Eamon Duffy on Reginald Pole

Eamon Duffy, who included a chapter on Reginald Cardinal Pole, the last Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury in his 2017 Reformation Divided:Catholics, Protestants and the Conversion of England, presented a lecture for the Ordinariate's pilgrimage to Canterbury last Saturday, July 13. There's a video/audio recording of his talk uploaded here.

One of the interesting aspects of his talk is that he calls for a new biography of Reginald Pole in spite of the fact that the late Thomas F. Mayer of Augustana College wrote a biography, Reginald Pole: Prince and Prophet, published by Cambridge University Press in 2000 and now available in paperback:

This is the first biography in ninety years of Reginald Pole (1500-1558), one of the most important international figures of the sixteenth century. Pole's career is followed as protege; and then harshest critic of Henry VIII, as cardinal and papal diplomat, legate of Viterbo, a nearly successful candidate for pope, and finally as legate to England, archbishop of Canterbury, architect of the English Counter-Reformation, and victim of both Pope Paul IV and of himself.

• A comprehensive, illustrated biography of Cardinal (Reginald) Pole, one of the most influential and charismatic figures of the sixteenth century
• Covers Pole's career from his years as Henry VIII's protégé to his years in Italy, and his return to England during the reign of Mary I as archbishop of Canterbury
• Delves deeply into archival material, including the records of the Inquisition, and includes startling new evidence about Pole's sexual orientation [ugh]

So why does Duffy want a new biography--or perhaps one that's more accessible (price!)--than this recent effort?

Duffy's main issue is that Mayer has no sympathy for his subject: he did not like Reginald Cardinal Pole and Duffy says it shows: in fact, Duffy states, Mayer "loathed Pole"! Duffy also cites Mayer's entry for Pole in the new Dictionary of National Biography, noting the same problem.

Duffy believes that Reginald Pole was "a holy man; a troubled man" and that Mayer judges him too harshly. Mayer thought he was a hypocrite and a sham! Duffy opines that Mayer's biography of Pole is "dense" and "elusive" as this review seems to agree:

Pole's life was lived in a number of contexts; he was a cousin of Henry VIII, a major figure in the European reform, and Mary's advisor and archbishop of Canterbury. In addition to his many roles, however, Mayer argues that Pole's biography is complicated by the nature of the sources about and by him. Pole was a prolific writer, but refused the appellation, arguing that he never wrote to publish. Partly for this reason, the authorship of works attributed to him, and his circle, is confused. Further, Pole and his contemporaries wrote and rewrote his life story, both during his life and after his death. As a result of all of this textual revision, Mayer argues that "Pole always existed in two phases, the life as lived and the life as written" (p. 3). Rather than trying to evade this difficulty, Mayer has chosen to build his biography around it, giving equal focus to the texts and the man, and hoping that the juxtaposition will help to explain both. This ambitious aim has spawned more than simply the biography, which stands as the keystone to an entire Polian edifice.[2] . . .

This is not an easy book. For those who are not already familiar with the broad outlines of Pole's life, it may be difficult to follow.[3] This biography is concerned with drawing the links that lie below the surface of such a narrative, setting Pole's life in the nest of his relationships with people like Contarini, Morone, Priuli, Bembo, Carafa and Vittoria Colonna. An astonishing amount of work has gone into tracing those networks, and the density of the narrative can be dizzying at times. However, it provides a remarkable richness of context, and allows Mayer to draw a character of formidable complexity. He paints a picture of Pole as an influential thinker, a conscientious and tolerant reformer, a warm and sustaining friend and a prolific writer who was, admittedly, a bad diplomat and politician. Mayer concludes that "Pole had greatness thrust upon him and it missed" (p. 439); what strikes the reader is how effectively Pole avoided greatness. He was placed in numerous positions of influence, importance and opportunity, and regularly fled them, only to be offered another chance. Mayer argues that Pole "succeeded best in private away from the public stage" (p. 442), but given his birth, his education, and the times, it seems that Pole never had the option of privacy.

Although it's not a complete biography by any means, I think Philip Hughes' analysis of Reginald Cardinal Pole's role in the Catholic Counter-Reformation and the revival of Catholicism in England in his book Rome and the Counter-Reformation in England is masterful. Hughes notes Pole's strengths and weaknesses, as I commented in my review a couple of years ago:

Hughes covered three periods of the efforts to revive, save, and restore Catholicism in England after the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI:

looking first at the Marian efforts to re-establish the Catholic Church with the papacy and hierarchy in England (during the reign of Mary I), then the long recusant period of missionaries, martyrs, and hopes of political conquest (during the reign of Elizabeth I), and finally the divisive disasters of the effort to bring on-site leadership to the clergy and the laity with the Archpriest controversy and the Bishops of Chalcedon failures (during the reigns of James I and Charles I).

Rome and the Counter-Reformation in England is divided into three parts, one for the leading figure of the eras described above: 1) Reginald Cardinal Pole; 2) William Cardinal Allen; 3) Richard Smith, Bishop of Chalcedon. For each man Hughes provides an insightful character sketch and analysis, noting his strengths and weaknesses. Those strengths and weaknesses contribute, of course, to each man's successes and failures.

Of Reginald Pole, Hughes demonstrates that for all his knowledge and love of Jesus and His Church, he lacked "irascible passion"; he was too ready to be a victim--and that he had "a temperament that instinctively turned from the hard, unpleasant realities of a problem to the ideal way in which it ought to be solved." (p. 43) Although Pole was a man of action and ready to promote reform and renewal, Hughes claims that he lacked audacity: he was not bold and he could not be stirred to righteous anger. Therefore, he wasn't able to take crucial action in a crisis. Nevertheless, Hughes does not blame the failure of the Marian revival and re-establishment of the Catholic Church in England on Pole's character; he acknowledges that time was the main factor. Mary and Pole died too soon to effect a long-lasting Catholic revival. They left great resources for Catholicism in England, however, in the good bishops they'd appointed, but they left also left the disastrous legacy of the burnings of Smithfield to the memory of Protestants in England. Unlike Eamon Duffy, who proposed that the prosecution of heretics was working in Fires of Faith, Hughes notes that even this effort was made ineffective by the too early deaths of Mary and Pole, especially without a Catholic heir. The other great legacy Mary and Pole left to Catholics in England was William Allen.

Remembering Katherine of Aragon at Peterborough Cathedral

Katherine of Aragon died on January 7, 1536. Peterborough Cathedral hosts its annual Katherine of Aragon Festival at the end of January. Festival events include a Catholic Mass (I must say this is the only religious service Queen Katherine would recognize!), tours of the cathedral, and two lectures:

Character and Conscience: a Dynasty of Catholic Queens: The Katharine of Aragon Festival Lecture 2017 will be given by historian, author and broadcaster Dr Suzannah Lipscomb.

Katharine of Aragon was both daughter and mother to important queens-regnant, yet there is often too much focus on the biological functions of her role as queen-consort. This talk aims to re-evaluate Katharine instead as a spirited woman of integrity and faith, and to examine her in the context of the legacy of her mother, Isabella I of Spain, and to her daughter, Mary I of England.

and

Katharine and her Ambassadors: A talk by historian and author Lauren Mackay, at Peterborough Museum

Perceptions of Henry's first queen are often influenced by his Great Matter, but Katharine of Aragon’s relationships with her ambassadors, recorded in their numerous reports, reveal the true Katharine - her wit, vulnerability, and passionate nature. This talk will explore the Tudor queen through the eyes of these ambassadors – men whose reports are often overlooked, but who offer insights into lesser known elements of her character.

In my short stack of books to review is Amy License's Catherine of Aragon: An Intimate Life of Henry VIII's True Wife from Amberley Publishing:

Catherine of Aragon continues to fascinate readers 500 years after she became Henry VIII's first queen. Her life was one of passion and determination, of suffering and hope, but ultimately it is a tragic love story, as circumstances conspired against her. Having lost her first husband, Henry's elder brother Prince Arthur, she endured years of ill health and penury, to make a dazzling second match in Henry VIII. There is no doubt that she was Henry's true love, compatible with him in every respect and, for years, she presided over a majestic court as the personification of his ideal woman. However, Catherine’s body failed her in an age when fertility meant life or death. When it became clear that she could no longer bear children, the king’s attention turned elsewhere, and his once chivalric devotion became resentment. Catherine’s final years were spent in lonely isolation but she never gave up her vision: she was devoted to her faith, her husband and to England, to the extent that she was prepared to be martyred for them. One of the most remarkable women of the Tudor era, Catherine’s legendary focus may have contributed to the dissolution of the way of life she typified.

It seems that both of the scholars speaking later this month at Peterborough are following License's lead: think of Katherine/Catherine of Aragon as something more than a woman who failed to bear a son who survived infancy:

Catherine is principally remembered in the twenty-first century as the wife that Henry divorced. This is misleading, as it casts her in the role of a victim, a poor tragic woman who failed to produce a son and was set aside for a younger model. Yet Catherine was so much more than this. She was a humanist queen, a figure of erudition, with a Spanish inheritance of learning, crusading and exploring. She was perhaps even more educated and intelligent than Henry himself, who was eulogised across Europe in his early reign as a perfect model of scholarly kingship. Erasmus certainly believed her to be more than the king’s match. She was a warrior, a crusader, a scholar and a patron, the daughter of the most famous marriage in the early modern world, coming from the largest, most evolving empire, in the name of which her parents had fought cultural and religious campaigns against heresy. She had been her father’s ambassador, her husband’s adviser and her country’s regent at the time when England won its greatest victory over the Scots. She was the figurehead of worship, a role model of piety, an archetype of beauty, the symbol of an Anglo-Spanish union that reconnected two branches of the ancient Lancastrian bloodline. Catherine was all this. Yet she is remembered today for the one thing she did not do: bear a son that survived to adulthood.

May she rest in the peace of Christ. May her soul, and all the souls of the faithful departed, rest in peace.

Thomas Woods in Wichita (November 16)

Thomas E. Woods, Jr (who blurbed the first printing of Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation) will be speaking at the Church of the Magdalen on Sunday, November 16 at 7:00 p.m.--

Thomas Woods is the New York Times bestselling author of 12 books, including How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization (featuring a foreword by Antonio Cardinal Canizares, former prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship), The Church Confronts Modernity, and The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History. His book The Church and the Market, to be released in a 10th anniversary edition next year, won the $50,000 first prize in the Templeton Enterprise Awards. His books have been translated into a dozen languages.

Dr. Woods' writing has appeared in the Catholic Social Science Review, Catholic Historical Review, Inside the Vatican, the Journal of Markets and Morality, New Oxford Review, and many other religious and secular publications, both popular and scholarly. He is co-editor of Exploring American History: From Colonial Times to 1877, an 11-volume encyclopedia. Dr. Woods has appeared on MSNBC, FOX News, CNBC, C-Span, FOX Business, and numerous other outlets, and hosted the 13-program series "The Catholic Church: Builder of Civilization" on EWTN.

Dr. Woods holds a bachelor's degree in history from Harvard and his Master's and Ph.D. from Columbia University. He lives in Topeka, Kansas, with his wife and five daughters.

Highly recommended!