Who is cardinal pole tudors

Henry VIII, enraged by Pole's criticisms and attempts to undermine his rule, indeed ordered several attempts on Pole's life; when these failed, he took revenge instead on Pole's family in England. Pole gave Mary wholehearted support in her campaign to stamp Protestantism out of England through the Marian Persecutions; however, despite his intentions, the burnings only inflamed the English people further against the Catholic Church.

He died of illness the same day as his Queen. The Tudors Wiki Explore. Wiki Content. Explore Wikis Community Central. Register Don't have an account? This ended in failure and Mary , the daughter of Catherine of Aragon , became queen. Reginald Pole gained the support of Mary when he expressed agreement with her proposal to marry Philip of Spain. He shared Mary's devotion to the Catholic Church and wished to see England restored to full communion with Rome.

Pole and Bishop Stephen Gardiner , her Lord Chancellor, persuaded Parliament to revive former measures against heresy.

Pole and Gardiner believed that a few early burnings would warn other possible heretics to remain silent. It was said that one burning was worth more than a thousand sermons. However, this was not the case. Over the next three years nearly men and women were burnt at the stake.

This included people living in London. The main question asked by their interrogators was "How say you to the sacrament of the altar? If they did not believe that Christ's body and blood were physically as well as spiritually present in the bread and the wine, they were condemned for heresy.

When Bishop Ridley was brought into court he raised his cap from his head as a sign of respect for the judge who had been appointed to try his case, but when Archbishop Pole's name was mentioned he replaced his cap on his head. Ridley said that he would willingly pay his respects to Pole as a man because of his learning and royal blood, but would not salute him as Papal Legate.

In November , Cranmer wrote to Queen Mary urging her to assert and defend her royal supremacy over the Church of England and not to submit to the domination of the Bishop of Rome. It has been argued that Reginald Pole now had virtually complete control of the English church. It was the executions of the Carthusians and Fisher and More which decided Pole to come out into the open and to become Henry's greatest enemy. The strategic position of Margaret Pole's estates on the south coast, the perceived invasion threat of in which Reginald Pole was involved, and her embittered relationship with Henry VIII precluded any chance of pardon The rising in the north in led by Sir John Neville, motivated by animosity to the royal supremacy, and the possible plans by Reginald to rescue his mother would also have contributed.

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His revenues from his benefices, together with the king's allowance, enabled him to practise much hospitality. Yet he preferred a quiet life, and was embarrassed on his arrival by the attentions paid to him as the king of England's kinsman by the magistrates of Padua. Longolius died in his house there, and left him his library. Pole wrote the anonymous life prefixed to Longolius's collected writings Florence, He was urged by his family to return to England early in ; but he lingered in order to visit Rome, where he was received with great marks of distinction.

He returned to England in after five years' absence. He met with a very cordial welcome from the king and queen, but continued his studies at the Carthusian monastery at Sheen.

During his absence from England, on 14 Feb. On 12 Aug. In , anxious to avoid the crisis likely to spring from the king's proceedings against Queen Catherine , he obtained with some difficulty the king's permission to pursue his studies at Paris. He sought to excuse himself on the ground of inexperience, and the king ultimately sent Edward Fox to assist him.

But the work being only to obtain opinions — which he could collect without compromising himself — Pole did what he could, and won commendations at home for 'acting stoutly in the king's behalf.

Pole, the king's scholar. In July Pole, by the king's orders, returned home. Although he withdrew to the charterhouse at Sheen, he was invited, on Wolsey 's death in November, to accept either the vacant archbishopric of York or the bishopric of Winchester. The king's aim was to obtain his avowed support for his divorce, and the archbishopric was vehemently pressed on him by the king's friends.

Pole entertained genuine affection for the king, and hesitated to affront him by a refusal; but no bribe could induce him to palter with his convictions.

In a moment of weakness he said he believed he had found a means of satisfying the king without offence to his own conscience. The king gave him an interview at York Place. At first Pole was tongue-tied.

At length he exhorted Henry not to ruin his fame and destroy his soul by perseverance in wrong. The king in fury put his hand to his dagger.

Pole left the chamber in tears. The treatise itself does not seem to be extant, but a full account of its contents is given by Cranmer in a letter to Anne Boleyn's father [ Thomas Boleyn ], written on 13 June , in which he says that it was 'much contrary to the king's purpose;' but the arguments were set forth with such wisdom and eloquence that if they were published it would be impossible, Cranmer thought, to persuade people to the contrary [see Cranmer's Letter to Lord Wiltshire ].

Pole pointed out the danger of reviving controversies as to the succession, then he attacked the arguments on the king's side, and urged Henry to defer to the pope's judgment. The king took Pole's counsel in good part, and was almost inclined to abandon the divorce. Thomas Cromwell , however, whom Pole regarded as an emissary of Satan, induced him to persevere.

With deep dislike Pole saw soon afterwards the concession of royal supremacy wrung from the clergy. He was present, probably with a deputation of the clergy, when the King refused a large sum voted to him by convocation unless it were granted to him as head of the church of England.

He may also have been present in convocation in the same year when the title, with the qualification 'as far as the law of Christ allows,' was silently conceded, after three days' strenuous opposition.

His statement that he was absent when the royal supremacy was enacted clearly refers to the parliamentary act of He was then at Padua. Pole, apprehensive of the further consequences of Cromwell 's predominance, petitioned to be allowed to devote himself to the study of theology abroad.

He told Henry that if he remained in England and had to attend parliament as he would be expected to do while the divorce was discussed, he must speak according to his conscience. In January Henry thought it prudent to let him go. He and Henry parted good friends, and the king continued his pensions. Pole settled at Avignon for a few months, but soon removed to Padua, where he spent some years, paying frequent visits to Venice. From Padua he wrote to the king a carefully considered letter, full of powerful arguments against the divorce, whose wisdom the king and Cromwell praised.

Meanwhile his friends in England caused him to be instituted in his absence 20 Dec. He resigned it three years later.

In order to hold it he was dispensed 'propter defectum susceptionis sacrorum ordinum. At Venice or at Padua Pole made the acquaintance of two lifelong friends — Gaspar Contarini, who was created a cardinal a year before himself, and Ludovico Priuli, a young Venetian nobleman, who became ardently attached to him. He came to know, too, Gian Pietro Caraffa, afterwards Paul IV, and, among other men of worth and genius, Ludovico Beccatelli, afterwards his secretary and biographer.

On Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn in , and the disinheriting of Princess Mary , Queen Catherine and her nephew, Charles V , alike agreed that Pole's services might be employed in redressing the wrongs of the divorced queen and her daughter. The princess might, it was vaguely suggested, become his wife, and Yorkist and Tudor claims to the throne might thus be consolidated.

It was only in June that Pole was made aware, in a letter from the emperor , of the proposal that he should interfere. His first feeling was alarm at the responsibility. But he agreed to make experiment of peaceful mediation after a method of his own. Pole was anxious at this time to avoid all chance of a civil war in England, and Henry VIII had already offered him, he vainly hoped, an opportunity of promoting peace.

In the latter part of the king had, through Thomas Starkey, who seems to have been Pole's chaplain at Padua, and was on a visit to England, requested Pole's opinion on the two points, whether marriage with a deceased brother's wife was permissible by divine law, and whether papal supremacy was of divine institution.

If Pole could not agree with the royal view, Henry added, he must state his own candidly, and then come to England, where the king would find honourable employment for him in other matters.

Starkey's letter reached Pole at Venice in April, and Pole asked for further time for study before coming home. Starkey meanwhile deemed it prudent to give the king some indication of Pole's general political views, and set them forth in the form of an imaginary dialogue between Pole and the now deceased Thomas Lupset. Pole was represented as in theory a reformer, strongly alive to the dangers of the prerogative, but entirely loyal to a king like Henry VIII, who was incapable of abusing it.

Henry was not offended at an abstract theory expounded in this way. The king caused Cromwell, in December , to write to Pole with some impatience for his answer to the two questions. But his reply was taking the form of a long treatise, 'Pro Ecclesiasticae Unitatis Defensione,' which he did not finish till May His arguments were aimed at peacefully deterring Henry from further wrongdoing, and were solely intended for the king's eyes. The work was a severe criticism of his proceedings, written not without pain and tears, for the high estimate he had formed of Henry's character had been bitterly disappointed.

The king, dissembling his indignation, repeated his wish that Pole should repair to England; but Pole alleged the severe laws the king had himself promulgated as a sufficient excuse. Letters from his nearest relatives at home threatened to renounce him if he did not return and make his peace with the king. His friends in Italy were alarmed lest he should, in spite of the manifest danger, revisit his country.

Paul III was consequently induced to summon him to Rome to a consultation about a proposed general council. With some reluctance he obeyed the call, and reached Rome in November He was lodged by the pope with great honour in the Vatican.

Pole found himself at Rome the youngest and most energetic member of a committee summoned by Paul III, after consultation with Pole's friend Cardinal Contarini, to draw up a scheme for reforming the discipline of the church. The committee's report was published in Concilium delectorum Cardinalium.

Pole was still a layman, but it was thought well that he should now take deacon's orders and be made a cardinal. The prospect filled him with dismay, and he endeavoured to convince the pope that it was at least untimely. It not only would destroy his influence in England, but involve his family in some danger. The pope at first yielded to these representations; but others were so strongly in favour of his promotion that he returned to his original purpose.

The papal chamberlain was despatched to inform Pole of the final resolution, along with a barber to shave his crown; and Pole submitted. He was made a cardinal on 22 Dec. Mary in Cosmedin. In the following February he was nominated papal legate to England.

Popular disaffection was spreading in the north [see Pilgrimage of Grace ]. A conciliatory attitude was needed to prevent a disastrous development. A letter to Pole was drawn up on 18 Jan. It was insisted that he should go thither without commission from any one. Otherwise recognition of the pope's authority would be assumed. Pole replied from Rome on 10 Feb. He was ready, however, to treat with the king's commissioners in France or Flanders, but it must be in his capacity of legate. Pole was straightway despatched by the pope to England, and carried with him money with which, it was understood, he was to encourage the northern rebels against Henry VIII.

On the journey he resolved to appeal to Francis I , the ally of Henry, and to persuade the French king to exhort Henry to return to the Roman church as his only safety.

With Giberti, bishop of Verona, a known friend of England, to whom Henry, if he disliked receivings cardinal, might give a more favourable reception, Pole accordingly set out. After five weeks' travelling, they reached Lyons on 24 March. But Francis I and the emperor were at war, and neither wished to offend Henry lest he should take part with the other against him.

Henry demanded of Francis I that Pole should be delivered up to him as a traitor. Francis promised not to receive Pole as legate. Though the cardinal made a public entry into Paris, he was informed that his presence in France was inconvenient, and that he must leave the country. Much mortified, he withdrew to Cambray, which was neutral territory, and remained there more than a month, awaiting a safe-conduct from Mary, queen of Hungary, regent of the Netherlands, in order to get safely away.

But the English ambassador at her court insisted that if he entered imperial territory he should be delivered up to Henry, and efforts were made by English agents to assassinate or kidnap him. Queen Mary excused herself from seeing him, and sent an escort in May to convey him from Cambray to Liege, without stopping anywhere more than a single night.

Within the territory of the cardinal of Liege he was safe from further demands for his extradition. The cardinal of Liege Erard de la Marck lodged Pole in his own palace, and with princely liberality pressed upon his acceptance large sums of money for his expenses. No stranger could enter or leave Liege unexamined while Pole was there. And he remained there nearly three months.

At length the pope ordered him to return to Rome, which he reached in October. At the first interview of the emperor and the pope the former desired to be made acquainted with Pole, who accordingly waited on the emperor at Villafranca, and was very cordially received. After the meeting he spent some time at his friend Priuli's country house near Venice, and thence moved to Padua. There news reached him of the arrest in England of his brother Sir Geoffrey.

He himself, in Venetian territory, was beset by spies and would-be assassins — one of them the plausible scoundrel Philips who had betrayed the martyr Tindal. In October he removed to Rome. Not many weeks later he was refused an audience by the pope, because he had just received such distressing news of Pole's family that he could not bear to look him in the face. His eldest brother, Lord Montague , had been arrested on a charge of treason, and with him his mother and some dear and intimate friends.

Of slender build and medium height, Pole had light brown hair and was said to have a gentle expression. He returned home in July , the king, eager to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn, offered him the Archbishopric of York or the Diocese of Winchester if he would support his divorce. Pole, however, would not support the king in this aim and went into self-imposed exile in Reginald sent Henry a copy of his treatise 'Pro ecclesiasticae unitatis defensione' which strongly denounced the king's policies, his position on the marriage of a brother's wife, and the Royal Supremacy.

To add insult to injury, he also urged the monarchs of Europe to depose Henry. Henry, incensed, wrote to the Countess of Salisbury, who sent a reproving letter to her son. The king, ruthless when crossed and unable to strike out at Pole, exacted a terrible revenge on his family. His brother, Sir Geoffrey Pole, with whom he had been in correspondence, was arrested in August Montagu, Exeter, and the aged Countess of Salisbury, last of the Plantagenets, were all arrested in November , on charges of treason, They were imprisoned in the Tower and Reginald Pole was attainted.

In January , Geoffrey Pole received a pardon, while Montagu and Exeter were tried and executed for treason.