Blessed Margaret Pole, Pray for Us!

Blessed Margaret Pole's early life was greatly affected by the dynastic battles of the Wars of the Roses; her adult life by the English Reformation, and she would die because of her clear loyalty to the universal Catholic faith. She was martyred on May 27, 1541, but her feast day is May 28 since St. Augustine of Canterbury is honored on May 27.

She was born Margaret Plantagenet, the niece of Edward IV and Richard III; her father was George, the Duke of Clarence and her mother Lady Isabel Neville, the Duchess of Clarence. Since her father was attainted a traitor during the reign of Edward IV, so the family lost their lands; she and her surviving sibling, Edward, were also removed from the line of succession by Richard III. Her mother had died when she was three; her father when she was five.

With the fall of Richard III and the House of York, she was in greater danger. Her brother Edward Plantagenet was imprisoned in the Tower of London from 1485 to 1499, when he was executed. Henry VII arranged her marriage to Sir Reginald Pole about 1491 and she bore four sons, including the future Reginald Cardinal Pole, and one daughter. Margaret was widowed in 1504 and had to live with the nuns of Syon Abbey for a time because of the loss of her husband's income. When Henry VIII succeeded he named her the Countess of Salisbury, restored her family's lands, and appointed her governess to Princess Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and Queen Catherine of Aragon. 

In loyalty to Catherine, she opposed Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn, and the king exiled her from court, although he had called her “the holiest woman in England.” When her son, Reginald Pole, denied Henry’s Act of Supremacy, she remonstrated with him and tried to assure the king that she repudiated his treason completely.

In 1538, her son Henry Pole, Lord Montague was executed for treason and her other surviving son, Geoffrey was also arrested and found guilty of treason and was pardoned, but the king imprisoned Margaret in the Tower of London for two years and then had her beheaded on May 27, 1541. She was never given a legal trial, but included in an Act of Attainder that accused many of treason on quite flimsy grounds, mostly on the suspicion of opposing the King's religious supremacy. Margaret Pole was devoted to the Five Wounds of Jesus; the Pilgrimage of Grace proceeded under banners emblazoned with the Five Wounds of Jesus; therefore, the flawed logic was that her devotion proved her support of  rebellion. Never mind that devotion to the Five Wounds of Jesus was popular throughout England in the 16th century. Her sons' opposition to Henry's marital and ecclesial efforts was enough. She rightly protested against the lack of due process and there are various reports about how horrible her execution was: certainly the headsman was incompetent.

She was seventy when she was martyred in 1541. Margaret was beatified in 1886 by Pope Leo XIII. She is buried in the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London. Margaret Pole had planned a resting place for herself in what is now Christchurch Priory in what was, before 1539, an Augustinian Priory, in the Salisbury Chantry, where Masses would be said for the repose of her soul. More on her life and times here. Her daughter Ursula had married Henry Stafford, who was the eldest son of Edward Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham executed on May 17, 1521 for treason. Ursula and Henry survived the double blows of two parents beheaded for treason against Henry VIII, and Stafford was named Baron Stafford during the reign of Edward VI. One of their sons, Thomas, would also lose his head after participating in the Wyatt Rebellion against Mary I.

Blessed Margaret Pole's other son, Reginald Cardinal Pole, returned to England in 1554 to reconcile the English church and nation to the Catholic Church and the Papacy, becoming the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury in 1556. He died two years later and is buried in Canterbury Cathedral. You may read my review of her standard biography, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury 1473-1541: Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership by Hazel Pierce here. I also reviewed a more recent biography by Susan Higginbotham here.

One of my favorite passages from a book about Blessed Margaret Pole comes from Dom David Knowles' Saints and Scholars: Twenty-Five Medieval Portraits. In the chapter on William More, the Prior of Worcester, he describes a visit of Princess Mary, Margaret Pole, and her sons, except for Reginald:

The imagination rests for a moment on the guest-hall at Worcester that year. England in 1526 must still have been a settled country with the future predictable, when Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell were still in private places, and the sword that was to divide kinsmen so sharply lay still sheathed. Yet the four visitors who sat there with the prior were all to know sorrow, and were all in their fashion to suffer, or to cause suffering, for their faith. The Countess and her elder son were to perish at the hands of the executioner, while the younger son was to die in exile haunted by the disaster that he had helped to cause. They must often have spoken of the absent brother, Reginald, also in part to be the cause of their fate, who was himself to die, a prince of the Church, on the same day as the little girl, his cousin, each of them alone in the new, harsh world which they had hoped to sweeten, but had only the more embittered.

I do not think that Blessed Margaret Pole had really done anything to embitter the world. It had been harsh when she was born and she had tried to sweeten it through her faith, her devotion to the Princess Mary, and her efforts to remain loyal to both Henry VIII and the Catholic Church.

Blessed Margaret Pole, pray for us!

A Book about a Queen's Books

From Palgrave Macmillan, a book to be published this August in the Queenship and Power series:

Printed book and manuscript dedications were at the juncture between the actual interests and reading abilities of Tudor royal ladies and the beliefs and hopes of those who wrote and printed them on what was suitable for royalty and how royal ladies might be persuaded in certain directions. Queen Mary I received eighteen manuscript dedications and thirty-three printed book dedications, the majority of them were religious in nature, specifically addressing a return to Catholicism. In this revisionist approach to book history and Marian studies Valerie Schutte argues that dedications, and the negotiations that accompanied them, reveal both contemporary perceptions of how statecraft, religion, and gender were and the political maneuvering attempting to influence how they ought to be. Schutte offers the first comprehensive catalogue of all book and manuscript dedications to Mary and all books that were known to have been in Mary's possession.

When you review the books published in the Queenship and Power series thus far, most of them are about Elizabeth I, so it's good that the editors of the series are addressing that imbalance in a way. There's no surprise that Mary would receive books dedicated to her in support of bringing Catholicism back to England as she was engaged in eliminating all the legislation passed during Edward VI's reign as soon as she came to the throne. There's also no surprise that the Princess and later Queen Mary would have manuscripts and books dedicated and presented to her: she received a careful Christian humanist education at the direction of her mother Katherine of Aragon. To quote any earlier blogpost:

Juan Luis Vives of Spain became Mary's tutor and wrote a handbook on the education of Christian females which he dedicated to Katherine of Aragon: De Institutione Feminae Christianae. He detailed the course of Mary's study in De ratione studii puerilis. While he is not a feminist nor overemphasizes female virtue, he is certainly not a misogynist although he is opposed to fancy clothing and makeup. Vives resided at Corpus Christi College in Oxford where he lectured on philosophy as a Doctor of Law. Henry and Katherine attended some his lectures. Because he supported Katherine against Henry in the King's Great Matter, he fled to the Continent, residing in Bruges.

The Table of Contents:

Introduction
1. Lady Margaret Beaufort and the Wives of Henry VIII
2. Dedications to a Princess
3. Printed Dedications to a Queen
4. Manuscript Dedications to Mary
5. Dedications to Philip and Mary
6. Books Owned by Mary
Conclusion

Could be a fascinating book to read, but it's far out of my price range. I just completed an article about Reginald Cardinal Pole commissioned by a publication--the most recent biography of Pole, from Ashgate Publishing, costs $125.00. Some books are just written and published for an exclusively academic audience.

Should I Give Philippa Gregory Another Chance?

I read The Other Boleyn Girl and The Queen's Fool and found them repetitious in structure and plot devices; I refused to read The Constant Princess because she made Katherine of Aragon into a liar. Now Philippa Gregory has written a historical fiction novel that is out in the UK now (see the top cover) and will be issued later this year in the USA (see the bottom cover) in "The Cousins' War Series"--and it's about the Countess of Salisbury, Blessed Margaret Pole:

This is the story of deposed royal Margaret Pole, and her unique view of King Henry VIII’s stratospheric rise to power in Tudor England.

Margaret Pole spends her young life struggling to free her brother, arrested as a child, from the Tower of London. The Tower – symbol of the Tudor usurpation of her family’s throne – haunts Margaret’s dreams until the day that her brother is executed on the orders of Henry VII.

Regarded as yet another threat to the volatile King Henry VII’s claim to the throne, Margaret is buried in marriage to a steady and kind Tudor supporter—Sir Richard Pole, governor of Wales. But Margaret’s quiet, hidden life is changed forever by the arrival of Arthur, the young Prince of Wales, and his beautiful bride, Katherine of Aragon, as Margaret soon becomes a trusted advisor and friend to the honeymooning couple.

Margaret’s destiny, as an heiress to the Plantagenets, is not for a life in the shadows. Tragedy throws her into poverty and rebellion against the new royal family, luck restores her to her place at court where she becomes the chief lady-in-waiting to Queen Katherine and watches the dominance of the Spanish queen over her husband, and her fall. As the young king becomes increasingly paranoid of rivals he turns his fearful attention to Margaret and her royal family.

Amid the rapid deterioration of the Tudor court, Margaret must choose whether her allegiance is to the increasingly tyrannical king, Henry VIII, or to her beloved queen and princess. Caught between the old world and the new, Margaret has to find her own way and hide her knowledge of an old curse on all the Tudors, which is slowly coming true . . .

The author's note about her research makes me wonder, especially when I read the words with my added emphasis (in bold):

This is a novel which changed its nature, content and significance from when I started research until publication. Right up until the last stage of copy editing I was revising and adding material and characters to this dark story. I started it, thinking that it would be a relatively simple telling of the tragic story of Margaret Pole - daughter of George, Duke of Clarence and Isabel Neville. George was the brother of Edward IV, probably drowned in a vat of Malmsey wine for treason against Edward and Queen Elizabeth. As the book progressed I discovered that Margaret was a central figure in the Tudor court, and probably actively involved in the endless conspiracies against the Henry VIII and his advisors. This hidden rebellion reached its peak in the uprising of the North called the Pilgrimage of Grace. The pilgrims won their aims of defending the Roman Catholic traditions and the return of the traditional advisors, but Henry reneged on his promises and sent his troops for a terrible persecution to men who held a royal pardon. Margaret, and her entire family, came under suspicion too and this novel moved far from the template of a persecuted heroine and became the story of a merciless murder of a family. Margaret's betrayer, and her defenders all come under the gaze of a king who was increasingly frightened and, I believe delusional. It's been a chilling and powerful book to write and the image of Henry VIII, composer of 'Greensleeves' beloved of primary school history, will never be the same again for me. He was a serial killer and this book traces his steps towards psychosis.

I don't think there is much evidence that Margaret Pole was "actively involved in the endless conspiracies against Henry VIII and his advisors". Her arrest and subsequent attainder and execution were mostly driven by Henry's anger with her son Reginald's "Pro ecclesiasticæ unitatis defensione", and the only "evidence" presented against her was a white silk tunic with the Five Wounds of Jesus embroidered on the back. Although devotion to the Five Wounds was a constant in England at that time, Cromwell and Henry used the presence of such an embroidered tunic as an indication of Margaret Pole's support of the Pilgrimage of Grace. Otherwise, we know that Henry did target the entire Pole family--Margaret Pole's grandson Henry (1st Baron Montagu Henry Pole's son) was held in the Tower of London until his death (possibly by starvation), Reginald was condemned in absentia (Parliament had to pass a law removing the penalty of death for his return to England in 1554 as Papal Legate).

These hints about Gregory's historical view of Margaret Pole and her family make me a little leery of her fictional presentation of this great lady's story--perhaps our local public library will have a copy when it's released and I can check it out.

The Feast of St. Andrew in 1554: A Holy Day of Reconciliation in England

On November 30, 1554, Reginald Cardinal Pole, the Papal Legate, soon to be Archbishop of Canterbury, received the submission of the English Parliament and granted absolution to the entire kingdom, reconclining England to the Holy See and the universal Catholic Church. As both Alison Weir and H.F.M. Prescott comment in their biographies of Mary I, the first Queen Regnant of England and Ireland, this must have been one of the happiest days of her life as she witnessed this solemn act. She was married to Philip of Spain, her cousin had returned, Parliament and Convocation were both repenting of the acts led by her father and her half-brother to separate England from the Catholic Church--and she believed she was pregnant (as her doctors had told her).

For this day to occur, several things had to be arranged and decided. First of all, for the Papal Legate to arrive in England, the Act of Attainder against Reginald Pole had to be removed by Parliament. This was the Act that condemned his mother Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, and many others to death. Parliament lifted this sentence of death and Mary invited the Papal Legate to return from exile on November 20, 1554. He would be the first Papal Legate present in England since the trial of her mother's marriage in 1529--when Katherine of Aragon appeared before Cardinal Campeggio and Cardinal Wolsey, appealed to Henry her husband and left the Court, impervious to pleas to return. The matter of former Church lands also had to be decided: Henry VIII and then Edward VI had seized the monasteries and then the chantries and the chantry schools, destroyed most of them, sold or given the lands to courtiers and others who benefitted. Were these all to be given back?

The Papal Legate wanted them back, but Mary was more concerned about alienating the Court and nobility her reign had so lately unified against the plots of Northumberland to replace her in the succession with Lady Jane Grey and that of Thomas Wyatt the younger to prevent the Spanish marriage and place her half-sister Elizabeth and young Edward Courtenay on the throne. So the lands and property stayed with their current owners.

On November 28 Cardinal Pole spoke to Parliament and asked them to repeal all the other acts that were obstacles to reunion. On November 29 Parliament did so and then petitioned Queen Mary to intercede with the Papal Legate for absolution and reunion with Rome (two members refused to sign the petition).

Then on St. Andrew's Day Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester and Mary's Chancellor, led the members of both houses of Parliament to kneel before the Papal Legate and Mary, presenting the petition. The petition proclaimed that Parliament was "very sorry and repentant of the schism and disobedience committed in this realm against the See Apostolic" and begged to be returned "into the bosom and unity of Christ's Church."

Cardinal Pole then welcomed "the return of the lost sheep" and granted absolution to the entire kingdom, proclaiming a new Holy Day on November 30: the Feast of Reconciliation. Unfortunately, Cardinal Pole and Mary I would have only three celebrations of this Feast (in 1555, 1556, and 1557)--both died on November 17, 1558, as the Once I Was a Clever Boy blog recounts. This year marks the 455th anniversary of their deaths.

Sir John Cheke, Classical Scholar

Sir John Cheke died on September 13, 1557. He had been a great scholar at University of Cambridge, reformer of the mode of pronouncing Greek, and the tutor to Prince Edward, later Edward VI.

According to this site, he also took part in the change in succession from Princess Mary to Lady Jane Grey, and that clearly got him into some trouble when Mary I came to the throne:

His zeal for the protestant religion induced him to concur, on the death of Edward VI, in the settlement of the crown on the Lady Jane Grey, and he acted as secretary of state during her brief reign. Immediately after Queen Mary's accession he was committed to the Tower on an accusation of treason, 27 July 1553. He was discharged from custody on 13 Sept. 1554, and about the same time obtained a pardon and the royal license to travel abroad. After residing for some time at Basle he went to Italy, and at Padua he met some of his countrymen, to whom he read and interpreted some of the orations of Demosthenes. Subsequently he settled at Strasburg, where he read a Greek lecture for his subsistence.

At the beginning of 1556 he resolved to go to Brussels, where his wife was, chiefly in consequence of a treacherous invitation from Lord Paget and Sir John Mason. As, however, he was a firm believer in astrology, he first consulted the stars to ascertain whether he might safely undertake the journey, and fell into a fatal snare on his return between Brussels and Antwerp, for, by order of Philip II, he and Sir Peter Carew, with whom he was travelling, were suddenly seized by the provost-marshal on 15 May, unhorsed, blindfolded, bound, thrown into a wagon, conveyed to the nearest harbour, put on board a ship, under hatches, and brought to the Tower of London, where they were placed in close confinement. The alleged ground of his committal was, that having obtained license to travel, he had not returned to England by the time specified in his license.

In the Tower he was visited by two of the queen's chaplains, who tried in vain to induce him to alter his religious opinions. The desire of gaining over so eminent a man caused the queen to send to him Dr. Feckenham, dean of St. Paul's, a divine of moderate and obliging temper. Cheke had been acquainted with him in the late king's reign, and had tried to convert him to protestantism when he was a prisoner in the Tower. Cheke's courage began to fail at the prospect of the stake, and he was at his own request carried before Cardinal Pole, who gravely advised him to return to the unity of the church. Cheke dared hold out no longer, and Feckenham had the credit of effecting his conversion. He made in writing a profession of his belief in the real presence, and sent the paper by the dean of St. Paul's to the cardinal, with a letter dated from the Tower on 15 July, praying that he might be spared the shame of making an open recantation.

This request being refused, he addressed to the queen on the same day a letter in which he declared his readiness to obey all laws and orders concerning religion. After this, in order to declare his repentance for his rejection of the pope, he made a formal submission before the cardinal, as the pope's legate, and after being absolved he was received back into the Roman church. He was kept in prison for upwards of two months before he was allowed to make his public recantation. This was done on 4 Oct. in the most public manner before the queen, and for the sake of greater formality the reading of the palinode was preceded by an oration addressed to her majesty by Feckenham. Cheke was also obliged to read a longer form of recantation in presence of the whole court, and to promise to perform whatever penances might be enjoined upon him by the legate. After having submitted to all these humiliations he was released from the Tower, and regained his lands, which, however, he was forced to exchange with the queen for others.

Pining away with shame and regret for his abjuration of protestantism, he died on 13 Sept. 1557 in Wood Street, London, in the house of his friend Peter Osborne, remembrancer of the exchequer.

The English Reformation Today, Episode Five

I begin month two of this three month commitment to a weekly radio show--The Engish Reformation Today! Today we'll discuss--and I hope you'll call in so we do have a discussion--the reign of Mary I, Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon's daughter, who was the first Queen Regnant of England. She was the first queen to be crowned and anointed in almost the same ceremony as all the previous kings of England (with slight adaptations due her sex) and she restored Catholicism in England--and she also had Protestants and heretics burned alive at the stake. That's why she's often called "Bloody Mary" of course.

For the opening prayer, we'll begin with this prayer to Our Lady of Walsingham:

O blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Walsingham, Mother of God and our most gentle Queen and Mother, look down in mercy upon us, our parish, our country, our homes, and our families, and upon all who greatly hope and trust in your prayers, (especially the intentions of the Radio Maria community). By you it was that Jesus, our Savior and hope, was given to the world; and he has given you to us that we may hope still more. Plead for us your children, whom you did receive and accept at the foot of the Cross, O sorrowful Mother. Intercede for our separated brethren that with us in the one true fold they may be united to the Chief Shepherd, the Vicar of your Son. Pray for us all, dear Mother, that by faith fruitful in good works we all may be made worthy to see and praise God, together with you in our heavenly home. Amen.

Our Lady of Walsingham, Pray for us.

Today's topic is certainly not without controversy. Mary I came to the throne intending to restore Catholicism and the ties of the Church in England with the Pope and the universal Church--and I'll certainly describe the constructive program developed by Reginald Cardinal Pole the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury--a program that even anticipated many of the reforms of the Council of Trent. In addition to all those positive efforts, however, her government revived and enforced the Heresy Laws that had been repealed during the reign of Edward VI--and we have to evaluate the repercussions of the heresy campaigns that led to the executions of almost three hundred men and women, burned alive at the stake.

As background, I offer this review article I wrote for First Things magazine in 2009 that summarizes the state of Marian studies at that point. Here's an exceprt:

Why so much attention now on this queen, whom many historians and common opinion have written off as an anomaly the history of English monacrchy—bigoted, cruel, and foreign? Part of it must be the overall fascination with the Tudor dynasty. Elizabeth, Anne Boleyn, and Henry’s other spouses have been studied enough: It’s just Mary’s turn—and a new interpretation of her old story will provoke interest

I propose that the attention is more securely founded upon the revisionist history of the English Reformation. The work of Eamon Duffy, Christopher Haigh, John Bossy, Alison Shell, and others have demonstrated, at least, that the English Reformation was not the break with the past the Whig historical myth of progress in English history proclaimed. Some English people wanted to remain Catholic; they wanted the Mass, devotion to Mary and the saints, prayer for the dead, and the monasteries to stay open, and they did not like the religious changes Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Elizabeth I legislated and forced on them. The history of rebellion, resistance, and recusancy throughout those reigns represents a clear pattern.

Then what was the role of Mary I’s reign in this history of religious change? Was it just another religious swing back and forth during the Tudor dynasty? Was her re-establishment of Catholicism simply a revival of the Middle Ages without consideration of the efforts of the Council of Trent and the counter-reformation movement?

Eamon Duffy answers that last question with a well documented, cogently argued, “not hardly.” Reginald Cardinal Pole, who came within a few votes of being elected pope in 1549, led the Catholic revival in terms Thomas More, John Fisher, John Colet, and Erasmus would have understood: centered on the sacraments, Sacred Scripture and tradition, homilies and catechesis, humanist learning. Duffy’s book focuses on Pole’s program for reform and renewal that anticipated the Council of Trent: diocesan seminaries, resident bishops, a comprehensive catechism—even tabernacles on altars and an English translation of the Holy Bible. . . .

These five reevaluations [the books I reviewed] of Mary I and her reign offer not apologies or whitewash but argue for a more dispassionate awareness of her circumstances, efforts, and achievements. Whether or not this new view of Mary I is accepted may depend on open-mindedness and a willingness, for instance, to understand the propaganda of John Foxe and the Black Legend of Catholicism in English History.

The crucial issue for the success or failure of her reign was whether she had a Catholic heir to succeed her. Since she did not, Elizabeth succeeded to the throne and dismissed all of Pole’s bishops save one. As Elizabeth ignored her last will and testament, historians ignored Mary’s circumstances, forgot her efforts and achievements and she gained a nickname she might not deserve. But she and Cardinal Pole left a legacy beyond the fires of Smithfield: an underground counter-reformation Catholicism in England, supporting the faithful and ready for revival again—even if it had to wait almost 300 years.

And I would say this trend in studying the reign of Mary I has continued--her reign is NOT just an anomaly in the progression of England as a Protestant country--but that the legacy of her reign is decidedly mixed. On the one hand, her Archbishop of Canterbury had certainly turned around the Catholic hierarchy and many of the priests, recalling them to the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic" Church: only one bishop from her reign submitted to Elizabeth I's Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity when all BUT one submitted during the reign of Henry VIII. But on the other hand, the fires of Smithfield and the propaganda opportunity seized by John Foxe and others, created a cultural memory about the perils of a Catholic ruler or even Catholic influence on society that endured throughout the centuries, revived during the reign of James II, and contributes to a certain anti-Catholicism even today.

I welcome all listeners of Radio Maria US to my blog, whether you're listening on one of their radio stations or on line or through one of their apps. Next week on The English Reformation Today we'll discuss the establishment of the via media Church of England in Elizabeth I's first Parliament and the beginning of recusancy in England. I invite you to call in with questions and comments toll-free at 866-333-MARY(6279). Just a reminder, too, that podcasts of previous episodes of The English Reformation Today are available on the Radio Maria US website.

Book Review: Saints, Sacrilege, and Sedition

Eamon Duffy's new book on the English Reformation, subtitled "Religion and Conflict in the Tudor Reformations" is a collection of essays, not the thorough composed book I hoped for initially. Nevertheless, Duffy displays the same level of erudition and original research that can be expected from him. In the first two chapters he speaks directly to the foundation of the English Reformations under the Tudors and its effects:

The Reformation marked, for England, the end of the notion of Christendom. The foundation of the English Reformation was neither sola scriptura nor sola fide, but the Royal Supremacy: Henry VIII utterly rejected justification by faith and burned those who preached it, and he understood the authority of scripture to reside chiefly in the fact that the scriptures taught obedience to the king. (Nice chiasmus, there.)

He depicts the English Reformation as a crucial break with the past:

Overnight, a millennium of Christian splendour--the worlds of Gregory and Bede and Anselm and Francis and Dominic and Bernard and Dante, patterns of thought and ritual and symbols that had constituted and nourished the mind and heart of Christendom for a thousand years--became alien territory, the dark ages of popery. . . . The Reformation silenced the prayers of men and women for their parents, it banished the saints, it drastically reduced the sacramental life of every Christian. The destruction of monasticism did more than take the roofs off some of the best buildings in England: it amputated one of the Church's perennial and most precious sources of Christian inspiration and renewal.

Duffy focuses his attention on the rood screens and how documents in parish churches reveal the lay involvement in their construction and renovation in chapter three; examines the records of one extraordinary large parish church in chapter four; and reviews the results of the 1552 Inventories of Church goods in chapter five.

He dedicates chapters 6 through 9 to the hierarchy, particularly to Cardinal Bishop and martyred saint, St. John Fisher, and to Reginald Cardinal Pole, the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury.

The last two chapters trace "the conservative voice" even among those who went along with the established Church of England as they recalled the past--the rituals, the rhythm of the Church year, the beauty of the churches, etc.; and finally he parses a line from Shakespeare's sonnet about bare ruined choirs, recalling the dissolved monasteries and their reputation.

I heartily recommend Saints, Sacrilege, and Sedition for anyone interested in the English Reformation.

I. Reformation Unravelled \ Introduction \ 1. Reformation, Counter-reformation and the English nation \ 2. Reformation Unravelled: Facts and Fictions \ II. The Material Culture of Early Tudor Catholicism \ 3. The Parish, Piety and Patronage: the Evidence of Roodscreens \ 4. Salle Church and the Reformation \ 5. The End of It All: Medieval Church Goods and the 1552 Confiscations \ III. Two Cardinals \ 6. John Fisher and the Spirit of his Age \ 7. The Spirituality of John Fisher \ 8. Rome and Catholicity in mid-Tudor England \ 9. Archbishop Cranmer and Cardinal Pole: the See of Canterbury and the Reformation \ IV. Catholic Voices \ 10. The Conservative Voice in the English Reformation \ 11. Bare Ruin'd Choirs: Remembering Catholicism in Shakespeare's England

Blessed Margaret Pole

Martyr of England. She was born Margaret Plantagenet, the niece of Edward IV and Rich­ard III. She married Sir Reginald Pole about 1491 and bore five sons, including Reginald Cardinal Pole. Margaret was widowed, named countess of Salisbury, and appointed governess to Princess Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and Queen Catherine of Aragon, Spain. She opposed Henry’s mar­riage to Anne Boleyn, and the king exiled her from court, although he had called her “the holiest woman in England.” When her son, Cardinal Pole, denied Henry’s Act of Supremacy, the king imprisoned Margaret in the Tower of London for two years and then beheaded her on May 28. In 1538, her son Henry Pole, Lord Montague was executed for treason and her other surviving son, Geoffrey was also arrested and found guilty of treason, but was pardoned. She was never given a legal trial, but included in an Act of Attainder that accused many of treason on quite flimsy grounds. Margaret Pole was devoted to the Five Wounds of Jesus; the Pilgrimage of Grace proceeded under banners emblazoned with the Five Wounds of Jesus; therefore, Cromwell and Henry's flawed logic was that her devotion proved her support of  rebellion. Nevermind that devotion to the Five Wounds of Jesus was popular throughout England in the 16th century. Her sons' opposition to Henry's marital and ecclesial efforts was enough. She rightly protested against the lack of due process and there are various reports about how horrible her execution was: certainly the headsman was incompetent.

She was seventy when she was martyred in 1541. Margaret was beatified in 1886 by Pope Leo XIII. She is buried in the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London. Margaret Pole had planned a resting place for herself in what is now Christchurch Priory in what was, before 1539, an Augustinian Priory, in the Salisbury Chantry, where Masses would be said for the repose of her soul. More on her life and times here. Her daughter Ursula had married Henry Stafford, who was the eldest son of Edward Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham executed on May 17, 1521 for treason. Ursula and Edward survived the double blows of two parents beheaded for treason against Henry VIII, and Stafford was named Baron Stafford during the reign of Edward VI. One of their sons, Thomas, would also lose his head after participating in the Wyatt Rebellion against Mary I.

Blessed Margaret Pole's other son, Reginald, returned to England in 1554 to reconcile the English church and nation to the Catholic Church and the Papacy, becoming the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury in 1556. He died two years later and is buried in Canterbury Cathedral. You may read my review of her standard biography, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury 1473-1541: Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership by Hazel Pierce here.

November 30, 1554: A New Holy Day

On November 30, 1554, Reginald Cardinal Pole, the Papal Legate, soon to be Archbishop of Canterbury, received the submission of the English Parliament and granted absolution to the entire kingdom, reconclining England to the Holy See and the universal Catholic Church. As both Alison Weir and H.F.M. Prescott comment in their biographies of Mary I, the first Queen Regnant of England and Ireland, this must have been one of the happiest days of her life as she witnessed this solemn act. She was married to Philip of Spain, her cousin had returned, Parliament and Convocation were both repenting of the acts led by her father and her half-brother to separate England from the Catholic Church--and she believed she was pregnant (as her doctors had told her).

For this day to occur, several things had to be arranged and decided. First of all, for the Papal Legate to arrive in England, the Act of Attainder against Reginald Pole had to be removed by Parliament. This was the Act that condemned his mother Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, and many others to death. Parliament lifted this sentence of death and Mary invited the Papal Legate to return from exile on November 20, 1554. He would be the first Papal Legate present in England since the trial of her mother's marriage in 1529--when Katherine of Aragon appeared before Cardinal Campeggio and Cardinal Wolsey, appealed to Henry her husband and left the Court, impervious to pleas to return.

The matter of former Church lands also had to be decided: Henry VIII and then Edward VI had seized the monasteries and then the chantries and the chantry schools, destroyed most of them, sold or given the lands to courtiers and others who benefitted. Were these all to be given back?

The Papal Legate wanted them back, but Mary was more concerned about alienating the Court and nobility her reign had so lately unified against the plots of Northumberland to replace her in the succession with Lady Jane Grey and that of Thomas Wyatt the younger to prevent the Spanish marriage and place her half-sister Elizabeth and young Edward Courtenay on the throne. So the lands and property stayed with their current owners.

On November 28 Cardinal Pole spoke to Parliament and asked them to repeal all the other acts that were obstacles to reunion. On November 29 Parliament did so and then petitioned Queen Mary to intercede with the Papal Legate for absolution and reunion with Rome (two members refused to sign the petition).

Then on St. Andrew's Day Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester and Mary's Chancellor, led the members of both houses of Parliament to kneel before the Papal Legate and Mary, presenting the petition. The petition proclaimed that Parliament was "very sorry and repentant of the schism and disobedience committed in this realm against the See Apostolic" and begged to be returned "into the bosom and unity of Christ's Church."

Cardinal Pole then welcomed "the return of the lost sheep" and granted absolution to the entire kingdom, proclaiming a new Holy Day on November 30: the Feast of Reconciliation.

As readers might remember, not quite two weeks ago (November 17) I posted a reflection on the day this Catholic revival ended in England when Mary and Pole died on the same day in 1558. They did not live long enough to celebrate the fourth anniversary of this great day! This event took place in the Palace of Whitehall which Henry VIII had taken from Cardinal Wolsey after his fall. Whitehall, except for the Banqueting Hall, burned down in 1698.

The End of Catholic Revival in England, 1558

Mary, Queen of England and Ireland and her Archbishop of Canterbury, Reginald Cardinal Pole, both died on November 17, 1558. The fact that both of them died that day meant that their efforts to revive Catholicism in England would end with Mary's reign.

Mary's half-sister Elizabeth succeeded to the throne and was able to appoint a new Archbishop of Canterbury. That appointment did not occur without opposition, however. One definite achievement of Archbishop Pole was his turnaround of the English episcopacy--whereas only one bishop (martyr St. John Fisher) opposed Henry VIII's religious revolution--all but one bishop--and he was an elderly man--opposed Elizabeth's. It was also difficult to find two bishops who would consecrate Elizabeth's selection to succeed Pole, Matthew Parker, formerly chaplain to her mother, Anne Boleyn.

IF Reginald Pole had lived and remained Archbishop of Canterbury in Elizabeth's reign, he probably would have ended up removed from office and under house arrest or in exile for not swearing her new oaths of Supremacy and Uniformity. But it's an interesting alternative history view--what could have happened if he had survived the end of Mary's reign? Would his reforming spirit and positive catechetical approach: preparing an English Bible, a catechism, books of sermons, etc have had influence on Convocation and Parliament?

Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York, and other Catholic Bishops were there to oppose Elizabeth I's religious settlement in Parliament. Heath remonstrated with her to defend the Catholic Church, but she rejected his counsels. He was imprisoned briefly, but ended up living under comfortable house arrest in Surrey, dying in 1578. Like Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of Durham (see post tomorrow), he had repented of accepting the royal supremacy over the Church under Henry VIII and opposed it during the reign of Edward VI (particulary because of the new ordinal)--and was deprived of his bishopric. Restored when Mary I came to the throne, he continued to serve Elizabeth I until her religious settlement led to his deprivation, imprisonment, and exile.

Blessed Margaret Pole, Last Plantagenet Princess

On May 28, 1541 Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury was executed on the orders of Henry VIII. She had been held in the Tower of London and was condemned to death without trial. There are reports that her execution was brutal as the axe man did not accomplish his mission with one blow, but hit her head and shoulders before decapitation.

Strange as it might seem to say, she and Anne Boleyn are kind of mirror images on either side of the cataclysms of Henry VIII’s reign, and have much in common:

Henry VIII honored them both, making them the richest women in England in their own right
o Margaret was Countess of Salisbury with lands and castles
o Anne was Marquess of Pembroke with lands and castles

Both were from royal families of England
o Margaret from the Plantagenet family (her father was the Duke of Clarence)—more royal blood than any Tudor!
o Anne from the Howard family

Obviously, both executed—both in connection with the Dissolution of the Monasteries
o Margaret’s execution connected to the Pilgrimage of Grace rebellion against the Dissolution of the Monasteries (emblems of the Five Wounds of Christ, used by the rebels on their banners, found in Margaret’s possession)
o Anne’s execution/plot against her by Cromwell, according to Alison Weir, was connected to Anne’s conflict with him over the process of the Dissolution

Their executions were part of the downfall of their families, orchestrated by Henry VIII
o Anne’s brother was executed, condemned for incest and plotting against the king; the Boleyn party at court destroyed; lands and wealth forfeit to the Crown
o Margaret’s son Lord Montague was executed; other sons in exile; Reginald attainted traitor; lands and wealth forfeit to the Crown

There are obvious differences between them too:

Margaret championed Catherine of Aragon and her daughter Mary, serving as the Princess’s governess and godmother

Anne harassed and threatened Catherine of Aragon and her daughter Mary, forcing the former Princess to serve her daughter Elizabeth

In matters of the religious settlement, things might not be as clear as we might think:

In her book The Lady in the Tower, Alison Weir points out that whatever her reputation for favoring reform of the Church, Anne Boleyn demonstrated conventionally Catholic views of the Sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion, receiving both before her execution and presenting her reception of them as evidence of her innocence to her jailer. (In effect, saying: ‘How could I receive Holy Communion before my death if I have the mortal sin of incest on my soul—which I have not confessed—condemning myself to Hell?’)

Margaret Pole might have been opposed to Henry’s actions against Catherine of Aragon and Mary, and the ascendancy of Anne Boleyn, but she and her family living in England were publicly aghast at her son Reginald Pole’s written remonstrance to Henry VIII which chastised him for his actions and his Supremacy as Head and Governor of the Church in England. Nevertheless Henry knew what side the Pole family was on and told the French ambassador he would destroy them.

These parallels also reflect how quickly things could change in Henry’s Court—as St. Thomas More called it, the Lion’s Den—in 1533, Margaret was in disgrace while Anne was at her height of power; in 1536, Anne was in disgrace and Margaret able to return to Court. Almost immediately, however, Henry VIII received 'De Unitate Ecclesiastica’ from her son Reginald Pole, which placed the entire family in danger. Margaret was first held under house arrest and then placed in the Tower of London in 1539. (Her son Henry, Lord Montague was executed on December 7, 1538.) Although the bill of attainder against her was passed in Parliament on May 12, 1539, it was not until another rebellion in the north against the Dissolution of the Monasteries occurred in April, 1541, that she was executed.

Reginald rejoiced that his mother was a martyr for the faith; she was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886. Hazel Pierce’s biography Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury 1473-1541: Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership, is a model of scholarship and restraint; I have reviewed it on Amazon.com. I refer to Margaret Pole’s execution in Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation in the context of Mary I’s accession to the throne. Margaret had been like a second mother to Mary; she had offered to stay with Mary at her own expense when Catherine of Aragon was sent away from Court. The horror of her death was certainly another sorrow for Mary before she was finally restored in stature and legitimacy by her first Parliament as Queen of England.