Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury

Margaret was born on 14 August 1473, in Somerset. She was the only surviving daughter of George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, and his wife, Isabel Neville. Her mother and her younger brother, Richard, died when Margaret was only three.

When Margaret was 5, her father was caught plotting against the King, Edward IV. He was arrested and executed, and his titles and lands were forfeited. After the death of Edward IV, her uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, declared the King's marriage null and void, and all the children illegitimate. Richard himself ascended to the throne as Richard III.
During Richard's reign, Margaret and her brother, Edward, lived in Sheriff Hutton Castle, in Yorkshire.

Richard III died in the Battle of Bosworth, defeated by Henry Tudor. Henry succeeded him as Henry VII and ended the Wars of the Roses by uniting the houses of Lancaster and York. He married Margaret's cousin, Elizabeth of York, and Margaret and Edward were taken into their care.

In November 1487, Henry VII gave Margaret in marriage to his cousin, Sir Richard Pole. They would go on to have four sons and one daughter: Henry, Arthur, Reginald, Geoffrey and Ursula.

In 1499, her brother Edward was suspected of plotting against the King. As a possible York claimant to the throne, he was executed for his involvement in the Perkin Warbeck conspiracy.

Sir Richard Pole died in 1504, leaving Margaret a widow with five children, very little land, no salary and no prospects. To ease her situation, she devoted her third child, Reginald, to the Church, and moved to Syon Abbey, where she stayed until she returned to favour in 1509.

When Henry VIII came to the throne and married Catherine of Aragon himself, Margaret entered her household as lady-in-waiting. Margaret also served as Governess to the Princess Mary, until her household was broken, in 1533, when she was declared a bastard. In 1512, Parliament restored to her some of her brother's land in the earldom of Salisbury; the same act restored to her the Earldom as well. Margaret was now Countess of Salisbury. The Countess managed her lands well and, by 1538, she was the fifth richest peer in the realm.

Meanwhile, Margaret's son, Reginald, studied abroad in Padua. He represented Henry VIII in Paris, in 1529, persuading the theologians of the Sorbonne to support Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon. However, in 1536, Reginald broke with the King. He had previously warned the King about the dangers of the marriage with Anne Boleyn; he even had urged the princes of Europe to depose Henry immediately. Margaret, having received a warning from the King, wrote to her son reproving him for his folly.

Geoffrey Pole, Margaret's fourth son, was arrested in 1538; he had been corresponding with his brother Reginald. Under interrogation, Geoffrey said that his older brother, Henry, and Henry Courtenay, Marquess of Exeter, had been parties in the correspondence with Reginald. Henry Pole, Henry Courtenay and Margaret Pole were arrested in November 1538.Geoffrey was pardoned in January 1539, but Henry Pole and Henry Courtenay were executed.

In May 1539, Margaret lost her title and her lands. As part of the evidence, Cromwell produced a tunic bearing the Five Wounds of Christ, symbolising Margaret's support for Roman Catholicism. Margaret was sentenced to death and could be executed at the King's will. The following poem was found carved in the walls of her cell:

For traitors on the block should die;
I am no traitor, no, not I!
My faithfulness stands fast and so,
Towards the block I shall not go!
Nor make one step, as you shall see;
Christ in Thy Mercy, save Thou me!

On the morning of 27 May 1541, Margaret was told she would die within the hour. She was taken from her cell to the place within the precincts of the Tower where a low wooden block was prepared. Because the main executioner had been sent North to deal with the rebels, the execution was performed by an inexperienced lad, who literally hacked her head and shoulders in the most horrific manner.

Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury
(c. 1535)