt of gratitude to Him, for He has made me the son of a Martyr. For her constancy in the Catholic Faith the King has caused her to be publicly beheaded, in spite of her seventy years. Blessed and thanked be God for ever!'

As we often look upon the martyrs as inspiration for how to live and how to die for Jesus and His Church, these lessons, from an article by Celine McCoy on the Catholic Exchange, seem most apt for remembering and modeling Blessed Margaret Pole:

1. Every one of us hopes to die peacefully in our beds, and what else should a 70-year-old widow have expected? She had been a faithful wife, mother, and governess to a princess, loyal to her king in all things except for his unlawful marriage to Anne Boleyn. Perhaps she could have saved her life by keeping quiet or by denying her son’s position against the king. But Margaret remained faithful to her true King; while she suffered on earth, we know that she has been rewarded according to His promise: “Everyone who has left houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children, or land for the sake of my name will be repaid a hundred times over, and also inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29).

2. Today our lives may not be on the line for our beliefs, but are there opportunities to speak the truth that we are avoiding because we don’t want to lose friends, the respect of our co-workers, or because we fear possible derision? Let us pray to Blessed Margaret to help us calmly and fearlessly stand up for the truth, no matter the cost to ourselves.

Blessed Margaret Pole, pray for us!

What didn't happen--per Leanda de Lisle

Leanda de Lisle, author of Tudor: Passion. Manipulation. Murder. The Story of England's Most Notorious Royal Family (the U.S. title) considers what could have happened if Henry VIII would have been granted the decree of nullity he sought:

In 1533, Henry VIII broke with Rome and claimed power over Church and state in England. This enabled him to get the marriage annulment Pope Clement VII had denied him. But what if Clement had overcome the great doctrinal obstacles of Catholic teaching and granted it? Would there have been a Protestant Reformation in England? And how might the history of the dynasty have then unfolded?

In 1527, when Henry first requested his annulment, he and his people were among the most contented Catholics in Europe, and loyal to the papacy. Henry had even written a book (with some help) condemning Luther’s attacks on papal authority. But Henry had long believed himself to be more than a mere secular monarch. Granted his annulment he would not have broken with Rome, but his ego would still have needed to be satisfied in this regard.

It would have pleased Henry to see the humanist scholar John Fisher made a cardinal and invited to the Council of Trent in 1535 (as Fisher was, shortly before being executed for his loyalty to Rome). Through Fisher, and later English cardinals, England would have helped shape the reformation of the Catholic Church. At home, the price of Henry’s loyalty would have been an Anglican Church, in communion with Rome, building on its own traditions, with the crown exercising greater power in the appointment of bishops, a concession granted to the kings of France.

Henry would have continued to take part in public discussions on theology, closed failing monasteries and addressed superstitious practises, in line with his humanist Catholic ideals. There would have been no Pilgrimage of Grace—the great rebellion in England triggered by opposition to the Reformation. But Henry would still have confronted “heretics” especially in areas with close trading contacts with Europe (he burned Lutherans until he died).

I find that note about Bishop John Fisher at the Council of Trent fascinating. As I read John O'Malley's book on that great council, I was surprised at how actively Henry VIII opposed the convening of it, because he and his ally King Francis I were determined to thwart their common enemy, the Emperor Charles V.

She also has some interesting "counter facts" about the reign of Henry VIII's son and heir by Anne Boleyn, Henry IX, and his cooperation with Reginald Cardinal Pole, were the latter elected pope as he almost was in 1550:

The Tudors were conservative and ruthless in temperament, and had Reginald Pole been elected Pope in 1550, as he nearly was, he could have persuaded Henry IX to institute an Inquisition to police orthodoxy in England. Henry’s kingdom would thus have been spared France’s Wars of Religion. But disgust at the suffering of fellow countrymen burned at the stake would also fuel English anticlericalism. This Henry IX would have exploited in any quarrels with the Pope on matters of ecclesiastical authority, a cause close to Pole’s heart, and one over which English kings had quarrelled with popes before.

In other areas, however, Pole and Henry IX would have continued to find agreement. On reform, Henry IX, influenced by his Boleyn inheritance, but also backed by Pole, would commission an orthodox bible in English (as Mary I actually did). In 1560 Henry IX would have helped to crush the Protestant Reformation in Scotland, a country eventually absorbed by dynastic marriage, and conquest, with future Tudors encouraging elite marriages with Scottish and Irish families to create a sense of Britain.

Read the rest here--what do you think?

Back to Trent with John W. O'Malley, SJ

The  Second Vatican Council has been much in the news, Catholic and mainstream, occasioned by the canonization of the pope who called the Council and the pope who really implemented the Council (John XXIII and John Paul II). When George Weigel wrote on First Things about the canonization of those popes, he commented on the difficulties of implementing the Second Vatican Council;

As everyone who lived through the post-Vatican II years knows, John XXIII’s Council created a lot of turbulence of its own. One reason why, I’m convinced, is that Vatican II, unlike previous ecumenical councils, did not provide authoritative keys to its own proper interpretation. It defined no dogma. It condemned no heresy or heretic(s). It legislated no new canons for the Church’s law, it wrote no creed, it commissioned no catechism. These were the ways previous councils had told the Church, “This is what we mean.” Vatican II did none of that.

The Council of Trent did all all that. From that "Counter-Reformation" Council a new catechism, new statements for reform, decrees on the Sacraments, the crucial doctrine of Justification, etc, gave direction to the Catholic Church for centuries--well, until the Second Vatican Council! In fact, if you compare and contrast the two councils, the usual commentary is that Trent was doctrinal and Vatican II was pastoral. 

John W. O'Malley might disagree about that comment re: Trent: it was both doctrinal and pastoral as it was called both to combat the errors of Luther (and later Calvin) and to reform the Church of abuses and scandals, particularly to improve the care of souls. Thus the three sessions of the Council of Trent focused on both the definition of those doctrines most threatened by Lutherans ideas and the reform of the Church, especially the actions of bishops and parish priests. 

As Harvard University Press describes this 2013 book:

The Council of Trent (1545–1563), the Catholic Church’s attempt to put its house in order in response to the Protestant Reformation, has long been praised and blamed for things it never did. Now, in this first full one-volume history in modern times, John W. O’Malley brings to life the volatile issues that pushed several Holy Roman emperors, kings and queens of France, and five popes—and all of Europe with them—repeatedly to the brink of disaster.

During the council’s eighteen years, war and threat of war among the key players, as well as the Ottoman Turks’ onslaught against Christendom, turned the council into a perilous enterprise. Its leaders declined to make a pronouncement on war against infidels, but Trent’s most glaring and ironic silence was on the authority of the papacy itself. The popes, who reigned as Italian monarchs while serving as pastors, did everything in their power to keep papal reform out of the council’s hands—and their power was considerable. O’Malley shows how the council pursued its contentious parallel agenda of reforming the Church while simultaneously asserting Catholic doctrine.

Like What Happened at Vatican II, O’Malley’s Trent: What Happened at the Council strips mythology from historical truth while providing a clear, concise, and fascinating account of a pivotal episode in Church history. In celebration of the 450th anniversary of the council’s closing, it sets the record straight about the much misunderstood failures and achievements of this critical moment in European history.

O'Malley masterfully narrates the struggle to convene the Council, blocked by papal concerns about conciliarism and the efforts of Francis I of France to thwart the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, who urgently wanted the Church to launch a council for the sake of unity throughout his Empire. Francis I, Henry VIII, and the Schmalkaldic League of Lutheran princes wanted the Holy Roman Empire to be weakened from within by religious disunity. Throughout the following chapters that cover the three sessions of Trent, O'Malley keeps the narrative of events and his analysis of the decisions reached/documents issued in balance, providing details about personalities, the different factions, and the results of the theologians's discussions and the bishops' decisions.

I have not read his book about the Second Vatican Council--perhaps I'll look it up too. I checked this book out from the Wichita Public Library. I've read and reviewed his Trent and All That, and I read his Four Cultures of the West (might need to re-read it soon).

Cardinal Vincent Nichols at Westminster Cathedral

The continuity with the past that Cardinal Nichols is expressing with objects from three Reformation and post-Reformation English Cardinals is impressive. When he celebrates his Mass of Thanksgiving at Westminster Cathedral today he will remember the great St. John Fisher, Cardinal Reginald Pole, and Cardinal William Allen:

Cardinal Vincent will process through the West Doors from Cathedral Piazza along with individual possessions of three English Cardinals from the Reformation. These artefacts symbolize the Catholic Church’s connection to the Reformation Cardinals: The signet ring of Cardinal St John Fisher (c.1469-1535), the pectoral cross of Cardinal Reginald Pole (1500-1558) and the crozier of Cardinal William Allen (1532-1594). Cardinal Vincent has a particular devotion to John Fisher and following further studies, has written a book about the saint who inspires him.

The book Cardinal Vincent wrote about St. John Fisher seems to be out of print: St. John Fisher: Bishop and Theologian in Reformation and Controversy, published by Alive Publishing. EWTN has the introduction in their online library:

As a man of his time, who carried many of the strengths and weaknesses of his age, John Fisher might appear distant from us today. Yet that need not be so. There are many themes of his thought and writing which carry strong echoes for us in this age.

Throughout his life, John Fisher had a deep concern for the well-being and ministry of the clergy. He realised that the health of the Church depended largely on the health of the parish and, in turn, this depended on the work and presence of the clergy. Many of his initiatives, especially during his years of academic life, were aimed at the support and improvement of the priests of his day. . . .

Fisher's main effort in support of the clergy was in the area of education. He wanted a clergy that was better educated, thereby better able to inform and form itself for its important ministry. And in that ministry the task of teaching the faith was uppermost in his mind. He wanted his priests to be able and ready to study. He wanted them to bring the fruits of that study into their preaching. He wanted a laity that understood their faith and not be led astray by erroneous opinions and error. Thus was behind his initiatives at Cambridge. . . .

What would be Fisher's view of similar matters today? He would be dismayed at the public failings of even one priest. He would be adamant about the need for personal renewal and discipline of life. He would look to us bishops and priests in particular to give a clear and helpful account of the truths of faith in a manner which spoke to people of today. I think he would be delighted at the richness of resource available to us, embracing with enthusiasm some of the potential of contemporary means of communication while always on guard for the way in which these same means can be used to circulate misleading or corrosive views. In short, he would recognise a similar pattern of strengths and weaknesses and would offer to us today the same example of steadfast study, disciplined self-application, courage of expression and faithful observance of duty, not least the duty of personal prayer and devotion.

As a reformer, then. Fisher's stance was clear. Reform was not a matter of radical change of structure or teaching of the Church, but rather an issue of personal lives being reformed to the age-old wisdom of the Church in each contemporary setting. I cannot believe that his stance would be any different today.

Here is a review of then Archbishop Nichols' book about St. John Fisher. I heard then Archbishop Vincent Nichols speak of his admiration of St. John Fisher on the great documentary--which is forthcoming from Ignatius Press--Faith of Our Fathers: In Search of the English Martyrs. I received a review copy from Saint Anthony Communications, and thoroughly enjoyed it! More about it this Sunday!